Page:The Way of the Wild (1923).pdf/242

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pack at his best pace further and further from his native lair, where he knew was the only lasting safety.

It was a thrilling sight to the fox hunters as they sighted the chase on several occasions too far away for a shot; the Red Fox, his brush held high, belly to earth, galloping easily across the open country, the deep-throated pack in full cry a score of rods behind.

But Red Fox did not intend to use only his fleet legs. He also used his fox cunning. Once he stopped on a cliff and made a figure 8 of his track. ITe then jumped six or eight feet to a shelf and left the ledge by a series of great jumps. It was a maze of fox cunning that would have puzzled many a pack. It would have puzzled this pack also, had it not been for old Bugler, the leader. When this veteran hound ran into the tangle as he led the pack, he ranged a minute this way and that, then held his head high for a few moments and simply by his great nose and his knowledge of fox cunning took the trail above the ledge and all of Red Fox's planning went for naught.