User:SnowyCinema/P/Redcoat

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f=Redcoat (1927).djvu
com=Category:Redcoat
ver=Q123629194
base=Q123628983
progress=projectfiles_folders_archived
y=1927
y=1925
loc=Q49158
pub=Q2150493
au=Clarence Hawkes
ill=Charles Livingston Bull
ty=novel
gen=children's
sub=The Phantom Fox

ia=redcoatphantomfo00clar
oclc=1196369360
dl=ia

beg=di
ch=rom

//conf/

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{{FreedImg
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{{FreedImg
 | file = Redcoat (1927) frontispiece.png
 | caption = Nearer and nearer the Greyhound came to the straining fox.{{right|—''[[Redcoat/Chapter 3#39|Page 39]]''}}
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{{c|
{{xxxx-larger|{{uc|Redcoat}}}}<br />{{xx-larger|{{uc|The Phantom Fox}}}}{{dhr|3}}{{uc|By<br />{{larger|[[Author:Clarence Hawkes|Clarence Hawkes]]}}}}<br />''Author of "[[Pep (Hawkes)|Pep]]," "[[Silversheene]]," "[[Palo'mine (Hawkes)|Palomine]]," "[[The White Czar (Hawkes)|The White Czar]]."
{{dhr}}
{{asc|Illustrated by}}<br />{{uc|[[Author:Charles Livingston Bull|Charles Livingston Bull]]}}
{{dhr|7}}
{{uc|Milton Bradley Company<br />Springfield, Massachusetts}}
}}

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{{c|{{smaller block|{{sc|Copyright, 1927<br />By}} {{uc|Milton Bradley Company}}<br />{{sc|Springfield, Mass.}}}}}}
{{dhr|8}}
{{gap|5em}}{{larger|{{bl|Bradley Quality Books}}}}
{{dhr|3}}
{{c|{{xx-smaller|{{sc|Printed in United States of America}}}}}}

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{{c|{{ib|Dedicated to the Prince of Illustrators<br />[[Author:Charles Livingston Bull|Charles Livingston Bull]],<br />with sincere regards}}}}

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{{c|{{larger|{{uc|Contents}}}}}}
{{TOC begin}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|{{asc|Chapter}}||{{asc|Page}}}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|class=wst-toc-aux||[[Redcoat/Four Little Foxes|Four Little Foxes]]|i}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|class=wst-toc-aux||[[Redcoat/Note to the Reader|Note to the Reader]]|iii}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1||[[Redcoat/Redcoat and His American Cousins|Redcoat and His American Cousins]]. Introductory|v}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|I|[[Redcoat/Chapter 1|The Den in the Spruces]]|1}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|II|[[Redcoat/Chapter 2|The Fox Family]]|14}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|III|[[Redcoat/Chapter 3|Alone in the World]]|29}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|IV|[[Redcoat/Chapter 4|The Courtship of Redcoat]]|41}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|V|[[Redcoat/Chapter 5|The Mighty Hunter]]|58}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|VI|[[Redcoat/Chapter 6|Playing With Lightning]]|83}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|VII|[[Redcoat/Chapter 7|Hidden Danger]]|97}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|VIII|[[Redcoat/Chapter 8|The Red Flower Goes Mad]]|123}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|IX|[[Redcoat/Chapter 9|The Phantom Fox]]|133}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|X|[[Redcoat/Chapter 10|With Horse and Hound]]|165}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|XI|[[Redcoat/Chapter 11|The Capture]]|179}}
{{TOC row 1-1-1|XII|[[Redcoat/Chapter 12|The Prison]]|212}}
{{TOC end}}

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{{ph|class=chapter|Four Little Foxes}}

{{ppoem|class=poem-italic|end=stanza|
Speak gently, Spring, and make no sudden sound;
For in my windy valley, yesterday I found
New-born foxes squirming on the ground—
::::Speak gently./begin/

Walk softly, March, forbear the bitter blow;
Her feet within a trap, her blood upon the snow,
The four little foxes saw their mother go—
::::Walk softly.

Go lightly, Spring, oh, give them no alarm;
When I covered them with boughs to shelter them from harm,
The thin blue foxes suckled at my arm
::::Go lightly.
}}

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{{ppoem|class=poem-italic|start=stanza|
Step softly, March, with your rampant hurricane,
Nuzzling one another and whimpering with pain,
The little foxes are shivering in the rain—
::::Step softly.
}}

{{c|''From "[[Slow Smoke]]" by [[Author:Lew Sarett|Lew Sarett]].''{{dhr}}(''By permission of Henry Holt and Co.'')}}

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{{ph|class=chapter|Note to the Reader}}

Nearly all animal biographies are composite—that is, the life of the particular animal represented, is made up from facts drawn from many sources.

The naturalist very carefully collects all his own experiences with the special species and all those of his friends, as well as those of other writers in whom he has confidence. So all the authors' friends among hunters, trappers and woodsmen contribute to the story, the aim being to keep the story well within the known facts. In this way the author is enabled to give the reader a complete picture of the life of the animal under all conditions. Hence, it goes without saying, in describing the life of the animal by this composite method, more adventures befall the particular animal hero, than would ordinarily under normal conditions, but probably not many more than might befall an exceptional animal hero of the species.

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For there is great difference in animals, just as there is in folks. The lives of some people are drab and uninteresting, while others are colorful and full of adventure. So the Red Fox whose fortunes we follow in these pages is a fox born to adventure and narrow escapes, but none of his adventures are impossible in the life of a common red fox, who uses his wits and fights the battle of life as only a fox can.

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{{ph|class=chapter num|Introductory}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|Redcoat and His American Cousins|level=2}}

Probably there is no more cunning, or clever, wild animal in the entire domain of nature, than the ordinary red fox, who, by the way is not ordinary, but very extraordinary, in his native ability and habits of life.

He has lived so long within the domain of man, and often in thickly settled country, and has so long fought his enemies, both boy, and man, and dog, and fought the fight against guns, traps, and poison, that he would long ago have perished off the earth had not his wits been of the keenest, and his fleetness very remarkable as well.

So skilful is the fox in evading those who would get a glimpse of him, that nine tenths of the people who live upon his range, have never seen him in the wild, although he may frequent the farm daily, or even occasionally

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trot down the main village street in the small hours of the early morning.

The fox about which I am going to write, and the one which is most familiar to my readers, is the Red Fox, whose range is throughout the northern part of the United States and Canada.

His color is a variety of shades of red, and rarely are two red foxes marked alike.

Although the novice seeing the fox at a distance would say that he is as large as a fair sized dog, yet when he is stripped of his long warm' coat, he is the slightest built animal that I know of. The very lankiest greyhound is heavy and cumbersome compared with him. His little legs which carry him for hours over the roughest country, keeping him out of the reach of hounds which weigh five times as much as he does, are no larger than a lead pencil. His head which holds such a fertile brain, is fairly snakey, while his greatest girth is not much more than a man's wrist.

There is not an ounce of fat on him. His muscles are like whipcord.
{{nop}}

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He thinks like lightning, and then acts like chain lightning.

In a fight with a dog he always draws the first blood, and although he is no match for a gritty dog when cornered, yet he often beats off dogs several times his size, by his shear grit and seeming fearlessness.

The fox that is most closely associated with red fox is his first cousin, the cross fox. His range is throughout western British Columbia, and Alaska, and also in Utah and Idaho. Cross fox is a cross between the red fox and the black fox.

He has a dark colored cross on his shoulders, a steel gray body and head, a big black tail with a snow white tip, and black legs.

The swift fox is the smallest of all the foxes, and probably not much swifter than the rest of the family. He is found on the great plains of the Bio Grande up to Saskatchewan, and his color is a beautiful silver gray with a tinge of yellow.

The Arctic fox is snow white during the cold months, while in the summer he is some-

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times brown. He ranges the farthest north of all the foxes. He is often found well above the Arctic circle.

The blue fox is the most tractable of all the foxes, and has been successfully raised on the islands of Behring Sea, where there are forty companies raising blue foxes merely for pelts. He can be easily caught in a wire box trap, and then tamed and handled almost as freely as one would a dog.

Yet the blue fox is the homeliest of all this beautiful family. His ears are short cropped, and his head is rounder than other foxes while his countenance is covered with bristly hair, giving him a grotesque appearance.

The white fox of the south is another member of the fox family.

But black fox, who ranges through Saskatchewan and British Columbia, and all through Alaska, is the most important of all. Think of wearing a coat worth nearly three thousand dollars and having men and boys, with traps, poison, and guns, all after

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it. It is certainly a case of being cumbered with a priceless possession.

The black fox is also called the silver gray, because the tips of his hair are usually just touched with silver, which makes him sometimes look silver gray.

This rare fellow is also being successfully raised for the market, and many men whom I know, have made fortunes raising this wonderful animal.

But be the fox red, cross, black or white, he always retains certain fox characteristics. He is always that nimble witted fleet fellow who fights the battle of life as only a fox can, and always gives a good account of himself, from his own point of view.

Not only is he fleet and beautiful, as well as swift and cunning, but in many ways he so nearly approaches the way of man, that the adjective "foxy" is very often applied to man, meaning a resourceful, quick witted man, one who always takes advantage of all the breaks in the game.

One of the most beautiful scenes in the wilderness, and one that many woodsmen

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have not seen, is to behold a fox, standing with one forepaw partly lifted, with his head cocked on one side, his tail partly curled about his hind quarters, listening for mice in the grass. This picture is the last word in wild life.

From [[Author:Æsop|Æsop]] down, men have told of the wit and wisdom of the fox, and their praise has not gone to his head, nor dulled his wits, for he still carries on amid the haunts of his worst enemy, man. He barks defiance at the farm dog from a distant wall, and eludes him usually as a rabbit would a tortoise.

Some men and boys always shoot at him when they get sight of him, but for my part, I rather admire this clever freebooter, who flaunts his beautiful brush in the very face of man, and still wears it to the end of the chapter.

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{{ph|class=title-header|Redcoat}}

{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter I}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Den in the Spruces|level=2}}

IT was Springtime in the woods. Not the full tide of Spring, but late April, when all the forces of nature were feeling out their powers. Life was stirring and stretching in its sleep, just as it does before the full awakening.

There were no leaves on the trees, but just a faint ghostly shimmer in the poplars and white birches, and a touch of red in the soft maple. But under last year's dead leaves life was still more apparent, for in every warm corner, adder tongues, partridge berries, and wintergreen leaves were starting into new life. But there was a look to the bark on all the trees which was still more telltale to the eye of the woodsman. It had

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lost the pale ghostly grays of midwinter, and there was a vitality and flush to all the colors that suggested life that tingled and rioted just beneath the outer bark.

All of the wood folks also were astir, the crows were cawing lustily, and the woodpeckers were pounding away as though this beautiful Spring morning had given a new zest to their appetites, and they had got to work hard for the morning meal.

There was life also at the entrance to the den in the spruces, for Mother Fox had just come out to see how the morning went, and to see if she could discover anything of her lord, the great hunter, for the four blind fox pups in the den pulled heavily upon her strength and substance, and her appetite this morning was like that of the proverbial wolf.

The first thing that she did on coming out into the open was to stretch and get the kinks out of her muscles. There was not as much room in the den for her as there had been before the whelps came. She had to be careful and not lie upon them, so she of-

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ten sustained a cramped position for hours. Her mate was not allowed in the den while the pups were still unweaned, but even so, the den was often cramped.

If Mr. Fox even dared to poke his head in at the burrow to see how things were going, he was promptly invited to get out. This was not because he might have killed the pups as a tomcat will often do with kittens before their eyes are open, but just a bit of jealous mother love, which would not suffer anyone but herself to care for these small wriggling woolly things, that would some day be real full grown foxes.

After stretching and yawning until it would seem as though her jaw would be put out of joint, Mother Fox looked about amid the darkening shadows of the ancient woods. With her keen yellow eyes she searched out every dark thicket, but there was no game in sight, not even a wood mouse. So she sat down upon her haunches to wait for the mighty hunter.

Half an hour before daylight he had arisen from a deep thicket where he had

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slept during the night in the top of a fallen spruce, and started for the river to see if he could bag a muskrat for Mrs. Fox's morning meal.

He knew just how hungry she was, because his own appetite was as keen as a razor. It seemed that his stomach fairly ached with hunger, and the sight of an occasional bird which he discovered in the treetops made saliva drip from his jaws.

He went at a steady dog trot until he came within perhaps a score of rods of the creek, then he tested the wind to see what direction it was. Muskrats were not so very keen of scent, but a good hunter never stalked his quarry down the wind, it is against good hunting instincts.

If you have a good rule always stick to it. Mr. Fox discovered that he would be hunting in the teeth of the wind, which was just a morning zephyr. That was good, so he began creeping slowly towards the creek. For the last hundred feet, he went almost upon his belly, keeping behind bunches of weeds, and clumps of alders, which fringed

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the creek's bank. Finally, after fifteen minutes of careful maneuvering, he gained the position he wanted.

It was within about forty feet of a large muskrat house which was situated at the point of a promontory that jutted out into the stream. This house was the abode of a large family, and Mr. Fox had bagged more than one of its members. The muskrats were not very careful to protect themselves, and they did not long remember these hard lessons. This was probably because the children were so numerous and came so often. When there are four litters a year, averaging eight at a time, children are not so precious, as they might otherwise be.

If one had glanced casually at the river bank he might possibly have made out partly hidden in the underbrush, what at first he would have decided was the end of an old log, it looked so lifeless. But had he possessed the eyes of a woodsman, he would have seen that it was the mighty hunter. He was stretched out at full length, with his head between his paws, seemingly asleep.

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Yet he was far from sleeping, for his two hungry yellow eyes were glued upon the conical muskrat house at the point of land in the stream. Not a movement in the entire scene escaped him. Also his keen nostrils were sifting the morning air, for the first faint scent of the rats.

For half an hour he lay there, without moving so much as a muscle. A less patient hunter would have become discouraged and gone in search of other quarry, but not so the red fox. He knew that patience is the hunter's long suit, so he watched and waited.

At last his patience was rewarded, for a sleek young muskrat, nearly grown, came slowly out of the house and looked warily about him. He too was hungry, and he wanted to see if he could find some roots along the shore which were to his taste. Slowly he ventured forward, looking this way and that. Did Mr. Fox make a dash and try to catch the rat before he should return to his house? Not he, he would wait and make sure of his prey. He would let

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the rat get so far from home that he could get between him and his refuge. Then he would make his dash.

For fifteen minutes the cunning hunter waited. Finally the unsuspecting rat was in just the right position. He was too far from the house to get back, and not too close to the water. Keynard would not go into the water after him if he could help it, besides there was a fair chance that the rat could escape if he once got to the water. So Mr. Fox waited until the rat had turned his head, and was busy feeding, then he crept slowly forward, and made the final dash, which consisted of two or three quick springs. There was a frightened squeak from the rat, and a quick rush for the creek, but before that safety zone was reached, the fox's powerful jaws had closed over the rat's back, and with a sudden crunch his back was broken.

Then the proud hunter picked up the rat and started for his den in the spruces. He made all haste as he knew his mate was hungry, and waiting for her breakfast.

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Proudly the hunter laid the kill down at the ravenous mother fox's feet, and himself drew back until she should have had her breakfast. He would not have tried to get a portion of the rat had she chosen to eat it all. She fell upon the muskrat with great fury, and ripped it ruthlessly and savagely. At last, she stepped back, and in fox language, indicated that her lord might help himself, which he proceeded to do without a second invitation.

Finally the mother fox went back into the den to suckle the whelps, and the old fox went to the meadow to hunt for mice. His portion of the rat had been small, and he was still hungry.

Meadow mice were a much choicer dainty than muskrat, and he wanted to take good care of his family in the spruces during the critical period.

The pups at this time were simply four small balls of woolly fur. They would keep this woolly coat for three or four months, until they shed their puppy coat. But even at this stage of their existence the young

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foxes had some of the fox characteristics.

Another muskrat hunt Mr. Fox had which was not so successful, and it nearly cost him his own life. The Red Hunter had gone to find Mrs. Fox's breakfast. The hunting had been rather lean for the past two days, and Mrs. Fox was fairly ravenous, as she was indirectly feeding the four pups. The Red Hunter had himself gone almost entirely without food so that she might have more.

So this morning he went very early to the creek, and took up his favorite position in a clump of bushes near to the muskrat house. The rats had become rather shy, but he felt that his patience would again be rewarded.

The water was very high, and there was another hunter abroad on that fine morning. This was none other than Bud Holcome, and he was out hunting muskrats. He was following along the creek on the other side from the muskrat house, carrying in the hollow of his arm a twenty-two rifle. His favorite gun.

Now, while Bud was looking for musk-

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rats, yet he was not averse to bagging a fine fox. The rat's skin might be worth two or three dollars, but a fox's such as that the Red Hunter wore was worth at least twenty-five.

It was mere accident that the boy discovered the fox crouched in the bushes. At first he thought it an old log, and he had to look for a long time before he satisfied himself.

Even then he would not have been sure had not the fox moved his head slightly. This was enough for Bud. Here was such hunting as he had not even dreamed of in his wildest moments, so he snapped the rifle to his shoulder, and took a hurried aim. He was so excited, and the fox skin looked like such a great prize to him, that he did not take pains enough with his aim, otherwise the fox family would have lost their hunter that morning.

But as it was, the bullet struck the fox a glancing blow just over the eye, and glanced off his skull, although it cut a bad gash, and

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for a few moments Ms vision faded and everything looked black to him.

Then in a flash it cleared, and he saw the boy on the further side of the creek again pointing the deadly thunder stick at him. He knew firearms full well. Several times in the course of his adventurous life he had heard this dread sound, and had carried away small pellets in his fur, so now the Red Hunter broke from cover and ran for his life. As he bolted he kept such cover as he could between himself and the boy.

Bang, went the small rifle again, and the bullet kicked up some sand between the flying fox's feet. Bang again, and this time the bullet struck ten feet behind him. The boy was miscalculating the speed of the flying fox. Out and in he zigzagged, all the time making for the deep woods on the bluffs above. In almost less time than it takes to tell the fox was out of sight, leaving the boy rubbing his eyes, and wondering how he had missed him three times.

But Mr. Fox thought he had come close

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enough. He had a bad gash over his eye, and his head throbbed from the blow upon his skull. He went to the spring, and, thrusting his nose deep in the water, cooled his throbbing head. Finally, after a couple of hours, he went back to his hunting, but he did not go to the creek again for several weeks, and even then he took great precautions.

For five or six weeks Mother Fox nursed the pups in the den, while Father Fox hunted for the entire family. He was very persistent in his hunting, and usually brought home game.

During all this time, he did not venture into the den, but each day laid his kill at his mate's feet at the mouth of the den. But he always slept in the spruces nearby, and the mother fox knew if she had need of him, he could usually be found close at hand, for when he was not hunting, he was on guard.

Finally, one bright morning, early in June, a change came over the life of the burrow.
{{nop}}

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The foxes were getting so active and so playful, and it was so hard to keep them straight in the burrow, that it had been decided to introduce them to the great world outside. The entire fox family was to have its coming out.

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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter II}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Fox Family|level=2}}

THERE was much excitement in the spruces on that momentous morning, when the fox pups were first brought forth into the great wide world. That is, the mother fox was excited and the pups caught the excitement from her. Her excitement was due to the fact that she was to bring forth into the world, the four small fuzzy balls of foxhood, which she had begun to love more than her own life. She had fed and cared for them for six weeks, and each day they had become dearer to her, just as the human babies do to their mothers.

Now the battle was to begin between the cruel world, with its many lurking dangers, and the wilderness babies. A battle where no quarter was to be given, and where only one very bad mistake might end fatally.
{{nop}}

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Father Fox had gone very early to hunt in the meadow for mice, so Mother Fox had dined upon her favorite breakfast half an hour before she brought forth her family.

Then Father Fox scoured the country for half a mile around in every direction to see if the range was free of all their enemies so far as he could discover. Of course there were enemies that no vigilance could guard against. A great owl might swoop down from a thick treetop and snatch up a small fox in the twinkling of an eye. So silently he might come that not even the sharpest ear could hear his coming.

This is because his wings are fringed with down so he can approach his prey silently. Not even a fox's alertness might prevent such a calamity as that. But such possibilities were among the regular chances which the wild creatures had to take. They were as cunning and watchful as they might well be, and for the rest, well, that was left to fate, or the Guardian of the wild creatures.

To all the fox family life was a great game. The stakes were life itself. One

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killed or was killed, as fate might will, and one did what one could, to be on the winning side.

When the four little balls of woolly fur were finally pushed out into the light of day, a wonderful sight burst upon their eyes. A sight that made them blink and wink, and scurry back into the burrow as fast as they could. Then, one by one, they came creeping back into the daylight. Hitherto they had been used to the semi-darkness of the burrow, but here was a great wide new world all strange and shimmering, full of new sights and smells. The only smell that they had known before was the rather pungent, musty fox odor of the burrow, but here were all sorts of smells, and how they did revel in them.

They went snuffing and poking about in the dead leaves, and among the new weeds and ferns, half afraid and very curious.

Each new and unfamiliar sound sent them scuttling back to the burrow, and if the sound was very pronounced they went scurrying down into the darkness where they

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felt quite safe. But they would always come back again. The outside was so strange and so alluring.

It was a wonderful morning. Birds were singing in the treetops, and the woods were full of the sounds of joyous life. Crows were cawing in the distance, and a woodpecker was pounding on a dead tree only a few rods away. All of these sounds made the little foxes cock their small ears and look very alert.

They stayed out only two or three hours that first day, but it was the beginning of such glorious times. Days full of bright sunshine, and sweet smelling odors, days of wonderful frolics. For the small foxes were always playing. Usually it was a sort of "tag" game. One would pick up a bit of wood, or perhaps some feather, or bit of skin left over from the morning breakfast and run with it, and all the others would try to catch the playful one and get the coveted morsel away from him.

This play very soon grew into sham fights, and gradually developed that real fighting

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spirit which is the mainspring of the very existence of wild life.

One of their best playthings was Mother's tail. They would catch hold of it and pull and pull, or even allow her to drag them about while their puppy teeth sank deeply into the woolly substance.

But as they grew larger and their teeth became sharper and their jaws stronger, Mother Fox insisted that they give up this play. This she indicated by several sharp nips when the play became too wearing.

Even at this early stage in the development of the pups they were quite different, both in size, markings and general characteristics.

The very largest of the entire litter was a perfectly marked red fox, so I shall call him "Redcoat." He was dark red above and lighter red on the belly, where it approached yellow. The next in size was almost as large as Redcoat, but he was a perfect cross fox. Cross foxes sometimes occur in the red fox litters, and red foxes in the cross fox litters.
{{nop}}

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The smallest of the litter was also another perfect-red fox, and we will call him "Little Brother," while the fourth was a female, with a generous sprinkling of long hair on the face so we will call her "Fuzzy."

In all their plays and sham fights, Redcoat was the most skilful. Cross Fox was almost as good, but Little Brother and Fuzzy were not in their class.

Perhaps the most exciting occurrence in the whole day was the coming of Father Fox with the morning meal. At first he brought the mice already killed for them to eat, but after a while he would put a live mouse in their midst and allow them to kill it. Here Redcoat always distinguished himself, although he and Cross Fox sometimes had a lively fight over a choice morsel.

But as the pups grew larger Father Fox developed their training each day. Sometimes he would bring the feed very early before the pups were out and hide it some distance from the den. Then there would be a lively scramble to see who would find the breakfast first.
{{nop}}

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One morning in midsummer Father Fox came as usual, but this time he brought an animal about as large as the pups. It was not dead, and it showed a white shining set of teeth when the pups surrounded it.

