FREEDOM IS SWEET
Red Ben's doom seemed sealed. Even if he scorned the box trap set for
him by the dutiful boy, he was still in the rancher's power. He knew all
about box traps. Instead of getting caught himself, he drove Blackie's
companion into it and every now and then looked in through a crack to
see how the black fellow was enjoying the place. Shut in there, the
other fox could growl and be as nasty as he chose.
After that, Red Ben once more began his attacks on the wire. He never
lost hope of getting away. The gate, too, he worked over nearly half the
night. It shook when he struck it. It seemed the weakest part of the
pen. He pawed its edges, climbed up its sides, and then all at once felt
it give. He had sawed the peg until it moved back. The gate swung open,
he was free!
Cautiously he slipped out and started for the spruce trees, then stopped
suddenly and looked back. Blackie was not following. She stood on the
threshold of the pen looking after him. Instantly he turned back and
began to coax her. He would run towards the thicket, and then back
again. He pulled at her velvety ears and played in front of her. Still
she would not venture out.
[Illustration: Courtesy Black Fox Magazine
"She stood on the threshold of the pen"]
At last, however, she very carefully took a few steps, and then a few
more. With Red Ben beside her, almost shoving her along, she came to the
tall outside wire, under which a hole was soon dug. Once past this she
had the whole country before her, the Pine Barrens, the swamps,
everything that delighted Red Ben. But the farther they went from the
ranch, the more nervous she became. Twice she started back, only to he
coaxed forward again by her ever faithful companion. Every bush and tree
was something new to her, every shadow and strange scent a cause of
fear. In all her life she had never gone farther than around and around
her little pen, and now she wanted to go around and around in the same
way, instead of straight ahead with Red Ben.
A dog barked from a nearby farm house. Blackie instantly stopped. The
dog barked again; the wind had brought to him the scent of the foxes. He
was coming nearer to investigate. Red Ben did not move. He knew it was a
small dog he had seen several times from a distance. Again the bark,
very near and very loud.
Blackie crouched for an instant, then turned. Red Ben could not stop
her. She was panic stricken in this strange new place. Over the snow she
sped, back to the pen and to her favorite bed in the old shed. This was
home to her. Here she felt safe. Red Ben could love his woods, but she
was a ranch bred fox.
Red Ben stood at the entrance of the pen and waited, but she would not
move. He wandered out to the spruce trees and called, but she did not
come. Out in the woods he called again. Mournfully the woods echoed it.
"Yap, Yarrrrrr,--Yap, Yarrrrrr."
There was no answer.
Into the woods he wandered, scarcely knowing where. On and on in the
steady lope he always used when getting away from his enemies. The
rancher could come now and fuss and fume all he wanted to. He would find
a fox in his trap all right, but not the Red Fox of Oak Ridge.
And Blackie? Long after Red Ben had vanished, she became uneasy. Perhaps
he would not return. She once more stood on the threshold of the pen,
looking out at the woods where she had last seen him. Poor, silly
Blackie! For once in her life she too felt lonely. Raising her head she
barked, and then barked again, until her lonesomeness affected the other
foxes in the nearby pens and they too barked. It was a wonderful chorus,
a goodby to the big, wild fox.
Many miles from the ranch, Red Ben lay down to rest and lick his wire
torn feet. He was in a small swamp, where a stream of brownish water
flowed between soft masses of sphagnum moss. The first signs of dawn
were in the sky. Hardly had he made himself comfortable when a swishing
of wings made him look up in time to see a flock of black ducks going
over. They swerved, threw out their feet, and with a lot of splashing
settled in a shallow pool nearby.
New strength seemed to shoot into Red Ben's tired limbs. He was almost
famished, and here was meat. Stealthily he slipped along the ground
towards the water, guided by the soft quacks of the drakes, which were
steering the flock carefully nearer to the bank. There, more water weeds
and snails could be found.
Soon Red Ben could see the dark forms and hear the water being filtered
through the fringes of their bills as they sifted out all that was
eatable. The feeding was good; they were having a fine time.
Nearer to shore they came, the wary drakes examining its edges and
seeing nothing to alarm them. One climbed up on the bare mud near some
bushes. He flapped his wings and then began to oil his feathers. First
he rubbed his bill on the oil that every duck has at the point on his
back where the tail feathers begin; then he rubbed his oily bill over
his feathers. This kept water from soaking them and made him able to
swim or dive a long time without getting his feathers wet. Another duck
joined him and began to arrange its feathers in like manner.
Suddenly a red streak shot out of the bushes. The first duck saw it and,
with a startled quack, leaped into the air; but the second duck, being
behind the other, did not see it in time. It leaped, but the streak
leaped too and brought it down. Amid wild quacking and splashing as the
flock flew up, Red Ben proudly carried off the first real meal he had
tasted for two days.
After that he scraped away the snow from the leaves in a clump of laurel
and, with nose buried in his fur and covered by his warm, bushy tail,
slept through the long day. Downy woodpeckers hammered the old limbs
overhead, hawks screeched, and quail, running past to get a drink at the
stream, rustled the leaves where the snow was thin; but still Red Ben
slept on.
All the terrors of his day in the pen were wiped out by that sleep. Even
beautiful Blackie, whom he had played with and loved, became fainter in
his memory, like part of a wonderful dream.