SHARP EYES MEETS DON
After the first pain felt on being caught, and when he found he could
not pull his paw loose, Sharp Eyes lay quietly on the ground, partly
covering up the chicken. He did not howl, which was his way of crying
when he was hurt, though he wanted to do so very much. But foxes and
other wild animals do not make much noise in the woods, for they like
to keep quiet so no larger animals, or hunter-men with their dogs, may
know where to find them.
“Something terrible has happened to me,” thought Sharp Eyes, as once
more he tried to pull loose his paw. But he could not, and each time he
pulled the pain was worse.
“If I make too much noise,” thought Sharp Eyes, “Bruin, the bear, may
hear me and come to bite me. Or the hunters may come with their dogs,
and I could not get away.”
There were bears in the North Woods where Sharp Eyes lived, and hunters
and dogs often came to the forest.
“And, now that I am caught fast, I can’t get away if they should come
up close to me,” thought the little fox boy. “I must keep quiet and not
make too much noise, though I would like to call and ask my father or
mother to come to help me.”
Sharp Eyes whined a little from the pain, and then he tried to be brave
and not mind it.
“I wonder what it is that has caught me,” said the little fox boy to
himself. “And why didn’t the chicken flutter and try to get away when I
jumped on her? That was very funny!”
He soon saw the reason the chicken did not move. It was dead, and Sharp
Eyes knew he had not killed it.
“She must have been dead when I jumped on her,” said the little fox
boy. “And now to see what has caught me.”
He could move about a little, and, pawing with one of his feet that was
not caught, Sharp Eyes brushed the chicken to one side. Then he saw
that his left forefoot was caught between two jaws of iron.
“Oh, I’m in a trap!” exclaimed Sharp Eyes. “I never saw a trap before,
but this is just what my father said they were like. He told me to keep
out of them, but I didn’t see this one. The chicken was in the way, or
I might have noticed the trap. Oh dear! I wonder if I will ever get
loose!”
Sharp Eyes pulled some more, but the pain in his foot soon made him
stop.
“If you had only been alive you could have told me about the trap, and
then I wouldn’t have been caught in it,” said Sharp Eyes, speaking to
the dead chicken, as though it were alive.
If he had only known, the chicken was put there near the trap, partly
covering it, on purpose. It was bait for the trap, just as mousetraps
are baited with cheese. And the trap was set in the woods by a hunter
who hoped to catch a fox or some other wild animal in it.
The chicken had been killed and put near the trap, for the hunter knew
wild animals like such things to eat. And the hunter knew that if a
fox came along, the first thing it would do would be to jump for the
chicken, thinking it was alive.
Underneath the outspread wings of the chicken was the open trap, and as
soon as Sharp Eyes’ paw touched the spring, snap! shut went the jaws of
the trap, catching him fast there. It was the jaws of the trap pressing
on Sharp Eyes’ paw that hurt him.
“Oh, if I could only get away!” said the little fox boy to himself. “If
I can only get away I’ll never jump at a chicken again, without looking
first to make sure there’s no trap!”
But it was too late to think of that now. Sharp Eyes was caught, and
every time he pulled his leg it hurt him so that he soon stopped.
“Red Tail was right,” he whispered to himself. “He said something would
happen to me some day, and it has. Oh dear!”
Sharp Eyes kept quiet as long as he could, and then his paw pained him
so that he had to cry out. But he cried very softly. Then he called for
his father and mother, using fox language, of course.
But they did not answer him, for they were far away.
“Twinkle! Winkle! Can’t you come and help me out of the trap?” barked
the little fox boy, held fast, all alone in the woods, near the dead
chicken.
But neither Twinkle nor Winkle answered. They, too, were far away. They
were off hunting with their father and mother, and though they wondered
where Sharp Eyes was, they thought he was safe.
“Sharp Eyes can take care of himself,” said his mother.
“But I hope the hunters or trappers don’t get him and take his lovely,
silver fur,” said Winkle. If they could only have known what had
happened to poor Sharp Eyes they would surely have gone to help him,
wouldn’t they?
“But I _must_ get away,” thought Sharp Eyes. “If I stay in this trap
much longer the hunter will come and get me. Or his dogs will come and
bite me! Oh, I must get loose!”
So he pulled and tugged away to get out of the trap, but his foot hurt
him more and more and he had to stop.
Sharp Eyes was in such pain, and so troubled about what might happen to
him, that he did not even feel like eating some of the chicken, though
he had been hungry a little while before. Now his appetite was all gone.
The little fox did not know what to do. He called again for his father
and his mother, and for Twinkle and Winkle, but none of them came.
Then, all at once, there was a noise in the bushes, and something
seemed to be coming toward Sharp Eyes where he was caught fast in the
trap.
