SOME LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE SNOW
After this experience with the traps, both Red Fox and his mate grew
deeply interested in the work of the trappers wherever they found it. If
they came across empty traps, they did their best to spring them, or to
make them in some way so conspicuous that none of the wild creatures
would be likely to blunder into them. If they found victims in the traps,
they promptly fell upon and put them out of their misery, thereby doing
themselves a pleasant service and presumably winning the posthumous
gratitude of the victims; but if the victims chanced to be lynxes, in
that case they exercised discretion and refrained from interfering. When
they found snares, however, they were at a loss and felt terrified. They
did not understand those almost invisible instruments of death, and were
afraid to go near enough to investigate.
At last, however, Red Fox himself dissolved this spell of uncomprehending
fear. It came about in this way. One moonless night, when he was trotting
homeward noiselessly along the glimmering aisles of the forest, he heard
a faint sound of struggling, and stopped short. Creeping aside under the
thick fir branches, he saw before him, in the centre of a lane between
low bushes, a white rabbit hanging in the air, and kicking silently. The
struggling shape moved gently up and down, now almost touching the snow,
now a good four feet above it, as the sapling from which the snare was
suspended lightly swung and swayed. Red Fox understood the situation at
once; and his first impulse was to steal away. But, having satisfied
himself by peering and sniffling all about that there was no other trap
or snare near by, he let his interest master his apprehension. Creeping
nearer and nearer, in ever narrowing circles, he watched the victim till
its struggles came to an end. When it was quite still, a limp little
figure of pathetic protest against fate, it hung just about three feet
from the snow. Red Fox rose lightly on his hind legs, caught it by the
feet with his teeth, and pulled it down. When he let go for a second, it
sprang into the air again, as if alive; and he, much startled, jumped
backwards about five yards. For nearly a minute the dead rabbit kept
bobbing up and down, while Red Fox sat upon his haunches and watched it
anxiously. When it was still, he went and pulled it down again. Again he
let go; again it sprang bobbing and gyrating into the air; and again he
jumped back in alarm. This he repeated four or five times, patiently,
till he seemed to have settled the strange problem to his own
satisfaction. Then, with resolute deliberation, he pulled the body down
once more, and held it firmly with his forepaws while he tried to bite
the copper wire from its neck. Finding this a task too great for his
teeth, he solved the difficulty by gnawing the head clean off and letting
it fly up into the air with the escaping wire. Then, well satisfied with
his achievement, he swung the headless body over his back and trotted
home to the den on the hillside.
[Illustration: “RED FOX ROSE LIGHTLY ON HIS HIND LEGS, . . . AND PULLED
IT DOWN.”]
It did not take many such performances as these with the traps and snares
to make a lot of noise throughout the Settlements; and though Red Fox’s
mate played no small part in the depredations, it was Red Fox, by reason
of his conspicuous size and colour, who incurred the dangerous
distinction. Many ingenious traps were set for his particular
benefit,—and by no one more assiduously than by Jabe Smith. But Red Fox
eluded and derided them all with easy scorn; and all who set themselves
to outwit him got not only their failure for their pains, but also the
grave and slightly superior mockery of the Boy, who, ever since the
episode of the grape-vine, had regarded the clever animal as being, in a
sense, his own property.
Severe though the winter was, a winter of scarcity and suffering for all
the kindreds of the wild, Red Fox and his mate now got on very well. The
greater the scarcity, the more apt were the wild folk, driven with
hunger, to get into the traps; and, consequently, the better fared the
two wise foxes. Nevertheless, they occasionally felt the pinch of famine,
sharply enough to stimulate their wits. Under such circumstances,
however, it was always Red Fox himself whose wits originated new
stratagems or solved new problems. These things once done, his mate was
apt and wily in following his lead.
Among all the wild folk, the one whom, next to the skunk, Red Fox
regarded with most resentment, was the porcupine. The skunk filled him
with keen aversion, giving him a qualm which tended for the moment to
destroy his appetite. But the porcupine he would have liked to eat. He
was filled with mingled fury and desire whenever he saw one of these
lazy, confident, arrogant little beasts, well-fed and fat however fierce
the frosts that scourged the forest. But whatever his craving, whatever
his indignation, prudence came to his rescue at the soft, dry, menacing
rattle of those uplifting and deadly quills. He knew, probably from the
warnings of his mother while he was a cub, that one of those tiny,
slender, black and white quills stuck into his flesh might mean death.