Cross Fox sprang forward, as he was nearer the quarry than was Redcoat, but the young woodchuck gave him a savage nip in the face, and he shrank back. Then Redcoat sprang in. The young woodchuck served him in the same way he had his brother, but Redcoat didn't quit. Instead he clinched with the woodchuck and a very lively battle ensued. Finally Redcoat emerged from the fray conqueror, and laid the dead woodchuck before his brothers and sister. He had two bad gashes in the face, but he had won, and this made him even more of a bully than he had been before. But he felt well satisfied with the exploit.

Finally, on moonlight nights Father Fox and Mother Fox took the small foxes into the meadows to hunt mice with them. This was after they had learned to hunt grasshoppers, and crickets, and after they

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had killed many frogs, and squirrels that Father Fox had brought home alive for them.

They soon became quite expert in mouse hunting, and would stand as patiently as their parents above the runways of the mice, which were very easily smelled out in the grass roots.

One day Father Fox discovered one of those dangerous men creatures in the woods pounding upon a tree. He watched him for a long time, and finally the tree came crashing to earth, and Father Fox ran away in great haste.

When the man had gone home and the woods no longer rang with the sound of his axe, Father and Mother Fox took the four little foxes to where he had been chopping wood and together they investigated all the sights and smells where the man had been.

The old foxes smelled out the tracks of the man and then invited the small foxes to sniff the strange scent. They had never smelled anything like it before, and although they did not at all know what it meant, yet this

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new scent sent a strange tingling fear along their spines, and made their nerves thrill with excitement. Instinctively they feared the scent that all foxes had feared since the dawn of history. This was their natural heritage of wisdom handed down through countless generations of foxes. Finally the Father Fox discovered the man's axe hidden away in the woodpile, and he and the four little foxes climbed up the woodpile and smelled the axe carefully. This was a very important scent that the Father Fox wished the little foxes to note very carefully, for it would give them the smell of traps, or iron, one of the most dangerous scents to foxes.

When they had fully examined the place where the man had been, the two old foxes drove the small foxes from the place with great ferocity, nipping them and hustling them away in great seeming alarm, and the entire fox family raced back to the den in the spruces as though the devil were after them.

A few days later on Father Fox found an old steel trap which had been left out all

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winter and finally discarded and forgotten. So he again brought the young foxes to smell the iron scent, which was so much to be dreaded. After smelling the trap for several minutes, and viewing it from all angles, although they did not approach very near to it, Father Fox drove his family away from the scene with great haste, trying to instill into the minds of the young foxes the fact that this was also a dreaded scent.

I do not know whether or not he told them in fox language, that the man was their worst enemy, and that he often set this strange clam which could spring together so quickly, and catch an unsuspecting fox by the paw. I do not know if he told them to beware of this iron smell by the brookside, or in a mossy low lying spot, where they might find it in connection with some dainty food which they did not have to kill. But if it was possible for him to get such a message and such warning across, you may be sure that he did so, for he schooled the four young foxes well in all the dangers of the woods.
{{nop}}

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On another occasion, Father Fox found some meat which had been cut up in small pieces, and dropped beside a spring. A spring that the foxes often frequented, because the water was cool and sweet. When Father Fox had been young he had once eaten such meat which he found under similar conditions. He had only saved his life after being dreadfully sick, by his knowledge of very primitive medical methods, so now he knew better than to eat this meat. But here was another chance to give the fox family a further lesson, so he brought them with great haste to the spring and showed them the meat. The small foxes were very eager to eat the meat, but the Father Fox indicated the man scent that could be plainly discerned about it and then drove the young foxes from the scene even more savagely than he had from the man's axe, and the old steel trap.

This meat which made foxes so deadly sick was another danger, so he made it very emphatic that it was to be left alone.

One twilight in the early autumn they

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heard a series of long drawn out sounds, which reverberated along the mountainside, and rolled away into the distance. They were evidently sounds made by some animal, even the young foxes knew that instinctively. But the sounds seemed to disturb the old foxes. For they got the pups together and Mother Fox went with them into a distant portion of the forest, while Father Fox went to intercept the hound and to lead him far away from his family.

Father Fox did not return for hours and when he did come back he seemed very weary, but he did not lie down to rest, instead he took the small foxes away into the swamp where the strange sounds had first come from, and after smelling about for a while they located the tracks of the hound. Father Fox was very careful that the youngsters got this scent into their nostrils very decidedly, for this was still another dangerous scent. After they had surely identified the hound scent, Father Fox took his family away to the old burrow in the spruces where he rested for the rest of the night.
{{nop}}

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One twilight when Father Fox was hunting rabbits in the great swamp he discovered a bobcat sitting upon an old log watching one of the rabbit runways. It was only because Father Fox was eternally on the lookout, with his ears and eyes, and sharp nose always testing the air, that he discovered the bobcat in time. Had the bobcat landed fairly upon his back he would never have ben seen again in the old den by the spruces.

But the cat did not get his sharp raking claws upon Father Fox's back as he intended and the old hunter escaped after a long hard run.

But here was another scent to which the fox family had to be introduced. This Father Fox did returning after several hours to the very log from which the bobcat had sprung at him.

After this lesson it seemed to the young foxes that the great woods and the fields were full of danger sights and sounds. There were so many scents that spelled danger and so much to be avoided.
{{nop}}

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Still another time, later on in the autumn, they heard a very loud sound several times. This sound was like thunder and it rolled away in many echoes through the ancient woods. Father Fox and Mother Fox seemed much disturbed by the sound, but it was just Bud Holcome hunting partridges. But after the sun had set Father Fox went on a searching party, and finally discovered an empty shell which Bud had thrown on the ground. This he carefully marked down and again brought his entire family to investigate.

Other lessons there were. Lessons intended to put the young foxes on guard against all the many dangers that lurked in ambush for them. It was not Father Fox's fault, if any member of his family ultimately came to grief, for he did his work well.

As far as he could, he made his family proof against the wiles of man, boy and dog, or trap and poison. But who can guard against the chances and the lottery of the life in the wild? It was a great game of

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chance. The stakes were life itself, if you played the game well you survived, but if not—well that is another story and we will leave it for a later chapter.

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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter III}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|Alone in the World|level=2}}

WHEN Autumn finally came the young foxes were glad, for it gave such a zest to living. The mornings were crisp and cold, the air was clear and bracing, and it made them want to run and leap, just in sheer exuberance of living, and it gave them such appetites that they were almost painful. That is, they were annoying until they were satisfied.

On such mornings as these, when the frost was very heavy, it gemmed the weeds along the brookside with diamonds, and fringed the ferns with a wonderful frost work, which was like the finest lace. Finally it did wonders to the trees. The soft maples along the water courses were painted scarlet, while the berries of the staghorn sumac were almost as red. Other trees it painted a fainter

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red, with yellows and saffrons,—browns and russets.

Finally, all the campfires of Autumn were kindled, and they burned high upon every hillside, in wonderful barbaric beauty.

Then it was, when the skins of the foxes were prime, that the war between men, boys, guns, traps and poison, and the wits, and the fleet legs of the foxes was on. A war which did not show mercy, or give quarter.

The twenty-five dollars which an ordinary red fox's pelt brought looked very large to the average country boy, and he was out to get it. Mr. Fox also prized his brush and he was out to keep it. So, many were the battles of skill, cunning, endurance, and strategy which the foxes and the men waged.

About the middle of October a mishap befell the fox family which was much more serious than it first seemed, for it made the entire family more vulnerable to the enemy. It happened in this way. It was just one of those accidents in the out-of-doors to which any wild animal is liable. No matter

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how cunning he may be, or how carefully he may guard himself, somewhere or somehow even the most cunning animal may be taken by the most unskilful hunter or trapper.

It happened that Father Fox was out on the great meadows at the end of the mountain hunting mice. He had often hunted there before. It was well away from the country road which skirted the foot of the mountain, but a footpath which the humans sometimes frequented ran close to this meadow where Father Fox was hunting.

It was a very bright moonlight night, and he took a chance hunting then; but the wild creatures always take chances.

Now, it happened that Bud Holcome had been out to a neighbor's and was coming home. By mere accident he had his little twenty-two rifle on his arm and by a mere chance he espied Father Fox who was silhouetted against a dark bush. He was not over a dozen rods away.

Bud did not think he could hit him because he could not see the sight well, as the

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moonlight made it glimmer, but he took the wild chance. For a moment he let the sight glitter against the dark fox silhouetted against the bush, and then pulled the trigger.

To his great surprise, the old hunter sprang into the air, gave two or three feeble jumps and then tumbled upon the ground.

Bud ran to him in all haste, but even when he reached the fox he did not dare touch him. He might be shamming, so he shot him again through the head. But there was no shamming. Father Fox was quite dead, and the excited boy shouldered the fox and carried him home.

Mother Fox and the young foxes never knew just what became of him. All they knew was that he was never seen again in the spruces, or upon the range where they had hunted together.

Thus it was that the fox family lost their guardian and protector at a very important time. Had Father Fox lived to school them still more against hounds and hunters, as well as to give them more valuable lessons on traps and poison, things might have

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turned out very differently, and there might have been several branches to this story, instead of one main theme.

Mother Fox of course did all she could, but she had not the cunning of the old hunter. Neither did she have the strength. She could not lead the hounds away from the home burrow and take them miles away and then snarl up the track so that the family might be saved. But all that she could do she did, even as fearlessly as Father Fox would have done.

So, when the Fox Club in the city not eight miles distant from the den where the little foxes had been reared took up their Autumn sport, the fox family were not fully prepared to successfully withstand their onslaught.

Usually the Meadow City Fox Club staged their hunts on the western side of the great river, but the Autumn of which I write the first hunt took place on the eastern side of the river, along the mountain range where the fox family had their burrow. This mountain range extended from the meadows

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close to the great river back to the foothills ten or twelve miles away.

The fox burrow in the spruces was in a little ravine about a mile from the western end of the mountain and on the northern slope. To the north, a mile away, the lowlying farm land began. The first of these farms at the foot of the mountain was that of the Holcome family, where Bud lived.

The Fox Club, twenty strong, with twelve hounds, left their teams at the Holcome farm and swarmed up the mountain side, spreading out so as to cover a strip half a mile wide. The hounds were kept in twos or threes until the fox should be started.

Redcoat, who was out very early that morning, discovered the hunting party and gave the alarm. Mother Fox commanded that all should follow her and started to lead her family through the most inaccessible country, back along the mountain range. Redcoat and Cross Fox did as she told them, but Fuzzy and Little Brother very foolishly slipped away to the spruces and hid in the burrow. If the hounds had discovered their

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trail and followed it to the burrow they would have been lost, for it would have been an easy matter to dig them out.

But, instead, the hounds took the trail of Mother Fox and the two obedient ones and followed it hotly along the mountain. Then all the hounds were loosed and the pack took up the chase and the outcry was tremendous. The echoes rolled along the mountain side and far down into the valley. It was sweetest music to the ears of the hunters, but to the poor foxes it was a terrible sound.

As soon as the direction of the chase had been established, several of the hunters hurried to advantageous points where they would wait in ambush for the fleeing foxes. Such a position was the roadway which crossed the mountain two miles east of the fox burrow. Pour hunters were posted in this road at intervals of twenty rods, awaiting the oncoming pack.

The foxes were so obsessed by the din behind that they did not notice the danger ahead until they burst into the road.

Bang! Bang! went the man-creatures'

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thunder sticks, and Mother Fox pitched headlong in the snow.

Bang! Bang! went the thunder sticks again and a pellet stung the flank of Cross Fox, while another passed through Redcoat's ear.

But these sounds only lent wings to the legs of the terrified foxes, so they fled on along the mountain range to the east. The cries of the pack grew fainter and fainter in the distance and were finally lost, but after two hours the hounds came straggling back, for a pack will often quit after a six or eight mile straight-away run. So, Redcoat and Cross Fox gave them the slip that time. Long after dark they came back to the spruces and found Little Brother and Fuzzy waiting for them.

The next fox hunt was held in the great meadows on the west side of the river. It was an unwritten law in fox cunning, known to all mature foxes, that one should not cross the river until after it had frozen over. The broad plank trail that the man-creatures used was not a safe trail for foxes.

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If one did cross to the other side, he was almost sure to be caught or shot on the broad meadows where there was little cover.

If Father Fox had lived he would have taught the young foxes this danger, but as it was they did not know.

Cross Fox and Little Brother had been hunting mice in the meadow on the east side of the river one morning early in November. Cross Fox came back to the mountain, but Little Brother strayed along the roadway to the north and finally came to the man-trail. He crossed the river and had a glorious time hunting mice in the great meadows beyond. But, it is better to catch two or three mice and keep one's skin than it is to catch half a dozen and lose one's brush. The Fox Club were out early that morning and Little Brother paid the extreme price for his folly. In our human lives we may make mistakes and retrieve them; but in the lives of wild creatures one mistake is often fatal.

Not only had the young foxes not been schooled in regard to hounds and men as

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they should have been, but also their education in regard to poison and traps had not been completed. It was Fuzzy's fate to succumb to the trapper's art is either Redcoat nor Cross Fox ever knew just what happened to her. All they knew was that she went away one moonlight night to hunt mice in the meadows and did not come back.

A couple of weeks later, Cross Fox and Redcoat were hunting mice one morning in the meadows on their own side of the river. They were so intent on their hunting that danger stole upon them unawares, for the Fox Club got between them and the mountain and picked up their trail and the chase was on. The two foxes kept together and led the hounds a merry chase far down the river. After a couple of hours, they doubled back along the way they had come, wishing to get back to the mountain where they felt there was some safety. Redcoat had far outrun his brother and was perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead when a new danger arose, for one of the men suddenly appeared upon the trail one hundred feet behind Cross Fox

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and he was leading another of those dreadful animals that run after foxes and make such hideous cries. But this animal was much taller and gaunter than the rest of the pack. As soon as the man loosed the greyhound he came after Cross Fox like the wind. Redcoat, straining to reach the mountain, looked back occasionally to see this new danger that was so rapidly approaching his litterbrother. Nearer and nearer the greyhound came to the straining fox. Soon Cross Fox had to double and twist in his trail to keep from the jaws of the greyhound, and Redcoat knew that his brother was lost. Presently the greyhound caught the straining fox as he rushed past him. His long jaws closed upon the back, just behind the fore legs. He threw the fox high in the air and when it landed in the snow its back was broken. A savage shake or two more and Cross Fox was dead.

Redcoat observed all this as he fled up the mountain. He wished to make his own escape, but he was so fascinated by the scene that he had to look back.
{{nop}}

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Presently the tall hound left Cross Fox and came after him, but he was now well in the lead. As he strained up the mountain side it seemed to him that his heart must burst with the exertion. If he could only stop and take a few short breaths, but he could not, so he fled on. The way grew steeper and steeper, and presently friendly trees opened their branches to receive him and he fled into the depths of the ancient wood and was lost from sight.

The greyhound follows only by sight, so Redcoat's pursuer gave up the chase as soon as the fox disappeared in the woods.

Redcoat had saved his own brush this time, but there were other days coming; and of all the fox family that had played in the spruces in June and romped in the woods in the summer time, he alone was left.

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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter IV}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Courtship of Redcoat|level=2}}

AFTER the last of that bewildering series of tragedies which took the last member of Redcoat's family and left him all alone, a great sense of loneliness came over him. He had been associated with his brothers and sister ever since their birth in early Springtime. He had looked to Father Fox and Mother Fox for food and protection, so that they had become a necessary part of his life. He had romped with the rest of the young foxes, even up to the coming of Autumn and the fox hunters, so it was no wonder that he now felt lonely.

Somehow he could not understand that they had gone away for good and that he never would see them again, anywhere upon the fox range. True he had seen his mother go head over heels in the snow at the sound

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of the thunder stick, but even so, he could not appreciate the fact that the great sleep had claimed her. Somehow, somewhere, she must come to life again and come trotting to meet him, either upon the meadows or on the mountains.

So, Redcoat spent several days in hunting for his kin. First, he searched the whole length of the mountain range, even going back into the foothills ten miles away from the home burrow. Then, he spent long moonlight evenings searching the meadows. He also went in close to the farmhouses trying to see if he could discover any of his kin. These men-creatures were so cunning. Perhaps they were keeping his family from him. Surely something was keeping them all.

Finally, as a last resort, Redcoat searched the home burrow, in all its branches, to see if in any way he had overlooked his family. Then gradually it came over Redcoat that his kin had gone forever, and he ceased to look for them, but he did put in several moonlight nights, sitting upon

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a cliff which overlooked the great meadows, looking and wondering. Occasionally he would lift his pointed nose to the moon and howl, a long thin howl, which was the very epitome of grief. But finally even his grief was forgotten in the struggle to get food and to keep his own brush safe from the men who were after him so persistently.

Hitherto he had usually hunted with one or more members of his family but from this time forth Redcoat hunted upon the meadows in the moonlight, or in the great rabbit swamps three miles away, to the south of the mountain, or about the farm buildings in the lowlands near the mountains, by himself.

He was thrown entirely upon his own resources. By his own wits he must live or die, and Redcoat decided that he would live, and live well. The mountain, the fields and the woods belonged to him, or at least the foxes had claimed their inheritance in the wilderness ever since the first fox had hunted mice, and Redcoat would continue to claim his own. Not only that, but he would take

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from his enemy, the man, as often as the chance permitted. From what his father had taught him and what he had observed, he was now convinced that war between the foxes and the men was on. In fact, it had always been on. He would do what he could to make them pay for what the fox family suffered at their hands. Their chicken coops, their duck houses, and even their turkey roosts would pay tribute to the fox family. It was a dangerous game, but all life was dangerous. Yet, it was an exciting game. One that was well worth playing.

Thus the weeks went by and Redcoat lived the life, and fought the battles, of a fox. He hunted mice upon the great meadows on his own side of the river, but he never ventured across the river by the broad plank trail which the men used. Later on, when he was more experienced in the ways of men, he would take the chance, but not now.

He hunted quail on the upland farms a mile or two from his mountain. He found these birds in the cornfields, or in the stubble. He hunted rabbits in the rabbit war-

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ren. It was a long way to the rabbit swamp, but the hunting was good once he got there and it was very safe hunting.

He was always on the lookout for partridge, but very seldom could he surprise that wary bird.

Often he prowled about the outlying buildings of the farms of the valley. There was always a chance that he might pick up some refuse from the table, which had been flung to the hens and not eaten by those fowls, or perhaps at the farms where the hens ran outside during the day and were shut up at night, a foolish pullet or rooster might be left outside, and be hiding under a sheltering bush. In that case, Mr. Fox took care that there should be no "fuss or feathers" about "the kill." He usually gave one quick sharp bite upon the neck. This silenced the telltale squawking, and it shut off life as well. When the fowl bad ceased to struggle, the fox, with a toss of his head, would swing the kill over his shoulder and make for the nearest woods.

When the first snow came Redcoat's diffi-

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culties were greatly increased. He had thought them hard enough before, but now he had to use great care in sneaking about the farm buildings because he left telltale tracks wherever he went. He was at first much disgusted with this soft white stuff which was so cold that it chilled his feet. Also when the new snow rattled off a bush upon him as he passed beneath it, it made him start, but he soon got used to it.

But, the greatest of the difficulties was that the Fox Club in the nearby city redoubled their efforts as soon as the new snow came. It was now much easier following for the hounds, and harder running for the fox, and much harder to elude the pack.

Ruses that had fooled the pack on bare ground went for nothing when there was snow. All of which Redcoat had to learn by sad experience. Several long chases the Fox Club gave him, and several narrow escapes he had. He usually followed the plan that his mother had mapped out on that fateful day when he had lost her upon the mountain. But now he always remembered

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that the man-trail, which crossed the mountain two miles from the burrow, was a danger place. When Redcoat came to this trail, he would gather all his fleetness and cross at two bounds where the trail was narrow. Once, even so, the man's terrible thunder stick went "bang, bang," and small pellets pattered all about Redcoat. If he had not been going at his best pace he would have fared as badly as his mother had. He found that if he ran hard and fast enough, away into the foothills, the animals with which men chased foxes would leave him. So, his plan was usually to bolt after snarling up the track.

Thus, with protecting his brush and getting his living, Redcoat was very busy.

As the snow grew deeper and deeper and winter came on apace, the cold increased in intensity and the winds howled through the treetops on the mountainside in a dismal manner. When it was very cold for several days at a time, hunting was bad and Redcoat often went supperless to bed.

About the middle of January the loneli-

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ness that had come upon him after the loss of his family returned with great intensity. Once again he took up the futile search for his family. He found other fox tracks on the meadows and in the rabbit swamp but none of them were made by his kin. Finally, he became so lonely and so longed for companionship that one evening he went down to the Holcome farm and sat upon the wall a few rods from the farm buildings, and lifting up his nose to the moon, howled pathetically. Finally his wailings aroused Scotty, the farm dog, and he came out and drove the fox away. But even this seemed better to Redcoat than being entirely alone. It was something to have even the farm dog chase him.

Finally one day when the loneliness was greater than ever, he found a fox track in the rabbit swamp which interested him. It was not made by any of his kin, but there was something about it which drew him on. He followed it persistently for several hours. Sometimes he would think that he was very close to the one who made it, but

-i

{{FreedImg
 | file = Redcoat (1927) 1.png
 | caption = Then the proud hunter picked up the rat and started for his den.{{right|—''[[Redcoat/Chapter 1#7|Page 7]]''}}
 | width = 300px
}}

—

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the track led on and on. Finally just as he was about to give up in disgust and go away to the meadows to hunt mice he came out into a little open spot in the woods, and there, standing backed up against a bush, with the moonlight falling full upon her, was a beautiful fox. Not as large or as dark as Redcoat, but with a wonderful skin. Her fur was all fluffed up in her excitement and she looked much larger than she really was. Redcoat always remembered her in future years as he had seen her that first night in the moonlight. But when he advanced to be friendly with her she turned and galloped away through the forest. But now he knew that there was a real live fox on the trail ahead of him. Redcoat himself did not care, but exulted in the chase. Out and in through the laurel he followed the trail until the stranger again halted, and this time he came up and sniffed noses with her, but once again she was off. For another half hour he lost sight of her and then another trail appeared close by hers. There were two foxes, but Redcoat's good nose

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soon told him that the newcomer was a rival; so he started after him in hot haste. He soon overtook them and fell upon his rival with great fury, and after a running battle of half a mile, he discomforted him and drove him away out of the rabbit swamp. Then he went back to Fluffy and this time she did not flee from him.

This night of playing tag in the rabbit swamp, and of racing through the pines and the aspens on the side of the mountain, was the first of many mad frolics under the February moon.

As Redcoat looked back and remembered how lonely he had been he now seemed like another creature. The joy of life and of wild untamed living was in their veins. Their blood exulted as did the sap in the maple. They were one with the life that thrilled in the wild flowers down under the snow. The mating madness was upon them and they lived it to the full.

Thus the happy weeks went by until late in April when Fluffy became less inclined to play. Often she seemed to wish

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to be left alone and would drive Redcoat away with a petulant snarl.

Then she began searching in the spruces where the old fox den had been. Soon she found a sheltered spot under a great rock, and here she began to dig. Redcoat tried to help her but she would have neither his company nor his help. After a week's time, she had finished a new burrow under the great rock. The man who dug out this fox family would have to first lift a five-ton boulder.

There, in the new burrow, in the darkness, under the great rock, four little fuzzy foxes were born. They were tiny, fluffy, blind, helpless things, that whimpered and nuzzled at their mother's flank; and this little wilderness mother was as wise and tender with them as a human mother could possibly have been.

We may wonder who taught her how to care for the little foxes. To snuggle them up and keep them warm, and feed them when they were hungry.

It was the great Mother Nature, who

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either directly or indirectly teaches us all.

When Fluffy communicated the news of what had happened in the burrow to Redcoat he became very proud and redoubled his efforts at hunting. Then it was, seeing how the pups were pulling on Fluffy, that a daring enterprise came into the Red Hunter's mind. One that nearly proved fatal.

