[Illustration: RED FOX—CHARLES·G·D·ROBERTS]
[Illustration: Red Fox]
THE WORKS OF
Charles G. D. Roberts
Red Fox $2.00
The Watchers of the Trails 2.00
The Kindred of the Wild 2.00
Cameron of Lochiel (from the French of Gaspé) 1.50
The Prisoner of Mademoiselle 1.50
Earth’s Enigmas 1.50
The Heart of the Ancient Wood 1.50
Barbara Ladd 1.50
The Forge in the Forest 1.50
A Sister to Evangeline 1.50
By the Marshes of Minas 1.50
Complete Poems 1.50
The Book of the Rose cloth, _net_ 1.00
limp leather, _net_ 1.50
Songs of the Common Day (_Out of print_) 1.00
In Divers Tones (_Out of print_) 1.00
The Book of the Native 1.00
New York Nocturnes 1.00
A History of Canada _net_ 2.00
PUBLISHED BY
L. C. Page & Company
Boston, Mass.
[Illustration: to Laura W. Von (unclear) from her friend Charles G. D.
Roberts—Xmas 1905]
[Illustration: “Red Fox, meanwhile, had been watching the whole scene
from that safe little ledge of rock.” (See page 168)]
“Red Fox, meanwhile, had been watching the whole scene from that safe
little ledge of rock.”
(_See page 168_)
[Illustration: ]
RED FOX
_The Story of His Adventurous Career in the Ringwaak Wilds and of His
Final Triumph over the Enemies of His Kind_
Told by
Charles G. D. Roberts
_Author of_ “_The Kindred of the Wild_,” “_The Watchers of the Trails_,”
“_The Heart of the Ancient Wood_,” “_Barbara Ladd_,” “_Poems_,” _etc._
With Many Illustrations by
Charles Livingston Bull
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
BOSTON • • • MDCCCCV
[Illustration: ]
_Copyright, 1905, by_ The Outing Publishing Company
_Copyright, 1905, by_ The Outlook Company
_Copyright, 1905, by_ L. C. Page & Company (INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
Published, September, 1905
_COLONIAL PRESS_
_Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co._
_Boston, U.S.A._
[Illustration: ]
To
Henry Braithwaite
Master of Woodcraft
[Illustration: ]
[Illustration: ]
[Illustration: ]
Prefatory Note
In the following story I have tried to trace the career of a fox of the
backwoods districts of Eastern Canada. The hero of the story, Red Fox,
may be taken as fairly typical, both in his characteristics and in the
experiences that befall him, in spite of the fact that he is stronger and
cleverer than the average run of foxes. This fact does not detract from
his authenticity as a type of his kind. He simply represents the best, in
physical and mental development, of which the tribe of the foxes has
shown itself capable. In a litter of young foxes there is usually one
that is larger and stronger, and of more finely coloured fur, than his
fellows. There is not infrequently, also, one that proves to be much more
sagacious and adaptable than his fellows. Once in awhile such exceptional
strength and such exceptional intelligence may be combined in one
individual. This combination is apt to result in just such a fox as I
have made the hero of my story.
The incidents in the career of this particular fox are not only
consistent with the known characteristics and capacities of the fox
family, but there is authentic record of them all in the accounts of
careful observers. Every one of these experiences has befallen some red
fox in the past, and may befall other red foxes in the future. There is
no instance of intelligence, adaptability, or foresight given here that
is not abundantly attested by the observations of persons who know how to
observe accurately. In regard to such points, I have been careful to keep
well within the boundaries of fact. As for any emotions which Red Fox may
once in a great while seem to display, these may safely be accepted by
the most cautious as fox emotions, not as human emotions. In so far as
man is himself an animal, he is subject to and impelled by many emotions
which he must share with not a few other members of the animal kingdom.
Any full presentation of an individual animal of one of the more highly
developed species must depict certain emotions not altogether unlike
those which a human being might experience under like conditions. To do
this is not by any means, as some hasty critics would have it, to ascribe
human emotions to the lower animals.
C. G. D. R.
Fredericton, N. B., _August, 1905_.
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[Illustration: ]
Contents of the Book
[Illustration: ]
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
[Illustration: ]
A List of the Full-Page Drawings in the Book
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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
[Illustration: ]
[Illustration: ]
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.
The music of the dogs’ voices, melodious though it was, held something
sinister in its sweetness,—a sort of menacing and implacable joy. As the
first notes of it came floating up from the misty lowlands, an old red
fox started up from his sleep under a squat juniper-bush on the top of a
sunny bank. Wide-awake on the instant, he stood listening critically to
the sound. Then he came a few paces down the bank, which was open, dotted
with two or three bushes and boulders, and its turf already green through
the warmth of its sandy soil. He paused beside the mouth of a burrow
which was partly screened by the evergreen branches of a juniper. The
next moment another and somewhat smaller fox appeared, emerging briskly
from the burrow, and stood beside him, intently listening.
