While they were talking, George came up, and, after the hunters had collected their game, Dick led the way toward home, while Frank brought up the rear, leading the young moose.
Meanwhile, Archie and Harry were in hot pursuit of the black fox. They found the trail, as before, in the gully, and Sport started off on it, and met with no difficulty until they arrived on the banks of a small stream that ran a short distance from the cabin. Here the trail came to an abrupt termination, and all efforts to recover it were unavailing. This was the identical spot where they had lost it before. For almost an hour they continued, but without any success; and Harry exclaimed, as he dropped the butt of his gun to the ground, and leaned upon the muzzle with rather a dejected air:
“It’s no use. We’re fooled again. That fox has got his regular run-ways, and we might as well call off the dogs, and go home.”
“Not yet,” said Archie; “I can’t give up in this way; neither do I believe that any fox that ever lived can fool Sport. Hunt ’em up! hunt ’em up!” he continued, waving his hand to the dog, which was running about, tearing the bushes with his teeth, and whining, as if he, too, felt the disgrace of being so easily defeated. The obedient animal sprang upon the trail and followed it to its termination, and then commenced circling around through the bushes again; and Archie walked across the stream and examined the banks for the twentieth time, but no signs of a trail could be found.
At length, Harry suddenly exclaimed:
“Look here, Archie; here’s where the rascal went to;” and he pointed to a small tree that had been partially uprooted by the wind, and leaned over until its top reached within ten feet of the ground.
“You see,” Harry went on to say, “that the tops of all the other trees are almost loaded down with snow, but this one hasn’t got a bit on it. The fox must have shaken it off when he jumped up there.”
Archie, who was ready to catch at any thing that looked like encouragement, hurriedly recrossed the stream, and, after examining the top of the tree, climbed up on it, when he discovered the tracks of the fox in the snow that had fallen on the trunk. He descended to the ground, and the boys ran along up the stream, carefully examining every log and stick that was large enough for a fox to walk upon, and finally, to their joy, discovered the trail, which ran back toward the gully from which it had started.
The dogs immediately set off upon it, and the boys, who had learned considerable of the “lay of the land,” struck off through the woods, in an almost contrary direction to the one the dogs were pursuing, toward a ridge that lay about three miles distant.