Makejo, a full-grown red fox, was born on the marshy shores of James Bay. Originally, he belonged to a litter of six pups which a Cree Indian had dug up in the spring and given to our trader at Moose Factory. The pups were still blind and helpless when they reached human hands. They took kindly to the bottle, but the mixture of condensed milk and plain water on which our man tried to raise them proved a failure. One little fox alone survived the ordeal. That was Makejo.

Although undersized and weak at first, he grew amazingly fast soon after he was weaned. When I saw him two years later he was larger and heavier than any fox of that region. Blood red, with a mask fringed with black and a large white tip at the end of his brush, he was as tame as a dog and as mischevious as a monkey.

He lived in the trader’s house, slept in a box, and came instantly at the call of his name. He was a great mouser. Now and again the trader would lock him up in the storeroom at night where he would kill dozens of mice, which he would invariably eat—barring the tails.

He would play with the children by the hour and had taught himself any amount of tricks while running madly up and down the house. His chief stunt was a back somersault. He had started doing it while leaping against the wall of the room but ended by doing it at any moment, even from a standing position.

In summer, he was allowed to use a hole cut out for him on one of the windows on the ground floor. He would get out through this to a small ledge, four feet above the ground, where he would pass hours sunning himself and keeping an eye on everything that was going on.

His chief delight was to torment the twenty-odd Post dogs which were always loafing in the neighborhood. They all belonged to the Malamute breed and would have killed him instantly had they been able to catch him. But they never did.

Makejo, from his ledge, would watch the dogs until they were asleep. Then, jumping down like a streak of lightning, he would flash through the pack yelping. In a second every Husky was after him. His speed was so marvelous, his eye so quick and his judgment of distance so uncanny, that he would remain several minutes tearing in and out of the dogs with perfect impunity until, with one leap, he would jump on his ledge again and disappear in the house through his little hole.

For all I know, Makejo may still be living happily where I saw him last.