BURNING SPUR AND BLINDING CLAW
The newcomer took to the dry, warm burrow very kindly, and proceeded at
once to enlarge it beyond the immediate needs of Red Fox himself. Once
fairly settled, the two adopted separate ranges, Red Fox hunting down the
valley and eastward along the lower slopes, which was, of course, the
more perilous tract; while his mate took the safer region to westward of
the den, where there were no settlements and no dogs, and only an
occasional camp of harmless lumbermen to beware of. Lynxes and bears, of
course, were more numerous on her range, but these she well knew how to
evade, so she troubled her head little about them. It was man, and the
ways of man, and the allies and followers of man, that held her shrewd
spirit in awe.
During the first part of the winter the abundance which had marked the
preceding autumn continued. But soon after Christmas a succession of
heavy snow-falls, followed by tremendous and unrelenting frosts, made
game very scarce. Many of the weaker birds and animals died of cold or
starvation. Others took refuge in their securest coverts. Some of the
winter dwellers, among the birds, unwillingly drifted south to more
hospitable skies; while down from the north came hungry flocks of
crossbills and big, stupid, rosy-headed grosbeaks, followed by those
savage and insatiable marauders, the white arctic hawk and the great
white arctic owl. These dangerous intruders on the range played havoc
among the rabbits and squirrels, the mice and grouse and crows, who were
all unused to their mode of attack and apt to be deceived by their
colour. Scarce as game was by reason of the cold, they speedily made it
scarcer; and the foxes hated them virulently.
In this lean season the thoughts of Red Fox turned longingly to the
protected and well-fed dependents of the dangerous men creatures.
Nevertheless, he would not permit himself to visit the hen-roosts of the
neighbouring valley farms. He was too sagacious to invite fate. But he
remembered that over toward Ringwaak, across the ridge, on the range of a
rival fox, there were other hen-roosts and duck-pens. And one night, when
there was a late-setting moon, he started over the ridge, while his mate
set out for a rabbit hunt among the fir thickets to the northwest of the
buried and silent brook.
On a certain farm, sleeping in the blue-white, frosty moonlight, Red Fox
found the little door of the chicken-house left open in spite of the
bitter cold. There was no dog on that farm. The low-roofed, roomy cabin
was silent, and no light gleamed from its windows. The barn was quiet,
save for the hushed munching of the cows in their stanchions, the
occasional stamping of the restless horses in their stalls. A big gray
cat, footing in leisurely fashion across the snowy yard, caught sight of
the prowling, brush-tailed visitor, and with a frightened _pfiff_
scuttled up to the roof of the wood-shed, yowling angrily. Red Fox eyed
her for a second, decided that she was a negligible factor in his
problem, and poked his sharp nose cautiously into the little door of the
chicken-house. The smell within of warm, fat, well-fed, comfortable hens
was most alluring. He yielded to the delicate temptation, and slipped in.
The moonlight streamed, a wide, white flood, through a spacious window
just opposite the roosts. Red Fox saw at once that the farmer had
arranged the roosts with the utmost consideration for a fox’s lack of
skill in climbing. The hens were fat and heavy,—mostly of mixed Brahma,
Cochin, and Plymouth Rock descent,—so their owner had placed a long,
sloping plank, with cleats across it, to enable them to hop up to their
perches without the effort of flight. Moreover, the perches themselves
were arranged about a foot and a half above a broad shelf, which served
to protect the nests underneath. It was altogether a most up-to-date
arrangement, in the approved design of the poultry books. But if Red Fox
had had the designing of it himself, he could not have made it to meet
his own requirements more perfectly.
Pausing just inside the door, in a patch of black shadow, he carefully
and calculatingly surveyed the perches. The hens were all asleep, but the
cock, a wary sleeper, was awake. He had heard no noise from Red Fox’s
furtive entrance, but some subtle perception of danger had awakened him.
His keen, bold eyes detected something unusual in that patch of shadow.
