“If he’s got bottom to match his beauty,” said one, “he’ll give us the neatest run the ‘Merrybrooks’ have ever had.”
“Look at that cool and cunning eye!” said another. “He’s got brains. He’ll give us more than one run, I’m thinking, before that mighty brush hangs on the wall!”
“I could find it in my heart to wish he might fool us altogether!” cried a third. But this foolishly amiable sentiment aroused such a chorus of protest that he hastened to add: “I mean, of course, that it would be a great thing for our strain of foxes, and therefore for the club, and therefore for sport in general, if this husky Kanuck could have a fair chance to disseminate his breed.”
The suggestion caught several supporters, who proposed that Red Fox should be kept for breeding; but there being a great meet planned for the following Tuesday, just four days ahead, the majority were determined to let the future take care of itself. The last run of the Merrybrook hounds had been something of a fizzle, and now they were not sure there was a fox left in their coverts. They wanted one good run, anyway; and plainly this was the beast to give it to them.
In the middle of the lawn before the club-house the crate was set on its side and the cover removed. On the very instant, as if shot out by a spring, Red Fox leaped forth. Straight before him was a stretch of smooth meadow, leading to a grove of maples and chestnuts. But on the way up the road, on the other side of the club-house, Red Fox had noted a stretch of wild land, wooded and brushy. In the too obvious path to freedom he suspected a snare. The moment his feet touched solid earth he doubled straight back toward the spectators, darted fairly between the legs of one, under the belly of the nearest horse, behind a massive clump of rhododendrons across the road, – and vanished before any one had time to more than look around.
The stranger, who had brought Red Fox so far, glowed with pride.
“Did you ever see such speed?” cried one.
“And such nerve?” cried another.
“He’s all right, Mack!” exclaimed several at once.
“If he has any sort of luck,” remarked his first champion, dryly, “our breed of foxes may get improved, after all!”
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE BELL-MOUTHED PACK
The new land in which Red Fox now found himself established was greatly to his taste, and his blood ran wildly in the sweetness of recovered freedom. He had little time to pine for his grimmer north and the vast woods of Ringwaak. Here were dense coverts, patches of swamp, long, though narrow, stretches of woodland wherein a kind of stiff, primly upright cedar took the place of his well-loved spruce and fir, bright green meadows enclosed with stone walls, and rocky, neglected pastures with snake fences that reminded him of home. Here and there a steep, rocky knoll, set thick with trees which were many of them unfamiliar to him, arose out of the levels; and here and there a much-meandering brook, narrow but deepish, spread out into a pond which suggested to him a plenitude of wild ducks. From a rock on the crest of the highest knoll he saw that this pleasant new range of his was almost completely surrounded by settlements and smoky villages; but beyond these, to the north and west, ran a purple barrier of mountains, as wild-looking as his own Ringwaak. He had half a mind to set out for these mountains at once, not quite liking the girdle of civilization which he saw drawn about him. But that was only a passing whim. He had no other fault to find with his present domain. Game was abundant, and the more he explored these diversified coverts the more content with them he became. Before he had been three days in possession he knew them thoroughly. There seemed to be no active enemies about, and the men whom he saw lounging on the club-house porches, on the outskirts of his domain, appeared unlikely to give him any annoyance.
On the morning of the fourth day, however, he was surprised to note a great bustle and stir before the club-house. From the top of his knoll he wondered at the scarlet-coated riders who were gathering quickly, with here and there among them a slenderer, dark figure, which seemed to stick mysteriously upon one side of her horse. His interest, however, turned speedily to apprehension when he saw a pack of dogs, perhaps ten or twelve in number (he did not know how to count), coming up over a rise beyond the club-house. These dogs looked very much like the tan-coloured half-breed at the settlement, whom he had so often outwitted and outrun. He understood now certain ominous, baying voices, which he had heard several times in the distance; and he realized in a second that now was an old game about to be played in a new way. He himself it was, and none other, that all this fuss was about. There was so much of it; and the colour looked so impressive. For a moment his heart sank, and his brush dropped. Then confidence returned. He sat up with sprightly cocked ears and head to one side as was his ancient custom, and eyed with shrewd semi-disdain the elaborate preparations which were being made against him. Then he slipped down from his watch-tower and betook himself to the centre of the most difficult patch of swamp.