One evening just at dusk he started for the Holcome farm determined, if it were possible, to secure a fat hen for Fluffy. As he approached the barn he discovered that the men were busy about the buildings for a light was coming and going. The henhouse at the Holcome farm was attached to the barn, and the outside door, which the hens usually used, was often shut up for several days in the winter, while the hens came and went through the big barn door. As Redcoat watched from a distance he could see the hens scratching in the chaff on the barn floor. Finally one by one they passed through the small door into the hen-

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house, and the listening fox could hear them flying upon the roosts.

He could not discover the men anywhere in the barn. The door leading from the barn floor to the henhouse was open. The moment seemed auspicious if he made a sudden dash and did his work quickly. In less time than it takes to tell it, Redcoat dashed through the barn door and into the henhouse and seized a fat pullet. But, unfortunately for him, he did not get her by the neck at the first bite and she set up a frightful squawking in which the entire flock joined. As Redcoat turned to make his escape, through the barn door, one of the men appeared in the door carrying the bright light. When he saw Redcoat he slammed the door together and shouted to his companion.

"Dad, Dad, come here quick. There's a fox in the henhouse, and he has got one of the white pullets."

Mr. Holcome, who was milking, came running at Bud's outcry.
{{nop}}

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"You watch the door, Dad," cried Bud excitedly, "and I'll run to the house for my rifle. We've sure got him this time."

Meanwhile poor Redcoat ran backward and forward in the small henhouse, looking for a way out, but there was no opening. There seemed to be an opening, but it was so high up that he doubted whether he could use it or not. It was a window and Redcoat could see the moonlight outside. But, it was his only chance. He gripped the pullet still more firmly in his mouth, stepped to the other side of the henhouse to get a start, gave a light spring to the middle of the room, and then sprang with all the intensity of his steel muscles towards the light. There was a sound of breaking glass and splintering wood, and Redcoat landed in a sorry heap in a snow bank outside. It was lucky for him that he struck in the snow instead of upon the ground, but even so, he was badly stunned and lay in the snow for several minutes.

Finally Bud reappeared with the rifle and he and Mr. Holcome cautiously opened the

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henhouse door. With the cocked rifle in his hand Bud peered into the henhouse.

"Gosh, Dad, he's gone," he cried. "He's got away."

"Are you sure there was any fox here at all?" inquired the man incredulously. "I don't see how he could get out."

"Look at that window, Dad," cried Bud excitedly. Mr. Holcome looked and saw that two panes and the sash, which had been broken, were gone.

Meanwhile, the sound of their voices aroused Redcoat and fear gave strength to his muscles. He struggled to his feet and trotted away into the darkness just as Bud reappeared at the big barn door, closely followed by Mr. Holcome.

"There he goes, Dad," cried Bud excitedly, raising the rifle.

"Bang," went the thunder stick, and Redcoat heard something go singing over his head and he quickened his pace.

"Where is he, Bud?" inquired the farmer. "I don't see him." Mr. Holcome strained his eyes in the direction Bud indi-

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cated and finally burst into a loud gaffaw. "Fox nothing," he snorted. "It's just your imagination, Bud."

It was not until they found the tracks outside the window, and blood and some feathers on the snow, that Mr. Holcome admitted there might have been a fox in the henhouse after all.

Half an hour later, Redcoat proudly laid down his kill at the mouth of the burrow and with a sharp joyous bark summoned his mate. Fluffy came forth in much excitement to see what he had brought her. Then Redcoat laid down upon his belly in the snow his jaws dripping saliva, for hunger gnawed at his own vitals, and watched his mate devour the better part of the pullet.

When she was fully satisfied, she backed away, and with a fox smile and a wag of her tail, invited the hunter to dine. There was only the head and neck, the feet and the offal, left, and this Redcoat speedily devoured. And, then he went away to the old burrow to sleep, while Fluffy returned to the pups in the new burrow. Redcoat's

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own appetite had been only partly appeased, but he had provided for his mate and the pups and he was satisfied. It was the way of the wild, that the male should hunt and fight for the mother and the little ones, and he was satisfied with this code. On the morrow he would look for a breakfast for himself.

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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter V}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Mighty Hunter|level=2}}

THUS it came about that once again there was enacted in the clump of spruces, the drama of the fox family. It was very much as the previous drama of the foxes had been, only to Redcoat it was much more interesting. Then, he had been one of the small foxes but now he was the head of a family just as his sire had been the year before.

Now he was the one to be eternally on guard, to hunt for the rest of the family, and if there was not food enough for all, to go hungry himself.

Just as his sire had done before him, Redcoat now brought each day the pile of field mice and laid them at the mouth of the den for Fluffy. Later on he brought live frogs and snakes for the young foxes to kill, and

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even field mice, although he stayed close by when this game went on to see that the breakfast did not escape.

Later on he brought a half grown muskrat, and placed it among the pups to see which one had fight and grit enough to stay in and kill the muskrat. It was a rather long and hard battle, but finally the largest of the pups came off conqueror, just as Redcoat himself had done the year before.

It was now Redcoat's turn to take up a commanding position, and with nostrils constantly sifting the air, and ears cocked to listen for danger, to utter that warning sharp bark, which is the danger sign in all foxdom.

Redcoat's little family was subject to all the dangers and adversities, that his sire's family had been, but Redcoat, although he was young, watched and guarded his family better than the previous fox family had been protected.

One very close call to tragedy occurred when the pups were about two months old. Only the watchfulness of the head of the

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family prevented a sad ending to this sudden danger.

The small foxes were having a wonderful romp, one bright night, chasing each other and biting and snarling, in mock battle. Fluffy herself was asleep. When Redcoat was on guard she usually slept at the mouth of the den.

Redcoat was perhaps fifty feet from the romping pups. Everything seemed to be going on merrily, when one of the small foxes uttered an agonized squeak. At the same time Redcoat noted a large black shadow on the ground beside him. He sprang to his feet like a red flash.

Glancing towards the mouth of the den he saw a large bird swooping down for one of the pups who was dodging and trying vainly to elude the great bird.

Fluffy had seen the danger at the same time, and was in ahead of Redcoat, as she was nearer. As the sharp talons of the great horned owl closed upon the small fox, Fluffy's jaws closed upon his leg. He flapped mightily, and for a moment it

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seemed as though he would raise the full grown fox in air. But while he still flapped, and the mother fox fought him, a red flash shot in several lightning bounds across the intervening distance, and Redcoat struck the great owl like a catapult. He did not stop with a leg, but closed upon the bird's neck. For several seconds there was a furious battle.

The owl tore with his talons, and struck with his sharp beak.

Finally he ceased to struggle, and Redcoat laid him upon the ground quite dead. He had inflicted several bad wounds upon the two adult foxes but he had paid for his daring, with the price of his life, and the pup had been saved.

It was a great victory, and filled Redcoat with pride at his cunning.

Redcoat had always been a good hunter, but after the coming of the pups, he had developed resources, and invented new methods of hunting that probably made him the most clever fox that ever hunted upon the mountain, or the great meadows. He had

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the quality of imagination and this made him resourceful. He succeeded where other foxes would have failed. To illustrate: In February, about the time of his first meeting with Fluffy, a very hard crust developed. It was not a thick crust, but icy and it covered the meadows where the mice were still carrying on under two feet of snow. The mice were there in abundance, but how to get at them was the question. A fox by persistent scratching, could dig through the crust, but it was necessary to break through in many places so it would have taken all the time just to break the crust, had not Redcoat invented a novel way of breaking it. An old hunter who watched him through a glass vouches for the fact.

Redcoat would trot along the snow, with his keen nose close to the crust, until he smelled mice. Then he would place his four feet close together, jump into the air three or four feet, and come down with all his paws close together, and the impact of his feet usually broke the crust.

One bright day in early spring Redcoat

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was watching the great river from his perch upon a cliff on the side of the mountain. This was a point where he often observed what was going on in the valley below. The water was high, it being the time of spring freshets. Redcoat knew that the muskrat hunting was good, but he wanted something better than the tough rats for Fluffy and himself. After a while the Red Hunter observed some large birds swimming about in a small section of backwater.

They were wild ducks, and Redcoat immediately set his keen mind to work, how to get duck for the fox family breakfast. He observed that the ducks always fed in the same spot, and that it was not very far from the shore. So Mr. Fox laid his plans accordingly.

On the following morning, at about the same time, he was creeping stealthily towards a point which ran out into the backwater where the ducks fed.

He had noted this point the day before, and also an old log which would help him in the stealthy advance. Belly to earth the

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wary hunter went until tie reached the end of the land, and then he slipped silently into the water and swam to the old log, just the tip of his nose showing.

Behind the log he waited for several minutes marking the position of the nearest duck with great care. Then he again slipped noiselessly into the water. This time he swam till within twenty feet of the duck with his nose just showing, and then it too disappeared.

When the duck towards which Mr. Fox had been swimming, suddenly sank from sight, quite noiselessly, the rest of the ducks concluded that it dove for something under the water. Once under the water the Red Hunter silenced the duck with a crushing bite upon its neck. Then he slowly, and without a ripple, swam back to his point of attack behind the old log.

He laid the dead duck beside the log where it was out of sight, and went back for another. Again he was successful, and soon the second duck lay beside the first. But on the third attempt the duck moved just

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as the fox reached for it, so he got a poor hold. There was a great squawking and flapping in the water. Mr. Fox got his third duck, but the hunting was spoiled for that day, and for the rest of the season as far as that particular cove was concerned, for the ducks became suspicious of the place.

But Redcoat was well satisfied with the morning's kill, for the fox family not only had duck for breakfast, but they had three ducks which lasted for two days.

After the young foxes were large enough so they could be left alone Redcoat occasionally took Fluffy with him upon his hunting expeditions. This was when the hunting needed two to accomplish the best results.

On the still hunt one was almost as good as two, but in carrying out the ambush two were essential to success.

There was a fat old woodchuck down in the pasture above the meadows whom Redcoat had been hunting for a long time. This old chuck was very wary, and he usually scented, or heard Redcoat coming and

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scurried into his hole. But after he had eluded the fox he would peep out of his hole, and then come out and watch the hunter from a distance just as though he taunted him. This the fox determined to remedy. No mere woodchuck was to make fun of him as a hunter. So one day he took Fluffy with him.

They made plenty of noise in approaching the favorite feeding ground of the old chuck, so just as Redcoat had supposed, he heard them and scurried for his hole.

Redcoat then posted himself behind a convenient stump close to the hole and intimated to Fluffy to go a short distance away and then to sit up in plain sight of the chuck's hole. This she did.

The woodchuck came to the mouth of his hole and saw the fox sitting upon her haunches some distance away, so he came out to taunt him.

He had his back to the stump where Redcoat was hiding, so did not see him when he rushed. The first thing Mr. Chuck knew he was seized in the strong jaws of the fox,

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and borne away to the fox burrow where the pups killed him.

Redcoat also played this two by two hunting on a flock of turkeys on the south side of the mountain. These turkeys belonged on the Mason farm.

Usually they kept near to the farm buildings, but in summer they were in the habit of going to a small calf pasture a quarter of a mile from the buildings to hunt grasshoppers. Redcoat discovered them there one day and watched them for several hours, but could not get within striking distance. So the following day he took Fluffy with him.

Of course this was dangerous hunting, stalking the man's fowls in full daylight. He might appear any moment with the thunder stick, but turkeys were a great prize, and Redcoat was always taking desperate chances.

He had noted that there was a clump of bushes running along a stone wall at one side of the lot.

By crawling upon his belly very carefully

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for a dozen rods, he secreted himself in the bushes. Then Fluffy went boldly into the open, but so far away from the turkeys that she did not scare them. They saw her but she made no move to steal upon them. Instead she walked very leisurely towards them, occasionally stopping and sitting down upon her haunches and watching them in a very disinterested manner.

The turkeys simply moved away when she came too near, and in this way they were driven close to the clump of brush where the hunter lay concealed. Finally a young gobbler came close enough. Redcoat waited until his back was towards him, then he sprang. It was a sure thing, and that day the fox family dined on turkey, while the Mason family that night made the count one turkey short. They never knew where the missing turkey went, and Redcoat was clever enough not to repeat the experiment. It was too near the house, and too risky hunting.

One moonlight night in midsummer when the pups were nearly half grown, Redcoat

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was hunting mice in the small meadows on the Holcome farm, to the north of the mountain. In the course of his hunting the fox discovered a ditch perhaps two feet deep running across the meadow, about forjty rods from the house. It had about six inches of water in it, and Redcoat examined the ditch for its entire length.

The Red Hunter did not know just whyhe did this, but it was a part of his policy to always know the country where he hunted. In fact, to know all the country that he frequented. One could never tell when such knowledge would come handy. So Redcoat made a very thorough examination of the ditch.

About a week later Bud Holcome was awakened one morning by a great squawking among the hens. Some of them were already out in the yard, although it was not yet sunrise. Leaping from his bed, and running to the window, Bud was much excited to see a very large red fox leaping over the wall just across the road, carrying a half grown rooster in his jaws.
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"Dad," cried Bud, "get up quick, Dad. That red fox has got one of the young roosters. Here Scottie, here Racer," and Bud whistled for the dogs.

Both canines who slept in the woodshed came running out, Scottie very wide awake, and Racer following more slowly.

"Seek him, Scottie, seek, him," cried Bud, pointing across the road.

Scottie ran to a bar way, and immediately espied the fox with his kill, and with excited barks gave chase, and Racer followed eating up the distance with great graceful bounds.

The house stood upon high ground, and Bud could see the race from his bedroom window, so he stood and watched. The fox had only about two hundred feet start, and, encumbered with the rooster, the dogs would surely overtake him and kill him before he was half across the meadows, so Bud waited and watched.

Bud thought he never in his life saw a fox run as that one did, yet the dogs, especially Racer, the greyhound, gained

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steadily upon him. When they reached the ditch at the middle of the meadows as suddenly as though the ground had opened and swallowed him the fox disappeared.

"Ah, ha," cried Bud. "He has gone into the ditch. Now they will get him surely. That was certainly a mistake." But when the two madly racing dogs came to the ditch they overran a couple of hundred feet before they discovered that their quarry had disappeared. Then they came back and ran up and down the ditch, for twenty rods in each direction.

Bud still watched from his window, for he expected each moment to see them rout out the fox, but no fox appeared.

Finally after ten or fifteen minutes the dogs came back to the house just as Bud came down stairs.

"Come on," cried Bud to the dogs. "I will help you find him."

They searched the ditch for a quarter of a mile, nearly its entire length, but no fox was to be discovered.

When Bud told Mr. Holcome how the fox

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had disappeared as though the ground had opened and swallowed him, the farmer laughed loudly. "I guess you were dreaming, Bud. You were not quite awake."

"Oh, get out, Dad. I wasn't. Didn't you hear the dogs barking?"

Mr. Holcome laughed again. "All right, Bud. There were half a dozen foxes if you want it so. I guess we had better get at the milking."

"There isn't any joke about that."

About ten o'clock that night, when everyone at the farmhouse was soundly sleeping, a wet bedraggled fox, carrying a wet bedraggled rooster, crawled out from under a small culvert, in the ditch, and after shaking both himself, and the wet rooster, started for the mountain.

This culvert in the ditch was a place where the hay wagon crossed in summer time when the farmers were haying. The three planks that formed the bridge, were only about a foot from the water. There was just room enough for Redcoat to squeeze in under the plank and hide until the danger was passed.
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Had Scottie and Racer been foxhounds he would probably have been discovered, as the dogs had raced across the bridge twice in their search.

But not even Bud had thought of looking under this little plank bridge. So, knowing the country, and all of its features had saved the fox his rooster and his skin that time.

This policy also applied to all sorts of cover. A thick tangle of blackberry bushes, a sheer cliff, where there was an unseen way of escape. Tangles of laurel in the great swamp. All of these things were a part of Redcoat's equipment with which he fought his many enemies.

The north side of Redcoat's mountain which faced towards the Holcome farm was not as precipitate as was the west side which faced the larger meadows, and the great river; the side towards the city where the Fox Club lived. But at one spot the northern side was very precipitate. In fact there was an almost sheer drop of sixty feet.

Redcoat was always prowling around finding new trails and short cuts to his favorite

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hunting ground. Thus it happened that he discovered a very narrow trail leading to this precipitate place. Much of the way, this path led along a slope of forty-five degrees, but at the place where the cliff was sheer for sixty feet, the path became very narrow. At one point it was so very narrow and so dangerous that Redcoat debated whether to go back along the way he had come. But he finally hugged the cliff very carefully and got by the bad place. Just beyond the boulder which had made the path so narrow, there was a shelf three feet wide, and here Redcoat sat down and looked at the valley below. I do not know that a plan for using the narrow path against his enemies in the valley was then worked out. Perhaps when he did finally put it to use, it was just a sudden inspiration that came to him like a flash, just as many of his movements did, but the narrow path did stand Redcoat in good stead on more than one occasion. By its use he taught Scottie, and Racer, the tall greyhound, a lesson that they never forgot and he gave Racer an ex-

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perience that made that gaunt hound very wary about following him afterwards.

Redcoat had gone to the edge of the Holcome meadows, one night just before dusk. He did not usually go so early, but preferred the friendly shadows of night, even though the moon was bright. But on this occasion Redcoat was careless, just as most good hunters are sometimes.

He had just found a frog and was about to start back to the den with it for the young foxes to play with when he heard a sharp quick bark and looking in the direction from which the sound came, he saw Scottie, the Holcome collie, racing frantically towards him, closely followed by the great greyhound whom Redcoat knew could run like the wind.

If it had been just the collie Redcoat would have laughed at the idea of a good run in the dusk, but this greyhound was a different proposition, so Redcoat dropped the frog and ran for the mountain at his best pace.

Spite of all he could do, the greyhound gained steadily on him, so when he reached

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the foot of the mountain the hound was only a hundred feet behind. Whether by mere chance, or design, I do not know, but Redcoat chose the trail up the mountainside leading along the narrow ledge.

Once he was in the narrow path, he did not hurry so much, but let the greyhound get within fifty feet of him, and as they neared the narrow spot the greyhound was within thirty feet.

Bud Holcome, who had come out on the meadows to look for the dogs espied them at this point in the chase. Or rather, he saw the greyhound, and Redcoat just ahead of him, but he mistook the fox for Scottie, who was a red sable collie.

"Thunder," he ejaculated, "Scottie had better be careful, or he will get a tumble. I wonder what they are chasing up there." Then Bud noted another figure just behind the greyhound.

"Why, that was Scottie. The animal ahead was not Scottie at all."

Just at this point in the exciting chase Bud saw the animal ahead, which he decided

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was another collie cross the narrow place. It seemed to Bud that the venturesome dog would surely fall. But he made it, and then wheeled like a flash and backed up against the boulder behind, and Bud clearly heard his defiant snarl. "Why," thought Bud. "It isn't a dog at all they are after."

"By thunder! It looks like a fox. I guess they have got him. He's cornered."

At the narrow spot Racer hesitated for a second, but Scottie behind was barking frantically, and whining to get at the fox, who was almost in their reach. So he crowded Racer from behind, the snarl of Redcoat also urging him forward.

He made a movement, half jump, and half scramble, to get by the precipitate place, but just as his head and shoulders projected by the boulder the waiting fox slashed him furiously in the face. Once, twice, three times he struck, and poor Racer drawing back to escape the sudden onset, lost his balance and went hurtling to the rocks sixty feet below.

Scottie, peered over the cliff, and seeing

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his comrade falling to his doom, stuck his tail between his legs, and with a dismal howl started back down the narrow trail. He had seen enough of this terrible Redcoat who could throw dogs over a cliff to their doom.

"By Godfrey, it is a fox," cried Bud. "He has done for old Racer."

Bud was soon joined by the excited Scottie, and together they made their way to the foot of the cliff, where they found poor Racer, not dead, but terribly mauled up. Bud went home and got his father, and with the aid of a blanket, of which they made a litter they got the greyhound home, but he never cared to chase Redcoat again.

When Bud told Mr. Holcome of what he had seen, the farmer laughed heartily.

"I guess that fox is the mate to the one who jumped through the henhouse window," he taunted. "I guess the dogs were playing and Racer fell off the cliff."

"No," returned Bud, "I am sure that it was a fox that toppled him over, and I was thinking myself it was the same one."

To the south of Redcoat's mountain, and

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just opposite from the Holcome farm, was the Mason farm. This would not have been important in this story had it not been the home of pretty Kitty Mason, who lived with her parents and her small brother on the farm.

It was two miles as the crow flies across the mountain from one farm to the other. That was the way Bud usually took, but around the west end of the mountain, by the meadow road, it was four miles.

It was Kitty Mason's good fortune one day in August when she was picking blueberries in her father's pasture, on the south slope of the mountain, to make the acquaintance of Redcoat. She never knew where he came from, or what he wanted, if anything. But the first she knew of his whereabouts, he was standing not thirty feet away, looking intently at her. The wind was blowing her scent away from the fox, and so he was not at first fully aware of the dangerous man scent.

Most wild animals have a strange animal psychology which tells them which things

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are dangerous and which are not. A sort of wild instinct.

This instinct told Redcoat, that while this was one of the man-creatures people, yet this particular person was not dangerous. So he stood and looked at her for a long time.

Finally Kitty tried the experiment of speaking to him in a soft caressing voice, and just how caressing her voice could be Bud Holcome could well have testified.

"Hello, Mr. Red Fox. Hello old chap. How are you this fine morning?"

To her great surprise the fox did not immediately flee, but instead cocked his head on one side and looked at her still more intently.

He rather liked this calm caressing sound. It gave him a strange tingling sensation in all his nerves, and he was not a bit afraid.

Just at this point in the pleasant acquaintance Kitty's small brother came running around the bush.

"Hush," warned Kitty, but she spoke too late.
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"O Kit," cried the small boy. "Look, Kit! Look! See the great red fox."

If Redcoat had been doubtful as to the genus of the girl, he was not at all uncertain concerning her brother. This was one of the men in embryo. The other kind with the flowing garments about her might be harmless, but this other sort was dangerous. So Redcoat bolted like a streak.

Two other times Kitty saw Redcoat, and once he had his family with him.

Although they were quite a distance away, yet she had a good view of them at play. It was a wonderful sight, and there was no small boy along to break in on the fun this time.

Very casually, Kitty mentioned her acquaintance with Redcoat to Bud Holcome.

At first he laughed at the idea that she had ever talked with the sly fellow, but when she told more fully of the circumstances he was convinced.

"My," concluded Kitty, "but he had a beautiful coat. If he didn't have to be caught I would like him for a muff. You

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remember you gave me one fox skin last year. That made a fine neck piece, but I have no muff."

"Do you want him for a Christmas present, Kit?" asked the boy eagerly. "If you do say the word."

Now Kitty had long wanted a muff. All the other girls at school had one and they were very stylish. So without thinking of Redcoat's part in the bargain, and thinking only of the muff, she cried eagerly, "O Bud, I would dearly like a muff for a Christmas present."

"All right," returned Bud. "He is yours."

Thus it was that Kitty Mason, a kind-hearted girl, who would have shrunk from catching Redcoat in a steel trap herself, and who if she could have seen him thrashing and fighting, with his eyes full of pain and fear, and his jaws dripping foam, would have released him herself, became a party to the steel trap, and set in motion another grave danger to the life and happiness of the Red Hunter.

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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter VI}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|Playing With Lightning|level=2}}

ANYONE who has ever seen that rare sight, a litter of fox pups at play while the old fox looks on, will agree with the statement that the fox family are very playful. The expression "as playful as a kitten," is proverbial, but "as playful as a fox" is almost as true. Few people, with the exception of woodsmen, or those who spend much time out of doors have ever been fortunate enough to behold this rare scene. This is because the foxes both young and old are very wary, and hide or flee away at the slightest alarm. One of the old foxes is always on guard, watching for danger while the little ones play, so it is hard to spy upon them. Also, the fox is so protectively colored, that it is hard to see him any time but in winter.
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No litter of kittens ever played with more abandon than will a litter of small foxes. They will chase each other in the wildest sort of a game of tag, which usually ends in a rough and tumble, with a sham fight at the end. These sham fights, when the young foxes become half grown, are often quite serious scraps. Nor does this liking for play die out when the fox attains his full growth. I have on several occasions seen full grown foxes playing tag, or a sort of chasing game, upon the meadows, at about sunrise. First one would chase and the other run. Then they would face each other for several seconds, but soon they were off again.

