Redcoat/Chapter 2
THERE was much excitement in the spruces on that momentous morning, when the fox pups were first brought forth into the great wide world. That is, the mother fox was excited and the pups caught the excitement from her. Her excitement was due to the fact that she was to bring forth into the world, the four small fuzzy balls of foxhood, which she had begun to love more than her own life. She had fed and cared for them for six weeks, and each day they had become dearer to her, just as the human babies do to their mothers.
Now the battle was to begin between the cruel world, with its many lurking dangers, and the wilderness babies. A battle where no quarter was to be given, and where only one very bad mistake might end fatally.
Father Fox had gone very early to hunt in the meadow for mice, so Mother Fox had dined upon her favorite breakfast half an hour before she brought forth her family.
Then Father Fox scoured the country for half a mile around in every direction to see if the range was free of all their enemies so far as he could discover. Of course there were enemies that no vigilance could guard against. A great owl might swoop down from a thick treetop and snatch up a small fox in the twinkling of an eye. So silently he might come that not even the sharpest ear could hear his coming.
This is because his wings are fringed with down so he can approach his prey silently. Not even a fox's alertness might prevent such a calamity as that. But such possibilities were among the regular chances which the wild creatures had to take. They were as cunning and watchful as they might well be, and for the rest, well, that was left to fate, or the Guardian of the wild creatures.
To all the fox family life was a great game. The stakes were life itself. One killed or was killed, as fate might will, and one did what one could, to be on the winning side.
When the four little balls of woolly fur were finally pushed out into the light of day, a wonderful sight burst upon their eyes. A sight that made them blink and wink, and scurry back into the burrow as fast as they could. Then, one by one, they came creeping back into the daylight. Hitherto they had been used to the semi-darkness of the burrow, but here was a great wide new world all strange and shimmering, full of new sights and smells. The only smell that they had known before was the rather pungent, musty fox odor of the burrow, but here were all sorts of smells, and how they did revel in them.
They went snuffing and poking about in the dead leaves, and among the new weeds and ferns, half afraid and very curious.
Each new and unfamiliar sound sent them scuttling back to the burrow, and if the sound was very pronounced they went scurrying down into the darkness where they felt quite safe. But they would always come back again. The outside was so strange and so alluring.
It was a wonderful morning. Birds were singing in the treetops, and the woods were full of the sounds of joyous life. Crows were cawing in the distance, and a woodpecker was pounding on a dead tree only a few rods away. All of these sounds made the little foxes cock their small ears and look very alert.
They stayed out only two or three hours that first day, but it was the beginning of such glorious times. Days full of bright sunshine, and sweet smelling odors, days of wonderful frolics. For the small foxes were always playing. Usually it was a sort of "tag" game. One would pick up a bit of wood, or perhaps some feather, or bit of skin left over from the morning breakfast and run with it, and all the others would try to catch the playful one and get the coveted morsel away from him.
This play very soon grew into sham fights, and gradually developed that real fighting spirit which is the mainspring of the very existence of wild life.
One of their best playthings was Mother's tail. They would catch hold of it and pull and pull, or even allow her to drag them about while their puppy teeth sank deeply into the woolly substance.
But as they grew larger and their teeth became sharper and their jaws stronger, Mother Fox insisted that they give up this play. This she indicated by several sharp nips when the play became too wearing.
Even at this early stage in the development of the pups they were quite different, both in size, markings and general characteristics.
The very largest of the entire litter was a perfectly marked red fox, so I shall call him "Redcoat." He was dark red above and lighter red on the belly, where it approached yellow. The next in size was almost as large as Redcoat, but he was a perfect cross fox. Cross foxes sometimes occur in the red fox litters, and red foxes in the cross fox litters.
The smallest of the litter was also another perfect-red fox, and we will call him "Little Brother," while the fourth was a female, with a generous sprinkling of long hair on the face so we will call her "Fuzzy."
In all their plays and sham fights, Redcoat was the most skilful. Cross Fox was almost as good, but Little Brother and Fuzzy were not in their class.
Perhaps the most exciting occurrence in the whole day was the coming of Father Fox with the morning meal. At first he brought the mice already killed for them to eat, but after a while he would put a live mouse in their midst and allow them to kill it. Here Redcoat always distinguished himself, although he and Cross Fox sometimes had a lively fight over a choice morsel.
But as the pups grew larger Father Fox developed their training each day. Sometimes he would bring the feed very early before the pups were out and hide it some distance from the den. Then there would be a lively scramble to see who would find the breakfast first.
One morning in midsummer Father Fox came as usual, but this time he brought an animal about as large as the pups. It was not dead, and it showed a white shining set of teeth when the pups surrounded it.
Cross Fox sprang forward, as he was nearer the quarry than was Redcoat, but the young woodchuck gave him a savage nip in the face, and he shrank back. Then Redcoat sprang in. The young woodchuck served him in the same way he had his brother, but Redcoat didn't quit. Instead he clinched with the woodchuck and a very lively battle ensued. Finally Redcoat emerged from the fray conqueror, and laid the dead woodchuck before his brothers and sister. He had two bad gashes in the face, but he had won, and this made him even more of a bully than he had been before. But he felt well satisfied with the exploit.
Finally, on moonlight nights Father Fox and Mother Fox took the small foxes into the meadows to hunt mice with them. This was after they had learned to hunt grasshoppers, and crickets, and after they had killed many frogs, and squirrels that Father Fox had brought home alive for them.