Once fixed, it would keep working deeper and deeper in, inexorably; and
if it chanced to meet a vital spot in its strange journey,—brain, or
heart, or liver, or delicate intestine,—then farewell to snowy forest
corridors and the pleasant light of sun and moon.
For all his dread, however, Red Fox would sometimes experiment a little
when he chanced to encounter a porcupine in the open. Perceiving that the
bristly animal was quite unprotected on its nose and throat and belly, he
would make quick feints at its face, taking care, however, not to go too
near. This form of threat always succeeded in upsetting the porcupine’s
nonchalance. It would either tuck its nose under its belly and roll
itself into a ball of menacing spines, presenting their points in every
possible direction, or it would crouch with its face flat down between
its fore paws, close as a scallop to a rock, and looking like a gigantic
pincushion stuck full of black and white needles.
One day, after a heavy snowfall, when the snow was firm on the surface,
yet not crusted, merely packed by its own weight, Red Fox chanced to meet
a leisurely porcupine just in the middle of the deep-buried channel of
the brook. It happened that he was very hungry, and the plump
self-satisfaction of the bristling animal was peculiarly exasperating. At
first it paid no attention whatever to his pretended attacks. But at
last, when he sprang and snapped his long white teeth within a foot of
its nose, it crouched, and covered the threatened nose with an
impregnable defence of quills.
Had this particular porcupine elected to roll itself into a ball, its
story would have been different, and Red Fox would have missed an
experience. He would have trotted off in disgust to seek an easier
adventure. But, as it was, a new idea came into his head. Half-crouching,
like a playful puppy, three or four feet in front of the cushion of
spines, he barked shrilly several times, to let the animal know he was
still there. Then, stepping gently around to within a couple of feet of
the unconscious beast’s flank, he began to burrow swiftly and noiselessly
into the soft snow. To his practised paws it was a matter of but few
seconds to tunnel under those two feet of unresisting material, and come
up right beneath the soft belly of the porcupine. With a squeal of agony,
the wretched victim strove to tighten himself into the ball which he had
been too overconfident to adopt at the first approach of danger. But it
was too late. In a moment the victor’s teeth found his heart, and,
stiffening straight out convulsively, he rolled over on his back. Red Fox
made no attempt to carry his trophy home to the den; but for the first
time in his life he feasted on fresh porcupine meat. He ate all he could,
then, seeing no way of burying the remnant without danger of encountering
the quills, he reluctantly left it to whatsoever forest marauder might
come by.
This victory over the quills of the porcupine turned the workings of Red
Fox’s shrewd and busy mind to other possibilities of the snow. He
remembered the fat field-mice which he used to catch among the grass
roots of the little meadow by the brook. The meadow now lay under a full
three feet of undrifted snow, sparkling in the keen and frosty sunlight,
flecked here and there with a wind-blown spruce-twig, and here and there
patterned with the delicate trail of mink or squirrel or weasel. Hidden
though it was, Red Fox knew the meadow was still there,—and if the
meadow, why not also the mice? One early morning, therefore, when he and
his mate were playing on the lilac and saffron surface among the long
aerial shadows of the pointed spruces with the half-risen sun behind
them, he suddenly stopped play and fell to digging vehemently. His mate
watched him, first with surprise, then with some impatience, as she could
see no reason for this spasm of industry. Presently she nipped at him,
and bounced against his haunches with her dainty fore feet, trying to
tempt him back to the game. But he paid no attention whatever, burrowing
on down, down, till only his brush was visible, jerking absurdly above
the shining surface; while his mate sat a little to one side, ears cocked
and mouth half-open, watching for a solution of the puzzle. At length the
brush emerged, and Red Fox himself after it. He turned upon her a face
ludicrously patched and powdered with snow, but in his jaws was a tuft of
dry grass. She sniffed at this trophy inquiringly; and then she
understood. That bunch of grass smelled strongly of field-mice.
