Suddenly he found that the grays were slinking nearer. They were lighter than he and could walk much more easily on the snow crust. When he growled, they growled back. Their sharp teeth and hungry eyes showed plainly, when they were close. It was two against one, and Red Ben was no longer the tireless, iron muscled fox which had so often outrun the hounds. His limbs ached, his empty stomach burned his very heart, his tail dragged through the snow. And yet he was as proud as ever. He threw up his head and stood his full height. The grays shrank back, just a few feet.
They let him plunge further into the woods; their time would come, they could wait. They had not travelled a long distance and were not yet weakening from the hunger.
Red Ben felt the ground slope sharply; suddenly he slipped headlong into the bed of a stream. He knew the grays would come now. If he would only get up quickly enough to meet them both! With a great struggle he threw off the masses of loose snow and stood with feet wide apart, waiting. Every hair stood on end, his big tail waved menacingly, he was for the moment as formidable and wonderful as ever.
The grays stood cautiously watching. Why did they not give him a chance to fight? He would show them! But it was not he they were watching. A shadow was stealing along the stream bed—a shadow like Red Ben’s. He saw it and whirled around. The shadow stopped. Facing him, at a little distance, stood a splendid red fox.
Red Ben noted the perfect form, rich fur and fresh look of this newcomer. Three against one it would be now! The grays waited expectantly. Red Ben and the new fox looked at each other. None moved.
The wind sighed in the pines overhead and beat brittle oak twigs against each other. The grays circled suspiciously; something was wrong. Red Ben watched them out of the corners of his eyes. The wind had brought to him clearly the scent of the red fox. His nose was telling him more truly than his eyes that this beautiful creature was the same as the mangy, wretched little red fox he had once seen in the Barrens months before, when Ben Slown’s hound had driven him some distance from the Ridge.
He walked slowly towards her. There was no unfriendly snarl at his approach. Her eyes sparkled; she frisked up to him, shyly, indeed, but quite as if he were an old friend who had come back after a long journey. She had not forgotten him. And Red Ben? His big heart began to pound against his ribs. Long ago, in his loneliness, he had looked for her—one of his own kind—a red fox like his mother.
He looked around for the two grays; the cowards had already gone, taking for granted that the newcomer was Red Ben’s mate. Would she be his mate? How pleasantly different the bleak woods seemed all of a sudden as these two wandered away together to food stores the pretty she-fox had collected in times of plenty, just as Red Ben had collected and hidden the first fish he had found on the beach. First he would follow her, then she would follow him, and so they broke a new path into the silent woods.
CHAPTER XVIII
HOME AGAIN
The great snow stayed in the woods for weeks. All that time and longer Red Ben and his new found comrade kept near the stream where they had met. She knew no other home land, and he cared only to be where she was. On moonlight nights they went hunting together, then hurried back to romp and play like two big cubs. Red Ben seemed suddenly young again, carefree, happy beyond words.