ALONE IN THE WORLD
For some days after this sudden flight into exile, the diminished family
wandered wide, having no fixed lair and feeling very much adrift. In a
curious outburst of bravado or revenge, or perhaps because she for the
moment grew intolerant of her long self-restraint, the mother fox one
violet sunset led her two young ones in fierce raid upon the barnyard of
one of the remoter farms. It seemed a reckless piece of audacity; but the
old fox knew there were no dogs at this farm save a single small and
useless cur; and she knew, also, that the farmer was no adept with the
gun.
All was peace about the little farmyard. The golden lilac light made
wonderful the chip-strewn yard and the rough, weather-beaten roofs of
cabin and barn and shed. The ducks were quacking and bobbing in the wet
mud about the water-trough, where some grain had been spilled. The sleepy
chickens were gathering in the open front of the shed, craning their
necks with little murmurings of content, and one by one hopping up to
their roosts among the rafters. From the sloping pasture above the
farmyard came a clatter of bars let down, and a soft tunk-a-tonk of
cowbells as the cows were turned out from milking.
Into this scene of secure peace broke the three foxes, rushing silently
from behind the stable. Before the busy ducks could take alarm or the
sleepy chickens fly up out of danger, the enemy was among them, darting
hither and thither and snapping at slim, feathered necks. Instantly arose
a wild outcry of squawking, quacking, and cackling; then shrill barking
from the cur, who was in the pasture with the cows, and angry shouting
from the farmer, who came running at top speed down the pasture lane. The
marauders cared not a jot for the barking cur, but they had no mind to
await the arrival of the outraged farmer. Having settled some grudges by
snapping the necks of nearly a dozen ducks and fowls, each slung a plump
victim across his back and trotted leisurely away across the brown
furrows of the potato-field toward the woods. Just as they were about to
disappear under the branches they all three turned and glanced back at
the farmer, where he stood by the water-trough shaking his fists at them
in impotent and childish rage.
This audacious exploit seemed in some way to break up the little family.
In some way, at this time, the two youngsters seemed to realize their
capacity for complete independence and self-reliance; and at the same
moment, as it were, the mother in some subtle fashion let slip the reins
of her influence. All three became indifferent to each other; and without
any misunderstanding or ill will each went his or her own way. As for Red
Fox, with a certain bold confidence in his own craft, he turned his face
back toward the old bank on the hillside, the old den behind the
juniper-bush, and the little mouse-haunted meadow by the friendly brook.
[Illustration: “THEY ALL THREE TURNED AND GLANCED BACK.”]
As he neared the old home, with the memory of tragic events strong upon
him, Red Fox went very circumspectly, as if he thought the dogs might
still be frequenting the place. But he found it, of course, a bright
solitude. The dry slope lay warm in the sun, the scattered juniper-bushes
stood prickly and dark as of old, and unseen behind its screen of leafage
the brook near by babbled pleasantly as of old over its little falls and
shoals. But where had been the round, dark door of his home was now a
gaping gash of raw, red earth. The den had been dug out to its very
bottom. Being something of a philosopher in his young way, and quite
untroubled by sentiment, Red Fox resumed possession of the bank. For the
present he made his lair under the bush on top of the bank, where his
father had been wont to sleep. He knew the bank was a good place for a
fox to inhabit, being warm, dry, secluded, and easy to dig. Well under
the shelter of another juniper, at the extreme lower end of the bank and
quite out of sight of the old den, he started another burrow to serve him
for winter quarters.
Engrossed in the pursuit of experience and provender, Red Fox had no time
for loneliness. Every hour of the day or night that he could spare from
sleep was full of interest for him. The summer had been a benignant one,
favourable to all the wild kindreds, and now the red and saffron autumn
woods were swarming with furtive life. With a flicker of white fluffy
tails, like diminutive powder-puffs, the brown rabbits were bounding
through the underbrush on all sides. The dainty wood-mice,
delicate-footed as shadows, darted and squeaked among the brown tree
roots, while in every grassy glade or patch of browning meadow the
field-mice and the savage little shrews went scurrying in throngs. The
whirring coveys of the partridge went volleying down the aisles of golden
birch, their strong brown wings making a cheerful but sometimes startling
noise; and the sombre tops of the fir groves along the edges of the lower
fields were loud with crows. In this populous world Red Fox found hunting
so easy that he had time for more investigating and gathering of
experience.
