After following the trail more than a mile

To northward, through the thickest winter woods

We boys had ever seen,—all suddenly

He seemed to strike another trail; and then

Our joyful attention was drawn to

Old "Ring"—leaping to this side, then to that,

Of a big, hollow, old oak-tree, which had

Been blown down by a storm some years before.

There—all at once—out leapt a lean old fox

From the black hollow of a big bent limb,—