Redcoat/Chapter 3
WHEN Autumn finally came the young foxes were glad, for it gave such a zest to living. The mornings were crisp and cold, the air was clear and bracing, and it made them want to run and leap, just in sheer exuberance of living, and it gave them such appetites that they were almost painful. That is, they were annoying until they were satisfied.
On such mornings as these, when the frost was very heavy, it gemmed the weeds along the brookside with diamonds, and fringed the ferns with a wonderful frost work, which was like the finest lace. Finally it did wonders to the trees. The soft maples along the water courses were painted scarlet, while the berries of the staghorn sumac were almost as red. Other trees it painted a fainter red, with yellows and saffrons,—browns and russets.
Finally, all the campfires of Autumn were kindled, and they burned high upon every hillside, in wonderful barbaric beauty.
Then it was, when the skins of the foxes were prime, that the war between men, boys, guns, traps and poison, and the wits, and the fleet legs of the foxes was on. A war which did not show mercy, or give quarter.
The twenty-five dollars which an ordinary red fox's pelt brought looked very large to the average country boy, and he was out to get it. Mr. Fox also prized his brush and he was out to keep it. So, many were the battles of skill, cunning, endurance, and strategy which the foxes and the men waged.
About the middle of October a mishap befell the fox family which was much more serious than it first seemed, for it made the entire family more vulnerable to the enemy. It happened in this way. It was just one of those accidents in the out-of-doors to which any wild animal is liable. No matter how cunning he may be, or how carefully he may guard himself, somewhere or somehow even the most cunning animal may be taken by the most unskilful hunter or trapper.
It happened that Father Fox was out on the great meadows at the end of the mountain hunting mice. He had often hunted there before. It was well away from the country road which skirted the foot of the mountain, but a footpath which the humans sometimes frequented ran close to this meadow where Father Fox was hunting.
It was a very bright moonlight night, and he took a chance hunting then; but the wild creatures always take chances.
Now, it happened that Bud Holcome had been out to a neighbor's and was coming home. By mere accident he had his little twenty-two rifle on his arm and by a mere chance he espied Father Fox who was silhouetted against a dark bush. He was not over a dozen rods away.
Bud did not think he could hit him because he could not see the sight well, as the moonlight made it glimmer, but he took the wild chance. For a moment he let the sight glitter against the dark fox silhouetted against the bush, and then pulled the trigger.
To his great surprise, the old hunter sprang into the air, gave two or three feeble jumps and then tumbled upon the ground.
Bud ran to him in all haste, but even when he reached the fox he did not dare touch him. He might be shamming, so he shot him again through the head. But there was no shamming. Father Fox was quite dead, and the excited boy shouldered the fox and carried him home.
Mother Fox and the young foxes never knew just what became of him. All they knew was that he was never seen again in the spruces, or upon the range where they had hunted together.
Thus it was that the fox family lost their guardian and protector at a very important time. Had Father Fox lived to school them still more against hounds and hunters, as well as to give them more valuable lessons on traps and poison, things might have turned out very differently, and there might have been several branches to this story, instead of one main theme.
Mother Fox of course did all she could, but she had not the cunning of the old hunter. Neither did she have the strength. She could not lead the hounds away from the home burrow and take them miles away and then snarl up the track so that the family might be saved. But all that she could do she did, even as fearlessly as Father Fox would have done.
So, when the Fox Club in the city not eight miles distant from the den where the little foxes had been reared took up their Autumn sport, the fox family were not fully prepared to successfully withstand their onslaught.
Usually the Meadow City Fox Club staged their hunts on the western side of the great river, but the Autumn of which I write the first hunt took place on the eastern side of the river, along the mountain range where the fox family had their burrow. This mountain range extended from the meadows close to the great river back to the foothills ten or twelve miles away.
The fox burrow in the spruces was in a little ravine about a mile from the western end of the mountain and on the northern slope. To the north, a mile away, the lowlying farm land began. The first of these farms at the foot of the mountain was that of the Holcome family, where Bud lived.
The Fox Club, twenty strong, with twelve hounds, left their teams at the Holcome farm and swarmed up the mountain side, spreading out so as to cover a strip half a mile wide. The hounds were kept in twos or threes until the fox should be started.
Redcoat, who was out very early that morning, discovered the hunting party and gave the alarm. Mother Fox commanded that all should follow her and started to lead her family through the most inaccessible country, back along the mountain range. Redcoat and Cross Fox did as she told them, but Fuzzy and Little Brother very foolishly slipped away to the spruces and hid in the burrow. If the hounds had discovered their trail and followed it to the burrow they would have been lost, for it would have been an easy matter to dig them out.
