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
