Long ago, in the mountains of the Seward Peninsula, there lived a fox
who had a family of babies in his den. It was summer time, and he was
busy trying to find food for his little family. Every morning he used to
go hunting, while Mother Fox stayed home to take care of the baby foxes,
and see that they got into no mischief. When the young foxes grew big
enough to hunt for themselves, Father Fox decided to go on a journey of
adventure.
One day he climbed a high mountain. There was a deep ravine and then
another mountain, and he thought he would like to cross the divide to
see if there was any game on the opposite mountain. He had never been
over there, and he hoped he might find some good, fat ptarmigans or
rabbits on a new hunting-ground. Looking about, he saw a bear who was
eating a newly killed caribou.
The fox called to the bear in a coaxing voice, saying, “Dear Cousin,
give me a piece of that meat and some of the fat.”
“No!” growled the bear. “You get away from here right away! If you don’t
I will kill you, too!” That bear was not at all polite, nor was he very
generous, but the fox did not dare to say anything because he was really
afraid of the bear, so he just went slinking away through the brush with
his bushy tail dragging on the ground.
“I will get even with the bear somehow,” he muttered.
After a while what should he meet but another bear.
“Good-morning, Cousin,” said the fox most politely; “I was looking for
you.”
“What were you looking for me for?” asked the bear.
“Well, if you are hungry, I know where you can get a fine dinner,” said
the sly fox.
“Where is that?” asked the bear, beginning to look interested.
“A little while ago I saw another animal like you, only not so big, and
he was eating a fine, fat caribou. I will show you where he is if you
want; then, together, we can kill that other bear, and both have plenty
to eat.”
The bear looked surprised. “O no,” said he. “We never do such things as
that. Bears do not kill each other. We are friends.”
“That is nothing,” said the fox. “When we are hungry, we foxes kill each
other, and eat each other, too. The bear I saw is a bad bear. He said he
would bite you, if he met you.”
Now the fox knew he was telling an untruth, but he wanted to make this
bear angry with the other one. He was not a good character, that fox. Of
course, the bear was angry at that.
“We will go fight now, and I will see what that bear means by saying
such things.” He was really furious, and went off through the woods with
great strides, so that the fox had to run to keep up with him.
As soon as he saw the bear with the caribou, he jumped at him and a
desperate battle began. While they were busy fighting, the fox took all
the fat from the caribou and hid it under his skin.
When the second bear had beaten the bear with the caribou, and had
driven him away, he saw the fox lying on the ground moaning and groaning
as though in great pain.
“What is the matter, Cousin?” asked the bear.
“O!” groaned the fox, “I am almost dead!” And he rolled over and made
believe to cry. “I got terribly hurt helping you in that terrible fight.
It was I who gave your enemy the blow that drove him away.”
Now of course this was not true at all, but the bear was very sorry and
thought him a brave and loyal friend.
“You are a brave fox,” he said, “and we will always be friends.”
Then they ate all they wanted of the caribou, and left the place
together.
When the fox got hungry he would just take some of the fat of the
caribou from under his skin and feed on that. When the bear got hungry
he could find nothing to eat but a few blueberries. The poor animal who
was starving began to wonder why the fox was never hungry, so he asked
him, “Cousin have you been eating something?” and the fox said, “When I
am hungry, I just make a little hole in my skin and eat some of my own
fat, then I am satisfied.” Wasn’t he an awful story-teller?
The bear thought he would like to try that, too, so he took a bite out
of himself, and pretty soon he died. The wicked fox laughed at that, for
it was the very thing he had planned. He was pleased to have the bear to
eat, and removing the fat from his one-time friend, he stuffed it under
his own skin, and for a long while lived not on the “fat of the land” as
they say, but on the fat of the companion who trusted and admired him.
Winter was coming; the days were growing dark and cold, and Mr. Sly Fox
was beginning to get hungry again. He wondered what he should do for
food, and began to hunt about the woods.
One day he met a wolf who was also in search of food.
The wolf asked him, “Fox, Fox, where have you been, you look so fine and
fat, while all the other animals are hungry these cold days?”
“Of course I look fine,” said the fox. “I hunt all the time and get
plenty of food.”
“What do you hunt?”
The fox had to think hard for an answer; then he said, “Well, I fish
every day.”
It was winter then, and so far north the days were very short. The sun
got up late in the morning, and went to bed again in about three hours;
even then he didn’t get far up in the sky, but hung low like a great big
red balloon on the horizon.
The wolf asked the fox where he was getting all that fish.
The fox answered, “O, I have a big lake where I get all the fish I want.
I will show it to you if you would like me to.” And he asked the wolf if
he had any hooks to fish with.
“No,” said the wolf. “I have no fish-hooks because I never fish. I don’t
know how.”
“I will make you a hook and show you how to fish. It is easy,” said the
fox.
Then he took some of the dried grass which is used by the Eskimo women
for making baskets; weaving a rope out of it, he put a piece of stone on
the end, and he and the wolf went fishing like the best of friends. When
they reached the lake the fox made a hole in the ice and told the wolf
to sit near the hole and to drop the stone into the water through the
hole, then to keep moving it up and down by the string.
“Now,” said the fox, “you must remain the whole day moving that string
up and down. When the sun sets you will get fish.”
The fox stayed, playing about watching the wolf, who sat patiently by
the hole splashing the stone up and down in the water. Pretty soon the
fox saw the wolf’s big, bushy tail was getting covered with water. Now
it was getting colder every minute, and almost dark, and at last the fox
saw that the wolf’s tail was freezing fast to the ice of the lake. Then
he began to laugh out loud: “Ha ha ha!”
The wolf looked around suspiciously to see if the fox was laughing at
him, as he was beginning to get cross. He was tired, anyway, of sitting
there joggling that line up and down all day.