Down on the last shoulder of Redcoat's mountain, was a pasture. It was mostly open, although there were some trees in it farther up the mountainside. It was in this pasture that Farmer Holcome kept those stupid animals, his cattle. It was Redcoat who thought of them as stupid. Redcoat had often spied upon the farmer when he came to look after the cattle. On these oc-

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casions Scottie, the farm dog, always accompanied the man. The dog could drive the cattle as well as the man could, and this rather surprised Redcoat, for he had characterized Scottie as stupid because he had eluded him so many times while thieving about the farm buildings.

In the late fall, when it was getting cold, the man and the dog came out and drove the cattle away, and put them in one of the farm buildings, the barn to be exact. So Redcoat, after the way of a fox, knew that the stupid animals belonged to the man, just as the dog did.

The fox often passed very close to these animals who were always chewing grass. Redcoat thought that very foolish, because grass was only good to eat when one was sick. But, these creatures ate it all the time. When it was very hot, these animals came up into the woods and lay in the shade. Then the fox could spy upon them at will. He had often noted that when Scottie drove the cattle he barked and that made them hurry. Really, it was a very interesting

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game that the man and the dog played with the stupid animals.

There was one animal in this herd who would not run for Scottie. In fact, he often faced the dog and got angry when he barked at him. He would even paw the ground and make a rumbling noise. One twilight, when Redcoat had strayed down into the pasture, he came upon this animal. He was chewing grass, and Redcoat came up very close to him before he noticed him. When the bull looked up and saw Redcoat so close to him, he snorted, and started to paw the ground. Then just for fun, Redcoat barked at him. This seemed to make him angry, and he pawed still more. So, Redcoat barked again. This time the bull made that deep rumbling sound which was almost as loud as the thunder stick. Really, this was getting quite funny, so the fox barked still more and went close to the angry animal. This was too much for the bull. To have a strange dog come into his pasture and taunt him in this way was more than he could bear. Scottie, he had to endure, but this strange

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dog had no right to bark at him. So, with a deep bellow he charged full at the fox. Redcoat sprang lightly aside, and for a few seconds skulked in the brush where the bull could not see him. But this play was too much fun to be given up easily, and he soon returned to his game of worrying the great animal. The second time the bull charged more readily than he had the first and the fox had to move lively to get out of his way. My, but this was great fun. He had never had anything quite like it. So, Redcoat returned to the worrying game again and again.

Finally, he had the great animal in a roaring rage, bellowing and charging madly.

When the game was at its very highest pitch, and Redcoat was having the time of his life, the man appeared in a distant portion of the pasture and began whistling, and calling, "Here, you Scottie. You come here. What are you doing? Come here." Redcoat shot into the bushes like a flash, and ran for fifteen minutes. He had been so intent upon the game he had not seen the man

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or scented him until he was in plain sight. He must be more careful. The man might have the thunder stick with him.

That evening, when Farmer Holcome came back from salting the cattle he was quite disturbed.

"There is one thing, Bud, that Scottie has got to stop doing, if he is to be a cattle dog. He has got to stop worrying the bull. Why he had him in a great temper to-night. He will make him cross. I am not going to have it."

"When was it?" asked Bud, quick to defend his friend. "I never saw Scottie worry the bull. When did he do it?"

"Not half an hour ago. I saw him when I was up salting the cattle."

"Why Dad, you must be mistaken," said Bud in surprise. "Scottie has been with me doing the chores all the time you have been gone. He has been lying on the barn floor."

"I guess I know when I see him worrying the bull," said Mr. Holcome, suspicious that Bud was defending Scottie, without reason.
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"Honest Dad, he has been here all the time," returned Bud.

Father and son looked into each other's eyes and Mr. Holcome knew that Bud spoke the truth.

"Well," he said, "I don't see what in the dickens it was worrying the bull."

"I don't know about that," returned Bud. "But, it wasn't Scottie."

From tantalizing the big bull in the pasture to playing with Brown Buck was an easy and natural step, but it was quite a different proposition, for while the bull was slow and cumbersome Brown Buck was quick and agile, and he sprang like lightning and charged like a fury.

His favorite retreat was in the rabbits' swamp, three miles east of the den in the spruces, but Brown Buck often left this fastness and wandered along the mountainside and into the pasture, where he sometimes even mingled with the cattle. Occasionally, he had a doe with him, with a little spotted fawn following at her flank,

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but more often Brown Buck was alone, for he was a rather morose animal, fond of his own company. When Redcoat first discovered him, he was in the pasture not far from the herd of cattle and the fox thought him one of the herd. But, when he started barking at the Buck as he had at the big bull, he discovered his mistake.

Brown Buck at first did not pay very much attention to the fox, but when the barking and teasing became too persistent he snorted and stamped and finally charged at the mischievous fellow.

Redcoat had no trouble in eluding the bull, but the Buck was a different proposition. He could spring a dozen feet at a bound, and his hoofs came down like piledrivers. Redcoat had to twist and turn and barely escaped being trampled, but he finally eluded his pursuer in a tangle of underbrush.

It was dangerous business, playing with this tall, agile animal, and Redcoat did not attempt it again for many days.

But, finally the spirit of mischief became

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too much for him. Hectoring the Buck was playing with lightning, but Redcoat did not know it.

This time, Brown Buck did not wait to be teased, but charged furiously, snorting and stamping. Out and in Redcoat raced, through brambles and thickets, the death dealing hoofs coming down again and again in the spot where the agile fox had been a second before.

At last, in an unfortunate moment, Redcoat stepped upon a thorn which pierced the pad of his forefoot. For a second he flinched and his attention was distracted from his pursuer. This moment almost cost him his life, for Brown Buck's hoofs again came down like a piledriver, and struck the fox a glancing blow on the shoulder.

Redcoat needed no further punishment to acquaint him with his danger, and he ran for the deep woods as he had never run before, regardless of the thorn in his foot. At this point in the mad chase, Bud Holcome appeared and began whistling shrilly and calling, "Scottie! Scottie! Scottie!"
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But, in shorter time than it takes to tell it, the fox and his pursuer had disappeared in the deep woods, where Redcoat soon gave the Buck the slip.

"Dad," said Bud Holcome to his father when he returned to the farmhouse an hour later, "Scottie has got to stop his playfulness or he will lose his skin one of these days. I saw him up in the pasture just now. I suppose he thought he was teasing the bull, but instead he was hectoring a big Buck, and he mighty near got him."

"Why," said Mr. Holcome, "that is strange, Scottie has been in the garden with me all the time you were gone."

It was Bud's turn to look astonished.

"But I saw him with my own eyes, Dad, and he and the Buck had a regular's 'set-to.{{' "}}

"I can't help it, Bud," returned Mr. Holcome, "he's been here with me all the time you were gone."

Perhaps the strangest and most interesting thing that came under the observation of Redcoat during his entire life was the

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mighty thunderer. This strange monster ran upon the two shiny sticks that Redcoat himself had often used when trying to elude the hounds. It was true that these sticks had the same smell that the old steel trap had, that Redcoat's sire had shown him, and also the woodcutter's axe, of which he had smelled when he was a pup. His sire had told him that this scent was very dangerous and to always keep away from it, but Redcoat had discovered for himself that these long, shiny sticks did him no harm when he traveled upon them and they held little or no scent for the hounds to follow. The great thunderer was often seen passing north and south beyond the broad river to the west of Redcoat's mountain. It was also seen a mile and a half to the north of the mountain beyond the Holcome farm. If it was night-time, the thunderer had a large bright eye in his head and it shone through the darkness far ahead of him along his strange trail. Also, there was a red light behind, but this was smaller and not as bright as the light ahead.
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Several times Redcoat had been very close to the trail when the thunderer passed, and the din that it made gave him a great fright, for the thunderer snorted and shrieked and whistled and made the earth tremble beneath Redcoat's feet.

Six miles to the east of the fox den, the trail of the thunderer turned to the South and ran between some hills. Here there was a place for an eighth of a mile where the thunderer's trail had such steep banks that it was almost impossible for either a man or an animal to climb up out of the trail.

One day, Redcoat in a curious mood, went down the trail through this deep cut. He had come to the further end, when looking a mile or so down the trail he saw the smoke that the thunderer always made, and then he heard the strange sound that the thunderer sometimes gave. If he would get back through the deep cut Redcoat must hurry. He had outrun a pack of swift hounds the week before and he felt very sure of his own fleetness. The thunderer could not catch him.
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But as Redcoat scurried down the deep cut, the din of the oncoming train behind him grew at an alarming rate. Redcoat put forth his utmost strength and ran belly to earth. He had never run from the hounds like this. But, do what he would the roaring came nearer and nearer, and presently the thunderer again emitted that terrible shriek, which echoed from hill top to hill top. To the fleeing fox it was like the crack of doom. Presently the rails beneath Redcoat's flying feet were clicking and he knew the mighty monster was close upon him.

But, just at that moment when a terrible death had almost clutched him, the frantic fox espied a little cleft in the rock three or four feet from the ground. If he could only reach it and spring upon it perhaps the thunderer would pass by and not destroy him. So, he put every ounce of his remaining strength into the effort. A dozen frantic jumps brought him to this one chance of escape. He sprang, but his forepaws held for a moment on the ledge, then slipped off and he fell back upon the track. Once

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again, summoning the last ounce of his strength and in utter terror, Redcoat sprang for his life, and this time he made the shelf.

With a roar like the loudest thunder, and a shriek of the whistle, and a clang of the bell, and the sound of rushing wind, the thunderer tore by, leaving poor Redcoat cowering upon the shelf that had saved him. When the thunderer had passed, he jumped quickly down from his retreat and made all haste out of the cut. Never again did Redcoat use this short cut through the hills.

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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter VII}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|Hidden Danger|level=2}}

THERE were two kinds of dangers that Redcoat had to be ever on the watch for. One was the danger which was out in the open, and the other was cunningly hidden, hidden with all the art of man. The open danger was from men, guns and hounds. Of the hidden danger I will speak later. Redcoat's safeguard against all danger was in his eyesight, his hearing, and very keen sense of smell, for his was the best nose in field or forest.

One illustration of the hidden danger against which no cunning could guard him will illustrate what I mean.

Redcoat was hunting in the rabbit warren and the hunting was not good, in fact it had been bad for several days. He was crouched behind an old stump, close to a rabbit path.

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This pathway was the rabbit's main travel road through the swamp.

Redcoat had been sitting there in the cold with the snow sifting down upon him from the overhanging branches for more than an hour. He was cramped and disgusted with the poor hunting. Presently he peeked out from behind the stump and discovered a rabbit coming down this rabbit highway, but as ill luck for the hunter would have it the rabbit also saw Mr. Fox and turned and ran for his life. Ordinarily the fox would not have pursued him. He would have waited in ambush for another rabbit, but since the hunting was so poor pursuit seemed Redcoat's only course, so he went after the unfortunate cottontail bounding lightly over the laurel tops and scurrying around small spruces. Out and in they raced, a race of life and death, in which the fox steadily gained in spite of the rabbit's dodging and turning.

But it happened there was another hunter abroad that night; a surly old wildcat or bay lynx was sitting on an old log, waiting by

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the rabbit path. He had been waiting for a long time, and to see Redcoat chasing the rabbit be bad boped to get filled him with uncontrollable rage. He dug his claws into the bark on the log in a frenzy of fury, and as the rabbit scuttled by the wildcat crouched to spring, but not at the fleeing rabbit. Redcoat discovered him as he came hurtling through the air, else this hunt would have been his last. He did not have time to jump aside but simply dropped in the snow and the cat passed over him, just raking his back with his long needle like claws. Before he had time to recover Redcoat had sprung to one side and the cat's next jump missed him. In a fair run the bobcat was no match for him, so he soon left him far behind. But, it was a close call and it filled the Red Hunter with unspeakable rage, to think that his rabbit swamp had been invaded by this ugly old cat and that he had had to run in this unceremonious way for his life made Redcoat so angry that the hair on his back and neck bristled for hours whenever he thought of it.
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About twenty rods below the spruces where the fox family had their den there was a wonderful little spring which gushed out from the rocks and fell in a perfect bowl which the waters had worn for themselves. It was fringed with ferns and moss and the water was deliciously cold. This was Redcoat's favorite drinking place. Very rarely did men come to the spring and Redcoat looked upon it as his own special possession.

So his surprise and disgust may well be imagined when one day he discovered man scent about the spring. The scent was not strong, yet it was unmistakable, but this was not all, for there were several small pieces of meat scattered about on the ground close to the spring. Redcoat sniffed the meat suspiciously, for it smelled delicious and made his jaws drip saliva. There was a faint suggestion of man scent about the meat, but it was nearly lost in the ravishing scent of the bloody meat.

In the old days when Redcoat had been just a small pup tagging about after his sire

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this wise old fox had given the pups to understand that those things which they did not have to work for often were not good for them. If they killed their meat they could be sure it was all right, but if it was killed for them and placed under their noses, then look out.

But Redcoat had partly forgotten this lesson. In fact, the old fox's untimely death at the hand of Bud Holcome had interrupted the education of the fox family. Besides, Redcoat was very hungry this morning and the meat smelled so tempting. Something inside him seemed to sa> beware. His good nose told him that the meat might possibly have come from the hand of his enemy man, but he was so hungry. Finally, after nosing one of the pieces for several seconds, he swallowed it hastily and it seemed to do him no harm; so he gobbled down the other pieces, took a good drink at the spring, and hurried away. It was not long however before a queer sensation came over him. He became dizzy. There was a prickling, tingling sensation in his nerves, and soon this

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was followed by violent pain inside and spasmodic twitching.

Then, the fact came to Redcoat that it was the meat which was making him sick. His enemy man had done some terrible thing to him. If he could only get rid of the meat. He knew a plant somewhere which would cause him to vomit. If he could only find it and eat some of the leaves. Ordinarily he knew where it was but now his wits seemed to forsake him. Up and down he raced, searching madly for the plant, and all the time his sickness grew upon him. His plight was getting desperate. He was becoming so dizzy he could hardly stand. Something must be done and that quickly. Then the wood nymph, that guardian angel who protects and shelters the wild creatures, must have come to his assistance, because of a sudden he remembered an old remedy that he had often used. He was standing knee deep in cut grass and he began breaking off the tips and eating them ravenously. Mouthful after mouthful he gulped down, and the tickling of the cut grass in his throat

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and stomach soon produced the desired effect and the poisonous meat came up with a rush. But Redcoat had already absorbed much of the poison in his system and he went away into the spruces and found a dark place under the top of a fallen tree, and there he laid for the rest of the day a very sick fox. It was hours before Nature threw off the effect of the poison and he finally went to the brook to slake his terrible thirst.

It had been a hard lesson and had nearly cost him his life, but he had learned it well. Never again would he touch any meat he did not kill himself. The whole thing had been too easy and he had been a fool, but they would never catch him again in just that way.

It did not matter that it was a felonious offence to lay poison in this way, where a dog instead of a fox might have gotten it, for some men fear not the laws of God or man and those who lay poison in this manner are of that class.

In the old days when Redcoat had been a pup tagging about after his sire with the

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rest of the litter, that wise old fox had taught the youngsters many things, among which was the fear of steel and iron. The old fox had impressed upon the whelps that this smell was one of the most dangerous they had to fear.

He had discovered an old discarded steel trap by the brookside and together with the whelps had examined it carefully so they would know it when they saw it again. Finally he had driven the litter away from the trap with great ferocity, giving them plainly to understand that this was a great danger. Later on he had supplemented this knowledge of the smell of iron and steel with the scent of an axe which a woodsman had left for a night in the woods. They also discovered an iron horseshoe in a country road. Later on Redcoat himself had discovered many discarded utensils of iron, all of which he examined very carefully so that the scent of iron or steel was well worked into his system.

The reason for all this caution had been brought home to him one day with great

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force. He had been watching Bud Holcome who was walking along the banks of a small stream and stopping every now and then to examine something in the stream. At one point he pulled out one of those very strange instruments which Redcoat's sire had told him was so dangerous. After examining it for a few seconds Bud had replaced it in the water. A little further on to Redcoat's great surprise Bud hawled out another of the dread instruments and in it was a muskrat. The rat was dead. He had been in the trap for some time and being exhausted had drowned. Bud opened the mouth of the strange steel device and took out the muskrat which was held by the forefoot and then threw the rat down on the bank, and put the steel trap back in the river. Redcoat waited to see no more, but fled in great fear lest the strange device might catch him by the foot and hold him until Bud Holcome should come for him. This conclusion did not come to Redcoat all at once, but after several days' pondering on what he had seen he got the idea rather vaguely in his mind.
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So, for this reason Redcoat was rather well fitted to cope with traps. This was why for a long time he avoided all the traps which Bud Holcome set for him, for Bud was determined that the fox's bright red coat should be Kitty Mason's Christmas present. A new muff would be a wonderful present for Kitty, and Bud was determined that he would do his best to get it. So with this in view, he had set trap after trap with all his trapper's skill. Some of these he set by the dry set method and others he placed in water, but Redcoat always detected the iron smell, or the man scent, and left them alone, even when they were baited with chicken heads, which fairly made his mouth water. Then Bud remembered a trapper's dodge of which he had read and he smoked his traps, which took away the steel smell, and he also dusted out his own tracks by using a balsam bough, which was very pungent. But even so, Redcoat usually discovered the ruse and still went free. But sooner or later even the most wary may get caught and Redcoat was no exception to the rule.
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He had been hunting along a little stream one morning, in the hopes that he might find a muskrat in one of Bud's traps for he had become so bold that he had twice robbed a trap, once taking a mink. This had made Bud still more determined to catch him. This morning Redcoat had thought he noted Bud's scent at a certain place on the stream. But after careful examination he had concluded that it was a mistake. The trapper had been walking in the stream and the water had carried away nearly all the scent.

A few rods further up the stream Redcoat discovered something that made his mouth fairly water. It was a small bird dangling over the stream. The bird was apparently dead, and it hung head down. These were two facts which should have made Redcoat wary. Anything that was dead was dangerous as food. Things one did not have to work for were not good for one. Then the bird was hanging head down, that also was strange. So Redcoat began investigating very carefully. There was no

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man scent on either side of the brook and no man scent on the bird. He was certain of that because he could reach his nose out within a couple of feet of it. For half an hour Redcoat walked up and down the stream looking at the bird and pondering and gradually his suspicions were dissipated. Then he noted a small bunch of turf in the stream half way between him and the bird. Why that was just the thing to step on. He hesitated for several seconds with one paw upraised. Something seemed to say beware, but it was very faint. His hunger was great and the bird looked so tempting. Then Redcoat set his paw down lightly on the bit of turf, and click, snap. Although Redcoat sprang back like lightning and turned a somersault in his hurry to get back in time, yet he was not as quick as the trap which closed firmly over his forepaw, and he was held in a terrible grip—one that made his paw throb with pain, and filled him with an unspeakable fear. The terrible thing of which his sire had warned him, for which he had always been on the

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watch had caught him at last. He was in the clutches of Bud Holcome and soon he would come searching along the stream to discover if this strange clam which he had put in the water had caught any of the wild creatures. Bud always carried a thunder stick with him and Redcoat knew well what his end would be. How could it have happened? He had always been so careful. It seemed more like a dream than a reality, but as the minutes passed the clutch of the trap upon his paw became more and more real. Yes, he, the Redcoat, who prided himself on his cunning, who had eluded men, dogs, and guns so successfully, was at last caught by this stupid clam in the brook. But it could not hold him. He would soon get free. So he shook his paw violently, but it did no good. Then he crossed to the other side of the stream thinking to leave it behind, but it went with him and the clanging snake-like thing followed also. Perhaps this was helping to hold him, so he seized the chain in his teeth and shook it violently, but that did no good. Then he fell to

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biting the trap savagely, but this only hurt his teeth. Then he resorted to another stratagem. With his free paw he dug a small hole, buried the trap, covering it with dirt, but as soon as he pulled with his captive paw the trap came up with it. Then he tried drowning the trap in the stream, holding it under fhe water for several minutes, but that also was useless, yet something must be done. The minutes were rapidly passing, so he went all through these maneuvers once again, yet all to no purpose. His thrashing around increased the pain in his paw until finally it was almost unbearable, but after an hour or two the paw became numb and the pain was less noticeable. But he was doing nothing to free himself and the coming of the trapper was drawing nearer and nearer. One, two and three hours went by and the misery of Redcoat grew. His nerves became keyed to the highest pitch. The chirping of a bird in the bushes or a snapping twig would make him jump. The woods seemed filled with fear. Danger lurched in every shadow.

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Finally a desperate thought came to Redcoat. He would gnaw off his paw and leave that portion which the trap held. He had steeled his nerves and opened his jaws to give the first vicious crunch upon his own member when he heard the rattle of a stone in the brook, and looking up fearfully he saw Bud Holcome wading up the stream. It was too late to sever his paw. He was lost for Bud Holcome was carrying the dreadful thunder stick in the crook of his arm. Then Redcoat remembered the drowned muskrat. The man had taken it from the trap and thrown it upon the bank. Had the muskrat escaped? Redcoat had not waited to see. Did this suggest a way of escape for him? I do not know.

But when Bud Holcome parted the bushes and peered in where he had set his best trap he saw the beautiful Redcoat lying limp upon the water, just as the muskrat had lain. Bud's astonishment was beyond words, but he took the precaution to advance with his rifle cocked.

"By jing," he said at last. "If he hasn't

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drowned himself in less than a foot of water. Guess I better shoot him through the head though and make sure of him."

He raised the rifle and had almost pressed the trigger when he remembered that a fox skin tears very easily. He would tear the skin enough in getting it off without making any extra bullet holes in it, so he lowered the rifle and poked the fox with the muzzle instead. He was as limp as a bag of feathers. Then Bud pressed his head under the water and held it there for half a minute, but not a muscle moved.

"He's sure enough dead," said the trapper at last, "but I don't understand how it happened."

Standing his rifle against a tree nearby, Bud pulled the splendid fox out on the bank by the chain, released the forepaw from the trap and picking the fox up in his arms carried him a few feet from the stream and laid him in a patch of sun-light to dry. What a beauty he was Bud thought as he brushed the water from his bright fur. What a wonderful muff he would make for Kitty.

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When Bud had satisfied himself with admiring the fox he went back to reset the trap. He had stooped down to place it on a flat rock in the stream when he heard a slight rustle in the bushes behind him. Turning in great haste, he beheld Kitty Mason's Christmas present flashing through the underbrush as he had never seen a fox run before. Bud sprang for his rifle and sent a shot after the fugitive, but he merely lopped off a twig ten feet behind him. Before he could load the rifle for a second shot the fox had disappeared. Bud rubbed his eyes. He looked at the spot where he had lain the fox a minute before. Then he looked at the empty trap in the stream, and then at the thicket where Redcoat had disappeared, and burst into a peal of boyish laughter, showing that he was a good sport and a good loser.

"Well, Mr. Redcoat," he said as he set the rifle up against a tree and went back to the trap, "you fooled me this time good and plenty, but I'll get you next time or my name isn't Bud Holcome."
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The next time that Redcoat fell into the power of Bud Holcome it was not his fault, but just one of those fatuitous happenings which sometimes befall the wild creatures. Neither his eyesight, his hearing, nor his scent had been at fault. Who could have known that this thing which was not really a trap could turn out to be a most diabolical trap, worse than any steel trap. Surely a poor fox could not be expected to understand the laws of physics, and nothing short of an understanding of physics could have saved Redcoat that time.

