  On the first very chilly night of the season, Red Ben, trotting briskly along the woods path towards Cranberry Swamp, came face to face with Gray Fox. According to the law of the woods the old fellow had no right to hunt on another fox’s home ground; but what cared he, where the despised red fox was concerned? This time, however, he did grow a trifle worried. Red Ben was beginning to look very different from the thin, long legged pup he used to be. Each slowed down to a cautious walk and resolved that the other should get out of his way. The result of course was that they met, and in an instant were locked in furious battle. On their hind legs and on the ground, they tussled and rolled and bit and scratched until fur flew. Once again Red Ben’s training helped him. He fought with the speed of lightning—the kind of fighting his mother had taught him. He tore Gray Fox on this side and that, mauled and pummeled him, threw him down; and when the snarling old enemy tried to get away, Red Ben followed with speed that was irresistible, nipping, worrying and driving him on. There had probably never been a more bitter fight in the history of the Barrens. When the completely whipped gray reached his own range there was not a particle of courage left in him. Never would he dare to face again the Red Fox of Oak Ridge. But Red Ben was not so happy as he might have been. As his enemy vanished in the woods, he felt more than ever before the loneliness of his life. “A turkey buzzard had been circling over him” This feeling surged over him until it became unbearable. He wandered over to Cranberry Swamp, and finally to the very end of his hunting territory, where he had seen the mangy little she-fox; but this time she was not there, so he did not stop. Something drove him on, into the land of the unknown in the direction of the rising sun, whence the faint night breeze was coming, bearing innumerable scents. It was then he heard, far behind him, probably all the way from the Ridge, the bay of a hound. He stopped to listen; sitting there in the lonesome Barrens, he picked out, one after another, the joy notes of Farmer Slown’s big brute, following his trail. That decided him. There would be no turning back. Full of bitterness now, he hastened on until broad daylight came. Fortunately he had caught a few crickets and two deer mice on the way. These had helped to sustain his strength, but he was very tired. For nearly an hour a turkey buzzard had been circling over him; now close, now far, but always within sight. It was like a bad omen. Badly as he needed a rest, it was not for him to enjoy one that day. Scarcely had he found a soft bed in a pepper bush thicket, when once more he heard the hound. Evidently the patient dog had been unravelling the trail for hours; now he was coming close. Up jumped Red Ben and once more loped off towards the East. He was soon skirting farms he had never seen before, and crossing cement roads lined with prickly hedges, or wire. Behind him the noise was growing. Other dogs, picked up from the farms, were joining in the chase. Each time he looked back over the fields he could see several of them, running in loose pack formation, with Ben Slown’s black and white hound in the lead. Red Ben suddenly realized he was getting tired out. A kind of desperation seized him. He crossed barn yards, where the children delightedly shouted at him; dodged down roads in plain sight of people in automobiles, and in his ignorance of the country, did other things which in the old days on the Ridge would have seemed impossibly reckless. Everyone shouted and cheered and followed as well as they could, until Red Ben lost them in a friendly wood. Here he threw himself down, panting as never before. His limbs ached all over and smarted where he had been bitten in the fight with Gray Fox; he felt indeed as if he could never get up. But when the dogs came over the meadow in plain view, he somehow jumped up once more and circled the wood; then he found the scent of another fox. With new hope he turned into the wind and followed it unerringly until he reached long rows of wire pens in which were a number of creatures that seemed to be foxes, but were black. He had stumbled upon a fox ranch, kept by a dealer who raised the beautiful black ones for their pelts, which he sold. Every fox Red Ben saw there was worth many hundreds of dollars. Scarcely knowing what to do, he followed the outer fence a short distance, then slipped to a thicket where he could hide and watch what would happen. The dogs came soon in a long line, five of them, with Ben’s big hound still in front. They blundered into the first line of wire, looked up, and saw the foxes running in all directions. At this sight, one mighty yell burst from every one of them. They leaped around the outer enclosure in frantic efforts to get in. Trails were forgotten now that foxes were actually in sight. Indeed the one idea of each was to catch a fox before the others got him; so they jostled each other and scrambled and fought, with such a din that the ranch owner came running out with his gun and broke up the party with two stinging loads of bird shot, one of which peppered the black and white hound in a way he would not soon forget. Quiet instantly followed. The black foxes were so well protected by the double line of fencing that they were not in the least hurt, or even much scared. They soon slipped out of their shelters and basked in the sun, while Red Ben in his thicket sprawled out flat and slept. His first day of travel had been an eventful one. |
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