IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY
In the meantime, ever since the worsting of the hunters and the death of
the black and white mongrel, the fame of Red Fox had been growing
throughout the settlements. Few, of course, had seen him; but all had
heard of him, and were ready to tell more or less inaccurate stories of
his feats of cunning and daring, as well as of his unusual size and
remarkable beauty of colour. Innumerable were the tales that were told of
vain efforts to shoot or ensnare him. And gradually it had come about
that every successful raid of hawk or owl, weasel or wildcat, was laid to
the credit of the redoubtable red adventurer. A good story gained tenfold
interest if Red Fox was made the hero of it. Active and untiring though
he was, he would have needed the faculty of being in ten places at once,
to have accomplished half that he was credited with.
As it happened, however, there were perhaps not half a dozen people in
the settlement who could boast of having actually seen the famous fox;
and there were but two who really knew much about him. These two, of
course, by that caprice of fate or affinity which amuses itself by
drawing certain creatures often into one another’s paths, were Jabe Smith
and the Boy. It was interest drew Red Fox to the Boy. Fear drew him to
Jabe Smith. If he came upon Jabe Smith’s trail, a fascinated uneasiness
usually impelled him to follow it, in order to make sure the mysterious
man was not following him. Three or four times had the backwoodsman
turned suddenly, feeling that keen eyes were upon him, and been just in
time to catch sight of a red shape fading into the thickets. He began at
last to feel that there was something uncanny in this elusive
surveillance, some inexplicable enmity that was biding its time. The fear
in Red Fox’s heart seemed to call up an answering emotion, almost akin,
in the heart of his human enemy.
[Illustration: “STIFFENING HIMSELF ON THE INSTANT.”]
If Red Fox was following the Boy, however, he was likely to meet with a
very different experience, one which never failed to puzzle him deeply
and pique his curiosity beyond measure. After craftily following the
Boy’s trail for half an hour, perhaps, through the silent, sun-dappled
woods, he would come suddenly upon a moveless gray shape, to his eyes not
altogether unlike a stump, sitting beside a stump or against the trunk of
a tree. Stiffening himself on the instant into a like immobility, he
would eye this mysterious figure with anxious suspicion and the most
searching scrutiny. As his gaze adjusted itself, and separated detail
from detail (a process which the animals seem to find difficult in the
case of objects not in motion), the shape would grow more and more to
resemble the Boy. But what he knew so well was the Boy in motion, and
there was always, to him, something mysterious and daunting in this
utterly moveless figure, of the stillness of stone. Its immobility
always, in the end, outwore his own. Then he would move a few steps,
always eying the gray shape, and trying to understand it better by
studying it from a new angle. Little by little circling about, and ever
drawing closer and closer, he would presently get around into the wind
and catch the scent of the strange, unstirring object. That would end the
little drama. The testimony of his nose always seemed to him more
intelligible and conclusive than that of his eyes. He would slowly edge
away, with dignity and perfect coolness, till some convenient stump or
bush intervened to hide him from the view of the gray object. Then he
would whisk about and vanish in an eye-wink, dignity all discarded; and
for a week or two the Boy’s trail would have no attractions for him. But
in a vague way he realized that the Boy had held his life in his hands
many times, and therefore, manifestly, was not really his foe like Jabe
Smith. It was far from his shrewd, considering brain, nevertheless, to
trust any human creature, however apparently harmless.
Along in the autumn Jabe Smith took it into his head that it was
inconsistent with his reputation as a woodsman to let the wily and
audacious fox go any longer triumphant over gun and dog and trap. Having
his crops all garnered, and some leisure on his hands, he decided to pit
his wits in earnest against the craft of the animal, and call no halt
this side of victory.
This resolution the grim backwoodsman, one blue and golden morning,
confided half-derisively to the Boy, knowing that the latter would
strenuously disapprove. Jabe had made up his mind, however; and all the
Boy’s arguments and pleas left him unmoved. The subject, in its general
aspects, had been well thrashed out between them many times, leaving both
firm in their own views; but in the particular instance of Red Fox the
backwoodsman felt his position unusually secure. He declared that the
more strong and clever the big fox was, the more damage he could do, and
therefore the greater the need of catching him. For once, the Boy
acknowledged himself vanquished. But the picture which formed itself in
his mind, of the splendid, sagacious fox mangled in trap or snare, or
torn with shot-wounds, was one he could not contemplate. Though worsted
in the discussion, he was not shaken in his resolve to save, at least,
the animal’s life. He would spar for a compromise. And, indeed, Jabe was
so elated at having got the better of his skilful and usually invincible
young opponent that he was not far off from the mood to make concessions.