Having assured himself that she understood, Red Fox dived once more into
the hole, and this time disappeared completely. Among the grass roots,
where the snow was light, it was easy burrowing. He had chanced upon one
of the secret runways which the mice make for themselves in winter,
wherein they live safely a secluded and dim-lit life. With his nose close
to the runway, he waited motionless for two or three minutes, till a
squeak and a rustle told him that one of the little grass-dwellers was
coming. Then a snap, lightning-swift, and his jaws closed upon a bunch of
dead grass; but inside the bunch of grass was a fat mouse. The prize was
a small one, considering the labour it had cost. But, after all, it was a
toothsome morsel, the more appetizing for being out of season; and the
digging had been fun. Rather proudly Red Fox backed out of the hole and
laid the trophy at the feet of his mate, who gobbled it down at once and
licked her jaws for more. Red Fox, however, showed no inclination to
repeat the venture, so she began to dig for herself with great
enthusiasm; but fortune proving unfavourable, she failed to strike a
runway, and, after sinking no less than three shafts, she gave up the
effort in disgust.
It was about this time that Red Fox discovered an interesting trick of
the partridges. One afternoon, just after sunset, when a heavy snow-storm
was followed by a clear sky of steel and buff that promised a night of
merciless cold, he caught sight of a big cock partridge stepping daintily
out to the tip of a naked birch limb. Hidden under a fir-bush, he watched
the cunning old bird as it stretched its neck this way and that,
apparently scrutinizing the surface of the snow. What it was looking for,
Red Fox could not guess; but suddenly, with a mighty whirring of wings,
it dived downward on a steep slant, and disappeared in the snow.
Extremely interested, as well as excited over the prospect of a capture,
Red Fox dashed forward and began to dig madly at the place where the bird
had vanished. It was easy digging, of course, and speedily he, too,
vanished. But the wary old cock was wide awake, of course; and, hearing
the soft tumult of pursuit close behind him, he kept right on, his
powerful wing shoulders forcing his way through the feathery mass almost
as fast as Red Fox could dig. A moment later, following the fresh scent
in the snow, Red Fox emerged, just in time to see the quarry rise and go
rocketing off on triumphant wings. Disappointed, and at the same time
puzzled, he sat pondering the incident, till he seemed to come to a
conclusion as to its meaning. Plainly, the partridge had intended to make
its bed for the night deep under the snow, for shelter against the cold
that was coming on. Having decided this point to his satisfaction, he
devoted the next hour to prowling hither and thither, in the hope of
catching another partridge at the same game; but fortune, having seen him
fumble one opportunity, would not offer him another that same night.
[Illustration: “HE CAUGHT SIGHT OF A BIG COCK PARTRIDGE.”]
Two or three days later, when he was returning through the trees in the
bitter dawn from an expedition over the ridge toward Ringwaak, he came
upon a peculiar-looking depression in the snow. Stopping to sniff at it
in his customary spirit of investigation, he detected just the faintest
and most elusive scent of partridge. Remembering his recent experience,
he understood the situation at once; and he concluded, also, that at this
hour the partridge was likely to be not only at home, but sound asleep.
Very cautiously and noiselessly he began to dig, pushing the snow out
under his belly as softly as the flakes themselves might fall. In a few
seconds the scent grew stronger. Then, invisible but just before his
nose, there was a sudden flutter. Quick as thought he lunged forward
through the smother,—and his jaws met in a bunch of warm feathers. There
was a blind, fierce, scrambling tussle with unseen, convulsive wings; and
the cunning hunter backed forth into the stinging air with his prize. His
satisfaction over this capture was more keen than if he had made a dozen
kills in the customary way.
As the long winter drew toward an end, there came one night a rain which
gradually grew so cold that it froze the instant it fell. In a little
while every bush and branch and twig was thickly crusted with crystal,
and the surface of the snow overlaid with a coat of transparent armour.
Because of this bitter rain, which froze on their fur, the two foxes
stayed safe in their den all night. When the weather had cleared and they
poked their sharp noses out to investigate, it was after sunrise, and
their world had undergone a miraculous transformation. It was radiant,
shimmering, rainbow-coloured ice on every side. The open spaces flashed a
pink and saffron and lilac sheen, thin and elusive as the tints of dew;
while the trees seemed simply to rain splendour, so bewildering were
their glories of emerald, rose, and pearl. The two foxes stared in
amazement; then, realizing that, for all its strange disguise, this was
their own old world after all, and a world in which, no matter what queer
things happened, one must eat, they started off in opposite directions to
forage, slipping and scrambling as they went, till their feet grew
accustomed to the treacherous glare.
