  In the meantime, ever since the worsting of the hunters and the death of the black and white mongrel, the fame of Red Fox had been growing throughout the settlements. Few, of course, had seen him; but all had heard of him, and were ready to tell more or less inaccurate stories of his feats of cunning and daring, as well as of his unusual size and remarkable beauty of colour. Innumerable were the tales that were told of vain efforts to shoot or ensnare him. And gradually it had come about that every successful raid of hawk or owl, weasel or wildcat, was laid to the credit of the redoubtable red adventurer. A good story gained tenfold interest if Red Fox was made the hero of it. Active and untiring though he was, he would have needed the faculty of being in ten places at once, to have accomplished half that he was credited with. As it happened, however, there were perhaps not half a dozen people in the settlement who could boast of having actually seen the famous fox; and there were but two who really knew much about him. These two, of course, by that caprice of fate or affinity which amuses itself by drawing certain creatures often into one another’s paths, were Jabe Smith and the Boy. It was interest drew Red Fox to the Boy. Fear drew him to Jabe Smith. If he came upon Jabe Smith’s trail, a fascinated uneasiness usually impelled him to follow it, in order to make sure the mysterious man was not following him. Three or four times had the backwoodsman turned suddenly, feeling that keen eyes were upon him, and been just in time to catch sight of a red shape fading into the thickets. He began at last to feel that there was something uncanny in this elusive surveillance, some inexplicable enmity that was biding its time. The fear in Red Fox’s heart seemed to call up an answering emotion, almost akin, in the heart of his human enemy. “STIFFENING HIMSELF ON THE INSTANT.” “STIFFENING HIMSELF ON THE INSTANT.” If Red Fox was following the Boy, however, he was likely to meet with a very different experience, one which never failed to puzzle him deeply and pique his curiosity beyond measure. After craftily following the Boy’s trail for half an hour, perhaps, through the silent, sun-dappled woods, he would come suddenly upon a moveless gray shape, to his eyes not altogether unlike a stump, sitting beside a stump or against the trunk of a tree. Stiffening himself on the instant into a like immobility, he would eye this mysterious figure with anxious suspicion and the most searching scrutiny. As his gaze adjusted itself, and separated detail from detail (a process which the animals seem to find difficult in the case of objects not in motion), the shape would grow more and more to resemble the Boy. But what he knew so well was the Boy in motion, and there was always, to him, something mysterious and daunting in this utterly moveless figure, of the stillness of stone. Its immobility always, in the end, outwore his own. Then he would move a few steps, always eying the gray shape, and trying to understand it better by studying it from a new angle. Little by little circling about, and ever drawing closer and closer, he would presently get around into the wind and catch the scent of the strange, unstirring object. That would end the little drama. The testimony of his nose always seemed to him more intelligible and conclusive than that of his eyes. He would slowly edge away, with dignity and perfect coolness, till Along in the autumn Jabe Smith took it into his head that it was inconsistent with his reputation as a woodsman to let the wily and audacious fox go any longer triumphant over gun and dog and trap. Having his crops all garnered, and some leisure on his hands, he decided to pit his wits in earnest against the craft of the animal, and call no halt this side of victory. This resolution the grim backwoodsman, one blue and golden morning, confided half-derisively to the Boy, knowing that the latter would strenuously disapprove. Jabe had made up his mind, however; and all the Boy’s arguments and pleas left him unmoved. The subject, in its general aspects, had been well thrashed out between them many times, Having yielded the main point, that Red Fox must be captured, the Boy took what backwoods ethics would count fair revenge by casting doubts upon the backwoodsman’s ability to carry out the enterprise. “You think yourself very clever, Jabe!” said he, gravely derisive. “But you can’t fool that fox, if you take all winter to it!” Now it was just on this point that Jabe had his “I kin shoot him, for sure,” he answered, unruffled, “if I take time enough, waitin’ and hangin’ ’round! Any fool could do that, in the long run, if he hadn’t nothin’ else to do but hang ’round. What I lay out to do, is trap the critter, if I kin. If I can’t, you can’t!” “Oh, you go along, Jabe!” jeered the Boy. “You can’t do it; and you know you can’t. But I could, if I would!” Jabe Smith’s long face wrinkled sarcastically, and he bit off a chew of “black Jack” before replying. “If you’re so blame smart,” said he, at last, “let’s see you do it. It’s easy enough to talk.” This was the very invitation he had been wanting, and the Boy instantly dropped his air of