Redcoat/Chapter 5
THUS it came about that once again there was enacted in the clump of spruces, the drama of the fox family. It was very much as the previous drama of the foxes had been, only to Redcoat it was much more interesting. Then, he had been one of the small foxes but now he was the head of a family just as his sire had been the year before.
Now he was the one to be eternally on guard, to hunt for the rest of the family, and if there was not food enough for all, to go hungry himself.
Just as his sire had done before him, Redcoat now brought each day the pile of field mice and laid them at the mouth of the den for Fluffy. Later on he brought live frogs and snakes for the young foxes to kill, and even field mice, although he stayed close by when this game went on to see that the breakfast did not escape.
Later on he brought a half grown muskrat, and placed it among the pups to see which one had fight and grit enough to stay in and kill the muskrat. It was a rather long and hard battle, but finally the largest of the pups came off conqueror, just as Redcoat himself had done the year before.
It was now Redcoat's turn to take up a commanding position, and with nostrils constantly sifting the air, and ears cocked to listen for danger, to utter that warning sharp bark, which is the danger sign in all foxdom.
Redcoat's little family was subject to all the dangers and adversities, that his sire's family had been, but Redcoat, although he was young, watched and guarded his family better than the previous fox family had been protected.
One very close call to tragedy occurred when the pups were about two months old. Only the watchfulness of the head of the family prevented a sad ending to this sudden danger.
The small foxes were having a wonderful romp, one bright night, chasing each other and biting and snarling, in mock battle. Fluffy herself was asleep. When Redcoat was on guard she usually slept at the mouth of the den.
Redcoat was perhaps fifty feet from the romping pups. Everything seemed to be going on merrily, when one of the small foxes uttered an agonized squeak. At the same time Redcoat noted a large black shadow on the ground beside him. He sprang to his feet like a red flash.
Glancing towards the mouth of the den he saw a large bird swooping down for one of the pups who was dodging and trying vainly to elude the great bird.
Fluffy had seen the danger at the same time, and was in ahead of Redcoat, as she was nearer. As the sharp talons of the great horned owl closed upon the small fox, Fluffy's jaws closed upon his leg. He flapped mightily, and for a moment it seemed as though he would raise the full grown fox in air. But while he still flapped, and the mother fox fought him, a red flash shot in several lightning bounds across the intervening distance, and Redcoat struck the great owl like a catapult. He did not stop with a leg, but closed upon the bird's neck. For several seconds there was a furious battle.
The owl tore with his talons, and struck with his sharp beak.
Finally he ceased to struggle, and Redcoat laid him upon the ground quite dead. He had inflicted several bad wounds upon the two adult foxes but he had paid for his daring, with the price of his life, and the pup had been saved.
It was a great victory, and filled Redcoat with pride at his cunning.
Redcoat had always been a good hunter, but after the coming of the pups, he had developed resources, and invented new methods of hunting that probably made him the most clever fox that ever hunted upon the mountain, or the great meadows. He had 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 was watching the great river from his perch upon a cliff on the side of the mountain. This was a point where he often observed what was going on in the valley below. The water was high, it being the time of spring freshets. Redcoat knew that the muskrat hunting was good, but he wanted something better than the tough rats for Fluffy and himself. After a while the Red Hunter observed some large birds swimming about in a small section of backwater.
They were wild ducks, and Redcoat immediately set his keen mind to work, how to get duck for the fox family breakfast. He observed that the ducks always fed in the same spot, and that it was not very far from the shore. So Mr. Fox laid his plans accordingly.
On the following morning, at about the same time, he was creeping stealthily towards a point which ran out into the backwater where the ducks fed.
He had noted this point the day before, and also an old log which would help him in the stealthy advance. Belly to earth the wary hunter went until he reached the end of the land, and then he slipped silently into the water and swam to the old log, just the tip of his nose showing.
Behind the log he waited for several minutes marking the position of the nearest duck with great care. Then he again slipped noiselessly into the water. This time he swam till within twenty feet of the duck with his nose just showing, and then it too disappeared.
When the duck towards which Mr. Fox had been swimming, suddenly sank from sight, quite noiselessly, the rest of the ducks concluded that it dove for something under the water. Once under the water the Red Hunter silenced the duck with a crushing bite upon its neck. Then he slowly, and without a ripple, swam back to his point of attack behind the old log.
He laid the dead duck beside the log where it was out of sight, and went back for another. Again he was successful, and soon the second duck lay beside the first. But on the third attempt the duck moved just as the fox reached for it, so he got a poor hold. There was a great squawking and flapping in the water. Mr. Fox got his third duck, but the hunting was spoiled for that day, and for the rest of the season as far as that particular cove was concerned, for the ducks became suspicious of the place.