At this time his curiosity was particularly excited by men and their
ways; and he spent a great deal of his time around the skirts of the
farmsteads, watching and considering. But certain precautions his
sagacious young brain never forgot. No trail of his led between the
valley fields and his burrow on the hillside. Before descending toward
the lowlands he would always climb the hill, cross a spur of the ridge,
and traverse a wide, stony gulch where his trail was quickly and
irretrievably lost. Descending from the other side of this gulch, his
track seemed always as if it came over from the other valley, below
Ringwaak. Moreover, when he reached the farms he resolutely ignored
ducks, turkeys, chickens,—and, indeed, in the extremity of his wisdom,
the very rats and mice which frequented yard and rick. How was he to know
that the rats which enjoyed the hospitality of man’s fodder stack were
less dear to him than the chickens who sheltered in his shed? He had no
intention of drawing down upon his inexperienced head the vengeance of a
being whose powers he had not yet learned to define. Nevertheless, when
he found beneath a tree at the back of an orchard a lot of plump,
worm-bitten plums, he had no hesitation in feasting upon the juicy
sweets; for the idea that man might be interested in any such inanimate
objects had not yet penetrated his wits.
Another precaution which this young investigator of man and manners very
carefully observed was to keep aloof from the farm of the yellow
half-breed hound. That was the chief point of danger. The big black and
white mongrel, whose scent was not keen, he did not so very much dread.
But when he saw the two dogs playing together, then he knew that the most
likely thing in the world was a hunting expedition of some kind; and he
would make all haste to seek a less precarious neighbourhood. Toward dogs
in general he had no very pronounced aversion, such as his cousin the
wolf entertained; but these two dogs in particular he feared and hated.
Whenever, gazing down from one of his numerous lookouts or watch-towers,
he saw the two excitedly mussing over one of his old, stale trails—which
straggled all about the valley—his thin, dark muzzle would wrinkle in
vindictive scorn. In his tenacious memory a grudge was growing which
might some day, if occasion offered, exact sharp payment.
Among the animals associated in the young fox’s mind with man there was
only one of which he stood in awe. As he was stealing along one day in
the shadow of a garden fence, he heard just above him a sharp,
malevolent, spitting sound, verging instantly into a most vindictive
growl. Very much startled, he jumped backward and looked up. There on top
of the fence crouched a small, grayish, dark striped animal, with a round
face, round, greenish, glaring eyes, long tail fluffed out, and
high-arched back. At the sound of that bitter voice, the glare of those
furious eyes, Red Fox’s memory went back to the dreadful day when the
lynx had pounced at him from the thicket. This spitting, threatening
creature on the fence was, of course, nothing like the lynx in size; and
Red Fox felt sure that he was much more than a match for it in fair
fight. He had no wish to try conclusions with it, however. For some
seconds he stood eying it nervously. Then the cat, divining his
apprehensions, advanced slowly along the top of the fence, spitting
explosively and uttering the most malignant yowls. Red Fox stood his
ground till the hideous apparition was within five or six feet of him.
Then he turned and fled ignominiously; and the cat, the instant he was
gone, scurried wildly for the house as if a pack of fiends were after
her.
[Illustration: “GLARING EYES, LONG TAIL FLUFFED OUT, AND HIGH-ARCHED
BACK.”]