Stretching out his neck and fine, snaky head, he uttered a long-drawn
_quee-ee-ee-ee_ of warning interrogation.
Red Fox paid no attention to this soft, unterrifying sound. Having made
up his mind, he darted fearlessly up the sloping plank, ran along the
raised platform, and seized the fourth hen from the end, a fat, alluring,
thick-feathered Brahma. One quick crunch of his jaws on the victim’s
neck, and the fluttering mass of feathers made no more struggle. Red Fox
jerked the prize across his shoulders, turned, and trotted quite
deliberately down the plank. When he was about half-way down, however, a
most astonishing thing happened. He was all at once enveloped, as it
seemed, in a cloud of buffeting wings, something sharp and apparently
burning hot drove deep into the side of his neck, and a heavy, soft body
struck him so vehemently that he rolled completely over and fell heavily
to the floor, while the limp, sprawling mass of his victim tumbled over
his face, blinding and confusing him.
The cock, who had been watching with such alert suspicion, was not of the
same breed as the hens. He was no awkward Cochin or Brahma, but a
long-spurred, hard-feathered, clean-headed, thoroughbred, black-red Game.
This was Red Fox’s misfortune.
As Red Fox picked himself up, bewildered, the cock flew again, buffeting
his head again with strong, swift wings, and again striking one of those
dagger-like spurs into his neck. The wound caused a burning anguish; and
this time it was dangerously near the root of the ear, which gave Red Fox
a qualm of apprehension. What if that elusive weapon should find his
eyes? Filled with rage, he made a savage rush at his trim assailant. But
the cock was ready, cool and sagacious. Springing lightly into the air,
he evaded the animal’s rush, sailed clean over his head, and in passing
delivered another of those daunting spur strokes. The point went deep
into the upper part of the enemy’s snout, about an inch below the eye.
The pain was intense; but the terror of those strokes counted for more
than the pain with Red Fox. He could take punishment with unsurpassable
pluck, but the risk of losing his eyes filled him with panic. He wanted
no more to do with this strange and terrible antagonist. With head low
down, to shun a repetition of the stroke, he darted out through the
little door. As he went, those dread wings beat again upon his back, and
both spurs sank into his rump. Thoroughly cowed, he fled in ignominy
across the field and into the woods: and the shrill crowing of the victor
taunted him, echoing at his heels across the radiant snow.
[Illustration: “DELIVERED ANOTHER OF THOSE DAUNTING SPUR STROKES.”]
Into the deep shadows he fled, over the snow-hidden brook, across the
little, shining glades, through the dense fir thickets, the tangled,
leafless underbrush, the huge, silent groves of ancient trees, and never
paused till he came in view of the familiar bank on the hillside and the
juniper-bush, behind which lay the door of his den. Here he halted for a
second. But as he did so he saw on the top of the bank above the den a
sight which drove all the panic terror out of his heart. Forgetting his
pain and his bleeding wounds, he uttered a shrill yelp of fury and dashed
forward again at a pace which no terror had had power to teach his feet.
While Red Fox was suffering his castigation at the wings and spurs of the
heroic game-cock, his mate was trotting homeward from a fairly successful
hunt among the boulders of the upper ridge. As she came noiselessly along
the top of the bank, her back to the glare of moonlight, she caught sight
of a weasel approaching, some distance away among the tree-trunks.
Perceiving from his manner that she had not been detected, she slipped
behind the screen of a thin bush, crouched, and waited for the weasel to
come to his doom. Nearer, nearer he came; and tenser, tenser grew the
attitude of the ambushed hunter as she held herself gathered for the
final spring and rush.
It chanced that in the meantime one of those great, silent, white
marauders from the north was winnowing soundlessly through the spaces of
the woods, his round, bright eyes, hard like glass, glaring into every
bush and covert. He was fiercely hungry. The weasel, approaching through
the broken shadows, he did not see; but the fox, crouching behind the
little bush, he could not help seeing. The direction of his wide,
downy-feathered wings changed instantly, and he swept up behind the
unsuspecting fox like a drifting wraith of white vapour. The weasel just
then seemed near enough to be rushed; so the fox sprang right through the
bush. Even while she was in mid-air, the owl swooped, and struck, his
terrible talons sinking deep into her loins and back. With a mighty
beating of wings and yelpings of amazement and pain, the two came down
together on the snow.