He had often run upon the rails of the trail which the great thunderer followed. These same rails had often befriended him, for they had allowed him to run for hundreds of rods leaving little scent, so that he might baffle the pack. The rails had never caught his feet. Only once had the thunderer's trail proved disastrous to him and that was when he had been caught in the deep cut. But this place where he was caught upon the occasion in question was on the

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great meadows, with plenty of chance to escape in every direction.

It was a very frosty biting cold morning in early December. There was a hard sharp crust on the snow. It was very hard to break the crust on the meadows where the mice hunting was the best. Such wary little creatures as the wood mouse had been keeping their houses where Redcoat could not find them. So on this crisp frosty cold morning Redcoat was so hungry that his stomach fairly ached. Hunger gnawed like a rat at his vitals. Because of this fact he was looking everywhere for food, and would take a chance on anything that offered. He was trotting along on the railroad track, his keen nostrils sniffing the air, when he suddenly smelled something that made him stop still in his tracks and sniff again and again. It was blood that he smelled; red, rich blood, such as makes a fox's jaws drip saliva, and it was very close to him. Then he happened to look down on the rails beneath his feet and he saw it, red and vital. It was under

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his very feet, and scattered in bright drops all along the rails for several feet. Where this bright tantalizing red fluid had come from Redcoat did not know, but he knew it smelled good.

The blood was that from the veins of an unfortunate doe which had been killed by the morning express only an hour before. Yes, Redcoat could smell the man scent all about on the road bed. The men had climbed down from the train after the engine had struck the doe and loaded her on the train and taken her to the next station. All this Redcoat did not know, but he knew that the blood upon the road bed smelled delicious. First he lapped a dozen drops up from the white snow, but the blood was much plentier on the rails, so the unsuspecting fox began lapping the blood on the cold steel. But one drop was enough for him. To his great surprise and consternation his tongue clung to the rail as though it had been caught in a trap. Not only that, but the rail sucked and pulled at his tongue until it made him whimper, gritty chap that

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he was. He tried carefully at first to pull his tongue free, but every effort seemed to glue it more firmly to the rail. Then he pulled desperately until it seemed as though he would pull his tongue out, but it did no good. Finally, this struggling made him sick and faint, and he lay down to rest and to think.

This was another trap. It was the work of men. Another of their plans to capture him. First Bud Holcome had caught him by the paw, and now he was caught in a much worse manner, by his tongue.

Even as Redcoat struggled desperately to free himself, yet was held fast by that terrible grip of the frosty rail upon his tender tongue, the voice of the mighty thunderer, that long demoniacal shriek which Redcoat knew so well, sounded. It was just as he had thought. He had been caught and held upon the track in order that the thunderer might grind him to dust. But this was not all, for the horror of this dread sound had barely died away in his ears when he heard the rhythmic breathing of that strange ma-

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chine in which men travelled so fast over their smooth trails, and looking up the road, which crossed the trail of the thunderer very close to where Redcoat struggled, the distracted and fear crazed animal discovered his enemy Bud Holcome coming rapidly towards him. Bud saw Redcoat almost as soon as he saw the boy, and stopping his Ford sprang hastily out, and advanced toward the prisoner and Redcoat saw that he was carrying the thunder stick on his arm. So it was a conspiracy of all his enemies to destroy him. Bud had noted, almost as soon as he discovered the fox, that he was held fast in some way, otherwise he would have run away as fast as his legs could have carried him. Perhaps it was a trap which he had dragged for a distance and finally caught the chain between the ties. But even Bud, trained woodsman that he was, was not prepared for the terrible dilemma of this coveted red fox. When he discovered that the fox was held by his tongue in the desperate frost grip of the rail, his surprise was beyond words. But he also had heard the

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train coming. He must shoot the fox quickly and then get him off the track before the train tore the beautiful skin to ribbons. But, as he raised the rifle and took aim, Redcoat looked him full in the face. It seemed to Bud that the eyes of the fox and his own eyes met, and there was something so unspeakably pathetic and imploring in the cry for mercy which came from the two wide wild eyes. It was as though Redcoat had been praying to the god of the wild creatures to save him. But it was the warm kindly heart of Bud Holcome which heard, for he lowered the rifle quickly. Again the thunderer shrieked and this time it was only half a mile away. Whatever Bud did, must be done like lightning. Then in a flash the boy remembered his luncheon, for he was going to fish through the ice for pickerel and had taken his dinner. There was the thermos bottle of hot coffee with his lunch. Bud raced back to the automobile as he had never raced before. The lunch box troubled him for a moment, but he tore it frantically open and raced back with the

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bottle of boiling coffee. Again the train whistled; it was now barely an eighth of a mile away. Bud stooped down and gazed doubtfully at the train, and again Redcoat looked up at him imploringly. The cap came off but the cork stuck in the bottle. Bud worked at it desperately for a second or two, but the locomotive whistled frantically for him to get off the track and for down brakes. He could waste no more time, so with a quick movement he broke the nozzle of the bottle on the rail as close up to Redcoat's jaws as he could. The boiling coffee released the fox's tongue as suddenly as though Bud had released the jaws of a steel trap. The rails were now clicking beneath his feet, and the solid earth was shaking. Bud sprang backward with all his strength and rolled down the embankment on one side of the track, while Redcoat sprang to the other side, and with a roar of car wheels the thunderer rushed by. Another second and boy and fox would have shared the fate of the unfortunate doe. From his sprawling position in the ditch

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Bud looked up at the train as it thundered by. To his surprise he saw the engineer and the fireman leaning out of the window looking at him. Also, several of the passengers were looking from the windows. It had been a closer call than he had appreciated. As Bud picked himself up and looked about for Redcoat he discovered this maker of all his trouble standing about a hundred feet away looking at him. Bud thought that the fox wagged his tail, but he was not sure. The sight of the fox reminded Bud of his rifle. To shoot a fox when he was caught in the pitiable manner this one had been and when he was looking up into one's face was one thing, while to shoot him out in the open was another. So, Bud raised the rifle. But as soon as the cunning fox saw the thunder stick pointed at him he started for the distant woods in such a series of wild bounds that Bud knew it was almost useless to shoot at him; yet he sent a shot after him, but only succeeded in kicking up a shower of snow ten feet behind him.

If poor Redcoat was confused as he raced

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for the woods who will wonder. For this man creature had doubtless helped to entrap him, catching him in that cruel way by his tongue. He had then called the Great Thunderer to crush him, but had freed him just in time, only to try and kill him with the deadly thunder stick when he was free. What strange and terrible creatures men were!

"Well," said Bud as he clambered back into the Ford. "I guess this is my last try at Kitty Mason's Christmas present for this year. But I will get him in time for next Christmas or I'm mightily mistaken."

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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter VIII}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Red Flower Goes Mad|level=2}}

THE Red Flower had always had a strange fascination for Redcoat. It drew him with an irresistible force. It was as a magnet to his being. He had first seen it in the summer time when he was a pup. He had been standing with his sire and the rest of the young foxes on the ledge that served as a fox lookout. It was to this ledge that the old fox always went when he wanted to discover what was going on in the valley below.

Bud Holcome had been burning some brush-heaps down in the pasture and it was that which afforded the young foxes their first sight of the Red Flower. How it leaped and danced in the gloom of the summer evening. It seemed to Redcoat that it must be alive. It would flare up with sudden brilliancy when the night wind fanned

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it, lighting the pasture for rods around, then it would quickly die down, only to leap forth again sending up a shower of tiny stars. It was a weird, wild spectacle and it filled the young foxes with wonder and dread. The old fox could not fully explain to them what it was. He merely intimated that it was a utility of man and something that foxes should keep away from.

The following Summer, when Redcoat was a year and a half old, six or eight Boy Scouts came to the Holcome pasture to camp. First they set up a small, square, white house in which they lived while they were there. Then, as night came on, they kindled the Red Flower and set its bright beams glancing into the darkness. For a long time they sat about the campfire laughing, talking and singing, all of which was very strange to Redcoat who was watching and listening from his lookout. When the boys had all disappeared in the small white house and the Red Flower had died down, Redcoat crept down to the camp to investigate. He went close up to the place where

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the Red Flower had been but he could not discover it. At last he found a little gleam of a dying coal in the ashes and he poked it with his paw. Wow! He had to grit his teeth tight to keep from yelping and disclosing his whereabouts. Then as he began gingerly backing away he stepped on another coal. This time he could not smother his yelp. He had had enough of the Red Flower for that night, so he went limping to the spring to cool his throbbing paws in the cold water. So this was where the Red Flower went when it finally disappeared. It hid in the ground and it could bite a fox's paw as badly as a thistle or a thorn.

The Spring that Redcoat was three years old was long remembered by the farmers who tilled the broad meadows and the uplands adjacent to Redcoat's mountain. It was called the year of the great drouth.

The fall rains had been very light. There had been little snow in the winter, and almost no rain in the Spring. The grass sprang up in the pasture only to die down of great thirst. Leaves that should have been bright

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green became yellow or brown, and only the great meadows kept their verdure, and dust was everywhere. The corn and onion fields were simply so many acres of dust which rose in air at the slightest puff of the wind. When the wind blew strong, as it often did across the broad meadows, the dust came shifting along the mountainside almost like a snow storm. Each morning the sun arose in a yellow haze and set in a pool of blood. It was a Spring when old weather prophets shook their heads and looked doubtful. All the wild creatures felt it, even as the men did. Ring Tail, the racoon, who is usually a clever fellow became very morose. Whenever Redcoat passed him he growled and showed his teeth. White Weasel became so thirsty for blood that he rushed at Redcoat one day and only ceased his bloodthirsty attack when Redcoat killed him. A muskrat strayed far up the mountainside away from his friendly creek and finally went mad. Redcoat had often killed muskrats for food, but this one he had to kill in self-defense.
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It was at such a time as this, when everything was ripe and ready, that the Red Flower went mad, and great was the excitement among both men and the wild creatures. It started its mad career on the Holcome farm down on the edge of the meadow. No one ever knew how it happened. Perhaps it was a cigarette butt or a partly extinguished match, but anyhow the mischief was done. One evening from his lookout Redcoat saw the Red Flower leap up in half a dozen places. After a short time he saw men striking at it with spruce bows. They were running hither and you and seemed very much excited. They would beat the Red Flower down to earth in one spot only to have it leap up in another. As soon as they went to the new fire it would flame up in the spot they had just left. The night wind would catch it even as it did the dead leaves and it would go racing through the grass at a frightful pace. Soon the men brought teams and plowed furrows trying to stop it. Then they started other fires and tried to make them run towards the one that

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was racing to the mountain, but the Red Flower swept on, fanned by the night wind, for it had gone mad and it was beyond the power of man to stop it. Soon it mounted to the lower slopes of the mountain and began creeping up the trunks of the trees. Up one tall pine it shot, twisting and writhing, and finally leaped fifty feet into the air, even lighting the ledge where Redcoat paced to and fro nervously. He could now hear the Red Flower roaring in its madness, and the smoke from the great conflagration choked him. Occasionally he coughed and sneezed. Frantically the men worked, plowing furrows, felling trees, and even using dynamite, but they could not stay the onward rush of the Red Flower. All that night Redcoat watched, and the flames crept higher and higher up the mountainside and came closer and closer to the den in the spruces. Finally the smoke became so thick that Redcoat could no longer watch this fascinating but terrible sight, so he fled into the spruces and marshaled his little family in preparation for moving them to safety.

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He took one of the pups and carried it fifty rods over the mountainside and hid it in a hollow in the rocks. But, the Fox family had not yet learned the lesson of obedience, so when he went back after another the little fox came whimpering after him. Again he grabbed it unceremoniously in his mouth and started further down the mountain on the side which was away from the fire. It was now daylight and Kitty Mason had come up into her father's pasture to watch the smoke which was curling up over the mountain, obscuring the sunrise, and to see if she could discover any of the fire-fighters. Thus it happened that in a little woodland path half way up the mountain, she came face to face with Redcoat fleeing from the fire with his offspring.

Usually Redcoat would have bolted at sight of her but he was now so disturbed and unnerved by the terrible night that he stood for a moment uncertain. This was not the man creature, although it had the same scent its form was different, and Redcoat's intuitions told him that the girl coming along the

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woodland path would not hurt him. Perhaps it was the friendly one he had seen in the pasture the year before. Then in his desperation a strange resolve eame to Redcoat for he trotted forward until within ten feet of her and laid the pup on the ground before her. Then he backed away and growled at the little fox when it tried to follow him. He looked up at the girl beseechingly and his countenance said as plain as words, "Don't you see I am in great trouble? You take care of this one while I go back for the others." The girl understood or thought she did, so when the pup started to follow she dropped her broad brimmed summer hat over him and finally gathered the little fox in her lap, then sat down with her back to a friendly tree to see what would happen next.

Foremost among the fire-fighters had been Mr. Holcome and Bud, for the fire had started on their farm and it was through their timberland that it was racing. As the day dawned Mr. Holcome told Bud to skirt the fire on the West side and go to the top

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of the mountain to see how it looked from that altitude. Thus it happened that Bud met Redcoat and Fluffy bringing the other three puppies from the spruces. Redcoat had two in his mouth, one sprawling from either side, while Fluffy had one, but the foxes bolted at sight of Bud and he had too many troubles of his own on hand to pay any further attention to them. Fifteen minutes after Redcoat had deposited the first little fox at the feet of Kitty Mason he returned, closely followed by Fluffy, carrying the two small foxes in his mouth. At the sight of the girl he paused in the pathway for several seconds uncertain and then turned sharply to one side and disappeared in the underbrush closely followed by his mate. After a few minutes he returned, and the girl knew that he had found a safe hiding place for the three small foxes and that the mate was guarding them while he had returned for the fourth. He came up to within about ten feet of her and stood watching her narrowly, waiting to see what she would do. He was plainly anxious, so

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she did not keep him in suspense but put the small fox on the ground at her feet. Then Redcoat uttered a low whimpering note and the little fox scampered to him. He picked it up in his mouth, and after giving the girl a friendly look and with what she thought was a wag of his tail intended for her, he turned and trotted away through the underbrush and she saw him no more.

Thus it happened that Redcoat and his family were introduced for a second time to Kitty Mason, the girl who had thought she coveted his bright coat for a Christmas muff, while Bud Holcome who was the best trapper among the boys of the valley had promised the Christmas gift and he intended to keep his word.

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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter IX}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Phantom Fox|level=2}}

BY the Autumn when Redcoat was nearly four years old, the fall after the Red Flower went mad, and drove him and his family out of his beloved spruces, his fame had gone abroad through the countryside until his was the most coveted brush in four counties. Not only was he the largest and most beautiful fox on the mountain range, but he was also the cleverest, if one could believe all the stories he heard about him, which one could not. Hunters and fishermen are so apt to spin yarns when a company of good fellows get together, that it is often hard to disentangle truth from fiction. That is why the naturalist has to discard so many good stories about animals. But there was no discounting the fact that Redcoat was a wonder. He had given hounds and men many a long futile chase.
{{nop}}

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Few members of the Meadowdale Fox Club had really seen him, although many of them said they had. Almost any fox seen at a distance was surely the great red fox. It made it seem more exciting to tell it in that way. It was not an unheard of event to see just an ordinary fox, but to see the clever one, the Phantom Fox of the mountain, was quite another story. Several of the Fox Club had shot at him, or thought they had. According to their accounts he had been mortally wounded many times, and had only escaped by the tip of his brush. But as a matter of fact, he had never been wounded more than to get an occasional scratch, which did him no harm. Most of the members of the club, if we could believe their stories, had come very near to "bagging" him. If their gun had not missed fire, or they had been just over the top of the next ridge, they would have surely gotten him. But, there had always been that little "if."

So Redcoat still possessed that much coveted brush, and still barked defiance at the

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farm dogs from a safe distance when he wanted to discover if they were at home, and played with the fox hounds in an amazing manner.

His stratagems in eluding the pack had often been described by the members of the club at their banquets at the clubhouse on the bank of the river; the river that ran through the meadows where Redcoat hunted mice; the river which with very thin ice had saved the wary red fox more than once. The old dodges such as back-tracking, and then jumping upon a boulder and then away by a series of leaps from stone to stone, was too old to need description. But Redcoat had several variations of that dodge, which were most successful. There was the old dodge of making a fox and geese track of the trail, and then leaving it by a back track, or running in the brook, and upon the railroad track. This latter dodge was a favorite strategy and one that had often non-plussed the pack. Then he would run in a skunk's track, if he could find one, until the pack could not tell whether they were following

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a skunk or a fox. He would run in the main traveled road of the rabbit warren in hopes that the pack would leave him for rabbits, which they sometimes did.

When he was hard pressed he always took to his favorite mountain. Here he was at home. Here he knew all the winding devious paths along the sides of the slippery mountain. He could run for an eighth of a mile upon trap rock, which nearly always threw off the pack. More than once he had led the pack into very dangerous positions when the mountainside was smooth with a glare crust. His cunning in this particular was almost unbelievable. In fact, one could not believe many of the stories told about him, and that is the trouble in tracing the real history of Redcoat. The more wonderful had been Redcoat's ruse, the greater the exploit of the hunter, so they usually embellished their tales most lavishly. One hunter even went so far as to declare that Redcoat had smeared his paws with the oil upon the switches along the railroad track,

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in order to cover up his own scent. Probably the member of the club who knew the most about Redcoat and who had seen him most frequently was Bud Holcome, but he always kept his counsel, for he had designs upon Redcoat himself, for was not that wonderful red robe to be Kitty Mason's Christmas present? So, Bud did not want anyone else to get the celebrated fox, and he evaded all inquiries about the Phantom Fox. But Bud knew full well that Redcoat's headquarters were in the little clump of spruces, for he had seen him bringing away his family at the time of the great fire. He had also seen him in the meadows upon the farm on moonlight nights, and likewise on going to school he had on two or three rare occasions seen the great runner flashing across the fields. Then, there was that dramatic occasion when Bud declared that Redcoat had thrown Racer over the cliff. But Mr. Holcome always classed that with the rest of the wild fox yarns. Only Racer himself could have told all about that incident, and

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he kept his counsel. Bud also told no one that he had trapped Redcoat and been outwitted by him.

Thus it happened that in the Autumn of which I write the Meadowdale Fox Club went into solemn conclave and mapped out a campaign which it was confidently predicted would put that much coveted brush upon the walls of the clubroom along with other trophies of the chase.

Two days before Thanksgiving the first snow had fallen, and it was an unprecedented storm, for the time of year. When the great feathery flakes finally ceased to sift down upon mother earth, fifteen inches of soft wet snow covered the ground. It furnished a condition that made fox hunting ideal. That is, it was ideal for men and dogs, but very hard for the poor fox. The long legged hounds could run easily in the deep snow, compared with the fox who is very susceptible to wet snow and who prefers to run upon a thick crust or on a hard surface. The pines and spruces were loaded to the breaking point with the new

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snow and every little bush by the roadside had become glorious, while, in the words of Lowell, "every twig was ridged with pearl."

Thanksgiving morning dawned bright and beautiful, but an hour before daylight the Meadowdale Fox Club had been astir. A Bugler had gone from house to house arousing the hunters at four o'clock, so that half an hour before sunrise the club members had taken their positions and had let loose the hounds.

I do not know whether it was because it was Thanksgiving Day, a day of chicken and turkey, that Redcoat had sensed, and so had felt the chicken hunger himself, but certain it was that he had started forth that morning to secure chicken for himself and his family. He had passed around to the west end of the mountain and then descended into the valley. He had gone a mile or so to the south and had then struck off in towards the river, where there were several farmhouses with good roosts of chickens. Redcoat had dined at their expense before and he knew the lay of the land

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well. While he had been prowling about the farmhouse in question picking up his chicken, the hounds had picked up his fresh track where he had crossed the road and came after him full cry. The club had also deployed along the roadway, for they knew Redcoat would have to cross it to get back to his mountain, to which refuge he always fled when hard pressed. So, the roadway was picketed with men armed with shotguns, one every forty rods, and they stretched out for nearly two miles, so the culprit was seemingly cut off from his retreat.

Redcoat heard the pack afar off. It was a clear beautiful morning and sound carried a long way. He knew at once that it would be a long hard race. For the first quarter of an hour he clung stubbornly to his chicken as his Thanksgiving dinner had cost him much trouble. But finally seeing that it weighted him down, and that the running was very hard, he hid it in a clump of bushes and gave all his attention to extricating himself from his dilemma. He

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did not yet fully appreciate the seriousness of this morning run, but it was soon borne in upon him.

First he led the hounds for a mile further down the river through a rough pastureland. Then he doubled back towards the road. By great good luck he approached the road where there was a long level stretch, so he discovered the first two hunters standing with thunder sticks in readiness waiting for him. He veered off towards the river, trying the roadway further up, but here his good nose told him another hunter was waiting, although he did not see him. For a mile he skirted the roadway, trying to find a place where it was not guarded. Once he drew the hunter's fire from long range but it did no harm. So, he finally doubled back southward and went all over the long hard run again. Perhaps the men would get tired of waiting and go home. But they did not. Four different times Redcoat ran the length of the half circle which inclosed him between the river and the roadway, and each time that he came back to the road he found the

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hunters still waiting for him. Each time he made the circle the pack closed up the distance between him and it. The snow was wet and heavy, and finally Redcoat's beautiful brush dragged in the snow behind him, as he was so tired that he could no longer hold it up. Neither did he now run with the free gallop that he had assumed at the start. His pace had now slowed down to a dog trot.

On the fifth lap of this weary race, which was now telling upon Redcoat and taking his utmost strength, he entered a small woods of pines which was about a quarter of a mile in length, and perhaps twenty rods wide with the further end resting on the bank of the river. Redcoat ran along the south side of the woods, keeping just inside the cover. His plan was to come back on the north side, doubling back on himself, but keeping out of sight. In this way he would get a half mile run in the cover and here he hoped to gain on the pack. But unluckily, when he was doubling back, one of the hounds in the pack happened to spy him

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through an open spot in the woods and gave chase. The whole pack at once abandoned the old track for the new and poor Redcoat lost more than half of the distance which he had held upon the pack. This put him in a desperate plight. He was being rapidly run back towards the roadway, and with the pack only about a hundred yards behind. Something must be done at once. He must shake the pack off immediately, or he would run into one of the hunters, or the pack would catch him. Either happening would be fatal.

This time Redcoat approached the road farther south than he had before, under a little cover of brush. Perhaps he might find a place where there was no hunter in sight. He must depend upon his good nose to warn him in advance. As he neared the roadway, with the pack so close behind in full cry, he heard a squeaking and a tinkling which he knew the teams that men drove sometimes made. It was almost at the point where he had planned to reconnoitre the road. Cautiously Redcoat advanced and

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peered through the bushes. The sounds he had heard were made by a logging team. In fact a load of logs was passing in the road not thirty feet away. As the end of the load passed by and Redcoat heard the cry of the pack coming so desperately near, a plan which was like a flash of hope in his consciousness came into the quick wits of the red fox. If he could only break the trail.

If he could get back the distance he had lost. He could see his beloved mountain not over a mile awav. The end of the load was passing and Redcoat noted that the bottom log on the load stuck out about three feet further than the rest of the load. The quick witted fox saw his chance and took it. As the load passed, he trotted quickly forward and sprang lightly on the projecting log and flattened himself down upon it. His red coat was quite the color of the reddish brown bark of the logs and he blended nicely with the load and was so low down the driver could not see him. The team moved slowly along the road, while the cries of the hounds came

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rapidly nearer. A hundred feet further on, the log team rounded a bend in the road which hid it from sight and Redcoat breathed easier. He only wanted just a little more. Another hundred feet and he espied a clump of bushes beside the road. As the sled passed it, the fox sprang lightly into the bushes. Then, keeping the bushes between him and the driver of the team, he ran for the mountain with all his remaining strength.

