One bright afternoon, later in the week, I took my field-glass and went to a lofty hill near by. I climbed to the summit and from that point of vantage surveyed the surrounding country, looking for the den. I found it, at last, under an overhanging rock, far to the south.
The mother Fox sat in the doorway with her sewing, making another glove, doubtless, to replace the one she had so strangely lost, while her little ones gambolled about her. I never saw more than three at any one time, and so I concluded that there were only three in the family.
I felt wicked, spying upon this charming domestic picture, even though it was through my field-glass and I was so far away that they would never know they were observed. Here I was proved wrong, however. The weary seamstress laid her work aside and stood up, brushing the threads from her lap. She yawned, smoothed her back hair a bit, and was about to go inside, when she paused.
With every sense alert, she leaned forward, shaded her eyes with her hand, and stared straight at me—the man with the field-glass on the summit of the hill so far away. I was embarrassed, but I did not move. When she had satisfied her curiosity, she grinned at me and then, unmistakably, winked.
She seemed to know that I was far different from that barbarous race of men who would hunt her and her babies with dogs and guns. Her composure was so perfect, her intuition so swift, and her wink so suggestive of amiable deviltry, that I at once named her “Hoop-La,” which is an Indian word signifying lady-like mischief, and so she remains in my annals to this day.
We knew where each other lived, and we were friends—so much was already established. I felt sure now that Hoop-La would visit me when she knew I was at home, perhaps bringing her little ones with her, but the question quickly arose in my mind: how should I dispose of Uncle Antonio?
That night, as delicately as I could, I told him that I had enjoyed his brief stay with me very much and that I was sorry he must go.
“Mus’ go?” repeated Uncle, pricking up his ears, “for w’y you say zis? I haf no mentions made of ze departure—it is wis me you haf someone else maka da confuse.”
“Perhaps,” I answered, with rare tact. “My dreams are sometimes very vivid.”
“I see,” said Uncle Antonio, with a child-like smile upon his calm, high-bred face; “you hitta da pipe.”