Having yielded the main point, that Red Fox must be captured, the Boy
took what backwoods ethics would count fair revenge by casting doubts
upon the backwoodsman’s ability to carry out the enterprise.
“You think yourself very clever, Jabe!” said he, gravely derisive. “But
_you_ can’t fool that fox, if you take all winter to it!”
Now it was just on this point that Jabe had his own misgivings. And he
was too honest to deny it.
“I kin _shoot_ him, for sure,” he answered, unruffled, “if I take time
enough, waitin’ and hangin’ ’round! Any fool could do that, in the long
run, if he hadn’t nothin’ else to do _but_ hang ’round. What I lay out to
do, is _trap_ the critter, if I kin. If I can’t, _you_ can’t!”
“Oh, you go along, Jabe!” jeered the Boy. “You can’t do it; and you know
you can’t. But I could, if I would!”
Jabe Smith’s long face wrinkled sarcastically, and he bit off a chew of
“black Jack” before replying.
“If you’re so blame smart,” said he, at last, “let’s see you do it. It’s
easy enough to talk.”
This was the very invitation he had been wanting, and the Boy instantly
dropped his air of banter.
“I will do it,” he said, seriously. The backwoodsman paused in his
chewing, spat over the sawhorse,—the two were sitting on the wood-pile in
Jabe’s yard,—and eyed the lad doubtfully. He could not believe that his
eloquence had triumphed so overwhelmingly as this speech seemed to imply.
“It’s this way, Jabe,” went on the Boy after a few moments of silence. “I
know that fox a sight better than you do! I’ve watched and studied him;
and I’ve got so that I like him. I could have shot him a dozen times. I
know all his kinks. I’ve lugged him by the hind legs, hanging over my
shoulder—”
“The hell you have!” ejaculated the backwoodsman, looking at the Boy with
astonishment and growing respect. The two knew each other too well to be
incredulous of each other’s statements.
“Yes! and even then he fooled me! But I know, now, how to best him if I
wanted to. I don’t want to. But if you’re bound you’re a-going to, then
I’ll chip in with and show you how, on condition that you spare his life.
You’ll get the glory, Jabe; and I’ll get the fox.”
The backwoodsman spat contemplatively, and rolled the question over in
his mind. What he called the Boy’s “durn foolishness” about killing
things naturally made him impatient at times, and he was unwilling to
seem to humour it. But in this the Boy was certainly meeting him
half-way; and he wanted to gratify him.
“What’d you want to do with the critter, after we’d got him?” he inquired
at last, suspicious of some strategy.
The Boy smiled comprehendingly.
“Well, I wouldn’t let him go again, to give you your trouble all over,
Jabe! Don’t be scared of that!”
“I ain’t skeered of _that_!” protested Jabe, ashamed of having his
suspicions penetrated.
“Well,” went on the Boy, “I’d keep the fox a little while myself, I
think, if father didn’t mind, and see if I could tame him. He’s so
clever, maybe he’d not be so hard to tame as other foxes. But I don’t
expect I could do much with him that way. Foxes all think too much of
themselves to let any one brag of having tamed them. But he’s such a
beauty that any show or ‘zoo’ would be mighty proud to get him, and would
take care to treat him well. I’ll sell him, and get a big price for him,
Jabe. And we’ll divide. He’d better be in a show, Jabe, than
dead,—whatever some people might say.”
“Don’t know about that!” said the woodsman, looking around upon the
familiar fields and the old woods glowing in the sunshine. “I’d ruther be
dead than shet up—never to see all this no more!” And he made a sweep
with his hand that seemed to caress the sweet and lonely landscape.
“Tut! Jabe!” said the Boy, bluntly. “Then you’ve got no imagination. I’ll
bet Red Fox has lots. I know which he’d choose, anyway, if it was put up
to him. So I’m going to choose for him, if you’ll agree. Death’s the only
thing that can’t be reconsidered. Why, suppose you were shut up for life,
there might come an earthquake some day, and split open your stone walls,
and let you walk right out! Speaking for Red Fox, I take the circus. What
do you say?”
“All right,” assented the backwoodsman, slowly. “Only, let’s git him,
quick! He’s fooled us all too long.”
“Do you know,” said the Boy, “he’s a queer beast, that! I’ve found his
tracks about your farm—the most dangerous place in the whole settlement
for him—oftener than anywhere else. Haven’t you?”
“Of course I hev’!” answered the backwoodsman. “And he’s took to
follerin’ me, in the woods, too. Looks like he had it in for me special.
