Red Fox / The Story of His Adventurous Career in the Ringwaak Wilds and of His Final Triumph over the Enemies of His Kind

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

[Red Fox, meanwhile, had been watching the whole scene] from that safe little ledge of rock whence he had once before made note of a kindred performance. This time, however, his feelings were very different. He knew his own powers, and he pretty well understood his opponents; and he realized that as long as he took care to keep out of Jabe Smith’s way he had the game in his own hands. With Jabe he would take no chances, but the dogs he would fool to the top of their bent. As for the rest of the party, he was not greatly concerned about them. The Boy he knew was not hostile, and the two young men did not seem woods-wise enough to be dangerous. But there was one thing certain, he did not want the dogs to come sniffing about among the rocks on top of the ridge. He slipped down from his post of observation, and ran a fresh trail down across his old one, toward the lowlands. Five minutes later the dogs were in full cry at his heels, and he could hear the men crashing along clumsily behind.

“HE AMUSED HIMSELF FOR A MINUTE OR TWO WITH WILD, FANTASTIC LEAPS FROM TRUNK TO TRUNK.”

The running was heavy, deep, moist snow in the woods, and sloppy, sticky turf in the open spaces; but Red Fox knew that these conditions told more severely on his heavy pursuers than on himself. For a time he ran straight on, without doublings or tricks, in order to get the dogs well ahead of the slow-going men. When this was accomplished to his satisfaction, he amused himself for a minute or two with wild, fantastic leaps from trunk to trunk in a patch of felled timber, and then circled back to see what Jabe Smith was doing. He felt it absolutely necessary to know Jabe’s tactics in the contest before finally deciding upon his own. In this backward reconnaissance he ran at top speed, and was back within a half-mile of his starting-point while the puzzled dogs were still whimpering about the patch of felled timber. Fast as he ran, however, he kept all his wits about him, speeding through thick underbrush, and never exposing himself to a possible shot from that dreaded firearm of Jabe’s. And suddenly, not fifty yards away, he caught sight of Jabe himself, patiently watching a runway.

This sight gave Red Fox a pang of sharp apprehension, so terrible seemed the cunning which led the woodsman to keep watch at that particular spot. And there beside him, sitting on a stump and motionless as the stump, was the Boy. It was just the place where Red Fox would have run, under ordinary circumstances, or if he had been an ordinary fox. It was only, indeed, his unsleeping caution that had saved him. Instead of keeping to his runway, he had warily parallelled it at a distance of about fifty yards; and so his cunning had fairly outdone that of the backwoodsman.

Watching his enemies with almost a touch of contempt from his safe hiding, Red Fox lay down for a few minutes’ rest. Then, hearing the dogs at last in full cry on his back track, he rose up, stretched himself, gave a yawn that seemed to nearly split his jaws, and stole around behind Jabe and the Boy, whose eyes were now fairly glued to the runway in the momentary expectation of his coming. He yawned again in scorn, ran swiftly back to the door of his den, zigzagged for a couple of minutes in that tangle of tracks just below it, then headed down along the shore of the brook, whose channel was now open wherever the current was swift.

As he ran, his plans took definite shape. His object being to lead the chase far away from the ridge, he had no motive for puzzling his pursuers any more than enough to keep them from pressing him too closely. The brook was too swollen and angry to be easily fordable, except where the ice still lingered in the stretches of dead water. But in one place he crossed it by skilful leaps from rock to rock amid the foam, because he knew that the dogs were less sure-footed than he, and might possibly have some trouble in the crossing. Half a mile farther down, where there was firm ice, he crossed back again, gathering from the voices of his pursuers that they had not found the crossing as difficult as he had hoped they would. Then he put on a burst of speed, and made for a remote little farm on the outskirts of the settlement, where he thought he could give the dogs something to puzzle over while he rested for another long run. Having thoroughly explored every farmyard for a half-score miles about, he knew just which ones had any tactical advantages to offer him.

At the farm in question the chicken-house was a lean-to shed set against the side of the cow-barn. The lower edge of the roof was about four feet from the ground; and beneath it was a small hole leading to a spacious hollow under the floor. From a thicket just outside the farmyard Red Fox took a careful observation to assure himself that there was no one about the premises. The wagon was gone from the shed over on the other side of the well, so he knew the farmer was away. There was no face at the kitchen window. The big gray cat dozed on the door-step. He darted to the hole under the chicken-house, and with some difficulty squeezed himself in.

This feat accomplished, he promptly squeezed himself out again, then, standing in his trail, he made a splendid leap straight into the air, and landed on the sloping roof of the lean-to. From here he ran nimbly up to the roof of the cow-barn, and down the other side, and across the highroad, and into a field of thick young evergreens. Here he lay down with a sense of security to enjoy a well-earned rest.

It was fully five minutes after this before the dogs arrived, their tongues hanging out. They ran straight to the hole under the chicken-house; and there, in spite of their fatigue, they set up a wild chorus of triumph. They had run the quarry to earth. The hole, however, was so small that they could not force a way in; and the ground all about it was still frozen, so they could not dig an entrance with their claws. The black and white mongrel kept on scratching valiantly, however; while the half-breed hound, keeping his nose close to the foundations, made a swift but careful circuit of the cow-barn, to assure himself that there was no other exit. Had he ranged away from the foundations he would, of course, have picked up the crafty fugitive’s trail where he had made a great leap from the roof to the haystack and thence far out into the field. But the hound was methodical and kept close to work; and he came back to his companion, therefore, quite assured that the quarry was there in hiding.