banter. “I will do it,” he said, seriously. The backwoodsman paused in his chewing, spat over the sawhorse,—the two were sitting on the wood-pile in Jabe’s yard,—and eyed the lad doubtfully. He could not believe that his eloquence had triumphed so overwhelmingly as this speech seemed to imply. “It’s this way, Jabe,” went on the Boy after a “The hell you have!” ejaculated the backwoodsman, looking at the Boy with astonishment and growing respect. The two knew each other too well to be incredulous of each other’s statements. “Yes! and even then he fooled me! But I know, now, how to best him if I wanted to. I don’t want to. But if you’re bound you’re a-going to, then I’ll chip in with and show you how, on condition that you spare his life. You’ll get the glory, Jabe; and I’ll get the fox.” The backwoodsman spat contemplatively, and rolled the question over in his mind. What he called the Boy’s “durn foolishness” about killing things naturally made him impatient at times, and he was unwilling to seem to humour it. But in this the Boy was certainly meeting him half-way; and he wanted to gratify him. “What’d you want to do with the critter, after we’d got him?” he inquired at last, suspicious of some strategy. The Boy smiled comprehendingly. “Well, I wouldn’t let him go again, to give you your trouble all over, Jabe! Don’t be scared of that!” “I ain’t skeered of that!” protested Jabe, ashamed of having his suspicions penetrated. “Well,” went on the Boy, “I’d keep the fox a little while myself, I think, if father didn’t mind, and see if I could tame him. He’s so clever, maybe he’d not be so hard to tame as other foxes. But I don’t expect I could do much with him that way. Foxes all think too much of themselves to let any one brag of having tamed them. But he’s such a beauty that any show or ‘zoo’ would be mighty proud to get him, and would take care to treat him well. I’ll sell him, and get a big price for him, Jabe. And we’ll divide. He’d better be in a show, Jabe, than dead,—whatever some people might say.” “Don’t know about that!” said the woodsman, looking around upon the familiar fields and the old woods glowing in the sunshine. “I’d ruther be dead than shet up—never to see all this no more!” And he made a sweep with his hand that seemed to caress the sweet and lonely landscape. “Tut! Jabe!” said the Boy, bluntly. “Then “All right,” assented the backwoodsman, slowly. “Only, let’s git him, quick! He’s fooled us all too long.” “Do you know,” said the Boy, “he’s a queer beast, that! I’ve found his tracks about your farm—the most dangerous place in the whole settlement for him—oftener than anywhere else. Haven’t you?” “Of course I hev’!” answered the backwoodsman. “And he’s took to follerin’ me, in the woods, too. Looks like he had it in for me special. What do you s’pose he’s up to?” “Perhaps he’s just particularly scared of you, and so wants to keep an eye on you. Or, maybe, knowing you are already his enemy, he thinks it safer to steal your chickens than to risk making other enemies by stealing somebody else’s!” “He ain’t got none of mine yet!” declared the woodsman with emphasis. “Then I’ll bet it’s because he hasn’t wanted to,” said the Boy. “I’ve seen him looking around your place, and lying in the bushes watching, while the hens caught grasshoppers out in the stubble not ten feet away, where he could grab them without any trouble at all. And I’ve seen him on his hind legs behind the hen-house looking in through a crack,—at some hen on the nest, most likely. If he has spared you, Jabe, it’s been just because he chose to. You may be sure of that. He’s had some good reason in his wise red noddle.” “He’d better hurry up, then!” growled Jabe. “He ain’t got much more time to spare. What do you reckon we’d better do, now, to circumvent the varmint?” “Come along and I’ll show you!” said the Boy, leading the way to Jabe’s chicken-house. It happened that the tall backwoodsman had a fancy for good fowls. He had several times sent away for settings of thoroughbred eggs; and having had good luck with them, he had now a very handsome and unusual flock to brag of. To be sure, Buff Cochins and Plymouth Rocks and White Leghorns and Black Minorcas all ran together, and the “Here, Jabe,” said the Boy, kicking one of these little doors with his toe, “is your trap!” A gleam of instant comprehension flashed into the woodsman’s eyes, but he maintained a strategic silence. “And yonder,” continued the speaker, with a wave of his hand toward the scattered flock, feeding, or scratching, or dusting feathers in the sun,—“is your bait.” “How’s the bait goin’ to like it?” asked Jabe. “Oh, the bait’s not going to mind!” said the Boy, cheerfully. “You just wait and see!” The problem now was a simple one. The Boy knew that Red Fox had explored the premises thoroughly by night, outside, and would undoubtedly have explored them inside as well but for the fact Knocking together a little platform of light boards about three feet square, the Boy laid it on the floor just inside one of the small doors. From it he ran a cord up each side of the door, over two nails at the top, and joined them in the centre. Here he rigged a sensitive trigger catch connecting with the