When the pack came to the road, the full throated cry resolved into excited yelps and finally the hounds were silent. At first the dogs overran and not finding the track in the field beyond, came back to the road and went a hundred yards in the wrong direction. Then they came back to the starting point and went in the right direction till they found the scent, but by this time Redcoat had covered half the distance between him and his retreat and he reached the mountain a quarter of a mile ahead of the pack. He picked his way carefully up the mountainside where it was very steep by his fa-

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vorite pathway that led along a precipitate cliff to the very spot where he had tumbled the Holcome greyhound over the precipice. Here he stopped upon the old shelf to rest and watch the pack. They would not venture to climb along that narrow way with the soft snow underneath. In fact, they were already quitting. When Redcoat had satisfied himself that he had gotten rid of his pursuers he yawned and shook himself and started for his beloved spruces. He had escaped. He had outwitted both men and dogs, and was satisfied. But it had been a long hard run and a close call. He would be careful how they cornered him in that way again.

The club never knew just how it happened. It was probably more of that Redcoat's deviltry, for when they had thought they had him for sure, he had slipped through their fingers. But wait, there were more hunts coming. They would get him next time. So the hunters waited and bided their time.

The second great fox hunt was like the

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first, only it was more spectacular and more inexplicable to hounds and men.

For several days after this first narrow escape from the hunters, Redcoat kept to his mountain. When he finally did venture forth, it was to go to the south. Long experience had taught him that the hunters did not as often try the country south of the mountain. The men and dogs had combed the region to the north and west of the mountain for six days without starting the Phantom Fox, although they had started two or three other foxes and secured one brush. But they had their hearts set on securing the wonder fox, so kept right on trying.

Just a week from the day of the first great run, Redcoat again got the wanderlust and went to the farming district south of the mountain. There was often very tasty refuse thrown out from the farmhouses at this time of the year. For men were eating chickens and what they left was often a good meal for a hungry fox.
{{nop}}

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Again Redcoat was unlucky, for once more the pack took his track half an hour after he had passed the roadway leading parallel with the mountain and came after him full cry. The men employed the same stratagem they had done the week before, for they deployed along the road, an eighth of a mile apart, so as to head him off from the mountain. Once again Redcoat tried all his old ruses to throw off the pack, but it clung to his track like a burr and refused to be dislodged.

Again the running was very hard, for the deep snow of the week before was still there and six inches more had been added to it. There had been no freezes hard enough to make even a thin crust, so it was a case of straight hard running, with the victory to the one with the longest legs and the best wind. Redcoat's wind was just as good as that of any hound, but his legs were not as long; besides a pack had an advantage over an individual, for always some one of the pack which was spread out fan shaped would discover a loop in the trail and cut across.

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For this reason, Redcoat did not dare back-track very much, but confined his running to long gradual turns. Short sharp cuts he soon found were very costly.

For hours the desperate relentless grilling went on. There was no chance to stop for a few minutes to get one's breath or courage back. Several times Redcoat tried the roadway, but he always found it well guarded. He only dared to reconnoitre it at the open spots for fear he would run directly into a hunter. Yet, not withstanding his caution, he finally did encounter a hunter. He ran full upon one of the sentries who had been posted outside the roadway upon a commanding hilltop. It was only by the most desperate running and the wildest jumping and all sorts of jack rabbit stunts that Redcoat saved his brush, but even so the man fired twice. Twice the terrible thunder stick spoke to Redcoat in that awful voice, and each time the small pellets fell like hail about him. The second time he felt a sharp daggerlike pain in his shoulder and discovered to his great consternation that he

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could not use his right fore-leg. He was badly wounded and would have to run as hard and as far as he could on three legs. This was the beginning of the end. It was only a matter of perhaps half an hour, for the pack had been gradually gaining on him as it was and with one good fore-leg gone the race was hopeless. As this fact was born in on Redcoat he gazed longingly at his mountain, dreaming in the distance. Again Redcoat turned southward, running on three legs. This retarded his speed by twenty-five per cent. Not only that, but it also made the remaining good fore-leg sink deep in the snow as he bore his full weight upon it. Fifty rods of this three legged running tired him more than a mile on all fours. Soon his tongue was out full length and he was panting and wheezing and all the time the pack was drawing closer and closer. The sound of its perpetual baying was to his overwrought nerves like the crack of doom and filled him with such fear as he had never known before. This would never do. He must turn back and try the road

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again at another point. If he could not reach the mountain at this attempt he was lost. He might even not be able to make this stronghold though he crossed the road safely. So Redcoat turned to the heavily patrolled roadway, knowing it was his only hope.

He approached the road by a thin cover of bushes just as he had done the week before and once again he heard the low sweet tinkle of bells, as he had in the first instance, but this time it was not a load of logs, but Kitty Mason driving her father's horse in a light sleigh. Just as the team neared the clump of bushes which fringed the roadway, Kitty was amazed to see a great beautiful red fox flounder out of the cover and fall in the road just ahead of her horse. There was blood on its shoulder, and Kitty divined at once that he was badly wounded. The fox was not dead but he lay panting with his breath coming in quick hard sobs like those of a child that is trying not to cry. Then the import of the two shots which the girl had just heard, and the cries of the oncoming

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pack came home to Kitty. The men and the hounds were after this beautiful creature to take away the only thing he valued in the whole world, his life.

At the sound of the oncoming pack, an overwhelming sense of the brave struggle this wild creature was waging against the men with their guns and dogs came over the girl and her sympathetic woman's heart felt a great wave of compassion. They should not take this beautiful creature's life if she could help it.

It did not matter that the fox represented her future muff and that she had abetted Bud Holcome for months in his capture of the fox. For the first time, she now saw the whole matter from the standpoint of the hunted and a great repulsion against being a party to the killing of Redcoat came over her. Without considering what she was doing, or how to accomplish the daring plan that had come to her, and without any fear that he might bite her, Kitty sprang from the sleigh and catching up the warm blanket, hurried to where Redcoat lay pant-

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ing in the snow. Without a particle of fear she dropped the protecting blanket over him and picked him up in her arms and quickly deposited him in the bottom of the sleigh, pushing him as far as possible under the seat. As the back of the sleigh was closed he could not escape and he was too spent to resist or to put up a fight if he had wanted to. Besides, he did not want to, for something that was wiser than he, told him here was a protector. Some one who had come to deliver him.

"All right, Mr. Fox," cried the spirited girl as she prepared to drive the gauntlet of the hunters. "They will have to reckon with me and the horse whip before they get you. You just keep quiet and we will give them the slip." With this assurance she whipped up the horse.

They were barely a hundred feet away when the hounds broke into the roadway in full cry. But again their baying was resolved into perplexed yelping and finally died away.

Twenty rods further on Kitty encountered

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the first hunter who was standing a few rods away from the road waiting with cocked gun.

"Miss Mason," he called as he saw her. "Did you see anything of the fox?"

"What fox?" inquired Kitty innocently.

"Why the fox that the hounds are running."

"What, are the dogs running a real red fox? How exciting," she shouted back.

"Well, I guess you don't know any more about the fox than I do," returned the hunter. "If you see him tell the men further down the road."

Two other hunters hailed Kitty and about the same questions and answers were exchanged and they found out as little as the first one.

When she was far enough away not to create suspicion, Kitty put the horse into a gallop and did not let him slow down until she reached a wood road branching off from the main traveled road and running up into her father's wood lot. Up to that time, she had not known just what she would do with

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Redcoat, but the sight of this branch road gave her the clue. She slowed down the horse and drove for half a mile into the deep woods, going for a quarter of the way up the south slope of the mountain towards which Redcoat had been straining his every energy when she had discovered him. At the end of the road there was a turntable or circle where the woodsmen had turned the teams about. Here Kitty stopped and got out of the sleigh and cautiously lifted up one corner of the blanket. At the move Redcoat lifted his beautiful head and looked at her furtively, but made no move to get out. Then she uncovered him as much as she dared to without getting her hands too close and stepped back four or five paces from the sleigh.

Redcoat slowly arose and stood looking at her and she saw to her great delight that he partly rested his weight upon the injured paw. In fact, the injury had been only temporary. A shot had struck a large nerve and had then buried itself in the flesh. The lameness had been caused by a partial paral-

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ysis which had now partly passed. Redcoat stood looking curiously at the girl for several seconds. "It is all right, old chap," she said in a low musical voice. "I won't hurt you. Now run along and don't let them get you again."

Redcoat hesitated for another few seconds and then jumped lightly down upon the snow, and trotted slowly into the thicket, fcut just as he was about to pass from sight, he turned and looked back, and again Kitty thought, just as she had when he looked back at her with the pup in his mouth, that he wagged his tail in friendship and gratitude, but she was not quite sure.

Bud Holcome, who had been one of the hunters, was glad when Kitty called him that evening over the telephone. He was always glad to hear the girl's voice. But this night she sounded very serious.

"Bud, listen," said Kitty, when the usual salutations were over.

"I want you to get this straight, if you don't ever understand anything I say to you in the future. You know that you have

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been trying to get the big red fox for my Christmas present. Well, listen. I don't want him, and what is more, if you ever trap him, or shoot at him, or so much as harm a hair of his coat, I will never have anything to do with you again. I mean it too, Bud."

"Well, I'll be blest," ejaculated Bud as he hung up the receiver. "If girls aren't the limit. One day they want a thing, the next day they don't."

There was an unwritten law in foxdom that the foxes on the east side of the river should not venture across to the meadows on the west side unless the ice on the river was strong enough to bear them. The foxes on the west side might hunt mice in their own meadow because when they were started by the hounds they could flee to their own mountains to the westward, but these same meadows were a death trap to the foxes from the east. This tradition had perhaps come naturally to Redcoat but it had also been dinned into him by several close calls he had experienced on the west side of the river.
{{nop}}

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One December morning, about two weeks after his rescue from the pack by Kitty Mason, Redcoat ventured across the river. The mice had become scarce on the east side and there were always plenty on the west side. These meadows were elliptical in shape, resting in a great bend of the river. They were two miles long and a mile in width. Close to the river for the entire distance there was a fringe of bushes about a hundred feet deep. This was the only cover on the meadows, and even this cover had half a dozen gaps in it and it was at these gaps that the fox hunters always took their stand. When the foxes were started out on the meadows they usually ran in the open for a while. The meadow was slightly undulating in places, but most of it was very level. This made {{hinc|backtracking}} and snarling up the track very dangerous on the part of the foxes, for the hounds would often see them half a mile away and cut across the labyrinth of trail that the fox had been several minutes in making, so sooner or later the foxes always took to the cover along

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the river's edge and here they could not run for more than thirty or forty rods without encountering one of the hunters at a gap in the bushes.

As ill luck would have it, the Meadowdale Fox Club had gone hunting on the west side of the river this morning. They had temporarily given up trying to capture the Phantom Fox after his two miraculous disappearances.

But, on this morning the hounds started the old rogue on the west side and for an hour he gave them a lively race, back and forth over the meadows, going in large circles, but even so the hounds cut across on him several times and he was soon hard pressed. He had seen no hunters with their thunder sticks but felt intuitively they were waiting for him in the cover close to the river. Finally, he was so hard pressed that he entered the bushes warily at the south end but he had not gone two hundred feet when his good nose told him there was danger ahead and peering out from the bushes he saw a man with the thunder stick stand-

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ing upon an old log commanding the open spot perfectly. Immediately in front of the man was a fringe of low bushes three or four feet high over which he was peering. This was Redcoat's only chance to cross. He hesitated for a moment but the cry of the pack behind was getting dangerously close to him, so he crept cautiously forward and passed the waiting hunter in the underbrush, going within twenty feet of him, so quietly that the hunter heard not a sound. A few minutes later, when the hounds came out of the cover and trailed the fox almost under the man's nose he was thunderstruck and could not believe they were on the right scent until he went into the bushes and found the fresh fox track. Meanwhile, Redcoat had again taken to the meadows and was running northward as fast as his fleet limbs could carry him. Away at the northern end of the meadow the city extended almost down to the river, and here the railroad crossed upon one bridge and automobiles, teams and foot passengers on another bridge a hundred feet further north.

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As Redcoat raced back across the meadows, the pack in full cry behind him, he saw first the slender trail over which the great thunderer crossed the river and the other bridge above it.

Ordinarily the ice on the river would have been several inches thick, but this morning it had been just strong enough to hold Redcoat when he had crossed and as the water was rising the ice had entirely broken up in two hours' time and there was no chance of returning to his beloved mountain by crossing on the ice.

As Redcoat came to the north end of the meadow he noted the trail by which the thunderer crossed and the thought came to him there was a way over, yet in order to reach it he would have to run almost into the haunts of men. He could see them passing on the traffic bridge above the railroad bridge, and over the city was the chimney smoke of hundreds of houses. It was a great chance, but the pack was now only about a hundred yards away. Then, on the clear morning air, plainly heard above all

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other sounds, came the long shriek that the thunderer made when crossing the trails of men, and Redcoat plainly saw in the distance the trail of smoke that the thunderer always left in passing.

Did the red fox think this all out carefully, the time it would take him to reach the bridge and cross, and the time it would take the thunderer to reach it and the pack also, or rather was it just an intuition, a daring chance that he took, just as he had gambled with life so many times before? One look back at the pack decided Redcoat and he raced for the railroad bridge with a great burst of speed. Foot passengers crossing on the other bridge stopped and watched excitedly to see the beautiful fox trotting rapidly over the bridge, and they were still more amazed when the pack, a dozen strong, reached the end of the bridge and followed after the intrepid fox. Redcoat himself was two-thirds of the way across and the pack a third of the way across when the train reached the bridge. Then there was a great tooting of the whistle

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and a clanging of the bell and a shouting of excited men and boys on the foot bridge as one by one with yelps of fear the hounds leaped into the river. Most of them leaped before the engine struck them and those that didn't were brushed off without being hurt as the train was running very slowly. As Redcoat reached the further end of the bridge he looked back for a moment and saw that the thunderer had swept the last of his enemies, the fox hounds, into the river and was now coming after him. So, belly to earth, he galloped away over the meadows on his own side of the river to his safe refuge on the mountainside.

A member of the Meadowdale Fox Club who was watching him through a glass said as he looked back over his shoulder at the discomforted pack he grinned like a Cheshire cat, but I am afraid the hunter distorted the fox's countenance to suit his own whim and to make the achievement of Redcoat seem even more diabolical. But, one thing was certain; never again would this particular pack of hounds be persuaded,

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either by coaxing or threat, to follow the trail of the Phantom Fox. They had had enough of a fox who could summon the thunderer to his aid and sweep them into the river in that way. Ordinary foxes they did not mind running, but this one was not for them.

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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter X}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|With Horse and Hound|level=2}}

BY the time Redcoat was four years old he had reached his greatest size and weight. He had been just as tall and rangy when he was two years old, but not so heavy. Also his greatest cunning and knowledge of the ways of men had come to him by this time.

The three futile attempts of the Meadowdale Fox Club the Autumn before had so discouraged the hunters that they had left Redcoat very much to himself during the following winter. He had given other hounds some lively runs, but he always had been able to dismiss them whenever he was tired of the game so it had been just an amusing farce. Because of this fact, Redcoat's confidence that had been partly shaken in the Fall had all came back to him.

With his achievements of the Autumn be-

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fore (and the hunters themselves had so added to his achievements when they gathered in their clubroom on winter evenings to spin yarns) he had well earned the title of the Phantom Fox.

Very early in the Spring there had come to the Meadow City a Virginian named Harold Denby. He was a daredevil crosscountry rider, descended from an old Virginia family which had hunted foxes on horseback ever since the settlement of the colony.

As soon as the Virginian arrived in the Meadow City he was given a great banquet at the Meadowdale Fox Club. For several days previous Denby had been fed up on stories of the Phantom Fox, and at the club he heard much more about him. Accordingly, the Virginian Fox hunter's curiosity was aroused and with it was born an ambition to lead the Meadowdale Fox Club to a capture of the great Redcoat. After the banquet was over plans were formulated for another hunt which should be carried on in the true Virginian style. All of the best

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horses in the Meadow City were brought into action. These included ten fine polo ponies and as many more saddle and running horses from the different driving schools in the city. Some of these horses were also great high jumpers and had taken prizes at the fairs. Their riders were men who were used to hard riding upon polo fields and cross country. An entirely new pack was secured for this venture. And, with a dozen dogs and twenty mounted men the cavalcade set off one bright morning about the middle of March to capture the Phantom Fox. It was really a great show of force for so small an objective. Each one of the hounds was four times as heavy as the fox, while the horses were eighty or ninety times heavier than he. Besides, the cunning of twenty men was to be matched against the cunning of one red fox. Truly it was an uneven battle, but the battle is not always to the strong. For several days before the celebrated hunt, heavy spring rains had been falling. The great river was full to its banks and in some places overflowed the

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meadows, making small lagoons and ponds. Water stood in many of the hollows. But, two days previous to the hunt, winter conditions had returned to the land and all of the pools were skimmed over with anchor ice, while the ground on this clear, crisp March morning was as hard as steel. It was a wonderful morning for the chase for both hounds and horsemen. There were no crops in the meadows or on the uplands and conditions were ideal for the run.

Redcoat had been molested very little during the winter by hounds or hunters and he was quite confident that he could outrun or outwit any pack of hounds that ever trailed a fox. The three marvelous escapes he experienced the Fall before he had attributed to his own cunning instead of rare good fortune and this tended to increase his confidence, so ever since the snow had disappeared early in March he had prowled about the farms at will, barking defiance at the farm dogs whenever he saw them.

On the morning in question, he had gone around to the west side of the mountain and

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was reconnoitring the farms that lay in the valley parallel to the river. As in the other great hunts, the hounds took his track at the roadway which paralleled the river and the hunt was on. Twelve of the horsemen followed the pack and in addition to the deep baying of the hounds there was the sound of hoofs of the flying horses. The other eight horsemen were stationed in the roadway at intervals of about forty rods to head Redcoat off should he turn back towards the mountain. The plan was to run him down in the area between the road and the river, so the amphitheatre upon which this tragedy was to be inacted was about three miles long and from a mile to a mile and a half wide.

Redcoat was not at all dismayed when he heard the pack break into full cry on his trail. It was a glorious morning for a run. The clear cold air made the blood tingle in his veins and his muscles contracted and recoiled like steel springs. Belly to earth he ran for the entire length of the arena and the straining hounds and the racing horse-

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men gained only a little on him. Then, he turned to the north, thinking to come back to the point where he had been started and then cross the road to the mountain. It was a glorious chase but the pace was terrific and he did not want to keep it up too long. But, the eight horsemen in the roadway heard the hounds coming and as the country was very open they also saw the fox; so they formed in readiness for him. As Redcoat swept down upon the highway, running like the wind, the men all shouted and waved their caps and turned him back southward. Redcoat was much surprised that the men did not use their thunder sticks, as in the excitement he had run very close to them before he had discovered them; but he could see no thunder sticks, and in fact the men were not carrying firearms. Denby had insisted upon this, saying that it must be a fair race in the open and if the fox could get away by his wits or his fleetness he should be given a fair chance.

So Redcoat raced away to the southward

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again, with the hounds and the frantically galloping horses in hot pursuit. This time on the three mile lap they cut down his lead by nearly half, so when he turned back northward they were only about eighty rods behind. It was a terrific pace. Redcoat had never known hounds to run so before. In fact, this was a special pack noted for its fleetness, imported from Virginia for this chase. Behind the dogs were the men and the galloping horses urging the hounds forward. Thus it happened on the return three miles the dogs and horsemen cut the distance in half and Redcoat was only forty rods ahead when the horsemen in the roadway again headed him back southward. Oh, but it was desperate running! If he could only stop for five minutes and rest, but he could not for the pack and the thundering cavalcade were all after him. When he reached the southern end of the run again he was only twenty rods ahead, so he dashed into a small pine woods to see if he could gain a little by running among the trees. This ruse did help him and when he

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came out of the woods and once more headed northward he had regained the lost twenty rods and was once more leading by a furlong. But, the terrific pace was telling on him. His tongue was out and his brush was down, while his breath came in hard quick pants. It seemed to the straining fox that his heart must burst with the effort as he raced back northward with the hounds and the men gaining steadily upon him. He must break through the cordon in the roadway and get back to the mountain or they would surely catch him. As he neared the highway, the men divined his intent and the horsemen behind spurred forward to overtake him, while the men on the highway once again set up a great shouting to drive him back. In his confusion, Redcoat's wits seemed to forsake him. He completely lost his head and turned and ran straight towards the river. The eight horsemen who up to this time had waited to drive him back from the road now joined the rest of the party and the twenty mounted men and the hounds swept down to

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the river in a great semicircle, and poor Redcoat saw his only way of escape cut off, and in his desperation he ran out on a point of land that jutted well out into the river. There he stood panting and trembling, watching the oncoming hounds and the horsemen. They were too close upon him and too near together to try to break through their ranks, so he stood watching, impotent and fascinated by the danger that menaced him. When the hounds were a hundred feet away and the men two hundred, Redcoat remembered the river behind him. In times past it had often been his friend. Several times he had crossed on the thin ice where hounds could not follow, but there was no ice now; only a turbulent dark flood, foam flecked, and angry with the spring rains. If he had been fresh he might have swum the river under these conditions, but spent as he was the water did not look as terrible to him as did the horsemen and the hounds, so he whirled and plunged bravely into the river, while the pack swept down and out upon the point to see the fox fifty

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feet away swimming feebly on the dark water. Soon the horsemen were all lined up behind the yelping hounds to behold the tragic end of this wonderful red fox who had given them such a marvelous run.

But, fate and Mother Nature were kinder than the men and the pack, for when Redcoat was about two hundred feet from the shore, and his strength was all but gone, he noticed something floating down in the current just above him. He lifted his weary head and discovered a plank about ten feet long and two feet wide drifting rapidly towards him. He stopped swimming until it floated almost under his nose, then he wearily put out his forepaws and with great exertion climbed upon it. At this sight a great shout went up from the watching horsemen on shore and one of their number pulled out a revolver and began shooting at the fox.

"Here, here, Bill," cried Denby, "put up your shooting iron and let's play the game squarely. I stipulated we should not carry firearms and we'll stick to that agreement."
{{nop}}

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"That's so," chorused a half a dozen riders. "We'll play fair."

"I've seen many a great fox hunt in Virginia," said Denby, "but I never saw mch a run as this. He's not a fox at all, he's a moose."

"If a man had the courage and strength for his size that that fox has," put in Billy Perkins the crack polo player, "he could eat up the world. Boys, I take off my hat to him."

"Well, he escaped us," said another member of the polo team, "but the rapids in the river below will get him. He never can run the rapids on that plank."

"There is something else that is going to get the whole of us," said Denby. "See that cloud yonder, boys." Even as he spoke a patter of hail was heard on the ground about them. This storm had been making up for the last half hour and was one of those sudden spring downfalls. With one accord the horsemen turned and trotted away, whistling for the hounds to follow, while little Redcoat drifted on his

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plank towards the rapids that all had said would engulf him. But here once again fate and nature were kinder than men, for the downfall of sleet that had sent the horsemen scurrying to cover, froze upon Redcoat's coat and for the time being froze him to the plank almost as though he had been glued down.