But Redcoat was well satisfied with the morning's kill, for the fox family not only had duck for breakfast, but they had three ducks which lasted for two days.
After the young foxes were large enough so they could be left alone Redcoat occasionally took Fluffy with him upon his hunting expeditions. This was when the hunting needed two to accomplish the best results.
On the still hunt one was almost as good as two, but in carrying out the ambush two were essential to success.
There was a fat old woodchuck down in the pasture above the meadows whom Redcoat had been hunting for a long time. This old chuck was very wary, and he usually scented, or heard Redcoat coming and scurried into his hole. But after he had eluded the fox he would peep out of his hole, and then come out and watch the hunter from a distance just as though he taunted him. This the fox determined to remedy. No mere woodchuck was to make fun of him as a hunter. So one day he took Fluffy with him.
They made plenty of noise in approaching the favorite feeding ground of the old chuck, so just as Redcoat had supposed, he heard them and scurried for his hole.
Redcoat then posted himself behind a convenient stump close to the hole and intimated to Fluffy to go a short distance away and then to sit up in plain sight of the chuck's hole. This she did.
The woodchuck came to the mouth of his hole and saw the fox sitting upon her haunches some distance away, so he came out to taunt him.
He had his back to the stump where Redcoat was hiding, so did not see him when he rushed. The first thing Mr. Chuck knew he was seized in the strong jaws of the fox, and borne away to the fox burrow where the pups killed him.
Redcoat also played this two by two hunting on a flock of turkeys on the south side of the mountain. These turkeys belonged on the Mason farm.
Usually they kept near to the farm buildings, but in summer they were in the habit of going to a small calf pasture a quarter of a mile from the buildings to hunt grasshoppers. Redcoat discovered them there one day and watched them for several hours, but could not get within striking distance. So the following day he took Fluffy with him.
Of course this was dangerous hunting, stalking the man's fowls in full daylight. He might appear any moment with the thunder stick, but turkeys were a great prize, and Redcoat was always taking desperate chances.
He had noted that there was a clump of bushes running along a stone wall at one side of the lot.
By crawling upon his belly very carefully for a dozen rods, he secreted himself in the bushes. Then Fluffy went boldly into the open, but so far away from the turkeys that she did not scare them. They saw her but she made no move to steal upon them. Instead she walked very leisurely towards them, occasionally stopping and sitting down upon her haunches and watching them in a very disinterested manner.
The turkeys simply moved away when she came too near, and in this way they were driven close to the clump of brush where the hunter lay concealed. Finally a young gobbler came close enough. Redcoat waited until his back was towards him, then he sprang. It was a sure thing, and that day the fox family dined on turkey, while the Mason family that night made the count one turkey short. They never knew where the missing turkey went, and Redcoat was clever enough not to repeat the experiment. It was too near the house, and too risky hunting.
One moonlight night in midsummer when the pups were nearly half grown, Redcoat was hunting mice in the small meadows on the Holcome farm, to the north of the mountain. In the course of his hunting the fox discovered a ditch perhaps two feet deep running across the meadow, about forty rods from the house. It had about six inches of water in it, and Redcoat examined the ditch for its entire length.
The Red Hunter did not know just why he did this, but it was a part of his policy to always know the country where he hunted. In fact, to know all the country that he frequented. One could never tell when such knowledge would come handy. So Redcoat made a very thorough examination of the ditch.
About a week later Bud Holcome was awakened one morning by a great squawking among the hens. Some of them were already out in the yard, although it was not yet sunrise. Leaping from his bed, and running to the window, Bud was much excited to see a very large red fox leaping over the wall just across the road, carrying a half grown rooster in his jaws.
"Dad," cried Bud, "get up quick, Dad. That red fox has got one of the young roosters. Here Scottie, here Racer," and Bud whistled for the dogs.
Both canines who slept in the woodshed came running out, Scottie very wide awake, and Racer following more slowly.
"Seek him, Scottie, seek, him," cried Bud, pointing across the road.
Scottie ran to a bar way, and immediately espied the fox with his kill, and with excited barks gave chase, and Racer followed eating up the distance with great graceful bounds.
The house stood upon high ground, and Bud could see the race from his bedroom window, so he stood and watched. The fox had only about two hundred feet start, and, encumbered with the rooster, the dogs would surely overtake him and kill him before he was half across the meadows, so Bud waited and watched.
Bud thought he never in his life saw a fox run as that one did, yet the dogs, especially Racer, the greyhound, gained steadily upon him. When they reached the ditch at the middle of the meadows as suddenly as though the ground had opened and swallowed him the fox disappeared.
"Ah, ha," cried Bud. "He has gone into the ditch. Now they will get him surely. That was certainly a mistake." But when the two madly racing dogs came to the ditch they overran a couple of hundred feet before they discovered that their quarry had disappeared. Then they came back and ran up and down the ditch, for twenty rods in each direction.