[Illustration: “THE OWL SWOOPED, AND STRUCK.”]
Many a time before had the great white owl hunted foxes, and conquered
them, and devoured them; but they had been the little arctic foxes, less
strong, less cunning, and less indomitable than their ruddy southern kin.
Now he found that he had entered upon a difficult adventure. In spite of
the cruel pain inflicted by those gripping talons, the dauntless little
vixen writhed backward and upward, and bit swiftly with snapping,
slashing jaws. Three times she tried for a hold, undaunted by the beating
of the great wings which strove, but not quite successfully, to lift her
from the snow. Three times she got only a mouthful of downy, clinging,
choking feathers. Then, her quick sagacity coming to her aid as she felt
herself being lifted, she reached farther up and caught the base of the
enemy’s wing. With all the strength of desperation, she ground her jaws
together, and presently the strong bones went with a crunch. Instantly
she felt herself solid on the snow again. The lifting strain ceased. The
great wing trailed nervelessly.
Crippled though he was, the robber from the north was game. It was no
longer hunting, but fighting, that he found himself engaged in, and at an
unwonted, utterly unexpected disadvantage. He now brought his powerful
beak into play, and tore furiously at his adversary’s flank. But the fox,
active and crafty, kept her hold on the broken wing, and strove to force
the owl over on his back. The latter had to loose the grip of his talons
and flap frantically with his one effective wing to avert this fatal
catastrophe. At the same time, however, his knife-edged, powerful beak,
hooked like a sickle for the rending of tough hides, was doing bloody
work on the slim vixen’s back and sides. It was just at this point—while
the issue of the battle yet hung in doubt, and it would have taken a wise
onlooker to say which had the advantage—that Red Fox burst upon the
scene.
It was with a fighting rage, intensified by shame at his recent defeat as
well as by devotion to his mate, that he came into the fray. In utter
silence he darted up the bank, and sprang. The great bird saw, and met
him with a blinding blow of his wing; but Red Fox in the next instant
bore him backward, clawing wildly and vainly flapping. That formidable
beak tore once and again into Red Fox’s flesh. Then the latter’s teeth
found the enemy’s throat; and in one heart-beat the fight came to an end.
The great bird lay motionless, sprawled upon his back on the
blood-stained snow.
The two foxes touched noses sympathetically, then fell to licking each
other’s wounds. This took a good half-hour of that enduring patience in
which the wilderness kindred are so marvellously endowed. The glass-clear
moonlight bathed the two intimate figures as they stood there
painstakingly caressing on the open crest of the bank. From a safe refuge
near by, the weasel watched them for a long time in wonder, hating them,
but rejoicing at the death of the great owl, who was to him a far more
dangerous enemy than any fox. At length, the wounds seeming to be all
adequately doctored, Red Fox slipped down the slope and into the den,
scrupulously ignoring the body of the owl. This was his mate’s prey, and
he would not seem to claim any rights in it. As for her, she understood
her rights perfectly. The great, loose, floppy agglomeration of feathers
was too much for her to carry in the usual fox fashion, so she briskly
dragged it down the slope to the mouth of the den. Pulling one wing
inside, that no passing forest thief might be tempted to try and make off
with it, she lay down just within and rested with her fore paws upon the
prize, waiting till they both should feel sufficiently rested to make
their breakfast upon it. A wandering mink slipped by, and paused to look
in hostile wonder at the great white marauder of the north, terrible even
in death. But he knew that sharp eyes watched him from within the den,
and he had no mind for closer investigation. He darted away snakily
toward the brook, where he had certain hidden runways beneath the edges
of the ice. And the bright emptiness of the cold settled down once more
upon the forest.