Redcoat was not as much afraid of the river as he had been of the horsemen and hounds, so he crouched with his nose on his paws and watched the swirling water, while his plank swept on to the rapids. Presently he was in among the eddying swirling currents, where dark rocks reared their menacing heads and white foam danced on the swirling water. He went so rapidly and the plank changed its position so often that it made him dizzy. He would be rushing straight at a rock with every seeming chance of striking it but just at the right moment the current would suck the little bark clear of the rock and it would go rushing on. The rapids were about two miles in length, but it seemed to Redcoat that he was

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a very long time traveling through them; it was really only twelve or fifteen minutes, but it seemed much longer than the two hours' run he had made before the hounds. But all hard things come to an end for those who have courage and endure. A good fighter usually sees the end of the battle. So Redcoat's plank finally swept out of the last of the whirlpools into comparatively calm water, and a quarter of a mile further down stream it lodged upon an island. When Redcoat first tried to free himself from the plank he found he could not move, but after half an hour his body heat thawed the frozen sleet upon his belly and he was enabled to go ashore on the island. Here he hid in the underbrush and rested for the balance of the day, and just before night closed down he swam ashore at a point where the island was not far from the mainland and the following day he made his way cautiously back to his mountain. His confidence was somewhat shaken and he was not eager for another run before the hounds and horsemen. But, once again he made

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the fatal mistake of believing that it was his own great cunning and fleetness that had saved him and not a bit of rare good fortune.

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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter XI}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Capture|level=2}}

IT was nearly a week after the famous chase and Redcoat's miraculous escape down the river before the Meadowdale Fox Club could again start the Phantom Fox. In the meantime they had started and run down and caught two other foxes. In each case, the run had been much shorter and less spectacular than that Redcoat had made. Some of the old hunters thought he had left the country but Denby said not so, for he knew that it is almost an impossibility to drive a cunning old fox from his favorite range.

The next time they started Redcoat it was to the north of his mountain, and once again the horsemen employed the same tactics as before. A part of their number were deployed along the highway parallel to the mountain, while the hounds and the balance

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of the horsemen were left free to run Redcoat in the open land further to the north. This time Redcoat led the chase four miles to the east, keeping perhaps half a mile from the roadway and the men on the highway followed in the road paralleling his course, feeling sure that he would sooner or later try to cross to the mountain. But, he came back for the entire distance to the Holcome farm before he attempted to make the crossing to the mountain, but here he found the horsemen spread out and waiting for him. In fact, they had been able to follow his run for the better part of the way and had seen him several times in the distance racing across the open fields. So, Redcoat had to turn back eastward again and go all over the eight weary miles. It was much warmer on this day than it had been during the first run. This made the running harder on both the fox and his pursuers. By the time Redcoat had once more reached the Holcome farm he had covered nearly sixteen miles and was all but spent. He must do something; either he must shake off his

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pursuers or get by the men in the roadway and thus escape to his mountain. Once again he tried the highway, but the horsemen were there waiting for him, shouting and waving their caps, so he turned back to the north. Redcoat had always made it a part of his policy to know every rod of the country over which he hunted and where he led the hounds on these wild chases, so there was not a square rod of the Holcome farm that he did not know nearly as well as did Bud Holcome himself. A quarter of a mile north of the Holcome farm buildings was an old stone wall, a boundary fence that divided the Holcome farm from that of their nearest neighbor. When Redcoat reached the southern end of this wall his pursuers were barely a furlong away. His plight was getting desperate. Something must be done, and his sharp fox wits never stood him in better stead than they did on this memorable chase, for when the hounds came up to the stone wall they followed it for about thirty rods northward and then at a barway, an artificial break in the stone wall,

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the trail suddenly ended. The hounds ran about sniffing the ground and yelping excitedly, and when the horsemen came up they all thought surely that the fox had holed, but they searched under the stone wall in every direction but could find no trace of him. Finally, after an hour's futile searching, they gave up the chase and went home completely baffled by the sudden disappearance of the Phantom Fox.

Three days later they started the celebrated fox once again on the north side of the mountain. As before, he led them away for four miles to the east and turning came back to the Holcome farm. Here he again tried to cross the highway to the mountain but was turned back. So, he went over the long hard run of four miles to the eastward again. When he once more returned to the Holcome farm the men and the hounds were close upon him and they thought surely that the pack would run him down in a very few minutes. Once again the crafty old fox circled to the Southern end of the stone wall and again the pack followed the trail up to

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the mysterious barway and lost it as before. Again the horsemen searched the country for twenty rods around trying to help the pack to pick up the scent, but without success. So the chase was again called off. Before the hunters started for town, Denby and his party stopped at the Holcome farm and impressed Bud for the next hunt. He was not to take part in the chase but was to watch from a tree some twenty rods from the barway and see where the Phantom Fox went, for Denby felt certain that he would try again this ruse that had worked so perfectly on the two previous hunts.

Two days later the Phantom Fox, who had now become the talk of the countryside, was again started to the north of his mountain. He seemed afraid to venture to the west for fear he would again be caught in the death trap between the pursuers and the river. The running was not as good as it had been the time before as it was getting warmer all the while, and on this day the ground was not so hard, but still it was a glorious morning for a run.
{{nop}}

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Promptly as the hounds gave the signal, that the chase was on, Bud Holcome took up a commanding position in the spreading chestnut tree about twenty rods from the barway, where Redcoat had done his disappearance act for two successive runs. Bud's conscience was not quite clear about taking part in the hunt as he had promised Kitty Mason he would not shoot or trap the fox, but with this arrangement he was only a looker-on, besides he had a great curiosity to see where the fox did go as the whole matter was inexplicable to him. Bud had participated in many fox hunts, but never before from the side lines. In other hunts he had been right in the thick of the battle. He had carried a gun and been as eager as anyone to get the fox, but now he saw the hunt for the first time as a spectator, without prejudice.

As in the two runs before, Redcoat took the baying pack and the galloping horsemen four miles to the east and then returned to the Holcome farm. When he came back Bud got a good view of him. He saw him

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for an eighth of a mile running belly to earth, leading his pursuers in a wonderful run, and for the first time in his life Bud noted how small the fox was in comparison with his pursuers, even the tall gaunt hounds looked gigantic compared with him, and they were all pursuing him so desperately. To them it was just a jolly bit of fun, or manly sport, but to Redcoat it was a desperate life and death game. Bud could not but be impressed with his courage and the great fight he was making for his life. Could he, Bud Holcome, put up such a fight for his own life? Once again the hounds and the horsemen disappeared to the eastward and they were gone much longer than before. Bud began to think they had caught him at last, when he heard the hounds coming back. Finally he discovered poor Redcoat loping along with his tail down, and his whole aspect denoting utter fatigue. The hounds also were badly fagged out and the horses, covered with sweat and lather, were following at a dog trot. The race had told upon all, pursuer and pursued were all but "in."
{{nop}}

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As Bud saw the cunning old fox make for the south end of the stone wall where he had run the days before, a great sense of pity came over Bud. He experienced his first attack of what hunters call "Buck fever." It was not sport that he was witnessing. It was tragedy. A great cowardly lot of men and dogs were running the life out of a little red fox in order that they might squabble over his brush at the end of the chase.

But here Bud's thoughts were interrupted, as he was intently watching to see if he could discover the ruse of the Phantom Fox. As he had expected, the fox disappeared at the southern end of the wall, and Bud knew that he was running on the ground on the further side where he could not see him. Presently he appeared at the barway, but Bud was wholly unprepared for the next move. For he jumped wearily upon the wall and started trotting briskly northward. Bud gave a surprised cry of wonder and disgust.

"Oh, that will never do old chap," he said

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aloud. "The hounds will pick up the track when you jump off."

But Bud had forgotten the Leaning Pine, as that curious tree was called on the Holcome farm. It was a queer pine which stood against the wall about twenty-five rods above the barway. It leaned so sharply that everyone had wondered why the wind did not blow it down, but it had stood wind and weather for perhaps a hundred years.

In a very few seconds Redcoat had covered the distance to the tree, and without even breaking his trot, he scrambled up the rough bark and in five seconds' time was completely hidden from the boy's curious gaze in the bushy top of the tree. Bud burst into a roar of laughter. The ruse was complete. The wall would give off little scent and the hunters would never dream of looking in the tree for anything but a racoon. Then a great sense of Bud's own responsibility came to him. He was to be the traitor. He was the one who would finally spill Redcoat's blood and give the Meadowdale Club his much coveted brush. Then he remembered

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the great fight the old fox had made and how small he was compared with his enemies, who at this point appeared in the distance; first the pack and then the horsemen, and a sudden resolve came to Bud. He would not betray the fox, but he would have to use his wits in order to mislead the club. He would have to be as resourceful as the fox himself, "foxy" in fact. But they would never get the truth from him no matter what they said to him. With this resolve, Bud climbed down the tree and went to meet the hunters.

"Well, Holcome, where did he go?" cried Benby excitedly, riding up, closely followed by a half dozen other members of the club.

"Ask me something I can tell you," replied Bud guardedly.

"Bid you see him run as far as the south end of the wall?" questioned Benby.

"Yes, I did," replied Bud, "but then I lost him for a spell. He must have run on the other side of the stone wall."

"Just so," returned the Virginian. "The dogs trailed him on that side, but did you not see him at the barway?"
{{nop}}

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"I got a flash of something red which looked like a fox," said Bud.

"Didn't he eome through the field this way?" inquired another member of the club.

"No," said Bud. "I am sure he didn't come this way."

"Did he go through the field beyond the fence?" inquired another.

"No," returned Bud. "I am sure he did not."

"Well, where in the dickens did he go?" queried Denby.

"Ask me something easy," said Bud. "He is certainly a sly fellow."

"It is just as I have said all the time," put in Denby. "He has got a hole under the wall somewhere. Boys we have got to search the wall more carefully. Call in the pack and let's go at it systematically."

For half an hour the men and dogs searched the wall, going almost as far as the Leaning Pine. Once when one of the members looked up into the top of the queer tree, Bud's heart gave a jump of excitement. But the hunter soon went back to his

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inspection of the wall. They pulled out many loose stones at the bottom of the wall, while the hounds sniffed eagerly at each new opening. Bud was afraid that some dog, more inquisitive than his fellows, might climb upon the wall, but none did. But even so, Bud doubted if they would have discovered the clue, as the sun was now quite hot, and the stones would not give off much scent. Finally, after half an hour, the horsemen rode away. Denby stopped and hailed Bud with a departing shot.

"We won't want you next time," he said. "We will get one of our own members to watch. We want a man who has got eyes in his head."

"All right," returned Bud, but he felt it was far from a good arrangement, for he was quite sure that since Redcoat had so successfully worked this cunning ruse three times, he would try it again and be discovered. What an ignoble end for the cunning old fox, to be treed like a stupid racoon, and then shot upon his perch, or poled off for the hounds to kill. It was an unworthy end

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for the cleverest fox who ever led hounds upon a wild goose chase. Something must be done to prevent it, but what? Bud himself felt utterly powerless, yet something must be done.

That night, when Bud went in to supper, he found a letter beside his plate on the supper table which added greatly to his resolve to do something to save Redcoat from his impending doom. The letter was from a friend, one Mr. Jennings, the manager and part owner of the Sheerfield Silver Fox Farm, forty miles further up the river. Mr. Jennings was a friend of the family, and Bud had several times visited at the farm. The letter read as follows:

"Dear Bud: Do you remember the blue foxes which I had just received from Alaska when you were here last? Well they are looking fine, and I think raising them is going to be a success. For years I have had a dream of crossing these blues with our ordinary red fox, and I am now in need of a fine male specimen of the red fox. Whatever became of that clever red fox which

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you were telling me of when you were here! I wish I had him alive and sound to cross with my blues. Bud, I am quite excited about this project. So much so, that I will give you five hundred dollars cash for him if you will capture him alive and deliver him to me. I should want him very soon as the mating season is rapidly passing."

Bud stopped at this point to read the letter over again. Five hundred dollars. He could scarcely believe his eyes. But there it was in cold type. Why, that would be money enough with what he could earn to start him in college, and this was the dream of his life! What a chance, but what a condition! To trap Redcoat and deliver him safe and sound, why one might as well try to trap the West Wind. He had already tried all sorts of traps and had failed in each instance. But the balance of the letter gave Bud a clue, so he read on.

"I do not know just how this is to be done, but here is a suggestion. The blue foxes on the farms in Alaska are trapped in large wire box traps, but of course the blue is

-i

{{FreedImg
 | file = Redcoat (1927) 3.png
 | caption = Red Coat chasing the rabbit he had hoped to get, filled him with rage.{{right|—''[[Redcoat/Chapter 7#99|Page 99]]''}}
 | width = 300px
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—

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quite different from the red, and much more simple, and far less cunning. But I will leave it to you Bud. I am in hopes you will find a way."

Bud folded the letter carefully and put it in his pocket, and after supper he went out to the harness room in the barn and took down a half pint bottle. It had stood there on a beam in the room for two years and he had not looked at it for several months, but now it held a great interest for the excited boy. It was a strange dark liquid which an old trapper from Canada had given him two years before. It was supposed to be a sort of fox charm. A medicine which would cause foxes to lose all their natural suspicion and cunning and follow this charm into any trap. Bud never had believed in the charm, but now it was his only chance. Perhaps it would work. The vile smelling stuff was compounded of beaver caster, the oil of anise seed and several other equally rank smelling substances. Perhaps it might smell good to a fox, but it made the boy fairly gag as he took a good whiff of it.
{{nop}}

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"Well," he said as he corked up the bottle, "it is a long shot, but I am going to try it. It is the only chance I have got to save the red fox and at the same time help myself."

"But you promised Kitty not to trap Redcoat," said the still small voice.

"Well," retorted Bud, "this is not trapping him in the usual sense, besides it is getting him out of the way for his own good. I am sure that Kitty would approve if I were to explain to her."

For a couple of hours Bud's family heard him hammering away in the barn and when he finally came in and went to bed Mr. Holcome could only elicit from him that he had been making something. But the something that he had made was a large box trap, three feet long, two feet high, and twenty inches wide. It was all complete even to the spindle and Bud had hidden it in the hayloft, and as he went to bed he set his alarm clock for four o'clock. He would be up and away to the mountain long before the rest of the family were astir. It was a

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wild goose chase anyhow, and he did not want his father to laugh at him, as he would surely do if he knew. It was his secret and he intended to keep it well.

Shortly after four o'clock the following morning, Bud started for the mountain carrying the heavy box trap on his shoulder. In his pocket he also had the bottle of fox charm, and fifteen feet of inch rope wound around his waist. He was wearing the most disreputable pair of shoes that he could find on the place, the reason for which will appear later.

Although the trap was made of inch pine board, yet it was rather heavy and Bud often set it down to rest as he climbed the steeper places on the mountain. Finally after half an hour he arrived at the clump of spruces where he knew Redcoat had his headquarters. He had never found the den, in fact he did not much care where it was so long as he set the trap somewhere near it. He finally discovered just the place he wanted. It was a clump of bushes not too thick and he placed the box trap in their midst. Then

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he cut a dozen or more pine boughs, perhaps three feet long, and stuck these up in the ground around the box trap, until when he had finished it was entirely hidden in the little pine bower. He then littered the bottom of the trap with pine needles, until it was as green as the carpet of the ancient wood. Then he fastened a chicken head to the spindle of the trap, drew up the door by the cord which past through the upright at the end of the trap, and carefully adjusted the trigger at the back side. But, previous to this, with a small brush which he had brought for the purpose, he had generously painted the inside of the trap with the fox charm. The chicken head on the spindle fairly reeked with it. But, strangest of all, at least it would seem strange to Redcoat, Bud had stopped half way up the mountain and smeared the bottom of his shoes with the obnoxious fox charm. When he had finished setting the trap, he uncoiled the inch rope from his waist and smeared it from end to end with the obnoxious fluid. Then, after recoating his shoes with the same vile smel-

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ling stuff, he started for a ten minute walk out and in among the spruces and through the thickets where Redcoat would be most likely to go. The fox charm was so pungent that Bud could actually follow his own back track merely from his sense of smell. Surely Redcoat could not miss this trail, if the charm had any such alluring power for foxes as it was said to possess. Then Bud returned to the trap and poured the remaining contents of the bottle on the rope and started on his return trip down the mountain. Half a mile from home he hung the rope up in a tree, deposited the empty bottle in a crevice in the rocks, and took off his shoes and hid them. He knew it would never do to return home with such a scent upon his person.

Bud was so excited that he could scarcely work that day. All the time he was thinking of his plans and wondering if the fox charm would work. The capture of Redcoat meant so much, not only to the fox himself but also to Bud.

On this same morning, while Bud Hol-

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come was making his preparations down at the farm, Redcoat arose from a little glade where he had been sleeping, yawned, shook himself, and started down the mountain. He was going on a hunting expedition, presumably for mice, but would take anything that happened to come his way.

A couple of hours later, while Bud was doing the barn chores, Redcoat returned to his lair. Half way up the mountain he discovered Bud's tracks. But, Oh, what a trail it was! He had never smelled anything like it before in his whole life. True, there was a strong suggestion of the man scent about it, but it was overpowered by a strange, ravishing odor, which made Redcoat's nerves tingle and his heart to beat fast with excitement. He followed the trail rapidly up the mountain, becoming more mystified and more obsessed by it with each rod he covered.

Was it a man-trail? Yes. But no. It could not be, for when had the scent of man so filled a fox with delight, making his nerves to tingle with a mad incomprehensi-

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ble joy, which seemed to extend even to the tip of the tail? When he finally struck the heavily scented trail made by the dragging rope, his eyes flashed and saliva dripped from his jaws. After that he could not go fast enough. Once he stopped at a point where Bud had replenished the odorous stuff on his shoes, and rolled on the ground where the scent was strongest, rubbing his face backward and forward, but he did not tarry long for the reeking charm grew stronger with each rod covered. When he finally reached the clump of bushes where the trap was set, the last shred of his natural suspicion and fox cunning had been lulled to sleep. The only thing in the world he knew or felt was this ravishing scent about him. He wanted to roll in it, to swim in it, to draw it into his nostrils for the rest of his life.

But all the time he had been trotting eagerly up the mountain on Bud's trail, something had suggested caution to him. The guardian of the wild creatures had whispered again and again, "beware, beware."

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But Redcoat did not heed the sound; it was only the wind.

But now as he paused before the trap, this warning became even more insistent. Even the trees, the ferns and the bushes seemed to cry "beware," until poor Redcoat was nearly distraught with the contending forces that were pulling this way and that upon his life.

For perhaps a full minute Redcoat groveled upon his belly before the trap. The trap which all his senses and his instinct and his fox cunning told him was a trap, while the trees, bushes and ferns all held their breath. The spirit of the woods, that gentle custodian of the wild things, again cried "go back," but Redcoat did not hear her, or if he did he did not heed the warning. Finally the resistance of his will to the overpowering fox charm went down and he crawled, still groveling upon his belly, into the trap, his jaws dripping saliva, and trembling in every muscle. His suspicions were entirely put to sleep, and his splendid native cunning was for the time being dormant.
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He did not catch the chicken's head on the spindle in his mouth, as he would have done ordinarily if he had been hungry, but instead he rubbed his cheek against it. Bang, went the heavy door of the box trap, and it was suddenly dark in the little house that Bud Holcome's ingenuity had devised for him. With the click of the spring bolt, with which Bud had equipped the trap, a sudden realization came over Redcoat as to what had happened. With a frightened snarl he sprang up, striking his head against the top of the trap. Then began a series of mad springs against first one end and then the other of the strong little house in which he was a prisoner. This lasted intermittently for half an hour, then Redcoat lay down upon the floor, with his head upon his paws, to think. To see, if he could collect his scattered wits and make sure what had happened to him. He lay with his head as far away as possible from the chicken head which reeked with the obnoxious fox charm. For, from being the most ravishing odor he

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had ever smelled, this scent had in an instant become the most obnoxious smell he knew of.

There was no mistaking the one who had done this thing. It was the same man creature he had seen so often upon the farm. The one he knew best of all. The man who had caught his paw in the strange trap which he had hidden in the river. The one who had caught his tongue on the railroad track and then had pointed the thunder stick at him. The one who had come so near to getting him on several occasions. He had known all the time that it was he whom he was following. His unmistakable scent was in every footprint up the side of the mountain. The box trap fairly reeked with it, now Redcoat had gotten his sense back and smelled with his old keen intelligence. Yes, it was he who had caught him in this strange house. A house which did not hurt him, but simply held him and did not let him go. That dreadful man had taken away his wits by this horrible smelling stuff. He had caused him to lose all his

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reason and then he had gone into the trap.

Again Redcoat tried the little house at every corner, but there was no escape, so he finally lay down to await his fate. He was not beaten. He was not badly cowed, only a dreadful fear gripped him at times, and this made him weak and sick. Yet he did not give up as some other wild animals would have done. He would wait and watch. At the first ray of light from any corner of the trap he would be waiting to dash forth and escape. If he ever got free, he would run so far and so fast they would never find him again. This country where men came and went so freely, where the Thunderer rushed by each day, was too noisy and too dangerous. He would find a new range far from the haunts of men.

Of course, Redcoat's thoughts were not as concrete as this, but there was born within him, while he waited in the trap, a great repulsion for the haunts and ways of men. They were too dangerous. A poor fox could not hope to escape amid such dangers.
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Ordinarily Bud would not have visited the trap until the following morning, as it is not well to watch a trap too closely once it is set, but that same evening he had an errand on the mountain. Perhaps he made the fact that he was on the mountain searching for sassafras wood for a new bow the excuse for looking at the trap. This was no common trapping event. If successful it meant five hundred dollars.

Bud could scarce believe his eyes when he came in sight of the thicket where he had set the trap and discovered it was sprung. In fact, he did really rub his eyes and look again, but there was no mistaking the fact. The door of the trap showed plainly and it was down. Then Bud caught himself up short and chuckled. He must not get excited. It was just a fool skunk, or perhaps a rabbit had sprung the trap. There was not one chance in a hundred that he had caught the Phantom Fox at the very first try with the box trap. Bud approached the trap at a quick pace and lifted it cautiously. My, but it was heavy. That was not a

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skunk; besides there was no skunk smell. Then Bud pulled out the spindle at the back of the trap and kneeling down peeked into the trap. To his great surprise and joy he was looking straight into the yellow eyes of a fox, and judging from his size it was the Phantom Fox. Yes, he had caught the sly old chap, but it was not because of any cleverness on his part. It was the fox charm that had done the trick.

Bud started slowly down the mountain with the trap on his shoulder. If the trap had been heavy when he brought it up, it was doubly heavy now, but Bud took his time. In fact, he did not want to appear in the valley carrying the box trap on his shoulder until after dark. He was afraid some one would see him and want to know what he had caught. The capture of the Phantom Fox was to be his secret. He would tell Kitty, but no one else must ever know. It would add even more to the mystery surrounding the celebrated fox if he simply "faded" from sight.

Bud made the trip home without encoun-

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tering any of his curious neighbors, and after fitting up the box trap so that it would give Redcoat a little more air, he loaded him into the back of the Ford truck and started for the Sheerfield Silver Fox Farm. He intended to lose no time in getting his money, besides he was afraid to keep the sly fox for any length of time as he might escape in some way. As for Redcoat, he had no idea where they were going or what was to become of him. He had heard Bud coming up the mountain even before Bud had discovered that the trap was sprung. As the trap was resting on the ground, Bud's footsteps had sounded to the tense ears of the fox like the tread of a "Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum" giant. When Bud had peered into the trap, Redcoat had quickly turned his head and looked in another direction. Once he had peered out of the peek hole in the back of the trap where the spindle had been, and had watched his mountain gradually recede. He did not know, but that was the last glimpse he ever had of his beloved mountain, the stronghold that had sheltered

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him so many times. As he lay in the box trap while the automobile rattled rapidly along the smooth road, Redcoat rested his muzzle on his paws and waited the next move of his captor. He was ready for any chance that might offer, but whether that chance would be given him or not, was what troubled him.

Redcoat lay listening to the purring motor of the little car, while all that he loved and knew was left rapidly behind. Did he dream of the den in the spruces, or the green meadows where the mice were so plenty, or the great river, or was he thinking of Fluffy and the pups which would be born in a few days without a sire to guard the den, or to hunt for the mother fox? Who shall say? For what naturalist knows just where instinct leaves off and intelligence begins, or how far the wild animals penetrate the domain of man.

