Not that Frisky Fox believed greatly in Lop Ear's friendship.
Not after the way the hound had given the alarm at the chicken coop!
But he knew that at any moment he could so far outdistance that doubtful
ally that he wasn't in the slightest danger. The ground was firm and
dry, and he had all the advantage of his lighter weight and nimbler
feet.
Had there been soft snow on the ground it might have been different. But
the first frost had not yet ripened the hazel nuts in the woods around
Mt. Olaf.
Once, just to punish him, Frisky turned back and bared his teeth so
viciously at Lop Ear that the hound was driven back--to the Hired Man's
amazement.
Then Frisky tripped his way down to Rapid River and crossed on the wet
brook stones, leaving no scent for Lop Ear to follow.
The hound well off the trail, Frisky again crossed the stream farther up
on a fallen log. And circling around through the shadows, he was soon
following the Hired Man, slipping behind trees and boulders and smiling
from ear to ear as the latter stumbled along with his useless gun.
When at last the hound stopped short at the river bank, where he lost
the scent, the Hired Man gave it up in disgust, and went back home to
his bed.
And Frisky, the handsome little scoundrel, calmly sought out the dry
south side of a hill which would shelter him from the wind and slept
with his black legs doubled under him and his white-tipped brush of a
tail curled comfortably around him to keep out the draft.
Shrewd, cautious, daring, the Red Fox Pup bade fair at this stage of his
career to develop the best set of brains in all the North Woods.
Yet there was one at the Valley Farm that could out-wit him.
Frisky was sitting on his haunches a few days later in the midst of the
now deserted hay field, listening for the squeak of a meadow mouse, when
something made him prick up his ears.
There was something about that squeak that sounded just a wee bit
different from any squeak he had ever heard before.
But no, there it was again, unmistakably the tiny voice of a mouse on
the other side of the field. The fox pup had such needle-sharp ears that
he could hear fainter sounds than any human being ever could have.
But though Frisky Fox was clever, the Boy at the Valley Farm was more
so. And the Boy sat behind a bush at the farther end of the field, as
motionless as the gray stump that Frisky thought he was. This time the
joke was on the Red Fox Pup, for the squeaks he heard issued from the
Boy's pursed lips. It was an excellent imitation.
He tip-toed nearer and nearer the tiny squeaks, while the Boy gazed at
the graceful fellow through his new field glasses.
He was a handsome fellow, was Frisky Fox, with his yellow-red coat
shining sleek in the sunlight. And my! How his great plume of a tail
fluffed out behind him! His tail was nearly as long as the rest of his
body put together, and it fluffed out nearly as broadly. Mother Red Fox
certainly had a son to be proud of!
Of a sudden a little breeze shifted around to where it brought the foxy
one a faint scent. It told his keen black nose there was something down
there besides the bush.
It wasn't a mouse, either!
"No, sir, that's no field mouse," said Frisky's nose, as the Red Fox Pup
circled to windward of the tiny squeaking sounds.
"That's the Boy at the Valley Farm! That's what that is! Now I'll just
pretend not to see him at all till I get behind that rock, then I'll
race for the woods."
For Frisky didn't know that the thing the Boy was pointing at him was
only a pair of field glasses. And it wouldn't have made much difference
even had he known. Frisky did not like to be watched. He therefore did
exactly as he had planned, crossing the field with seeming lack of
interest in anything save the purple and yellow of asters and golden-rod
and the scarlet of woodbine, and the blue of the Indian summer sky, till
he felt himself out of range.
At the instant of his discovery that it was one of those dangerous human
creatures that sat there like a stump he had cocked his ears sharply and
leaped fully two feet into the air in his surprise.
That was the only sign he made, however, of the extreme anxiety that set
his heart to thumping, till he was just on the edge of the woods; then
he suddenly looked back with one of his thin, husky barks, to know why
the Boy should have tried to fool him.
But afterwards, from the shelter of the barberry vines that fringed the
old stone wall, he peered and peeked and wondered about it all as long
as the Boy remained.
----