“And yet,” Lawrence now thought as he stood watching for Johnny’s next move on the river ice, “there he is creeping up on a silver fox. What is a real, live silver fox worth?” To this exciting question he could form no accurate answer. He had a hazy recollection of reading somewhere about one that was sold for $3000.00.
“No such luck as that,” he whispered.
Just now, however, his attention was directed toward the silver fox that, still very much at liberty, had taken a good drink from the pool and was standing, nose in air, apparently looking, listening, smelling. Had he smelled trouble? Would he drop into the pool to swim across and disappear on the farther bank, or would he start back across that glistening stretch of ice? Lawrence felt his heart leap as he saw the fox drop his head. The big moment was at hand.
“He—he’s going across!” he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. “It means so much!” His thoughts went into a tailspin. Not only would they possess a real, live silver fox for which, beyond doubt, some zoo would pay handsomely, but their flock of chickens would be safe, for they could tell by the size of the tracks that he was the one that was getting the chickens. He was a sly one, indeed, this fox. Three times in the last month, in spite of their every effort to prevent it, he had carried off a fat old hen.
“He—Johnny’s starting,” Lawrence said, as, gliding silently from cover, he prepared to follow his cousin on his swift, silent, breathless quest.
It was a truly wonderful sight, those two boys moving as if pushed by an unseen hand closer, ever closer to the unsuspecting fox.
Moving swiftly, Johnny reached a fallen cottonwood tree. Just then the fox, pausing in his course, once more sniffed the air. “I might get him if I rushed him now,” he thought, “and I might miss.” This was true. The fox was but a third of the way across the ice. He was still too close to the pool. The plan was to allow him to reach the very center of the river, then to rush him. Startled, he would start quickly for some shore. Losing all sense of caution, he would begin to sprawl upon the ice. As the boy came rushing on with the speed of the wind, he would stoop over, snatch at the fox and speed on. He must seize the fox just back of his ears. Could he do it? As he stood there hidden his pulse pounded madly. He, too, had seen that it was a silver fox.
“He—he’s smelled me!” The boy’s voice rose in a sudden shrill shout. “Come on, Lawrence! I’m going after him! Bring the bag!”
Gripping a large, moose-hide sack, Lawrence went speeding after him.
As for Johnny, with breath-taking suddenness, he saw the distance between him and the fox fade. A hundred yards, fifty, twenty, and—“Now!” he breathed. “Now!”