Among the man creatures whom Red Fox amused himself by watching at this
period, there were two who made a peculiar impression upon him, two whom
he particularly differentiated from all the rest. One of these was the
farmer-hunter, Jabe Smith, who owned the black and white mongrel,—he
whose stray shot had caused the death of Red Fox’s father. This fact, of
course, Red Fox did not know,—nor, indeed, one must confess, would he
have greatly considered it had he known. Nevertheless, in some subtle way
the young fox came to apprehend that this Jabe Smith was, among all the
man creatures of the settlement, particularly dangerous and implacable,—a
man to be assiduously studied in order to be assiduously avoided. It was
from Jabe Smith that the furry young investigator got his first idea of a
gun. He saw the man come out of the house with a long black stick in his
hands, and point it at a flock of ducks just winging overhead. He saw red
flame and blue-white smoke belch from the end of the black stick. He
heard an appalling burst of thunder which flapped and roared among the
hills. And he saw one of the ducks turn over in its flight and plunge
headlong down to earth. Yes, of a certainty this man was very dangerous.
And when, a few evenings later, as the colour was fading out of the chill
autumn sky, he saw the man light a fire of chips down in the farmyard, to
boil potatoes for the pigs, his dread and wonder grew ten-fold. These red
and yellow tongues that leaped so venomously around the black
pot—terrible creatures called forth out of the chips at the touch of the
man’s hand—were manifestly akin to the red thing which had jumped from
the end of the stick and killed the voyaging duck. Even when away over in
the other valley, hunting, or when curled up safely under his
juniper-bush on the bank, Red Fox was troubled with apprehensions about
the man of the fire. He never felt himself quite secure except when he
had the evidence of his own eyes as to what the mysterious being was up
to.
The one other human creature whom Red Fox honoured with his interest was
the Boy. The Boy lived on one of the farther farms, one of the largest
and most prosperous, one equipped with all that a backwoods farm should
have except, as it chanced, a dog. The Boy had once had a dog, a wise
bull terrier to which he was so much attached that when it died its place
was kept sacredly vacant. He was a sturdy, gravely cheerful lad, the Boy,
living much by himself, playing by himself, devoted to swimming,
canoeing, skating, riding, and all such strenuous outdoor work of the
muscles, yet studious, no less of books than of the fascinating
wilderness life about him. But of all his occupations woodcraft was that
which most engrossed his interest. In the woods he moved as noiselessly
as the wild kindreds themselves, saw as keenly, heard as alertly, as
they. And because he was quiet, and did not care to kill, and because his
boyish blue eyes were steady, many of the wild kindreds came to regard
him with a curious lack of aversion. It was not that the most amiable of
them cared a rap for him, or for any human being; but ceasing to greatly
fear him, they became indifferent. He was able, therefore, to observe
many interesting details of life in that silent, populous, secretive
wilderness which to humanity in general seems a solitude.
To Red Fox the Boy became an object of interest only second to Jabe
Smith. But in this case fear and antagonism were almost absent. He
watched the Boy from sheer curiosity, almost as the Boy might have
watched him if given the same sort of chance. It puzzled Red Fox to see
the Boy go so soundlessly through the woods, watching, listening,
expectant, like one of the wild folk. And in an effort to solve the
puzzle he was given to following warily in the Boy’s trail,—but so warily
that his presence was never guessed.
For weeks Red Fox kept studying the Boy in this way, whenever he had a
chance; but it was some time before the Boy got a chance to study Red
Fox. Then it came about in a strange fashion. One afternoon, some time
after Red Fox had discovered and enjoyed the fallen plums in the orchard,
he came upon a wild grape-vine on the edge of the valley, loaded with
ripe fruit. Grape-vines were a rare growth in the Ringwaak region; but
this one, growing in a sheltered and fertile nook, was a luxuriant
specimen of its kind. It had draped itself in serpentine tangles over a
couple of dying trees; and the clusters of its fruit were of a most
alluring purple.
Red Fox looked on this unknown fruit and felt sure that it was good. He
remembered the plums, and his lips watered. One small bunch, swinging low
down on a vagrant shoot of vine, he sampled. It was all that he had
fancied it might be. But the rest of the bursting, purple clusters hung
out of reach. Leap as he might, straight up in the air, with tense
muscles and eagerly snapping jaws, he could reach not a single grape.
