Now he could rest and enjoy the music of the chase and wonder how Gray Fox liked it all; but soon he started back to find his mother. Fear was gone. He had done big things.
Night found Red Ben still alone. The old fox had not come to the bed under the fallen tree in Cranberry Swamp, so all alone he curled up and slept. Towards morning he crawled stiffly out and wandered over to the Ridge. It was strangely quiet and deserted there too. Red Ben stood beside a great oak and called. It was just a short, lonely cry, but had the mother heard it she would have answered and come bounding to find him.
For a long time he waited there, hopefully. Then he called again and waited, and still again; but that time there was such a lonely wail in the cry that Jim Crow and his mate came flying over, to find out what was going on. They saw Red Ben crouching miserably against the butt of the old oak, and at once set up a great cawing.
If there is anything unusual happening in the woods, a crow will call together all the other crows within hearing, to look into the matter. That is why every crow knows so much; what one finds, all are given a chance to see.
Red Ben, sick at heart and more lonely than ever, slipped into the bushes and hid. This was the best thing he could have done, for when the flock of crows could no longer see him, they feared he might be playing some trick on them. Up they flew with more cawing and scolding; but there was no fun in scolding an animal that could not be seen, so one after another drifted away and left him.
He called no more, but wandered about the Ridge where he had last seen his mother. In this way he came to the place in which Ben Slown had crouched with his gun the day before. He examined the spilled tobacco and tracks in the path, then sniffed them all over again. Impossible as it seemed for his mother’s and Ben Slown’s tracks to be found together, he had nevertheless caught a trace of her scent here.
He did not know that while he led the hound into the Barrens beyond the Swamp, the tired mother had started after him along the path where crouched the waiting, sinister figure of the farmer. He only knew that she had gone, leaving him—the fatherless, brotherless, playmateless little fox pup of Oak Ridge—alone.
CHAPTER VIII
THE WOODS AWAKE
The moon was shedding its silvery light in checkerboard patches under the high oaks on the Ridge. In the fields below hung a heavy mist, and everywhere was the glitter of wet leaves, for a thunder storm had only recently passed.
All the woodsfolk were out playing or feeding, while the insects drummed and sang their loudest, since the moisture had refreshed the whole woods world.