The thrilling clamour grew louder, grew nearer, muffled now and then for
a few moments as the trail which the dogs were following led through some
dense thicket of spruce or fir. Soon an uneasy look came over the shrewd,
grayish-yellow face of the old fox, as he realized that the trail in
question was the one which he had himself made but two hours earlier, on
his return from a survey of a neighbouring farmer’s hen-roost. He had
taken many precautions with that homeward trail, tangling and breaking it
several times; but he knew that ultimately, for all its deviations and
subtleties, it might lead the dogs to this little warm den on the
hillside, wherein his mate had but yesterday given birth to five blind,
helpless, whimpering puppies. As the slim red mother realized the same
fact, her fangs bared themselves in a silent snarl, and, backing up
against the mouth of the burrow, she stood there an image of savage
resolution, a dangerous adversary for any beast less powerful than bear
or panther.
To her mate, however, it was obvious that something more than valour was
needed to avert the approaching peril. He knew both the dogs whose
chiming voices came up to him so unwelcomely on the sweet spring air. He
knew that both were formidable fighters, strong and woodswise. For the
sake of those five helpless, sprawling ones at the bottom of the den, the
mother must not be allowed to fight. Her death, or even her serious
injury, would mean their death. With his sharp ears cocked very straight,
one paw lifted alertly, and an expression of confident readiness in his
whole attitude, he waited a moment longer, seeking to weigh the exact
nearness of the menacing cries. At length a wandering puff of air drawing
up from the valley brought the sound startlingly near and clear. Like a
flash the fox slipped down the bank and darted into the underbrush,
speeding to intercept the enemy.
A couple of hundred yards away from the den in the bank a rivulet, now
swollen and noisy with spring rains, ran down the hillside. For a little
distance the fox followed its channel, now on one side, now on the other,
now springing from rock to rock amid the foamy darting of the waters, now
making brief, swift excursions among the border thickets. In this way he
made his trail obscure and difficult. Then, at what he held a fitting
distance from home, he intersected the line of his old trail, and halted
upon it ostentatiously, that the new scent might unmistakably overpower
the old.
[Illustration: “FOR A LITTLE DISTANCE THE FOX FOLLOWED ITS CHANNEL.”]
The baying and yelping chorus was now very close at hand. The fox ran on
slowly, up an open vista between the trees, looking over his shoulder to
see what the dogs would do on reaching the fresh trail. He had not more
than half a minute to wait. Out from a greening poplar thicket burst the
dogs, running with noses to the ground. The one in the lead, baying
conscientiously, was a heavy-shouldered, flop-eared, much dewlapped dog
of a tawny yellow colour, a half-bred foxhound whose cur mother had not
obliterated the instincts bequeathed him by his pedigreed and
well-trained sire. His companion, who followed at his heels and paid less
scrupulous heed to the trail, looking around excitedly every other minute
and yelping to relieve his exuberance, was a big black and white mongrel,
whose long jaw and wavy coat seemed to indicate a strain of collie blood
in his much mixed ancestry.
Arriving at the point where the trail was crossed by the hot, fresh
scent, the leader stopped so abruptly that his follower fairly fell over
him. For several seconds the noise of their voices was redoubled, as they
sniffed wildly at the pungent turf. Then they wheeled, and took up the
new trail. The next moment they saw the fox, standing at the edge of a
ribbon of spruce woods and looking back at them superciliously. With a
new and wilder note in their cries, they dashed forward frantically to
seize him. But his white-tipped, feathery brush flickered before their
eyes for a fraction of a second, and vanished into the gloom of the
spruce wood.
The chase was now full on, the quarry near, and the old trail forgotten.
In a savage intoxication, reflected in the wildness of their cries, the
dogs tore ahead through brush and thicket, ever farther and farther from
that precious den on the hillside. Confident in his strength as well as
his craft, the old fox led them for a couple of miles straight away,
choosing the roughest ground, the most difficult gullies, the most
tangled bits of underbrush for his course. Fleeter of foot and lighter
than his foes, he had no difficulty in keeping ahead of them. But it was
not his purpose to distance them or run any risk of discouraging them,
lest they should give up and go back to their first venture. He wanted to
utterly wear them out, and leave them at last so far from home that, by
the time they should be once more ready to go hunting, his old trail
leading to the den should be no longer decipherable by eye or nose.
