The Wishing-Stone Stories

by Thornton W. Burgess

But presently he grew uneasy. Those voices were drawing nearer. Those dogs were following his every twist and turn with their noses in his tracks, just as he had so often followed a rabbit. For hours he ran, and still those dogs followed. He was almost ready to drop when he chanced to run along in a tiny brook, and, after he left that, he heard no more of the dogs that day. So he learned that running water broke his trail.

The next day the dogs found his trail again, and, as he ran from them through a swamp, there was a sudden flash and a dreadful noise. Something stung him sharply on the shoulder. As he looked back, he caught a glimpse of a man with something in his hands that looked like a stick with smoke coming from the end of it. That night, as he lay licking his wounds, he knew that now he, who had known no fear, would never again be free from it—the fear of man.

Little by little he learned how to fool and outwit the dogs. He learned that water destroyed his scent. He learned that dry sand did not hold it. He learned to run along stone walls and then jump far out into the field and so break his trail. He learned that, if he dashed through a flock of sheep, the foolish animals would rush around in aimless fright, and their feet would stamp out his trail. These and many other sharp tricks he learned, so that after a while he had no fear of the dogs. But his fear of man grew greater rather than less, and was with him at all times.

So all through the fall he hunted and was hunted. Then came the snow, the beautiful white snow. All day it fell, and when at night the moon came out, the earth was covered with a wonderful white carpet. Through the Green Forest and over the meadows Tommy hunted. One lone shivering little wood-mouse he dug out of a moldering old stump, but this was only a bite. He visited one hen-house after another, only to find each without so much as a loose board by means of which he might get in. It was dreadful to be so hungry.

As if this were not enough, the breaking of the day brought the sound of dogs on his trail. “I’ll fool them in short order,” thought he.

Alas! Running in the snow was a very different matter from running on the bare ground. One trick after another he tried, the very best he knew, the ones which never had failed before; but all in vain. Wherever he stepped he left a footprint plain to see. Though he might fool the noses of the dogs, he could not fool the eyes of their masters.

Now one thing he had long ago learned, and this was never to seek his underground den unless he must, for then the dogs and the hunters would know where he lived. So now Tommy ran and ran, hoping to fool the dogs, but not able to. At last he realized this, and started for his den. He felt that he had to. Running in the snow was hard work. His legs ached with weariness. His great plume of a tail, of which he was so proud, was a burden now. It had become wet with the snow and so heavy that it hampered and tired him.

A great fear, a terrible fear, filled Tommy’s heart. Would he be able to reach that snug den in time? He was panting hard for breath, and his legs moved slower and slower. The voices of the dogs seemed to be in his very ears. Glancing back over his shoulder, he could see them gaining with every jump, the fierce joy of the hunt and the lust of killing in their eyes. He knew now the feeling, the terror and dreadful hopelessness of the meadow-mice and rabbits he had so often run down. Just ahead was a great gray rock. From it he would make one last long jump in an effort to break the trail. In his fear he quite forgot that he was in plain sight now, and that his effort would be useless.

Up on the rock he leaped wearily, and—Tommy rubbed his eyes. Then he pinched himself to make quite sure that he was really himself. He shivered, for he was in a cold sweat—the sweat of fear. Before him stretched the snow-covered meadows, and away over beyond was the Old Pasture with the cow-paths showing like white ribbons. Half-way across the meadows, running toward him with their noses to the ground and making the echoes ring with the joy of the hunt, were two hounds. A dark figure moving on the edge of the Old Pasture caught his eyes and held them. It was a hunter. Reddy Fox, handsome, crafty Reddy, into whose hungry yellow eyes he had looked so short a time before, would soon be running for his life.

Hastily Tommy jumped to his feet and hurried over to the trail Reddy had made as he ran for the Green Forest. With eager feet he kicked the snow over those telltale tracks for a little way. He waited for those eager hounds, and when they reached the place where he had broken the trail, he drove them away. They and the hunter might pick up the trail again in the Green Forest, but at least Reddy would have time to get a long start of them and a good chance of getting away altogether.