Getting a steady foothold at last, Red Fox trotted on alertly,
scrutinizing the mysterious glitter in the hope of seeing a rabbit or a
squirrel, or some luckless bird frozen to its perch during sleep. He
looked everywhere except directly under his feet, where he had no reason
to expect anything. A fox, however, is always ready for the unexpected.
There is little that can escape his alert vigilance. All at once he
became aware of a kind of dark shadow beneath the translucent surface
over which he was travelling. He stopped abruptly to investigate. As he
did so, the shadow wavered away, and at the same time seemed to shrink
down from the surface. Step by step, to this side and to that, he
followed, much puzzled; till at length the truth flashed upon him. The
elusive shape was a partridge, imprisoned by the icy covering spread over
her during her sleep. Of course she could see Red Fox in the same dim,
confused way in which he could see her; and she was desperately striving
to elude the vague but terrible foe.
Red Fox was much elated by this discovery, and promptly pounced upon the
shadow with jaws and fore paws together. But the ice was not only the
frightened bird’s prison, but its protection as well. Again and again Red
Fox strove to break through, but in vain; and at length, angry and
baffled, he lay down right over the exhausted prisoner, and tried to
think of something to do. Fascinated with fear the partridge stared
upward, and panting with eagerness Red Fox glared downward. But that firm
film of ice was inflexibly impartial, and hunter and hunted could come no
closer.
Glancing about in his disappointment, Red Fox noticed a dense young
fir-tree about ten feet away, with its mat of dark but crystal-covered
branches growing down to the ground. This gave him just the idea which
his nimble wits were seeking. He remembered that whenever there was a
crust on the snow strong enough to bear him up, he nevertheless would
break through when he passed under a thick, low-growing tree. Here, then,
was his opportunity. Darting over to the young fir, he made a great
rattling as he squeezed under the stiff branches and sent the brittle
crystals clattering down. Sure enough, the snow under the shelter of the
branches was quite soft, and he sank to his belly in it. Giving one
glance through the branches to note the direction he must take, he began
burrowing his best, and speedily found himself out in the clear, diffused
light beneath the ice.
When he had gone about ten feet, he was surprised to find no sight,
sound, or scent of the quarry he was pursuing. He kept on a little
further, confident that he could not have made any mistake. Then he grew
doubtful and changed his direction. Again and again he changed it,
circling this way and that, but never a trace of scent or feather was to
be found. Reluctantly he realized that in that strange environment his
senses and his instinct were alike at fault. He had no idea at all which
way he was going.
As this fact dawned upon him, he made a sudden upward surge, thinking to
break the ice and regain the free air where his senses would no longer
play him false. But, to his amazement, the ice would not yield. Rather,
it was the soft snow beneath him which yielded. Again and again he surged
upward with all his strength; but he could get no purchase for his
strength, and that frail-looking sheet of milky ice was hard as steel.
With a qualm of sudden fear, he realized that, for the first time in his
life, he was lost,—and lost actually in his own woods. Moreover, he was
actually a prisoner, caught in such a trap as he had never dreamed of.
[Illustration: “MUCH CHAGRINED, HE GAZED AFTER HER.”]
There was, of course, plenty of air in his bright prison, for the snow
was full of it. Through the ice above his head he could see vague dark
shadows amid the sheen, and knew they were the shapes of the nearest
trees. Standing quite still for a moment, he pondered the situation
carefully. Why, of course, his way out lay wherever those shadows were
thickest and blackest. This conclusion entirely eased his dread.
Carefully considering the signs which came to him so dimly, he decided
that the shadows were most promising straight ahead. Straight ahead,
therefore, he pushed his way, keeping his back close against the under
surface of the crust. The friendly shadows loomed larger and clearer. He
was just at the edge of them, when he found that his was not the only
cunning intelligence among the forest kindreds. He came upon the scent of
the partridge, which was evidently seeking the same exit. In the trail of
the fleeing bird the snow was broken, so that he was able to dart forward
swiftly, which he did in the hope of redeeming his discomfiture at the
last moment. The scent came strong and fresh. He heard a fluttering just
ahead. With a fierce spring he caught a single tail feather in his teeth.
Then there was a great whirr of wings, and he burst forth into the air to
see the triumphant but badly frightened bird winnowing off beneath the
thick branches. Much chagrined, he gazed after her for half a minute, his
tongue hanging out and his face bleared with patches of snow. Then he
turned away philosophically, and set out to stalk a rabbit through the
crystal world.