Bud still watched from his window, for he expected each moment to see them rout out the fox, but no fox appeared.
Finally after ten or fifteen minutes the dogs came back to the house just as Bud came down stairs.
"Come on," cried Bud to the dogs. "I will help you find him."
They searched the ditch for a quarter of a mile, nearly its entire length, but no fox was to be discovered.
When Bud told Mr. Holcome how the fox had disappeared as though the ground had opened and swallowed him, the farmer laughed loudly. "I guess you were dreaming, Bud. You were not quite awake."
"Oh, get out, Dad. I wasn't. Didn't you hear the dogs barking?"
Mr. Holcome laughed again. "All right, Bud. There were half a dozen foxes if you want it so. I guess we had better get at the milking."
"There isn't any joke about that."
About ten o'clock that night, when everyone at the farmhouse was soundly sleeping, a wet bedraggled fox, carrying a wet bedraggled rooster, crawled out from under a small culvert, in the ditch, and after shaking both himself, and the wet rooster, started for the mountain.
This culvert in the ditch was a place where the hay wagon crossed in summer time when the farmers were haying. The three planks that formed the bridge, were only about a foot from the water. There was just room enough for Redcoat to squeeze in under the plank and hide until the danger was passed.
Had Scottie and Racer been foxhounds he would probably have been discovered, as the dogs had raced across the bridge twice in their search.
But not even Bud had thought of looking under this little plank bridge. So, knowing the country, and all of its features had saved the fox his rooster and his skin that time.
This policy also applied to all sorts of cover. A thick tangle of blackberry bushes, a sheer cliff, where there was an unseen way of escape. Tangles of laurel in the great swamp. All of these things were a part of Redcoat's equipment with which he fought his many enemies.
The north side of Redcoat's mountain which faced towards the Holcome farm was not as precipitate as was the west side which faced the larger meadows, and the great river; the side towards the city where the Fox Club lived. But at one spot the northern side was very precipitate. In fact there was an almost sheer drop of sixty feet.
Redcoat was always prowling around finding new trails and short cuts to his favorite hunting ground. Thus it happened that he discovered a very narrow trail leading to this precipitate place. Much of the way, this path led along a slope of forty-five degrees, but at the place where the cliff was sheer for sixty feet, the path became very narrow. At one point it was so very narrow and so dangerous that Redcoat debated whether to go back along the way he had come. But he finally hugged the cliff very carefully and got by the bad place. Just beyond the boulder which had made the path so narrow, there was a shelf three feet wide, and here Redcoat sat down and looked at the valley below. I do not know that a plan for using the narrow path against his enemies in the valley was then worked out. Perhaps when he did finally put it to use, it was just a sudden inspiration that came to him like a flash, just as many of his movements did, but the narrow path did stand Redcoat in good stead on more than one occasion. By its use he taught Scottie, and Racer, the tall greyhound, a lesson that they never forgot and he gave Racer an experience that made that gaunt hound very wary about following him afterwards.
Redcoat had gone to the edge of the Holcome meadows, one night just before dusk. He did not usually go so early, but preferred the friendly shadows of night, even though the moon was bright. But on this occasion Redcoat was careless, just as most good hunters are sometimes.
He had just found a frog and was about to start back to the den with it for the young foxes to play with when he heard a sharp quick bark and looking in the direction from which the sound came, he saw Scottie, the Holcome collie, racing frantically towards him, closely followed by the great greyhound whom Redcoat knew could run like the wind.
If it had been just the collie Redcoat would have laughed at the idea of a good run in the dusk, but this greyhound was a different proposition, so Redcoat dropped the frog and ran for the mountain at his best pace.
Spite of all he could do, the greyhound gained steadily on him, so when he reached the foot of the mountain the hound was only a hundred feet behind. Whether by mere chance, or design, I do not know, but Redcoat chose the trail up the mountainside leading along the narrow ledge.
Once he was in the narrow path, he did not hurry so much, but let the greyhound get within fifty feet of him, and as they neared the narrow spot the greyhound was within thirty feet.
Bud Holcome, who had come out on the meadows to look for the dogs espied them at this point in the chase. Or rather, he saw the greyhound, and Redcoat just ahead of him, but he mistook the fox for Scottie, who was a red sable collie.
"Thunder," he ejaculated, "Scottie had better be careful, or he will get a tumble. I wonder what they are chasing up there." Then Bud noted another figure just behind the greyhound.
"Why, that was Scottie. The animal ahead was not Scottie at all."
Just at this point in the exciting chase Bud saw the animal ahead, which he decided was another collie cross the narrow place. It seemed to Bud that the venturesome dog would surely fall. But he made it, and then wheeled like a flash and backed up against the boulder behind, and Bud clearly heard his defiant snarl. "Why," thought Bud. "It isn't a dog at all they are after."