What do you s’pose he’s up to?”
“Perhaps he’s just particularly scared of you, and so wants to keep an
eye on you. Or, maybe, knowing you are already his enemy, he thinks it
safer to steal _your_ chickens than to risk making other enemies by
stealing somebody else’s!”
“He ain’t got none of mine _yet_!” declared the woodsman with emphasis.
“Then I’ll bet it’s because he hasn’t wanted to,” said the Boy. “I’ve
seen him looking around your place, and lying in the bushes watching,
while the hens caught grasshoppers out in the stubble not ten feet away,
where he could grab them without any trouble at all. And I’ve seen him on
his hind legs behind the hen-house looking in through a crack,—at some
hen on the nest, most likely. If he has spared you, Jabe, it’s been just
because he chose to. You may be sure of that. He’s had some good reason
in his wise red noddle.”
“He’d better hurry up, then!” growled Jabe. “He ain’t got much more time
to spare. What do you reckon we’d better do, now, to circumvent the
varmint?”
“Come along and I’ll show you!” said the Boy, leading the way to Jabe’s
chicken-house.
It happened that the tall backwoodsman had a fancy for good fowls. He had
several times sent away for settings of thoroughbred eggs; and having had
good luck with them, he had now a very handsome and unusual flock to brag
of. To be sure, Buff Cochins and Plymouth Rocks and White Leghorns and
Black Minorcas all ran together, and the free mixture of breeds wrought
strangely diversified results. But it was a great flock, for all its
commingling, and accomplished wonders of egg-laying; and Jabe Smith took
pride in having it well housed. The fowl-house was simple, but quite up
to date in its pattern, which had been carefully copied from cuts in the
_Colonial Farmer_. At each end of the long sunny front was a little
entrance cut for the use of the “biddies,” and closed at night by a
sliding drop door.
“Here, Jabe,” said the Boy, kicking one of these little doors with his
toe, “is your trap!”
A gleam of instant comprehension flashed into the woodsman’s eyes, but he
maintained a strategic silence.
“And yonder,” continued the speaker, with a wave of his hand toward the
scattered flock, feeding, or scratching, or dusting feathers in the
sun,—“is your bait.”
“How’s the bait goin’ to like it?” asked Jabe.
“Oh, the bait’s not going to mind!” said the Boy, cheerfully. “You just
wait and see!”
The problem now was a simple one. The Boy knew that Red Fox had explored
the premises thoroughly by night, outside, and would undoubtedly have
explored them inside as well but for the fact that nightfall found the
doors all closed. He argued that the shrewd animal was expecting to
sometime find a door left open by mistake. Now was the time for that
mistake to occur. In its simplicity and effectiveness the Boy’s plan
commanded the backwoodsman’s instant acceptance.
Knocking together a little platform of light boards about three feet
square, the Boy laid it on the floor just inside one of the small doors.
From it he ran a cord up each side of the door, over two nails at the
top, and joined them in the centre. Here he rigged a sensitive trigger
catch connecting with the loop that held up the sliding door. The edge of
the platform he raised about an inch from the floor, attaching it to the
trigger in such a way that the slightest additional weight would spring
the catch and let the door drop down. This accomplished, with the skilful
aid of Jabe Smith and his tools, the Boy placed some tiny blocks under
the platform to brace it up and prevent it being sprung prematurely by
the hens as they passed out and in.
“Now, Jabe,” said the proud strategist as the two stood off and eyed
their handiwork, “all you’ve got to do is wait till all the hens have
gone to roost. Then shut the other door, and take out the props from
under the platform. When Red Fox comes, as he’s likely to do just about
moonrise, he’ll be much pleased to find that for once his enemy has
forgotten and left a door open. He’ll slip right in to see what the
hen-house is like inside. The door will drop,—and then you have him!”
“But what about the hens?” queried their owner, doubtfully.
“When he finds he’s caught, he won’t be bothering about hens!” laughed
the Boy. Now that he was fairly committed to the venture, the natural,
primitive boy within him, which is always something of a wild animal, was
beginning to wake up and assert itself. He was growing keen for the
event.
That evening the Boy stayed at Jabe Smith’s farm for supper. After
sundown, when the chickens were all at roost, and high in the pale
greenish sky the latest crows were winging homeward to the spruce groves,
the trap was set and the other door of the hen-house securely closed.