But, instead, the hounds took the trail of Mother Fox and the two obedient ones and followed it hotly along the mountain. Then all the hounds were loosed and the pack took up the chase and the outcry was tremendous. The echoes rolled along the mountain side and far down into the valley. It was sweetest music to the ears of the hunters, but to the poor foxes it was a terrible sound.
As soon as the direction of the chase had been established, several of the hunters hurried to advantageous points where they would wait in ambush for the fleeing foxes. Such a position was the roadway which crossed the mountain two miles east of the fox burrow. Pour hunters were posted in this road at intervals of twenty rods, awaiting the oncoming pack.
The foxes were so obsessed by the din behind that they did not notice the danger ahead until they burst into the road.
Bang! Bang! went the man-creatures' thunder sticks, and Mother Fox pitched headlong in the snow.
Bang! Bang! went the thunder sticks again and a pellet stung the flank of Cross Fox, while another passed through Redcoat's ear.
But these sounds only lent wings to the legs of the terrified foxes, so they fled on along the mountain range to the east. The cries of the pack grew fainter and fainter in the distance and were finally lost, but after two hours the hounds came straggling back, for a pack will often quit after a six or eight mile straight-away run. So, Redcoat and Cross Fox gave them the slip that time. Long after dark they came back to the spruces and found Little Brother and Fuzzy waiting for them.
The next fox hunt was held in the great meadows on the west side of the river. It was an unwritten law in fox cunning, known to all mature foxes, that one should not cross the river until after it had frozen over. The broad plank trail that the man-creatures used was not a safe trail for foxes. If one did cross to the other side, he was almost sure to be caught or shot on the broad meadows where there was little cover.
If Father Fox had lived he would have taught the young foxes this danger, but as it was they did not know.
Cross Fox and Little Brother had been hunting mice in the meadow on the east side of the river one morning early in November. Cross Fox came back to the mountain, but Little Brother strayed along the roadway to the north and finally came to the man-trail. He crossed the river and had a glorious time hunting mice in the great meadows beyond. But, it is better to catch two or three mice and keep one's skin than it is to catch half a dozen and lose one's brush. The Fox Club were out early that morning and Little Brother paid the extreme price for his folly. In our human lives we may make mistakes and retrieve them; but in the lives of wild creatures one mistake is often fatal.
Not only had the young foxes not been schooled in regard to hounds and men as they should have been, but also their education in regard to poison and traps had not been completed. It was Fuzzy's fate to succumb to the trapper's art. Neither Redcoat nor Cross Fox ever knew just what happened to her. All they knew was that she went away one moonlight night to hunt mice in the meadows and did not come back.
A couple of weeks later, Cross Fox and Redcoat were hunting mice one morning in the meadows on their own side of the river. They were so intent on their hunting that danger stole upon them unawares, for the Fox Club got between them and the mountain and picked up their trail and the chase was on. The two foxes kept together and led the hounds a merry chase far down the river. After a couple of hours, they doubled back along the way they had come, wishing to get back to the mountain where they felt there was some safety. Redcoat had far outrun his brother and was perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead when a new danger arose, for one of the men suddenly appeared upon the trail one hundred feet behind Cross Fox and he was leading another of those dreadful animals that run after foxes and make such hideous cries. But this animal was much taller and gaunter than the rest of the pack. As soon as the man loosed the greyhound he came after Cross Fox like the wind. Redcoat, straining to reach the mountain, looked back occasionally to see this new danger that was so rapidly approaching his litterbrother. Nearer and nearer the greyhound came to the straining fox. Soon Cross Fox had to double and twist in his trail to keep from the jaws of the greyhound, and Redcoat knew that his brother was lost. Presently the greyhound caught the straining fox as he rushed past him. His long jaws closed upon the back, just behind the fore legs. He threw the fox high in the air and when it landed in the snow its back was broken. A savage shake or two more and Cross Fox was dead.
Redcoat observed all this as he fled up the mountain. He wished to make his own escape, but he was so fascinated by the scene that he had to look back.
Presently the tall hound left Cross Fox and came after him, but he was now well in the lead. As he strained up the mountain side it seemed to him that his heart must burst with the exertion. If he could only stop and take a few short breaths, but he could not, so he fled on. The way grew steeper and steeper, and presently friendly trees opened their branches to receive him and he fled into the depths of the ancient wood and was lost from sight.
The greyhound follows only by sight, so Redcoat's pursuer gave up the chase as soon as the fox disappeared in the woods.
Redcoat had saved his own brush this time, but there were other days coming; and of all the fox family that had played in the spruces in June and romped in the woods in the summer time, he alone was left.