By this time the rim of the sun was above the horizon, mounting into a
rose-fringed curtain of tender April clouds, and shooting long beams of
rose across the level country. These beams seemed to find vistas ready
everywhere, open lines of roadway, or cleared fields, or straight groves,
or gleaming river reaches all appearing to converge toward the far-off
fount of radiance. Down one of these lanes of pink glory the fox ran in
plain sight, looking strangely large and dark in the mystic glow. Very
close behind him came the two pursuers, fantastic, leaping, ominous
shapes. For several minutes the chase fled on into the eye of the
morning, then vanished down an unseen cross-corridor of the woods.
And now it seemed to the brave and crafty old fox, a very Odysseus of his
kind for valour and guile, that he had led the enemy almost far enough
from home. It was time to play with them a little. Lengthening out his
stride till he had secured a safer lead, he described two or three short
circles, and then ran on more slowly. His pursuers were quite out of
sight, hidden by the trees and bushes; but he knew very well by his
hearing just when they ran into those confusing loops in the trail. As
the sudden, excited confusion in their cries reached him, he paused and
looked back, with his grayish-ruddy head cocked to one side; and, if
laughter had been one of the many vulpine accomplishments, he certainly
would have laughed at that moment. But presently the voices showed him
that their owners had successfully straightened out the little snarl and
were once more after him. So once more he ran on, devising further
shifts.
Coming now to a rocky brook of some width, the fox stepped out upon the
stones, then leaped back upon his own trail, ran a few steps along it,
and finally jumped aside as far as he could, alighting upon a log in the
heart of a patch of blueberry scrub. Slipping down from the log, he raced
back a little way parallel with his tracks and lay down on the top of a
dry hillock to rest. A drooping screen of hemlock branches here gave him
effective hiding, while his sharp eyes commanded the brook-side and
perhaps a hundred yards of the back trail.
[Illustration: “THE FOX STEPPED OUT UPON THE STONES.”]
In a moment or two the dogs rushed by, their tongues hanging far out, but
their voices still eager and fierce. Not thirty paces away the old fox
watched them cynically, wrinkling his narrow nose with aversion as the
light breeze brought him their scent. As he watched, the pupils of his
eyes contracted to narrow, upright slits of liquid black, then rounded
out again as anger yielded to interest. It filled him with interest,
indeed, to watch the frantic bewilderment and haste of his pursuers when
the broken trail at the edge of the brook baffled them. First they went
splashing across to the other bank, and rushed up and down, sniffing
savagely for the scent. Next they returned to the near bank and repeated
the same tactics. Then they seemed to conclude that the fugitive had
attempted to cover his tracks by travelling in the water, so they traced
the water’s edge exactly, on both sides, for about fifty yards up and
down. Finally they returned to the point where the trail was broken, and
silently began to work around it in widening circles. At last the yellow
half-breed gave voice. He had recaptured the scent on the log in the
blueberry patch. As the noisy chorus rose again upon the morning air, the
old fox got up, stretched himself somewhat contemptuously, and stood out
in plain view with a shrill bark of defiance. Joyously the dogs accepted
the challenge and hurled themselves forward; but in the same instant the
fox vanished, leaving behind him a streak of pungent, musky scent that
clung in the bushes and on the air.
And now for an hour the eager dogs found themselves continually
overrunning or losing the trail. More than half their time and energy
were spent in solving the riddles which their quarry kept propounding to
them. Once they lost fully ten minutes racing up and down and round and
round a hillocky sheep-pasture, utterly baffled, while the fox, hidden in
the cleft of a rock on the other side of the fence, lay comfortably eying
their performances. The sheep, huddling in a frightened mass in one
corner of the pasture, scared by the noise, had given him just the chance
he wanted. Leaping lightly upon the nearest, he had run over the
thick-fleeced backs of the whole flock, and gained the top of the rail
fence, from which he had sprung easily to the cleft in the rock. To the
dogs it was as if their quarry had suddenly grown wings and soared into
the air. The chase would have ended there but for the mischance of the
shifting of the wind. The light breeze which had been drawing up from the
southwest all at once, without warning, veered over to the east; and with
it came a musky whiff which told the puzzled dogs the whole story. As
they raced joyously and clamorously toward the fence, the fox slipped
down the other side of the rock and fled away.
A fox’s wits are full of resource, and he seldom cares to practise all
his accomplishments in one run. But this was a unique occasion; and this
fox was determined to make his work complete and thoroughly dishearten
his pursuers. He now conceived a stratagem which might, possibly, prove
discouraging. Minutely familiar with every inch of his range, he
remembered a certain deep deadwater on the brook, bridged by a fallen
sapling. The sapling was now old and partly rotted away. He had crossed
it often, using it as a bridge for his convenience; and he had noticed
just a day or two ago that it was growing very insecure. He would see if
it was yet sufficiently insecure to serve his purpose.