Around and around the masses of vine he circled, looking for a point of
attack. Then he attempted climbing, but in vain. His efforts in this
direction were as futile as his jumping; and the grapes remained
inviolate.
Red Fox was resourceful and persistent; but there are occasions when
resourcefulness and persistence prove a snare. He sat down on his
haunches and carefully thought out the situation. At one place he had
found that, owing to the twists of the great vine around its supporting
tree, he could scale the trunk for a distance of five or six feet. This
seemed useless, however, as there were no grapes within reach at that
point; but he observed at length a spot that he might jump to after
climbing as high as he could,—a spot where a tangle of vines might afford
him foothold, and where the luscious bunches would hang all about his
head. He lost no more time in considering, but climbed, poised himself
carefully, gathered his muscles, and sprang out into the air.
The feat was well calculated and exactly accomplished, and Red Fox
alighted safely among the grapes. But what he had not allowed for, or
even guessed at, was the yielding elasticity of the vines. They gave way
in all directions, quite eccentrically and inconsistently. For several
seconds he made a frantic struggle to keep up, clutching with paws and
jaws. Then, squirming and baffled, he fell through.
Unhappily for him, however, he did not fall through completely. The
tangle of stems that would not sustain him seemed equally resolved not to
let him go. An obstinate twist of vine hooked itself about one hind leg,
above the joint, and held him fast, swinging head downward.
The luckless adventurer writhed up against himself, striving to loose
that relentless clutch with his teeth. But the facile yielding of the
vines gave him no purchase, and every struggle he made but drew the snare
the tighter. When he realized his predicament, he became panic-stricken,
and fell to a violent kicking and struggling and swinging which made loud
disturbance in the leafage. This he kept up for several minutes, till at
last, utterly exhausted, he hung motionless, swaying in the brown-green
shadow, his tongue out piteously and his eyes half-shut.
[Illustration: “HE BECAME PANIC-STRICKEN, AND FELL TO A VIOLENT KICKING
AND STRUGGLING.”]
Just at this moment, by chance, arrived the Boy. His quick ear had caught
from a distance the unwonted thrashing of leafage at a time when all the
air was still. Drawing near very stealthily, in order to miss nothing of
what there might be to be seen, he came up just as the captive seemed to
be dying. One fresh struggle of fright convulsed the young fox’s limbs;
then, realizing that the situation was hopeless, he relaxed to apparent
lifelessness, his eyes closed to a narrow, deathlike slit.
The Boy, with instant commiseration, sprang forward and loosed the coil,
grieving that he had not come in time to save the handsome creature’s
life. He had a rather special interest in foxes, admiring their
cleverness and self-possession. Now, his gray eyes full of pity, he held
up the limp form in his arms, smoothing the brilliant, vivid, luxuriant
fur. He had never before had a chance to examine a fox so rich in colour.
Finally, deciding that he could now have a splendid fox-skin without any
qualms of conscience, he turned his face homeward, flinging the body
carelessly over his shoulder by the hind legs.
At this moment, however, just as he was leaving, there flashed across his
mind’s eye a vision of the great purple grape-clusters, which he had seen
when quite too much preoccupied to notice them. Could he leave those ripe
grapes behind him? No, indeed! He turned back again eagerly, flung the
dead fox down, and fell to feasting till mouth and fingers were purple.
His appetite satisfied, satiated indeed, he then filled his hat, and at
last, with a sigh of content, faced about to pick up the dead fox. For a
moment he stared in amazement, and rubbed his eyes. The fox he had flung
down so carelessly was the deadest looking fox he had ever seen. But now,
there was no fox there. Then, swiftly, because he understood the wild
creatures, it flashed upon him how cunningly he had been fooled. With a
quiet little chuckle of appreciation he went home, bearing no trophy but
his hatful of wild grapes.