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

CHAPTER PAGE [ Prefatory Note] vii [I. “The Price of His Life”] 1 [II. The Lessons of the Wild] 22 [III. Black Marks and Birchings] 45 [IV. Alone in the World] 64 [V. Mating and Mastery] 85 [VI. Burning Spur and Blinding Claw] 101 [VII. The Foiling of the Traps] 116 [VIII. Some Little People of the Snow] 139 [IX. The Fooling of the Mongrels] 162 [X. The Presumption of Black Mink] 184 [XI. A Royal Marauder] 200 [XII. A Winged Invasion] 217 [XIII. The Yellow Thirst] 232 [XIV. The Red Scourge of the Forest] 251 [XV. The Worrying of Red Buck] 271 [XVI. In the Hands of the Enemy] 285 [XVII. Under Alien Skies] 306 [XVIII. The Bell-mouthed Pack] 319 [XIX. Triumph] 331

A List of the Full-Page Drawings in the Book

PAGE [“Red Fox, meanwhile, had been watching the whole scene from that safe little ledge of rock” (See page 168)] Frontispiece [“For a little distance the fox followed its channel”] 5 [“The fox stepped out upon the stones”] 11 [“Slower and slower he went”] 19 [“Night after night . . . the high shrill barking of a she fox was heard”] 23 [“The puppy flung himself upon it without a sign of fear”] 31 [“He ran up the nearest tree”] 39 [“Learned to steal up and catch the brooding partridge”] 43 [“He crouched, tense with anticipation”] 49 [“Red Fox, sitting solitary on his knoll, heard the noise of the chase”] 57 [“They all three turned and glanced back”] 67 [“Glaring eyes, long tail fluffed out, and high-arched back”] 73 [“He became panic-stricken, and fell to a violent kicking and struggling”] 81 [“One surly old woodchuck . . . went so far as to establish himself in the door of the burrow”] 91 [“Creeping with indescribable stealth around the roots of a huge beech-tree”] 97 [“Delivered another of those daunting spur strokes”] 107 [“The owl swooped, and struck”] 111 [“She revealed a small, dark, menacing thing”] 119 [“In the trap a mink was held, caught by both front feet”] 127 [“He dug his powerful claws into the snow”] 133 [“Red Fox rose lightly on his hind legs, . . . and pulled it down”] 141 [“He caught sight of a big cock partridge”] 151 [“Much chagrined, he gazed after her”] 159 [“He amused himself for a minute or two with wild, fantastic leaps from trunk to trunk”] 169 [“It slipped swiftly off with its exhausted passenger”] 181 [“He had just missed catching the rabbit at his first rush”] 187 [“At last he, too, crouched flat, eying his foe with keen curiosity”] 191 [“Helped himself to the rabbit”] 195 [“The crow-haunted fir-groves on its flanks”] 201 [“The eagle, with the prize dangling from his claws, was already far out of reach”] 207 [“In an instant Red Fox was upon him again”] 213 [“A dark cluster began to form”] 221 [“Nearer and nearer came the whirling cloud”] 227 [“He saw a big raccoon go running by”] 233 [“Settled himself down by the hole to watch for the woodchuck to come out”] 241 [“The little maniac clung to the big beast’s tender snout”] 245 [“A doe and two fawns . . . went bounding past”] 253 [“The diminished family sped on”] 259 [“Himself kept watch where he could see everything”] 265 [“Red Fox was enjoying a good stretch”] 273 [“Moved away grandly about his business”] 277 [“Resumed his flight through the trunks and rampikes”] 281 [“Stiffening himself on the instant”] 287 [“A shadowy shape came flitting soundlessly around the corner of the hen-house”] 301 [“Behind a massive clump of rhododendrons”] 317 [“The centre of the most difficult patch of swamp”] 321 [“On a fallen sapling he crossed the brook”] 327 [“Came tumbling over the wall into the lane”] 333 [“He came out upon a jutting cape of rock”] 337

Red Fox

CHAPTER I.
“THE PRICE OF HIS LIFE”

Two voices, a mellow, bell-like baying and an excited yelping, came in chorus upon the air of the April dawn. The musical and irregularly blended cadence, now swelling, now diminishing, seemed a fit accompaniment to the tender, thin-washed colouring of the landscape which lay spread out under the gray and lilac lights of approaching sunrise. The level country, of mixed woodland and backwoods farm, still showed a few white patches here and there where the snow lingered in the deep hollows; but all over the long, wide southward-facing slope of the uplands, with their rough woods broken by occasional half-cleared, hillocky pastures, the spring was more advanced. Faint green films were beginning to show on the birch and poplar thickets, and over the pasture hillocks; and every maple hung forth a rosy veil that seemed to imitate the flush of morning.