“What are you laughing at, Fox?” he said. “Are you trying to trick me
like you do every one?”
Mr. Sly Fox put on a very surprised and sorry face. “O no,” said he. “I
wouldn’t think of doing such a thing. I was just laughing with joy at
the thought of all the fine whitefish we will soon have for supper.”
Then he began to play around the wolf, and soon he laughed. “Ha! ha! ha!
O my! I will have plenty to eat now!”
The wolf turned with an angry snarl, showing his long fangs. “What! Are
you talking about me? Do you think you will eat me? We will see!” And he
made a leap for the fox, but his tail was stuck fast to the ice so that
he could not get away. Throwing himself from side to side, and yelping
like a dog, he struggled to get free, but still the ice held him
prisoner, until at last, with an angry howl, he snapped off his tail
with his own sharp teeth, and ran furiously after the treacherous fox,
who was already nearly out of sight. The wolf chased him as hard as he
could, and had nearly caught up with him, when the fox saw a hole in a
steep bank and popped inside. The wolf was too big to go into the hole,
so he sat outside, waiting for the fox to come out; but Mr. Fox was not
to be caught that way. Knowing that the wolf would die from having
chopped off his tail with his teeth, the fox just stayed safely where he
was until morning; then came out and ate up his former friend. When he
had finished devouring the wolf and felt well fed and comfortable, he
started out in search of some other animal to fool.
In his wanderings he came upon a high mountain, which had a long smooth
place down its steep side, made by a snowslide which had swept
everything before it, leaving a glistening path in its wake.
The fox began to play sliding-down-the-mountain, and was enjoying it
hugely. In one place he had to pass close to some big, sharp rocks, and
he dug into the snow a little with his claws to get safely by. After
that he climbed up to the top again, and there he saw a mountain sheep
coming toward him.
“Hello, Sheep. Don’t you want to play with me?” asked the fox; but the
sheep said that he did not want to slide there.
“Why not?” inquired the fox in a surprised sort of voice.
“Because I know that if I slide down there, I shall be killed by those
sharp rocks,” said the sheep.
But the fox answered, “Why, I thought a mountain sheep would not be
afraid of a nice little slide like that. I will tell you how to do it.
When you slide down, shut your eyes tight, as soon as you come near the
rocks, and you will get past all right.”
The sheep said, “Let me see you do it first.”
So the fox lay down on the snow and slid. As he came near the rocks he
dug his claws a little into the snow to steer himself safely past. When
the sheep saw the fox come back without a scratch on his fine red coat,
he said, “Well, I will try it, for surely a mountain sheep is as brave
as a red fox!”
Shutting his eyes tight, he said, “One, two, three!” And away he went,
down like the wind straight into the sharp rocks, and was killed.
That wicked fox was glad. He laughed again, for now he had a whole
mountain sheep to eat, and that is the sweetest and tenderest meat in
the world, and would last him a long time.
Before he had finished eating the sheep, a bear came along.
“Fox, how did you kill that sheep?”
“I didn’t kill that sheep. I found it dead,” said the fox, for he did
not want the bear to know how treacherous he was.
“Well, we will share what is left,” said the bear; and of course the fox
did not dare to refuse him. He was a pretty big bear, and looked rather
fierce and very hungry.
No bear has any business to be wandering about the forest in winter. He
should have been snugly sleeping in his den until summer time like any
self-respecting bear does, except a polar bear, who stays out all night.
They filled themselves up on sheep meat, and then walked away through
the woods together like old friends.
“Fox,” said the bear, “are you ever afraid of animals?”
“There is not an animal in the world I am afraid of,” said the fox,
“except that two-legged creature called Man. Of him I am in constant
terror.”
The bear laughed at him. “You are silly to be afraid of that. I am not
afraid of a man; only of ptarmigan.”
Then it was the fox’s turn to laugh. “Why, I kill ptarmigan and eat
them!”
The bear did not like to be laughed at much by a fox, so he walked
quietly along for a while, thinking; then he said, “Well, Fox, I will
make a bargain with you. If you will kill two ptarmigan for me, I will
kill two men, and give you one.”
The fox looked pleased. “That is easy,” said he. “You wait here.” And
off he went trotting out of sight.
I am sure he played some trick again, for ptarmigan are not easy to see
in winter against the snow, when they wear their white dresses.
Mr. Fox very shortly came back with a ptarmigan in his mouth. He gave it
to the bear, who after eating it said, “Now, Fox, I will go and find a
man for you.”
For two whole days the fox waited for the bear, and the bear did not
come back. Then the fox felt sure that the bear had been killed, and he
wanted to see how the man had killed him.
Closely following the bear’s tracks, he found the tracks of two men
also. The fox was really scared at the sight of the men’s tracks. He was
terribly afraid of men, and he began to be sorry that he had been so
wicked and had killed so many of his friends.
Sneaking through the woods with his tail dragging, he passed near a
trap, which he could smell for a long distance, it was so dirty. There
was no danger of his being caught in that trap. He said to himself,
“That man is lazy; he will never catch any animals in his dirty traps. A
lazy man will never catch anything.”
After a while he passed another trap, but this one had been set out
hastily, so the fox got the bait without getting caught.
“That man is lazy, too,” said the fox, “for he gets up too late in the
morning to put out his trap. These men are stupid creatures anyway. I
don’t believe I am afraid of them after all.”
Just as he said this, snap, Mr. Smart Fox was caught at last.
[Illustration: “_Snap_, Mr. Smart Fox was caught at last”]
“Ah!” sighed the fox. “There is one man who is not lazy. His trap is
clean; I could neither smell it, nor see it. I am caught now.”
So this is what happened to the bad fox who had killed so many animals.
It never pays to be treacherous. One should always be loyal to one’s
friends.