“Oh, I hope it’s my father or mother!” thought the fox.
But it was not. Instead, a big dog, who was kind-looking, and not
fierce and angry, burst through the bushes.
“Oh dear!” thought Sharp Eyes. “This is the hunter’s dog! Now I am
surely lost. They’ll take my silver fur. Oh, if I had only kept out of
the trap!”
[Illustration: “‘Hello, what’s the matter here?’ asked the dog.”]
Once more Sharp Eyes tried to get loose, but the pain in his leg made
him stop. He looked at the dog, and got as far away as he could. But
the trap was fast to a chain, of which one end was wound around a tree
and could not be pulled off.
“Hello, what’s the matter here?” asked the dog, who, of course, could
speak animal talk, though not exactly the same language that Sharp Eyes
and his friends used. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, you know well enough what’s the matter,” said Sharp Eyes sadly.
“I’m caught in a trap your master set, and I suppose you and he are
coming to get me now.”
“What’s that? A trap? I don’t know anything about a trap,” answered the
dog. “And I’m sure my master never set one. He lives in a big house far
away from here. I used to live in a house where there was a nice little
girl. I liked her very much, and often I went for walks with her.
Once I took her to a park menagerie, and she fell into the tank where
Chunky, the happy hippo, lived. But Chunky lifted her out of the water
on his broad back and saved her. Chunky is a friend of mine.
“My people have taken a bungalow over on the lake off there, and we’re
staying there for a while. It’s a good way off from here, but not so
far as our real home, where we live all the time.
“To-day I wanted to have some adventures, so I trotted off from my
master’s bungalow. They don’t need me to-day, as they have all gone
visiting. So I came to the woods, but I never expected to see you. Are
you another dog? You look a little like one, only your nose is sharper
than mine, and you are not so large.”
“No, I am a fox, and my name is Sharp Eyes,” came the answer. “And I am
caught in a trap. But please don’t bite me.”
“Bite you? Why should I bite you?” asked the dog.
“Why, I thought all dogs belonged to hunters or trappers and that they
bit us foxes,” said Sharp Eyes.
“Well, I don’t,” was the reply. “My name is Don, and once I was a
runaway dog, but I ran back. I am a little like a runaway dog to-day,
but I am going to run back home to-night, as soon as I have had some
adventures in the woods. This is the start of one, I guess. I’m sorry
you are in the trap.”
“Are you, really?” asked Sharp Eyes, who had been taught that all dogs
were bad and cruel.
“Of course I am, Sharp Eyes,” answered Don. “I know what it is to be in
pain, and I can see that where your paw is caught it must hurt you.”
“Indeed it does,” answered the fox. “I’ve tried to get away but I
can’t.”
“How did you get in the trap?” asked Don.
“Oh, I didn’t look closely enough before I made a jump for this
chicken. It was right over the trap, to hide it, and now I am fast.”
“Well, maybe you can get loose,” said Don. “I’ll help you. This is what
my friend Slicko, the jumping squirrel, would call an adventure.”
“Oh, do _you_ know Slicko?” asked Sharp Eyes, and he was so surprised
that he forgot his pain for a moment.
“Of course I know Slicko,” was the answer. “I stayed two or three
nights in the same woods with Slicko.”
“Now I know who you are,” went on the fox. “I met Slicko, and we spoke
of you, though I never expected to meet you. And who is this Chunky you
talked of, and who saved your master’s little girl?”
“Chunky is a hippopotamus, or, as I call him for short, a hippo,” said
Don. “He lived in a jungle in Africa for a long time and had lots
of adventures. Then he was caught in a pit trap and brought to this
country. He was in a circus, and I met him in the park menagerie. He
knew Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, Mappo, the merry monkey, and other
friends of mine. Chunky had a book written about him. I’ve had a book
written about me, too!”
“So had Slicko,” said Sharp Eyes. “My! it seems quite fashionable to
get in a book nowadays.”
“It is fashionable,” answered Don. “Almost as fashionable as your
silver fur. That’s why you were trapped, I presume. Some hunter wants
your fur.”
“I suppose so,” said Sharp Eyes sadly. “Oh, I wish I could get out of
this trap!”
“Hark!” cried Don suddenly. “Don’t you hear something?”
“Yes, I do,” answered Sharp Eyes, listening. “But I can’t see anything,
held fast as I am.”
“I’ll look,” offered Don, peeping out between two bushes. What he saw
made him cry out in animal talk:
“Oh, it’s a man coming with a gun! I guess he’s coming to get you,
Sharp Eyes! He must have set the trap.”
“Oh dear! what shall I do?” asked Sharp Eyes.