After an hour and a half of fast driving Bud wheeled up to Mr. Jennings' house, and they were at the Sheerfield Silver Fox Farm, famed throughout the country.
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Bud gave the doorbell such a vigorous punch and held on to it so long in his excitement that Mr. Jennings hurried to the door.

"I've got him, I've got him, Mr. Jennings," cried the boy excitedly, as his friend thrust his head through the partly opened door.

"Why, Bud Holcome, is that you?" exclaimed the man equally excited. "What is it you have got? What is all this excitement about anyhow?"

"I've got the Phantom Fox. I caught him on the mountain in a box trap today."

"You may have a red fox, Bud," said Mr. Jennings guardedly, "but I rather doubt if you have him. He is much too clever to be caught in that way."

"It was the fox charm that did it. The box trap would have been useless without it. But I am sure it is he. You just lead the way to an empty pen and I will show him to you."

Mr. Jennings was now as excited as Bud,

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so he started for the farm without even stopping for his hat, while Bud followed with the box trap on his shoulder.

When they had entered an empty pen, Bud pulled out the nails with which he had secured the wire netting around the box trap door and slowly lifted the door. But Redcoat had not been taken unawares, he was ready, tense and waiting. As soon as the door had been lifted enough to allow his passing beneath it he sprang out like a flash and with two great jumps landed full against the wire netting fence. He had thought it so fragile that he could go through it just as though it had been a willow thicket, but to his great surprise this fragile looking wall threw him back heavily. But he was up again like a flash and went up the wall of the wire fence like a cat. But at the top his head struck the shelf which extended horizontally for a foot and a half and he again fell heavily upon his back.

"Here, here, old chap," said Mr. Jen-

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nings soothingly. "That is wire netting. I guess you never saw any before."

No, Redcoat had never seen anything like this in his whole life. It was too difficult for him to assay while they were looking, but he would break through it later on, so he slunk into a corner and cowered on the ground.

"Great Cæsar," cried Mr. Jennings excitedly now he could fairly see the newcomer. "It is the Phantom Fox all right. My, but he is a beauty. Bud, this is a wonderful piece of work you have done for me. I am more pleased than you can possibly know."

"I am glad if you are satisfied," said Bud, "but I guess I had better be getting back home. It will take me until midnight."

Mr. Jennings tried to have Bud spend the night with him, but he would not hear of it. He was too eager to get home and tell the good news to Kitty and his folks. So after Mr. Jennings had counted out five crisp one hundred dollar bills, Bud jumped into the truck and stepped on the gas.
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He must hurry, hurry, hurry; his news would not wait. And if instead of the gleaming white road ahead of him Bud saw a college campus with well kept lawns and shady trees, and if instead of the humming of the motor he heard the cheering throngs at football and baseball games, or the rhythmic lilt of college songs who can blame him? For he had the cash in his pocket, and college was a sure thing.

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{{ph|class=chapter num|Chapter XII}}
{{ph|class=chapter title|The Prison|level=2}}

AFTER the two wild rushes made at the fence as described in the last chapter Redcoat concluded that discretion was the better part of valor, so he slunk into the further corner of the enclosure and crouched upon the ground, watching Bud and Mr. Jennings as long as they stayed in the pen. For five minutes the two men stood admiring the fox and talking eagerly. Mr. Jennings fairly feasted his eyes upon him, for in all his experience of breeding captive foxes he had never seen one that could compare with Redcoat. Several times he held up the lantern that he might get a better view, and the Red Flower in the strange thing made Redcoat blink and partly close his eyes. But finally even Mr. Jennings was satisfied and they went away, after locking both the door to the pen and the gateway in

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the guard fence some thirty feet beyond it.

Redcoat heard their footsteps die away in the distance, and then he arose and went cautiously about the inclosure. The pen in which he was confined was twenty-five feet by fifty, and it was one of about fifty pens covering an area of five acres, with a guard fence running entirely around the farm, the whole inclosure comprising the Sheerfield Silver Fox Farm. The wire netting of which the fence was made was galvanized and a little heavier than chicken netting. It was six feet high and was bent over at a right angle on top, extending about a foot and a half over the pen. It was this shelf against which Redcoat had struck his head when he climbed to the top of the fence. A foot and a half underground the netting also ran back into the pen for about twenty inches. Redcoat did not know this at the time, but he discovered it later. In one corner of the pen was a box about the size of the trap in which Bud had caught Redcoat, and he immediately concluded this was another trap. So the men were not content at

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having confined him in this pen; they had also set a trap for him inside the inclosure. So, he kept as far away from it as possible for the first day. About a foot and a half from the ground and fastened to the wire netting were two tin dishes, each holding about two quarts. One of these was for food and the other for water. This also Redcoat discovered the following day. Although the fence had thrown him back viciously, yet he finally got up courage to examine it on all sides. At first he sniffed it from a safe distance, but as it did him no harm, he went up close and to his surprise and fear he found it had the forbidding smell of the steel trap and the woodsman's axe that his sire had shown him when he was a pup. This was a scent he had been taught to shun from his earliest days. So, this was the secret of the power of the fence. It looked as penetrable as a thicket of willows, yet it was as strong as a brush fence.

For a long time Redcoat could not believe that he was a prisoner in the inclosure. He could see the night sky with the moon and

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stars above him. The fresh March wind whistled about his pen, and all that was between him and freedom was this fragile looking fence. Around and around the fence he went, looking for some opening, but there was none. Finally from sheer exhaustion he was obliged to lie down and rest. So he stretched himself out in the very center of the pen, as far from the four walls as possible, and slept. When he awoke the sun was shining brightly and he could hear another fox barking in a distant pen. There were a hundred adult foxes there on the farm very near to Redcoat, but for all intents and purposes he was alone in his prison.

At about seven o'clock a man came trundling a pushcart down the lane betfween the two lines of pens. He was bringing the foxes morning breakfast. He stopped at Redcoat's pen, and reaching through the fence put the rations for one fox in the food dish. He also poured cool fresh water in the other dish, and then passed on to the next pen. Redcoat did not realize that water and food were at hand until he saw a

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fox in an adjacent pen standing on his hind legs and drinking out of his water dish. This reminded Redeoat that he was very thirsty himself, yet he would not go near the dish for a long time. It was just another trap. Finally, at about noon, he became so thirsty that he stood upon his hind legs and was about to lap water out of the dish when he noticed that the food dish near by reeked with man scent, so he gave up the attempt, and it was not until the second night of his captivity that he even dared drink.

The following morning he was treated to a great surprise, for one of the men brought a crate and set it up against the door to Redcoat's pen, and then opened it, and a beautiful blue lady fox, who had come all the way from Alaska, stepped into Redcoat's pen.

But Redcoat himself was very unfriendly and treated the newcomer with great disdain. It was hours before he would so much as look at her, and if she went near him or tried to be friendly he growled and turned his back upon her.

Mr. Jennings, who was watching them

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from the lane outside the fence, thought it one of the funniest things he had ever seen; the dignity and hauteur of Redcoat and the shy glances of the blue stranger.

But there were many influences at work to break down the barrier Redcoat sought to raise between himself and his destined mate. In the first place, he was very lonely and he was thinking constantly of Fluffy and the new litter of little blind fox pups in the den among the spruces. He would never see them again. This man creature had taken him far, far away. He knew not the way back, and this lady fox was trying to be kind to him. But there was one art which she possessed that was more powerful than all others. She admired Redcoat immensely. He was the largest and most beautiful fox she had ever seen, and she made this plain to him at every possible chance. Redcoat could not look in her direction without seeing her gaze at him with adoring eyes, and finally his vanity was touched. Why, this stranger really knew a fine fox when she saw one, and she did ad-

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mire him. There was no question about that. And, she was a handsome fox herself, although not as beautiful as Fluffy; her ears were shorter, her head was a little chunkier and her face was covered with long coarse hairs, but her coat was very beautiful, and she was such a friendly little creature and Redcoat was so lonely.

So little by little his prejudice was worn away, and Blue Lady won her way first into his confidence and then into his affection.

The first day of his captivity Redcoat had been amazed at the lack of fear of men among these domestic foxes. They did not seem to understand that men were their very worst enemies; that they were continually plotting against their lives with traps, poison, thunder sticks and dogs; but instead they ate the food which tasted so strongly of man scent and freely drank the water that the men placed in the water dish. Not only that, but some of them would stand upon their hind legs and take raisins from the man's hand. Redcoat was horrified on the third day when he saw Blue Lady eating

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from the man's hand in this way. It was she who first enlightened Redcoat as to the dry goods box in the corner of his pen. The thing that he had thought another trap. This box had a wooden tunnel about a foot foot square leading into it, and to Redcoat's amazement one day Blue Lady crawled into this tunnel and disappeared from sight. Redcoat never expected to see her again. He thought soon the men would come and carry her away as he had been carried off in the box trap. But to his great surprise, in a few seconds she came out of the tunnel none the worse for the adventure. Not only that, but she invited Redcoat to inspect the box. At first he would have nothing to do with it, but finally his curiosity got the best of him and he followed Blue Lady through the tunnel. He found inside first a little hallway and a turn to the left, then he stepped upon a platform and there before him was an inner box about twenty inches square. This was sleeping quarters for two foxes, arranged in this way in order that they might be free from drafts. Blue Lady

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jumped into the nest and invited Redcoat to share it with her. And, as he was so lonely and Fluffy and the pups were so far away, he followed after her, and the two foxes nestled down in the nest, and they were the best of friends from that hour.

But the life in this strange prison soon became intolerable to Redcoat. He was not used to it. Hitherto the fields, the woods and the green meadows had all been a part of his domain, and now it had narrowed down to this grassless plot of twenty-five feet by fifty. For him there were no more exciting runs through the meadow with the morning wind keen in his face; no more could he sit upon his lookout on the mountainside and watch the man creatures coming and going in the valley below. This life might be very well for these stupid foxes; these foxes who would eat from the hand of their worst enemy and knew not the danger that surrounded them. It was not that Redcoat was hungry or abused, but they had taken away the one thing he valued most in the whole world, his freedom.
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Blue Lady, who had never known anything else but confinement, sought to console him, but he was unconsolable. With each day his discontent grew until it finally became an obsession, so that the better part of the night he would prowl about the yard and dig about the fence, seeking for some way out. Finally there was born in his crafty mind a plan, and this he confided to Blue Lady as well as he could through the limited language of a fox. At first she was doubtful, but finally she caught his enthusiasm and entered fully into his plan. So one night at about eight o'clock, after the keeper had scrutinized all the pens and gone home, Redcoat with the assistant of his mate began his desperate adventure.

Meanwhile, the Meadowdale Fox Club had gone on several unsuccessful hunts. Day after day they had sought to start the Phantom Fox but without success. He had disappeared as completely as though the earth had opened and swallowed him, or as one of the hunters said, that he had jumped on the cow-catcher of a passing train and gone

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to Canada. Finally, it became rumored about that some one bad trapped or shot the Phantom Fox. He was no longer to be found on his favorite range. The Meadowdale Fox Club were quite sure of that. Finally these rumors came to the ears of Kitty Mason. At first she did not take them seriously, but at last their full import came to her, and with it a dark suspicion. There was but one person in the countryside who knew the ways and the habits of Redcoat, and that was Bud Holcome. If anyone had trapped or shot the fox, it was he. So, one evening in a very serious frame of mind, she called Bud on the telephone. He was always glad to hear Kitty's voice but he now saw at once that something serious was in the wind.

"Bud," said Kitty in her most serious manner, "they say some one has shot or trapped the Phantom Fox. The Meadowdale Fox Club have tried every day for a week, but they can not start him. I want you to tell me the truth, Bud, have you shot the Phantom Fox?"
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"No Kitty," replied Bud, "I haven't shot him."

"Well, Bud," continued the girl, "have you trapped him?"

"Why, no, that is, not exactly."

"Bud," cried Kitty excitedly, "I know you have trapped him. Tell me the truth."

"Well," said Bud after a long pause, "I can't talk about it over the telephone. I'll come over to the house in a few minutes and tell you all about it."

It was a very shamefaced Bud, with his recent radiance all gone out of him, who finally appeared at the Mason farmhouse. He knew there was no use prevaricating, for Kitty would know the truth, so he told her the whole story.

"You see, Kit," he concluded, "I did it as much for his good as for mine. I knew the Fox Club would get him if I didn't. I had a chance to save him and make five hundred dollars for college so I took it."

Kitty sat for several minutes with her brows knitted before making her reply, then what she said sent Bud Holcome's heart way

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down in his boots, for with her words his vision of college suddenly vanished.

"Bud," she said, "you have taken away from Redcoat the thing that he valued most in the world, his freedom. He was born a free fox and a free fox he should be. I just know he would rather take his chances with traps, poison, men and dogs than to be cooped up there on that old fox farm. You and I have got to go to Mr. Jennings and buy him back, and then set him free. There is no other way."

"But, Kitty," expostulated Bud, "I will have to give up going to college."

"It can't be helped," returned the girl. "I just know what I am telling you is the right thing to do. There is no other honorable course. You cannot build your success on Redcoat's misery."

"But Kitty, he's just an ordinary red fox, and it means so much to me."

"I know, Bud, but he isn't just an ordinary red fox. He is a very exceptional fox and he is a sort of friend of mine. I never told you much about it, but I got acquainted

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with him two years ago up in the pasture. He came out and sat down and looked at me while I picked berries. I talked to him and he did not seem to be afraid at all. Another time I saw him with his family, Mrs. Fox and the four pups, and they looked so happy together. But that is not all Bud, I saw him once in a terrible plight. He was wounded and running on three legs and a score of brutal men with their hounds had nearly run the life out of this little red fox. He came stumbling into the roadway and fell almost at my horse's feet. Then the whole thing came home to me in a new way. I saw it all with new light. I determined that you and the rest of the men should not get him, so I wrapped a blanket about him and picked him up in my arms and tucked him under the seat of the sleigh, and drove away with him, and neither hunter nor hounds knew where he went. I left him half a mile from the road up in father's woodlot, and he wagged his tail at me as he went away, and I determined then I would always be his friend, so I've got to stand by

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him now, Bud. You have got to buy him back and set him free."

Bud argued and expostulated, but all to no purpose. So, it was finally agreed that they would get an early start for the fox farm on the following morning.

It was just about the time that Kitty and Bud were having their solemn conversation as to their right to keep the price of Redcoat's freedom, when he set to work to do something for himself. From the digging that he had done on previous days, he had discovered that the wire fence ran back for a foot and a half underground into the pen but just at this point he had one day luckily dug a hole under the netting almost as far as the perpendicular portion of the fence. Fortunately for him Blue Lady had concluded he was spoiling their pen, so she had at once filled up the hole and padded down the dirt with her paws, thus this digging had not been discovered by the keeper of the farm. Redcoat very quickly threw out the soft dirt that he had dug the day before and started in on his enterprise, burrowing un-

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der the fence. He soon had Blue Lady as excited as himself and together they fairly made the earth fly. Redcoat would dig down in the hole until he became exhausted and out of breath, while Blue Lady would throw the dirt back towards the middle of the pen, then she would take her turn digging while Redcoat threw the dirt back. Feverishly they worked. The task seemed endless. They dug and dug and dug, while the dirt flew back beneath their feet. Finally about three o'clock in the morning, when Redcoat had despaired of ever finding his way to the green grass on the further side of the fence, his frantically working paws went through the sod and a little later he enlarged the hole, with the help of Blue Lady who was throwing the dirt back. In another half hour he had made the opening large enough so that both of them escaped into the outer incisure. But Redcoat's work was not all done. His freedom was still beyond another fence. This was the guard fence which encircled the farm some fifty feet beyond the pens. As soon as Redcoat examined this

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carefully he saw that the netting here at the bottom of the fence lay upon the ground. He had digged and worked at this wire netting so much during the past two weeks that he had lost his fear of it, so he now grabbed it firmly in his teeth and pulled it upward with all his might. Blue Lady got hold beside him and the pair pulled together. Soon they raised it and bent it up six or eight inches from the ground, and this greatly simplified their digging process, for they now had merely to make a tunnel through under the main fence.

Three hours more of desperate digging and the trick was done. A trench large enough to admit of their crawling under the fence had been made.

The consternation of the keeper of the fox farm may well be imagined, as he came trundling the foxes' breakfast down to the farm, to see Redcoat wriggle out from under the guard fence, and while he was still watching him too astonished to speak or even move, Blue Lady followed. It was now too late to make any move to stop them, and

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while the keeper rushed forward yet his efforts were futile, for Redcoat led the way towards a nearby woods at a pace that would have even left the hounds behind, and Blue Lady had just enough confidence in his leading to follow.

Bud and Kitty had climbed into the Ford coupe and started for the fox farm at five o'clock that morning. The trip had been a rather solemn one. All of Bud's plans for the immediate future had been given up and, as he had said, just for an old red fox.

"I might of had him, Kitty, months ago," the boy confided as the car hummed along the country road. "I got him once fair and square in a steel trap and he outwitted me."

"Why, you never told me, Bud. How did it happen?"

"Well," said Bud, "I was such a fool and he was so clever I didn't want to tell anybody. I got him in the brook and when I found him he was floating on the water, apparently drowned, I picked him up in my arms and laid him on the bank in the sun to dry, and a minute later when I looked for

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him he was rushing through the underbrush at about a mile a minute.

"But that wasn't all. Another time I found him in a terrible plight. It was a cold winter morning and he had tried to lick blood from a rail on the track. His tongue had stuck to the cold steel. The train was rushing down upon him from one direction, while I came from another with my rifle. I raised the gun to shoot him, when he looked up into my eyes with a look that melted me. I could not shoot him after that; instead I freed him from the track. Two seconds more of delay and the train would have got us both."

"Bud, that was fine of you! I am proud of you. A fellow who has got a soft spot in his heart for the dumb creatures, even though they be only foxes, is a boy that a girl can trust."

The little car whirred up to the fox farm about half an hour after Redcoat and Blue Lady had disappeared in the nearby woods.

Mr. Jennings was much surprised to see the young people, and even more surprised

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at Bud's first words, "I've come to buy back the red fox," he said. "Kitty and I have concluded that I ought to buy him back and set him free."

"You see, Mr. Jennings," put in the girl, "he's a wild fox and he loves the out-of-doors. He was born on the mountain and he has hunted in the meadows, and he could never be happy here in the fox pen, so Bud has come to buy him back."

Mr. Jennings looked at them in astonishment, which finally ended in his laugbing beartily.

"What about college?" he asked. "I thought this five undred dollars was to start you off."

"Yes, it was," said Kitty. "But we have to do what's right. Bud and I talked it all over and we agreed he could not keep the money, if Redcoat bad to be a prisoner on his account."

"All right," replied Mr. Jennings. "I will sell him to you on one condition. He's kind of wild this morning and you'll have to catch him yourselves." So he led the

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way to the fox pen, closely followed by the young people.

He stopped before the pile of fresh dirt by the guard fence and looked at it curiously.

"What's that?" asked Bud.

"Why," replied Mr. Jennings nonchalantly, "that is a new front door; one that Redcoat made for himself this very morning. See that hole under the fence yonder; that is another front door leading from his pen to the lane."

"But, where is he?" inquired Bud excitedly, not fully sensing Mr. Jennings' joke, yet getting a glimmer of the truth.

"Heaven only knows," replied Mr. Jennings solemnly. "The last we saw of him he was making for the woods and he was closely followed by the best blue fox on the farm."

"What?" cried the young folks in chorus. "Has Redcoat escaped?"

"Not only that," replied Mr. Jennings, "but he has taken with him the most valuable lady fox we had, and we have said goodby to them."
{{nop}}

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"Well," said Bud, holding out the envelope containing the money, "here is the five hundred dollars."

"It isn't mine," said Mr. Jennings. "I haven't any fox to sell you, for Redcoat by his own cunning has accomplished his own freedom and given Bud his first year at college."

And here the story of Redcoat really ends; but for the benefit of those who love to go behind the scenes and see what happens after the actors have left the stage and the curtain has fallen, I have written the following pages.

When Redcoat led that headlong flight from the fox farm to the nearest woods, his greatest anxiety was that Blue Lady would not keep up with him. For several weeks he was greatly worried at her indifference as to the danger from men and their devices. She had been born on an island fox farm in Behring Sea, and had seen men all her life. Nearly all the food that she had eaten had come from their hands. So she looked upon them as benefactors rather than enemies.

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But little by little Redcoat instilled into her a fear of their worst enemy. He taught her all his fox lore, his knowledge of men and dogs and traps and poison, and all this time he hunted for both of them.

Blue Lady thought him the most wonderful fox that she had ever seen, and this greatly flattered his vanity, so he became more daring than ever. Many were the wonderful feasts that the pair of foxes had at the expense of the farmers, as they journeyed leisurely northward, for although they zigzagged about, yet their course was always to the north. There were two reasons for this. First, Redcoat knew that his old range was to the south and he wished to get as far away from it as possible. Then too, the winds from the north were cooler and fresher than those from the south. Somehow this suggestion of cold satisfied Redcoat, as the balmy south breezes did not. For the foxes are children of the snow, for they always revel in the first snowstorm of the season, rolling and swimming in it, and playing in it like children. When it is deep

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enough, they will curl up like round balls, hiding their noses in their bushy tails, and let the storm cover them; even sleeping all night in a snow bed.

Finally after four months of leisurely travelling, Redcoat and his companion came to a lonely land just on the border between the New England states and the Dominion of Canada. Here there was a region of three townships which held more deserted farms than any other similar area in the United States. It was fifteen miles to the nearest railroad and the country roads were so rough and the hills so steep that motorists always went by another way if they could. And here Redcoat and his mate ceased their wanderings and settled down.

I will give you just one more picture of the fox family before leaving them.

It is early June. June with its deep blue skies, and its fleecy white clouds. The little breeze has been racing across the meadows and has come up to the edge of the woods with its breath fragrant from clover blossom. On a grassy plot, just above a

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little stream, the fox family are disporting themselves. Blue Lady and six little foxes are having such a wonderful time. The mother fox lies sprawled out on the grass, while two of the pups pull her tail and two others romp over her. The two remaining pups are chasing a very lively grasshopper.

On the grassy plot above them, in a sunny place, Redcoat lies stretched to his full length, with his nose upon his paws. His eyes are partly closed, yet he sees and hears and smells everything, for his senses are all alert guarding his little family from any lurking danger. Never in his whole life has he felt so contented or safe from his enemies. The days of the Thunderer and honking automobiles and fox clubs and galloping horses all seem like a bad dream. True, an occasional fisherman wades the little stream which runs through the meadow where the foxes hunt mice, but the fishermen are not interested in foxes. Also an occasional camping party comes into this fastness to enjoy the primeval beauty of nature. But these are all peaceable people, with a

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love of wild life. So the fox family goes unharmed, notwithstanding these invasions.

If Mr. Jennings, the fox breeder, could only have seen this little family he would have gone wild at the sight, for it was just such a blend of the blue and red foxes as he had dreamed of for years. Two of the pups still clung to the type. One was a perfect picture of Redcoat, and the other of Blue Lady. But the four remaining pups were half and half, with the beautiful head of Redcoat and the luxuriant coat of Blue Lady. The blue jay could have told you where the den was located, for he had seen the fox family the first day the pups came forth. The whitethroat, which now sang in the poplars above them, could have told you much of their ways, for he saw them come each day to this grass plot to romp. A certain pool in the trout stream nearby could have told you just how the little foxes looked when they came each day to drink of the cool water. But the Blue Jay, the whitethroat, and the Brook all keep their counsel. So there upon the grass plot, let us leave

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them, in this lonely land far from the haunts of men. For Redcoat has at last found the refuge from his many enemies and is happy, after his kind. No more is heard the diabolical shriek of the Thunderer, the honking of automobile horns, or the baying of fox hounds. Instead, there is a bird song and the low music of the singing brook, and a deep peace over all the land./last/

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