Early in the season, as, with dreamy eyes, the boys wandered over the forty acres of land that was, they hoped, to be their home for years to come, they had caught the low, whining notes of some small creatures apparently in distress.
“It comes from under that rock,” Johnny had said.
“No, over here beneath this dead tree trunk,” Lawrence insisted.
He was right. Having torn away the decayed stump, they had found two round, brown balls of fur. These balls were baby otters. Taking them home, they had raised them on a bottle. And now, here they were, paying their debt by scouting about in search of the silver fox.
Pets they were, the grandest in all the world. The happiest moments of their young lives were these long hikes. Never once did it seem to occur to them that it might be nice to desert their young masters and answer the call of the wild.
Now, as the boys followed them, they went gliding here and there peeking into every crack and crevice of ice or frozen shore. From time to time they poked their noses into some hole into which strange tracks had vanished. After a good sniff they put their heads together and uttered low whining noises. These noises varied with their opinions on the condition of each particular hole. At times they appeared to shake their heads and whine, “Too bad. He was here three hours ago. Now he’s gone.”
At other times they put their noses in the air and sang triumphantly, “He’s there. He’s right in that hole this minute.”
Had the boys been able to train their pets to go in the hole and frighten out the prey, they might have held a moose-hide sack at the entrance to each hole and added quite rapidly to their collection of living Arctic animals. This, however, the otters would not do. They were not looking for a fight. And indeed, why should they? They did not live upon squirrels and muskrats, but upon fish. “We’ll find ’em, you catch ’em,” seemed to be their motto.
For the boys, finding the lair of the silver fox would not insure his capture. It merely meant that they would know where he lived and would watch that spot in the hope that he might come out on the ice in search of food or a drink and that then they might come speeding in to grab him.
“Look!” Lawrence exclaimed suddenly, “there are Old Silver’s tracks!”