The forest was again under snow, lying silent beneath its deep white
mantle. Only the crows’ calls could be heard. Now and then came a
magpie’s noisy chattering. The soft twittering of the tit-mice sounded
timidly. Then the frost hardened and everything grew still. The air
began to hum with the cold.
One morning a dog’s baying broke the silence.
It was a continuous hurrying bay that pressed on quickly through the
woods, eager and clear and harrying with loud yelps.
Bambi raised his head in the hollow under the fallen tree, and looked at
the old stag who was lying beside him.
“That’s nothing,” said the old stag in answer to Bambi’s glance,
“nothing that need bother us.”
Still they both listened.
They lay in their hollow with the old beech trunk like a sheltering roof
above them. The deep snow kept the icy draught from them, and the
tangled bushes hid them from curious eyes.
The baying grew nearer. It was angry and panting and relentless. It
sounded like the bark of a small hound. It came constantly closer.
Then they heard panting of another kind. They heard a low labored
snarling under the angry barking. Bambi grew uneasy, but the old stag
quieted him again. “We don’t need to worry about it,” he said. They lay
silent in their warm hollow and peered out.
The footsteps drew nearer and nearer through the branches. The snow
dropped from the shaken boughs and clouds of it rose from the earth.
Through the snow and over the roots and branches, the fox came
springing, crouching and slinking. They were right; a little,
short-legged hound was after him.
[Illustration: _The fox came springing, crouching and slinking. A
little, short-legged hound was after him._]
One of the fox’s forelegs was crushed and the fur torn around it. He
held his shattered paw in front of him, and blood poured from his wound.
He was gasping for breath. His eyes were staring with terror and
exertion. He was beside himself with rage and fear. He was desperate and
exhausted.
Once in a while he would face around and snarl so that the dog was
startled and would fall back a few steps.
Presently the fox sat down on his haunches. He could go no farther.
Raising his mangled forepaw pitifully, with his jaws open and his lips
drawn back, he snarled at the dog.
But the dog was never silent for a minute. His high, rasping bark only
grew fuller and deeper. “Here,” he yapped, “here he is! Here! Here!
Here!” He was not abusing the fox. He was not even speaking to him, but
was urging on someone who was still far behind.
Bambi knew as well as the old stag did that it was He the dog was
calling.
The fox knew it too. The blood was streaming down from him and fell from
his breast into the snow, making a fiery red spot on the icy white
surface, and steaming slowly.
A weakness overcame the fox. His crushed foot sank down helpless, but a
burning pain shot through it when it touched the cold snow. He lifted it
again with an effort and held it quivering in front of him.
“Let me go,” said the fox beginning to speak, “let me go.” He spoke
softly and beseechingly. He was quite weak and despondent.
“No! No! No!” the dog howled.
The fox pleaded still more insistently. “We’re relations,” he pleaded,
“we’re brothers almost. Let me go home. Let me die with my family at
least. We’re brothers almost, you and I.”
“No! No! No!” the dog raged.
Then the fox rose so that he was sitting perfectly erect. He dropped his
handsome pointed muzzle on his bleeding breast, raised his eyes and
looked the dog straight in the face. In a completely altered voice,
restrained and embittered, he growled, “Aren’t you ashamed, you
traitor!”
“No! No! No!” yelped the dog.
But the fox went on, “You turncoat, you renegade.” His maimed body was
taut with contempt and hatred. “You spy,” he hissed, “you blackguard,
you track us where He could never find us. You betray us, your own
relations, me who am almost your brother. And you stand there and aren’t
ashamed!”
Instantly many other voices sounded loudly round about.
“Traitor!” cried the magpie from the tree.
“Spy!” shrieked the jay.
“Blackguard!” the weasel hissed.
“Renegade!” snarled the ferret.
From every tree and bush came chirpings, peepings, shrill cries, while
overhead the crows cawed, “Spy! Spy!” Everyone had rushed up, and from
the trees or from safe hiding places on the ground, they watched the
contest. The fury that had burst from the fox released an embittered
anger in them all. And the blood spilt on the snow, that steamed before
their eyes, maddened them and made them forget all caution.
The dog stared around him. “Who are you?” he yelped. “What do you want?
What do you know about it? What are you talking about? Everything
belongs to Him, just as I do. But I, I love Him. I worship Him, I serve
Him. Do you think you can oppose Him, poor creatures like you? He’s
all-powerful. He’s above all of you. Everything we have comes from Him.
Everything that lives or grows comes from Him.” The dog was quivering
with exaltation.
“Traitor!” cried the squirrel shrilly.
“Yes, traitor!” hissed the fox. “Nobody is a traitor but you, only you.”
The dog was dancing about in a frenzy of devotion. “Only me?” he cried,
“you lie. Aren’t there many, many others on His side? The horse, the
cow, the sheep, the chickens, many, many of you and your kind are on His
side and worship Him and serve Him.”
“They’re rabble!” snarled the fox, full of a boundless contempt.
Then the dog could contain himself no longer and sprang at the fox’s
throat. Growling, spitting, and yelping, they rolled in the snow, a
writhing, savagely snapping mass from which fur flew. The snow rose in
clouds and was spattered with fine drops of blood. At last the fox could
not fight any more. In a few seconds he was lying on his back, his white
belly uppermost. He twitched and stiffened and died.
The dog shook him a few times, then let him fall on the trampled snow.
He stood beside him, his legs planted, calling in a deep, loud voice,
“Here! Here! He’s here!”
The others were horrorstruck and fled in all directions.
“Dreadful,” said Bambi softly to the old stag in the hollow.
“The most dreadful part of all,” the old stag answered, “is that the
dogs believe what the hound just said. They believe it, they pass their
lives in fear, they hate Him and themselves and yet they’d die for His
sake.”