Keeping in the shadow of the rickety rail fence till it could no longer serve her, she halted a moment for deliberation, then twisted her supple body and half leaped, half crawled through a crack near the bottom. As she had stood with ears alert before veering her course, the faintest kind of tone had come to her. It was different from the hill-voices. The forest-kind know all the dozens of low noises which float along the knob-side at night. The voices and sounds are all soft—peculiarly soft. Only when a wild-cat is at bay, or the pack swings mouthing over the lowlands and the hills, is the wonderful silence of that region disturbed after the sun has gone. If her ear was not at fault—and privation had sharpened all of her faculties—the she-fox knew that a rich reward would soon be hers. Skirting the creek till she came to a place where it narrowed, she leaped across, and moved on in the same steady trot through the blackberry and sassafras bushes. Behind a low tangle of weeds and vines she crept at last, and crouched not three feet from a narrow hog-path winding on towards the farm-house half a mile away. From the pond at the base of the slight elevation over which the path led, some belated geese were ambling homeward. A half dozen or more; awkward, matronly, placid, moving in Indian file with never a thought beyond dipping in the hog-trough in the barnyard, or gobbling up the food thrown to the chickens. The webbed feet plodded on—straight to death. One, two, three, four—six plump bodies marched sedately by the low clump of matted weeds. Destruction swift and sure seized the last. Out of the shadows sprang a shape; two sinewy forelegs glided around the long white neck and skilful fangs tore open the portals of death. It was done almost without a sound. A feather or two and a few drops of blood were the only traces of the deed. Taking the blood as it gushed from the gaping wounds, the fox seized the neck firmly at a point near the base, slung the heavy body across her back with a dexterous jerk of her head, and started for her den at a swift lope. That night she feasted to repletion, and the next day she gorged herself on her kill. Made indolent by gluttony, she did not leave her lair for two whole days. Then her old enemy, hunger, returned again, and drove her to action.
During the days she had been lying inert in her rocky chamber, some things had happened which disturbed her not a little. The morning following the night she had brought in her prize, she had heard the dread voices of the hounds on some far-off range. All day, at intervals, the unwelcome chant had come to her ears, and so she knew that the human-people had missed their goose, and were abroad with the pack in quest of its destroyer. The second day a more alarming thing had happened. It was when the shadows of the taller trees began to lengthen towards the east, and twilight reigned in her cave home, that she was roused once more by the determined notes of the pursuing pack. Creeping to the entrance, she presently saw the chase passing along the knob-side. A great gray fox, nearly spent, was gliding, falling down the incline, his red mouth stretched for breath, and his bushy tail drooping. After him raced the hated friends of the human-people, loud-tongued and tireless. The gray fox was leading bravely, and hunters and hunted passed from view to the accompaniment of rustling leaves and snapping twigs and triumphant bays.
The next morning, near midday, her merciless offsprings teased and worried her so that the she-fox crept forth in spite of the warning of the day before, and set her sharp muzzle towards the crest of the range, with the intention of invading territory which hitherto her feet had never pressed. There were wild turkeys back in the hills, and wary and suspicious as she knew them to be, they were no match for her wily woodcraft. But scarcely had her noiseless feet gone over the top of the knob, when a sharp yelp immediately behind her caused her to jump and turn quickly. They were there—her enemies—and their noses were smelling out her trail, for as yet they had not seen her. Even as she leaped for the nearest cover like a yellow flash, her first thought was of the little ones biding at home. She must lead her foes away from that cleft in the rocks where her love-children lay awaiting her return. And though her life should be given up, yet would she die alone, and far away, before she would sacrifice her young.
It was a hard and stubborn race which she ran for the next six hours. At times her loyal, loving heart seemed ready to burst from the strain she thrust upon it. At times fleet feet were pattering almost at her heels, and pitiless jaws were held wide to grasp her; then again only the echo of the stubborn cry of her pursuers reached her. She had doubled time and again. Once a brief respite was granted her when she dashed up a slanting tree-trunk which, in falling, had lodged in the branches of another tree. Eight tawny forms dashed hotly, furiously by, then she descended and took the back track. Only for a moment, however, were the cunning dogs deceived. They discovered the artifice almost as soon as it was perpetrated, and came harking back themselves with redoubled zeal. So the long hours of the afternoon wore away. Not a moment that was free from effort; not an instant that death did not hover over the mother fox, awaiting the least misstep to descend. Back and forth, around and across, and still the subtlety of the fox eluded the haste and fury of the hounds. All were tired to the point of exhaustion, but none would give up. The sun went down; tremulous shadows, like curtains hung, were draped among the trees. The timid stars came out again and the halfed moon arose, a little larger than the night before. And still, with inveterate hate on the one side, and the undying strength of despair on the other, the grim chase swept through the night. At last the blood-rimmed eyes of the reeling quarry saw familiar landmarks. Unconsciously, in her blind efforts, she had come to the neighborhood of her den. Perhaps the love within her heart had guided her back. She found her strength quickly failing, and with a realization of this her scheming brain awoke as from a trance, and drove her to deeper guile. Two rods away was the creek. To it she staggered, splashed through the low water for a dozen yards, and hid herself beneath the gnarled roots of a tree from the base of which the stream had eaten away the soil. She listened intensely. She heard the pack lose the scent, search half-heartedly for a few minutes, for they, too, were weary to dropping, then withdraw one at a time, beaten. But for half an hour the brave animal lay against the tree roots, waiting and resting. Then she came out cautiously, looked around her, and with difficulty gained the mouth of her den. Casting one keen glance over her shoulder through the checkered spaces of the forest, she glided softly within, and lying down, curled her tired body protectingly around her sleeping little ones.
THE ROBBER BARON
THE ROBBER BARON
THE Robber Baron sat upon his throne—for he was also a king. No courtiers attended him; no pages hung upon his slightest gesture. In dignified solitude he sat, and watched, and watched, and watched.
Part of the country through which Green River runs is almost as it was when the Master left it with the seal of completeness. Its topography is unchanged except for the natural changes brought about by the primeval elements of wind and water. There are vast stretches of timbered country checkered with cultivated acres, and rugged limestone cliffs fringed with moss and garlanded with poison ivy. The home of the Robber Baron was on the edge of one of these timbered tracts, in an old oak tree. This was his castle, and his alone. None of his feathered cousins dared perch in the spreading branches, even to rest for a moment. That tree was the property of the Baron, and he had proven his title to complete ownership more than once with beak and claws and beating wings. At the very top of the tree a dead snag shot up a distance of ten or twelve feet. This was the turret of the castle—the watch-tower. On its summit the old hen-hawk would perch, and complacently view his wide domain and his trembling subjects. And he was indeed a king. He levied tribute from the air, the earth, and the water alike, and whenever he poised and swooped, a life went out. One sound only caused his warrior heart to quake, and that was the solemn voice of the great horned owl, crying dismally in the night from the recesses of the wood. Here was a foe worthy of his steel; bigger, stronger, and bulldog-like in his battles. But the hawk took care not to pit his prowess against the power of this night marauder. During the day he was safe, for his one enemy who could wage successful warfare with him moped on a limb from sunrise till after dusk. In the darkness he sat high and safe, for the night-bird hunted low. More than once the Baron, sleeping the sleep of the gorged glutton, had awakened to the sound of mighty wings winnowing the air, and he would draw his fierce head a little further down between his wing-shoulders, shuddering and afraid. And if the night was moonlit, and he happened to look down, he would see a broad, black shadow gliding swiftly between the trees—a veritable spectre of death.