Without any more circlings and twistings, he led the way straight to the
deadwater, leaving a clear trail. The tree was still there. It seemed to
yield, almost imperceptibly, as he leaped upon it. His shrewd and
practised perceptions told him that its strength would just suffice to
carry him across, but no more. Lightly and swiftly, and not without some
apprehension (for he loathed a wetting), he ran over, and halted behind a
bush to see what would happen.
Arrived at the fallen tree, the dogs did not hesitate. The trail crossed.
They would go where it went. But the tree had something to say in the
matter. As the double weight sprang up it, it sagged ominously, but the
excited hunters were in no mood to heed the warning. The next moment it
broke in the middle with a punky, crumbling sound; and the dogs plunged,
splashing and yelping, into the middle of the icy stream.
If the fox, however, had imagined that this unexpected bath would be cold
enough to chill the ardour of his pursuers, he was speedily
disillusioned. Neither dog seemed to have his attention for one single
moment distracted by the incident. Both swam hurriedly to land, scrambled
up the bank, and at once resumed the trail. The fox was already well away
through the underbrush.
By this time he was tired of playing tricks. He made up his mind to lead
the enemy straight, distance them completely, and lose them in the rocky
wilderness on the other side of the hill, where their feet would soon get
sore on the sharp stones. Then he could rest awhile in safety, and later
in the day return by a devious route to the den in the bank and his slim
red mate. The plan was a good one, and in all ways feasible. But the
capricious fate of the woodfolk chose to intervene.
It chanced that, as the fox passed down an old, mossy wood-road, running
easily and with the whole game well in hand, a young farmer carrying a
gun was approaching along a highway which intersected the wood-road.
Being on the way to a chain of shallow ponds along the foot of the
uplands, he had his gun loaded with duck shot, and was unprepared for
larger game. The voices of the dogs—now much subdued by weariness and
reduced to an occasional burst of staccato clamour—gave him warning of
what was afoot. His eyes sparkled with interest, and he reached for his
pocket to get a cartridge of heavier shot. But just as he did so the fox
appeared.
There was no time to change cartridges. The range was long for B B, but
the young farmer was a good shot and had confidence in his weapon. Like a
flash he lifted his gun and fired. As the heavy report went banging and
flapping among the hills, and the smoke blew aside, he saw the fox dart
lightly into the bushes on the other side of the way, apparently
untouched. With a curse, devoted impartially to his weapon and his
marksmanship, he ran forward and carefully examined the tracks. There was
no smallest sign of blood. “Clean miss, by gum!” he ejaculated; and
strode on without further delay. He knew the dogs could never overtake
that seasoned old fox. They might waste their time, if they cared to. He
would not. They crossed the road just as he disappeared around the next
turning.
But the fox, though he had vanished from view so nonchalantly and
swiftly, had not escaped unscathed. With the report, he had felt a sudden
burning anguish, as of a white-hot needle-thrust, go through his loins.
One stray shot had found its mark; and now, as he ran, fierce pains
racked him, and every breath seemed to cut. Slower and slower he went,
his hind legs reluctant to stretch out in the stride, and utterly
refusing to propel him with their old springy force. Nearer and nearer
came the cries of the dogs, till presently he realized that he could run
no farther. At the foot of a big granite rock he stopped, and turned, and
waited, with bare, dangerous fangs gleaming from his narrow jaws.
The dogs were within a dozen yards of him before they saw him, so still
he stood. This was what they had come to seek; yet now, so menacing were
his looks and attitude, they stopped short. It was one thing to catch a
fugitive in flight. It was quite another to grapple with a desperate and
cunning foe at bay. The old fox knew that fate had come upon him at last.
But there was no coward nerve in his lithe body, and the uncomprehended
anguish that gripped his vitals added rage to his courage. The dogs
rightly held him dangerous, though his weight and stature were scarcely
half what either one of them could boast.
[Illustration: “SLOWER AND SLOWER HE WENT.”]
Their hesitation, however, was but momentary. Together they flung
themselves upon him, to get lightning slashes, almost simultaneously, on
neck and jaw. Both yelped angrily, and bit wildly, but found it
impossible to hold down their twisting foe, who fought in silence and
seemed to have the strength and irrepressibility of steel springs in his
slender body. Presently his teeth met through the joint of the hound’s
fore paw, and the hound, with a shrill _ki yi_, jumped backward from the
fight. But the black and white mongrel was of better grit. Though one eye
was filled with blood, and one ear slit to the base, he had no thought of
shirking the punishment. Just as the yelping hound withdrew from the
mix-up, his long, powerful jaws secured a fair grip on the fox’s throat,
just back of the jawbone. There was a moment of breathless, muffled,
savage growling, of vehement and vindictive shaking. Then the valorous
red body straightened itself out at the foot of the rock, and made no
more resistance as the victors mauled and tore it. At a price, the little
family in the burrow had been saved.