RED BEN TRAVELS
On the first very chilly night of the season, Red Ben, trotting briskly
along the woods path towards Cranberry Swamp, came face to face with
Gray Fox. According to the law of the woods the old fellow had no right
to hunt on another fox's home ground; but what cared he, where the
despised red fox was concerned? This time, however, he did grow a trifle
worried. Red Ben was beginning to look very different from the thin,
long legged pup he used to be.
Each slowed down to a cautious walk and resolved that the other should
get out of his way. The result of course was that they met, and in an
instant were locked in furious battle. On their hind legs and on the
ground, they tussled and rolled and bit and scratched until fur flew.
Once again Red Ben's training helped him. He fought with the speed of
lightning--the kind of fighting his mother had taught him. He tore Gray
Fox on this side and that, mauled and pummeled him, threw him down; and
when the snarling old enemy tried to get away, Red Ben followed with
speed that was irresistible, nipping, worrying and driving him on. There
had probably never been a more bitter fight in the history of the
Barrens.
When the completely whipped gray reached his own range there was not a
particle of courage left in him. Never would he dare to face again the
Red Fox of Oak Ridge. But Red Ben was not so happy as he might have
been. As his enemy vanished in the woods, he felt more than ever before
the loneliness of his life.
[Illustration: "A turkey buzzard had been circling over him"]
This feeling surged over him until it became unbearable. He wandered
over to Cranberry Swamp, and finally to the very end of his hunting
territory, where he had seen the mangy little she-fox; but this time she
was not there, so he did not stop. Something drove him on, into the land
of the unknown in the direction of the rising sun, whence the faint
night breeze was coming, bearing innumerable scents. It was then he
heard, far behind him, probably all the way from the Ridge, the bay of a
hound. He stopped to listen; sitting there in the lonesome Barrens, he
picked out, one after another, the joy notes of Farmer Slown's big
brute, following his trail. That decided him. There would be no turning
back.
Full of bitterness now, he hastened on until broad daylight came.
Fortunately he had caught a few crickets and two deer mice on the way.
These had helped to sustain his strength, but he was very tired. For
nearly an hour a turkey buzzard had been circling over him; now close,
now far, but always within sight. It was like a bad omen.
Badly as he needed a rest, it was not for him to enjoy one that day.
Scarcely had he found a soft bed in a pepper bush thicket, when once
more he heard the hound. Evidently the patient dog had been unravelling
the trail for hours; now he was coming close.
Up jumped Red Ben and once more loped off towards the East. He was soon
skirting farms he had never seen before, and crossing cement roads lined
with prickly hedges, or wire. Behind him the noise was growing. Other
dogs, picked up from the farms, were joining in the chase. Each time he
looked back over the fields he could see several of them, running in
loose pack formation, with Ben Slown's black and white hound in the
lead.
Red Ben suddenly realized he was getting tired out. A kind of
desperation seized him. He crossed barn yards, where the children
delightedly shouted at him; dodged down roads in plain sight of people
in automobiles, and in his ignorance of the country, did other things
which in the old days on the Ridge would have seemed impossibly
reckless.
Everyone shouted and cheered and followed as well as they could, until
Red Ben lost them in a friendly wood. Here he threw himself down,
panting as never before. His limbs ached all over and smarted where he
had been bitten in the fight with Gray Fox; he felt indeed as if he
could never get up. But when the dogs came over the meadow in plain
view, he somehow jumped up once more and circled the wood; then he found
the scent of another fox.
With new hope he turned into the wind and followed it unerringly until
he reached long rows of wire pens in which were a number of creatures
that seemed to be foxes, but were black. He had stumbled upon a fox
ranch, kept by a dealer who raised the beautiful black ones for their
pelts, which he sold. Every fox Red Ben saw there was worth many
hundreds of dollars.
Scarcely knowing what to do, he followed the outer fence a short
distance, then slipped to a thicket where he could hide and watch what
would happen.
The dogs came soon in a long line, five of them, with Ben's big hound
still in front. They blundered into the first line of wire, looked up,
and saw the foxes running in all directions. At this sight, one mighty
yell burst from every one of them. They leaped around the outer
enclosure in frantic efforts to get in. Trails were forgotten now that
foxes were actually in sight. Indeed the one idea of each was to catch a
fox before the others got him; so they jostled each other and scrambled
and fought, with such a din that the ranch owner came running out with
his gun and broke up the party with two stinging loads of bird shot, one
of which peppered the black and white hound in a way he would not soon
forget.
Quiet instantly followed. The black foxes were so well protected by the
double line of fencing that they were not in the least hurt, or even
much scared. They soon slipped out of their shelters and basked in the
sun, while Red Ben in his thicket sprawled out flat and slept. His first
day of travel had been an eventful one.