loop that held up the sliding door. The edge of the platform he raised about an inch from the floor, attaching it to the trigger in such a way that the slightest additional weight would spring the catch and let the door drop down. This accomplished, with the skilful aid of Jabe Smith and his tools, the Boy placed some tiny blocks under the platform to brace it up and prevent it being sprung prematurely by the hens as they passed out and in. “Now, Jabe,” said the proud strategist as the two stood off and eyed their handiwork, “all you’ve got to do is wait till all the hens have gone to roost. Then shut the other door, and take out the props from under the platform. When Red Fox comes, “But what about the hens?” queried their owner, doubtfully. “When he finds he’s caught, he won’t be bothering about hens!” laughed the Boy. Now that he was fairly committed to the venture, the natural, primitive boy within him, which is always something of a wild animal, was beginning to wake up and assert itself. He was growing keen for the event. That evening the Boy stayed at Jabe Smith’s farm for supper. After sundown, when the chickens were all at roost, and high in the pale greenish sky the latest crows were winging homeward to the spruce groves, the trap was set and the other door of the hen-house securely closed. Then in a hay-loft opposite, behind the big open window through which the hay was pitched, the Boy and Jabe hid themselves comfortably where they could command a perfect view of whatever might happen. Slowly the light faded out over the farmyard, and the roofs, and the spiky tree-tops along the ridges of the hills. With the cool-smelling twilight came “A SHADOWY SHAPE CAME FLITTING SOUNDLESSLY AROUND THE CORNER OF THE HEN-HOUSE.” The radiance had no more than fairly occupied the farmyard, when a shadowy shape came flitting soundlessly around the corner of the hen-house. From the crack in the boarding behind Red Fox had seen that one of the little doors was open. His opportunity—not necessarily to kill chickens, but to explore the inside of the chicken-house—had come at last. He peered in cautiously. There were all the fowls on their perches, sleeping soundly. There was no game-cock among them. He knew these tall, handsome Cochins and Minorcas, haughty but not dangerous. He darted confidently through the opening. The next moment the door dropped, with a sharp rap, behind him, catching and pinching smartly the tip of his beautiful brush. Like lightning he wheeled about, jerking his tail free. But the door fitted securely in its grooves, so that his furiously scratching claws and desperate teeth could not budge it. In a silent frenzy he darted to the other door. It, too, refused to budge. Then he jumped up, scramblingly, toward the window, snubbing his nose against the glass and the sashes. But there was no way out. He stopped, crouched down close beside the treacherous door, and set his shrewd wits working desperately. The hens, meanwhile, aroused by the dropping of the door, and greatly excited by the prisoner’s antics, had set up a wild commotion of squawking and cackling. The cocks were particularly noisy; but unlike the valorous game, they made no move to come down and give battle to the intruder. Their The main door of the hen-house was at one end. The Boy opened it cautiously, keeping his feet and legs in the opening, while Jabe Smith peered over his head. What they saw brought an exclamation of astonishment from Jabe, and a knowing laugh from the Boy. There on the floor, half in moonlight and half in shadow, lay the great fox, stretched out lifeless in front of the perches, with the cackling fowls all craning long necks down to look at him. The two conspirators stepped inside and shut the door behind them. And the hens moderated their clamour, satisfied that help had come. The Boy, smiling wisely, waited. But Jabe, after stirring the long, limp body with his toe, picked it up by the tail and examined it critically. “I swan!” he exclaimed at length, in the voice which one accredits a miracle. “If he hain’t gone an’ fell an’ plumb broke his neck!” “Well,” said the Boy, taking from his pocket the small dog-collar and chain which Jabe had lent him, “I guess I’ll take no risks.” And he proceeded to affix the chain and collar. Then he tied Jabe jeered at him in a dry drawl, but the Boy kept his counsel. “You never can tell, Jabe!” said he, enigmatically. “Red Fox dead is cleverer than most other beasts alive, and something might happen on the way home. He might mend this broken neck of his, you know, suddenly,—and then—whizz!—and no more Red Fox!” “If that ’ere beast ain’t a dead one,” averred the backwoodsman, “I’ll eat my old shoe-packs.” “Don’t undertake too much, Jabe,” mocked the Boy. “You may need those shoe-packs, with winter coming on! If you’ll just give me an old oat-sack, now, to wrap this unfortunate victim in, I’ll start for home ’fore it gets any later. And maybe if you’ll come ’round to-morrow morning you’ll find Red Fox holding a soirÉe in our back yard!” “Reckon I’ll go along with you now,” said Jabe. “The beast’s too queer to let you go alone with him.” |
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