The fawns obeyed instantly.
Fleet Foot then doubled back on her trail, and with a stamp and a snort to call the hound"s attention, she soon had him following her great bounds in quite the opposite direction. She kept just far enough ahead of him to make sure he wouldn"t give up the chase-though she could easily have out-distanced him.
CHAPTER V.-A SON OF THE WILD.
Now Frisky, the Red Fox Pup, admired no one so much as he did his father. And he had heard his father tell how he had chased the doe and her fawns that dreadful day when Fleet Foot broke her leg.
Not that the little rascal really wanted to hurt those gentle soft-eyed babies. He wasn"t hungry, and besides, he couldn"t have killed them had he wanted to. He just thought it would be fun to play that he was Father Red Fox and give them a good scare. (But how were the fawns to know that?) In other words, like a great many very young persons, he didn"t stop to think of the other fellow"s point of view in the matter.
Thus, no sooner had he seen Fleet Foot headed in the other direction, leaving the fawns unprotected, than he pranced merrily up to them, his yellow eyes gleaming with mischief.
"Yip, yip!" he yelled at them in his high-pitched little voice.
Now the fawns had been told to lie still. But how could they, when danger was almost upon them? They were certainly not going to lie there and let this little wild dog bite them!
With a bleat of alarm they sprang to their feet and raced through the brush, leaping over bush and brier and boulder as if their very lives depended on it.
But Frisky Fox could also leap bush and brier and boulder. And he came leaping after, just two jumps behind them!
Now around a clump of greenbriar, down a trail of dainty pointed hoof prints that led through brush head high,-up hill, down hill the trio sped, startling the pheasants and sending them into the air with a whirr.
Here the trail turned abruptly down the side of a precipice, and the fawns followed, while Frisky, having paused for a moment when his tail got caught in a bramble, had to come trotting after with his nose to the ground, as he could no longer see them.
Now the fawns had never been taught that water carries no scent. They just happened to go splashing across a bit of a frog pond that lay cupped among hillocks of seedling pines. But looking back at every seventh leap or so, they could see that the fox pup followed his nose to the water"s edge, and there stopped and sniffed all about uncertainly, before again catching a glimpse of them.
But though the chase went merrily on (that is, merrily on the fox"s part), the fawns had learned a valuable lesson.
They now made straight for Lone Lake, and my! You should have seen the ducks take flight as these two alarming little fellows came splashing in among them!
A deer, when pursued by hounds, will always take to water when he can, and the hounds have no scent to follow. Then, unless there is a hunter along, and he catches sight of his quarry, and fires, the deer are safe.
The Red Fox Pup uses his eyes, as well as his nose, and he was so close behind, and understood so well this trick of taking to water, (for he escaped the hounds that way himself), that he wasn"t fooled the least little bit in the world. Not he!
Only once they had taken the plunge, the little fellows decided to swim out to a reedy islet where they could rest. And the fox pup didn"t think it worth while to get his fur wet. For when his great brush of a tail gets wet, it is so heavy that it weighs him down, and he can"t run nearly so fast, so the mice all get away.
Of course the fawns thought it was all their own cleverness, and you should have heard them telling Fleet Foot about it when she found them there!
The fawns never tired of watching the life that stirred everywhere about them, their great soft eyes filled with pleasant wonder.
One day it would be the one soft cluck of Mother Grouse Hen, calling to her chicks to hide before Frisky Fox should pa.s.s that way.
When he had pa.s.sed, looking so wise and knowing, (with his bright eyes peering into every nook and corner, and his pointed little nose testing the air for a taint), Mother Grouse Hen would give a different sort of cluck; and back the frightened chicks would come to her, and she would gather them comfortingly under her wings, pressing each wee brown baby to her down-covered breast to rea.s.sure him.
Then she would utter a soft, brooding cluck that told them how she loved them, and how safe they were with Mother to look out for them.
CHAPTER VI.-A STRANGE FRIENDSHIP.
What was the matter with the hen-roost at the Valley Farm, the fox pup asked himself? He had killed so many field mice in the course of the summer that he felt he was really ent.i.tled to one of the farmer"s nice fat hens,-because the mice might have destroyed the farmer"s crops, had Frisky not prevented.
At the same time he knew that Lop Ear, the hound at the Valley Farm, would have another opinion in the matter.
Frisky sat up and thought.
Lop Ear would give the alarm, and then, even if he threw the hound off the scent, there would be men with guns, and more dodging of bullets than he cared to risk. He had often seen it, watching from his hill-top in the woods. And he always tried to profit by other people"s experience.
Suddenly his bright eyes began to snap. The very idea! He would make friends with Lop Ear.
Then Lop Ear might try to be sound asleep on the night when Frisky visited the chicken coop; and should the Hired Man get out his gun, the hound would surely lose his trail.
Thereafter, for days on end, Frisky made the strangest advances to the dignified old hound, whenever the latter fared forth into the woods to catch him a mouse for supper. It was very much like a puppy trying to coax an old dog to play.
"Come chase me!" Frisky would invite, dancing ahead just out of Lop Ear"s reach. Then, "I"ll chase you," he would vary the program. And Lop Ear (half unwillingly) played the role a.s.signed him, till at last he came to look on his evening ramble in the woods with Frisky as a distinct part of his day"s pleasuring.
Not that Frisky ever came within reach of Lop Ear"s jaws. No, indeed!
That was carrying the thing a bit too far. But he did finally get the hound to the point where he no longer considered it his duty to try to make an end of the young fox. And he really enjoyed their games of hide and seek.
The Boy from the Valley Farm did not know what to make of Lop Ear"s growing fondness for solitary rambles.
One night, when the October moon gleamed cool and sparkling through the fringe of fir trees, young Frisky Fox might have been seen loping softly through the corn-field.
"Who goes there?" bayed Lop Ear, as he leaped the barn-yard fence.
"Come and play," coaxed Frisky. "You can"t catch me!" and leaping up the sloping roof of the hen-house, he squeezed gracefully through the barred window. A moment more and there was a stifled squawk and Frisky squeezed his way back through the bars, dragging a hen behind him.
But alas for the best laid plans.
"Bow-wow-wow! You can"t do that, you know!" suddenly bayed Lop Ear.
"That"s carrying the game a little too far. After all, I have my duty to perform."
"What is it?" yelled the Hired Man, poking his head from his sleeping-room in the barn-loft. "A fox, eh?" and he grabbed for his gun, leaning far out to scan the moonlit fields.
Frisky Fox, by keeping the shed between himself and the gun, made off through the corn-field with the hen across his shoulder.
Lop Ear, his warning uttered, now dashed madly in quite the wrong direction,-for the memory of the fox pup"s friendship was strong upon him. But the Hired Man was not to be fooled.