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