Then in a hay-loft opposite, behind the big open window through which the
hay was pitched, the Boy and Jabe hid themselves comfortably where they
could command a perfect view of whatever might happen. Slowly the light
faded out over the farmyard, and the roofs, and the spiky tree-tops along
the ridges of the hills. With the cool-smelling twilight came a sort of
expectant silence, a hush that seemed to listen consciously; and the two
hidden in the hay-loft spoke only in a whisper. Up from the stanchions
below the loft came startlingly loud the munching of the cattle’s jaws on
the dry hay and the occasional windy sighs which their great flanks
heaved forth from time to time. When a mouse rustled the hay softly at
the other side of the loft, the sound seemed abrupt and conspicuous.
Then, at last, a change came over the quality of the shadows in the yard
below. They grew more liquid and transparent. A silvery glow caught the
tree-tops along the opposite ridge, crept down, and bathed the rich fir
masses of the woods in wonder. Then the roof of the hen-house turned
silver, and a mysterious, transfiguring illumination seemed to tip down
into the yard, making lovely, spectral things of the sawhorse, and the
well-sweep, and the cart. Both Jabe and the Boy watched the
transformation with wordless delight. The moon was floating up behind the
barn.
[Illustration: “A SHADOWY SHAPE CAME FLITTING SOUNDLESSLY AROUND THE
CORNER OF THE HEN-HOUSE.”]
The radiance had no more than fairly occupied the farmyard, when a
shadowy shape came flitting soundlessly around the corner of the
hen-house. From the crack in the boarding behind Red Fox had seen that
one of the little doors was open. His opportunity—not necessarily to kill
chickens, but to explore the inside of the chicken-house—had come at
last. He peered in cautiously. There were all the fowls on their perches,
sleeping soundly. There was no game-cock among them. He knew these tall,
handsome Cochins and Minorcas, haughty but not dangerous. He darted
confidently through the opening. The next moment the door dropped, with a
sharp rap, behind him, catching and pinching smartly the tip of his
beautiful brush.
Like lightning he wheeled about, jerking his tail free. But the door
fitted securely in its grooves, so that his furiously scratching claws
and desperate teeth could not budge it. In a silent frenzy he darted to
the other door. It, too, refused to budge. Then he jumped up,
scramblingly, toward the window, snubbing his nose against the glass and
the sashes. But there was no way out. He stopped, crouched down close
beside the treacherous door, and set his shrewd wits working desperately.
The hens, meanwhile, aroused by the dropping of the door, and greatly
excited by the prisoner’s antics, had set up a wild commotion of
squawking and cackling. The cocks were particularly noisy; but unlike the
valorous game, they made no move to come down and give battle to the
intruder. Their outcry, however, was by no means ineffectual. At the
first sound of it the two hiders in the loft swung themselves down, and
rushed eagerly to the hen-house.
The main door of the hen-house was at one end. The Boy opened it
cautiously, keeping his feet and legs in the opening, while Jabe Smith
peered over his head. What they saw brought an exclamation of
astonishment from Jabe, and a knowing laugh from the Boy. There on the
floor, half in moonlight and half in shadow, lay the great fox, stretched
out lifeless in front of the perches, with the cackling fowls all craning
long necks down to look at him. The two conspirators stepped inside and
shut the door behind them. And the hens moderated their clamour,
satisfied that help had come.
The Boy, smiling wisely, waited. But Jabe, after stirring the long, limp
body with his toe, picked it up by the tail and examined it critically.
“I swan!” he exclaimed at length, in the voice which one accredits a
miracle. “If he hain’t gone an’ fell an’ plumb broke his neck!”
“Well,” said the Boy, taking from his pocket the small dog-collar and
chain which Jabe had lent him, “I guess I’ll take no risks.” And he
proceeded to affix the chain and collar. Then he tied the animal’s slack,
unresisting legs together with a stout cord.
Jabe jeered at him in a dry drawl, but the Boy kept his counsel.
“You never can tell, Jabe!” said he, enigmatically. “Red Fox dead is
cleverer than most other beasts alive, and something might happen on the
way home. He might mend this broken neck of his, you know, suddenly,—and
then—whizz!—and no more Red Fox!”
“If that ’ere beast ain’t a dead one,” averred the backwoodsman, “I’ll
eat my old shoe-packs.”
“Don’t undertake too much, Jabe,” mocked the Boy. “You may need those
shoe-packs, with winter coming on! If you’ll just give me an old
oat-sack, now, to wrap this unfortunate victim in, I’ll start for home
’fore it gets any later. And maybe if you’ll come ’round to-morrow
morning you’ll find Red Fox holding a soirée in our back yard!”
“Reckon I’ll go along with you now,” said Jabe. “The beast’s too queer to
let you go alone with him.”