They soon became quite expert in mouse hunting, and would stand as patiently as their parents above the runways of the mice, which were very easily smelled out in the grass roots.
One day Father Fox discovered one of those dangerous men creatures in the woods pounding upon a tree. He watched him for a long time, and finally the tree came crashing to earth, and Father Fox ran away in great haste.
When the man had gone home and the woods no longer rang with the sound of his axe, Father and Mother Fox took the four little foxes to where he had been chopping wood and together they investigated all the sights and smells where the man had been.
The old foxes smelled out the tracks of the man and then invited the small foxes to sniff the strange scent. They had never smelled anything like it before, and although they did not at all know what it meant, yet this new scent sent a strange tingling fear along their spines, and made their nerves thrill with excitement. Instinctively they feared the scent that all foxes had feared since the dawn of history. This was their natural heritage of wisdom handed down through countless generations of foxes. Finally the Father Fox discovered the man's axe hidden away in the woodpile, and he and the four little foxes climbed up the woodpile and smelled the axe carefully. This was a very important scent that the Father Fox wished the little foxes to note very carefully, for it would give them the smell of traps, or iron, one of the most dangerous scents to foxes.
When they had fully examined the place where the man had been, the two old foxes drove the small foxes from the place with great ferocity, nipping them and hustling them away in great seeming alarm, and the entire fox family raced back to the den in the spruces as though the devil were after them.
A few days later on Father Fox found an old steel trap which had been left out all winter and finally discarded and forgotten. So he again brought the young foxes to smell the iron scent, which was so much to be dreaded. After smelling the trap for several minutes, and viewing it from all angles, although they did not approach very near to it, Father Fox drove his family away from the scene with great haste, trying to instill into the minds of the young foxes the fact that this was also a dreaded scent.
I do not know whether or not he told them in fox language, that the man was their worst enemy, and that he often set this strange clam which could spring together so quickly, and catch an unsuspecting fox by the paw. I do not know if he told them to beware of this iron smell by the brookside, or in a mossy low lying spot, where they might find it in connection with some dainty food which they did not have to kill. But if it was possible for him to get such a message and such warning across, you may be sure that he did so, for he schooled the four young foxes well in all the dangers of the woods.
On another occasion, Father Fox found some meat which had been cut up in small pieces, and dropped beside a spring. A spring that the foxes often frequented, because the water was cool and sweet. When Father Fox had been young he had once eaten such meat which he found under similar conditions. He had only saved his life after being dreadfully sick, by his knowledge of very primitive medical methods, so now he knew better than to eat this meat. But here was another chance to give the fox family a further lesson, so he brought them with great haste to the spring and showed them the meat. The small foxes were very eager to eat the meat, but the Father Fox indicated the man scent that could be plainly discerned about it and then drove the young foxes from the scene even more savagely than he had from the man's axe, and the old steel trap.
This meat which made foxes so deadly sick was another danger, so he made it very emphatic that it was to be left alone.
One twilight in the early autumn they heard a series of long drawn out sounds, which reverberated along the mountainside, and rolled away into the distance. They were evidently sounds made by some animal, even the young foxes knew that instinctively. But the sounds seemed to disturb the old foxes. For they got the pups together and Mother Fox went with them into a distant portion of the forest, while Father Fox went to intercept the hound and to lead him far away from his family.
Father Fox did not return for hours and when he did come back he seemed very weary, but he did not lie down to rest, instead he took the small foxes away into the swamp where the strange sounds had first come from, and after smelling about for a while they located the tracks of the hound. Father Fox was very careful that the youngsters got this scent into their nostrils very decidedly, for this was still another dangerous scent. After they had surely identified the hound scent, Father Fox took his family away to the old burrow in the spruces where he rested for the rest of the night.
One twilight when Father Fox was hunting rabbits in the great swamp he discovered a bobcat sitting upon an old log watching one of the rabbit runways. It was only because Father Fox was eternally on the lookout, with his ears and eyes, and sharp nose always testing the air, that he discovered the bobcat in time. Had the bobcat landed fairly upon his back he would never have been seen again in the old den by the spruces.
But the cat did not get his sharp raking claws upon Father Fox's back as he intended and the old hunter escaped after a long hard run.
But here was another scent to which the fox family had to be introduced. This Father Fox did returning after several hours to the very log from which the bobcat had sprung at him.
After this lesson it seemed to the young foxes that the great woods and the fields were full of danger sights and sounds. There were so many scents that spelled danger and so much to be avoided.
Still another time, later on in the autumn, they heard a very loud sound several times. This sound was like thunder and it rolled away in many echoes through the ancient woods. Father Fox and Mother Fox seemed much disturbed by the sound, but it was just Bud Holcome hunting partridges. But after the sun had set Father Fox went on a searching party, and finally discovered an empty shell which Bud had thrown on the ground. This he carefully marked down and again brought his entire family to investigate.
Other lessons there were. Lessons intended to put the young foxes on guard against all the many dangers that lurked in ambush for them. It was not Father Fox's fault, if any member of his family ultimately came to grief, for he did his work well.
As far as he could, he made his family proof against the wiles of man, boy and dog, or trap and poison. But who can guard against the chances and the lottery of the life in the wild? It was a great game of chance. The stakes were life itself, if you played the game well you survived, but if not—well that is another story and we will leave it for a later chapter.