  When Red Ben was trotting back to the Swamp, he heard Farmer Slown’s hound baying. He stopped at once to listen. It was not the joy cry that comes with the scent of a fresh trail; there was, indeed, a wail at the end that puzzled him. He listened a while in silence, then, pointing his sharp nose in that direction, barked back his defiance. “Yap, yap, ya-rrrrr.” After a pause he barked again. The hound, who was tied in the barnyard and howling simply because he felt lonely, heard the fox and at once grew quiet. Farmer Slown heard him too, through his open window. He, however, did not remain quiet. He fussed and fumed the rest of the night, and made more plans to catch the fox which was so bold as to bark at him. Red Ben, meanwhile, stole along the fence towards the farm buildings. He was drawn by an irresistible curiosity. It was here his greatest enemy lived, the one who was somehow connected with the disappearance of his mother and of his brothers. The farm was very quiet in the darkness. The chickens were still asleep on their roosts, and no animal stirred. Even the windmill over the well had stopped turning, and so gave forth none of its usual creaks and groans. The damp air, however, was laden with scents. The fox’s keen nose picked out the odor of perspiring horses, of sheep and of pigs. It caught, too, the peculiar smell of man and the smell of smoke and cooked food and slops, which always is found where man lives. There was also a dull, nameless scent made up of a hundred different things, like the grease on wagon axles, old harness, rusting iron, clothes out to dry and other things about which Red Ben knew nothing. This was indeed a new world to the young fox, who had often wandered near the place with his mother, but never before ventured so close. Weird shapes of wagons made him keep away from the barn shed. He feared, too, the windmill, which he had once seen move in a suspicious way. Nor did he care about coming closer to the pigs, lying in filthy sties and grunting in their sleep. Altogether he much preferred the clean woods, where sweeter scents filled his nostrils and no weird creations of man lay strewn about in all their ugliness. It was the chicken house that interested Red Ben most. From its open windows came occasional sleepy clucks and murmurs as the closely packed fowls jostled each other in their dreams. Suddenly, too, a rooster crowed, so sharply that the fox leaped to one side. Other roosters in the little house took up the challenge and crowed. They were heard by roosters at the next farm, who thereupon crowed too and woke up the roosters in the village, who also felt like crowing. Day had not yet come, however; it was only the moonlight they saw, so all promptly went to sleep again. Red Ben knew very well that each crow came from a toothsome fowl, so he took a most natural interest in this chorus. When once it was over, however, he felt uneasy. Instinct warned him he was being watched. He looked all around and then, happening to glance up, caught the hostile eye of a big gray cat, watching him from the hen house roof. He had never before seen a cat, and so was suspicious at once, especially as this one now opened its mouth to give vent to a yowl of indignation. He sidled off towards the wood, keeping a watchful eye on grim pussy. There was straw scattered around on the ground, and from a bunch of this he startled a feathered whirlwind, in the shape of a guinea hen who had been sitting there on a nest of her eggs. Red Ben jumped backwards, ready for a dash in any direction. “Chah! Che, che, chahhh!” screamed the guinea as she ran about. “Chah! Chah!” came shrilly from the trees nearby where all the other guineas were roosting. The chickens awoke and cackled, the hound bayed, Shep barked from the locked stable, and in the midst of it the little fox, the innocent cause of all this hubbub, slipped away towards the quiet, friendly wood. His anxiety lest something follow made him careless and brought him face to face with a cow, lying down in the meadow. Dodging her surprised snort, he ran full tilt into another who, in turn, drove him to a third, and so on until he had somehow escaped the herd and was fairly flying towards the wood. Not till he was in its cool shadows, among the silent woodsfolk, could he once more feel safe. From the farm still came the “chahhh” of the excited guineas, and when, with the first rays of the sun, Ben Slown stepped out of his house, a mass of guinea feathers met his gaze. They were strewn all about the half eaten body of the guinea hen who once had faithfully sat on her nest back of the hen house. Farmer Slown did not look for feathers on the nose of the big cat. He never found out that the sight of the guinea running about in the dark was too much for the hunter instinct of his pet. Instead, he remembered only the barking of the fox in the night, and shook his fist in the direction of the Ridge. |
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