"By thunder! It looks like a fox. I guess they have got him. He's cornered."
At the narrow spot Racer hesitated for a second, but Scottie behind was barking frantically, and whining to get at the fox, who was almost in their reach. So he crowded Racer from behind, the snarl of Redcoat also urging him forward.
He made a movement, half jump, and half scramble, to get by the precipitate place, but just as his head and shoulders projected by the boulder the waiting fox slashed him furiously in the face. Once, twice, three times he struck, and poor Racer drawing back to escape the sudden onset, lost his balance and went hurtling to the rocks sixty feet below.
Scottie, peered over the cliff, and seeing his comrade falling to his doom, stuck his tail between his legs, and with a dismal howl started back down the narrow trail. He had seen enough of this terrible Redcoat who could throw dogs over a cliff to their doom.
"By Godfrey, it is a fox," cried Bud. "He has done for old Racer."
Bud was soon joined by the excited Scottie, and together they made their way to the foot of the cliff, where they found poor Racer, not dead, but terribly mauled up. Bud went home and got his father, and with the aid of a blanket, of which they made a litter they got the greyhound home, but he never cared to chase Redcoat again.
When Bud told Mr. Holcome of what he had seen, the farmer laughed heartily.
"I guess that fox is the mate to the one who jumped through the henhouse window," he taunted. "I guess the dogs were playing and Racer fell off the cliff."
"No," returned Bud, "I am sure that it was a fox that toppled him over, and I was thinking myself it was the same one."
To the south of Redcoat's mountain, and just opposite from the Holcome farm, was the Mason farm. This would not have been important in this story had it not been the home of pretty Kitty Mason, who lived with her parents and her small brother on the farm.
It was two miles as the crow flies across the mountain from one farm to the other. That was the way Bud usually took, but around the west end of the mountain, by the meadow road, it was four miles.
It was Kitty Mason's good fortune one day in August when she was picking blueberries in her father's pasture, on the south slope of the mountain, to make the acquaintance of Redcoat. She never knew where he came from, or what he wanted, if anything. But the first she knew of his whereabouts, he was standing not thirty feet away, looking intently at her. The wind was blowing her scent away from the fox, and so he was not at first fully aware of the dangerous man scent.
Most wild animals have a strange animal psychology which tells them which things are dangerous and which are not. A sort of wild instinct.
This instinct told Redcoat, that while this was one of the man-creatures' people, yet this particular person was not dangerous. So he stood and looked at her for a long time.
Finally Kitty tried the experiment of speaking to him in a soft caressing voice, and just how caressing her voice could be Bud Holcome could well have testified.
"Hello, Mr. Red Fox. Hello old chap. How are you this fine morning?"
To her great surprise the fox did not immediately flee, but instead cocked his head on one side and looked at her still more intently.
He rather liked this calm caressing sound. It gave him a strange tingling sensation in all his nerves, and he was not a bit afraid.
Just at this point in the pleasant acquaintance Kitty's small brother came running around the bush.
"Hush," warned Kitty, but she spoke too late.
"O Kit," cried the small boy. "Look, Kit! Look! See the great red fox."
If Redcoat had been doubtful as to the genus of the girl, he was not at all uncertain concerning her brother. This was one of the men in embryo. The other kind with the flowing garments about her might be harmless, but this other sort was dangerous. So Redcoat bolted like a streak.
Two other times Kitty saw Redcoat, and once he had his family with him.
Although they were quite a distance away, yet she had a good view of them at play. It was a wonderful sight, and there was no small boy along to break in on the fun this time.
Very casually, Kitty mentioned her acquaintance with Redcoat to Bud Holcome.
At first he laughed at the idea that she had ever talked with the sly fellow, but when she told more fully of the circumstances he was convinced.
"My," concluded Kitty, "but he had a beautiful coat. If he didn't have to be caught I would like him for a muff. You remember you gave me one fox skin last year. That made a fine neck piece, but I have no muff."
"Do you want him for a Christmas present, Kit?" asked the boy eagerly. "If you do say the word."
Now Kitty had long wanted a muff. All the other girls at school had one and they were very stylish. So without thinking of Redcoat's part in the bargain, and thinking only of the muff, she cried eagerly, "O Bud, I would dearly like a muff for a Christmas present."
"All right," returned Bud. "He is yours."
Thus it was that Kitty Mason, a kind-hearted girl, who would have shrunk from catching Redcoat in a steel trap herself, and who if she could have seen him thrashing and fighting, with his eyes full of pain and fear, and his jaws dripping foam, would have released him herself, became a party to the steel trap, and set in motion another grave danger to the life and happiness of the Red Hunter.