He handed the glass to Fred, who raised it to his eyes just in time to see the black, bushy tail of the last cub disappear into the hole.
"Black foxes!" he said, in an awed whisper. "Four of them! Why, Mac, they're worth a fortune, aren't they?"
"And probably two old ones," said the medical student. "A fortune? Rather! Why, in London a good black fox pelt sometimes brings two or three thousand dollars. The traders here pay only a few hundreds, but if I had a couple of good skins I'd take them over to London myself."
"But we haven't got them. And we've no traps."
"One of us might watch here with the rifle for the old ones. I could hit a fox from here, but the bullet would tear the skin awfully."
"Yes, and it's too late in the spring now for the fur to be any good, I'm afraid," said Fred.
"Not first-class, that's a fact," Mac admitted sadly. "But what can we do? We can't wait here all summer for the cubs to grow up."
"Let's go down and take a look at the den," Fred proposed.
"Better not. If the old foxes get suspicious they'll move the den and we'll never find it again. I think we'd best go quietly away. This is too big a thing for us to take chances on."
They took careful note of the spot before they left, and in order to make assurance doubly sure, Mac blazed a tree every ten paces or so until they struck the river again.