Page:Redcoat (1927).djvu/253

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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