There was one thing, however, which Red Fox, shrewd as he was, did not realize; and that was that the master of the hounds knew a lot about foxes. He knew that that rock on the top of the knoll was just the sort of place which a strange fox, if a cunning one, would be likely to choose as a lookout when anything unusual was afoot. He led the way thither, therefore, and put the pack straight at it, rather expecting an immediate find. The steaming scent, of course, was picked up almost at once; and away went the splendid pack in loud chorus, heads up and sterns down, taking the scent in the air, straight for the swamp, and the whole field following.
What Red Fox had heard before was the voice of one hound mingled with the yelping of an excitable mongrel. The deep, bell-like chorus that now fell upon his ears warned him that the emergency confronting him was something quite new and altogether trying. In order to deal with it he felt that he must know more about it than he did. Without waiting to leave any tangles in the swamp for the hounds to unravel, he slipped out on the farther side, ran hard for about a mile and a half straight away through the roughest kind of a country, then doubled back on a spacious loop and mounted another knoll to take observations.
So remarkable had been his speed that he was in time to see, below him and across a stretch of meadow, the pack just emerging from the swamp, and the gay-coloured field just closing upon them around the swamp’s edges. With the intensest interest he watched it all. He marvelled, not without a pang, at the speed of those black and tan dogs, who ran so close together and seemed to know so well what they were about. He marvelled still more at the man-creatures on horseback who followed the pack so wildly. He had taken pains to put every possible obstacle in the path, – every high stone wall, every crooked fence, every ditch and bog, every coil of the erratic brook. These, to his light and tough agility, were nothing. But it filled him with amazement to see the way in which the man-creatures – those slim, dark ones on the sides of their horses as well as the red ones that rode in the usual fashion – went boldly over the obstacles. Some, to be sure, went down in disaster; and some turned aside to rejoin the hunt later on; but most kept straight ahead with the pack, “buck-jumping” their way over certain awkward obstructions, and clearing others with magnificent, soaring leaps. Red Fox thought to himself that these man-creatures were curiously different from those he used to know, – Jabe Smith, and the Boy, and the long-legged, slouching, indifferent backwoods farmers. He got so absorbed in satisfying his curiosity that he almost forgot the important part which he himself was playing in the drama; and before he knew it the baying pack was almost back upon him. He darted down the densest side of the knoll and ran with all his might across the open, – but he was not quite in time to escape being sighted. A great shout of triumph went up from the field; and the pack was sent at a tangent across the field, cutting into the trail and saving a vast expenditure of time and wind. The burst of speed which Red Fox now put on was a revelation to all who were so fortunate as to see it; but, softened as he was from his long weeks of captivity, it cost him too much. He kept right on through the next covert, and across the next open, and through a wide belt of alder-swamp; but when next he showed himself, had there been any one near to see, it would have been observed that his brush drooped in dejection, and his bright, dapper coat was dark with wet. He halted for a moment or two, to recover his wind a little; then he set himself to try some of his old tricks.
On a fallen sapling he crossed the brook, and ran some twenty yards up-stream. Then, though he hated wetting his feet, he retraced his steps in the water, close alongshore, to a distance of perhaps fifty yards down-stream. This, he calculated, should give him plenty of time to recover his wind and begin the game again as good as new. But that bell-mouthed baying was once more close behind him. He trotted to the farthest point of the alder swamp, saving himself shrewdly for a quick and secret dart across the meadows to the next covert, and slipped out boldly. To his terror, there stood a group of the scarlet-coated men on horseback, apparently awaiting him. As their terrible shout arose he knew all those elaborate tactics of his had gone for nought, – had been so much precious time wasted. For an instant he hesitated, thinking to turn back. But the baying of his pursuers was already in the alder-swamp. Taking a grip on his nerve, he dashed straight through the group of horsemen, – who applauded with a volley of terrifying sounds, – and ran for the next patch of woods.
When he got there, and the kindly shadows once more shielded him for a little, he knew he must not stop, though his heart was threatening to burst. He feared to try any more of his old devices against these new and too numerous foes. He simply ran straight on, trusting to find some novel way out of his trouble. The hounds were less noisy now, having no breath to spare for music; and this encouraged him a little. Through the thickets he raced, and through a little pasture which offered no suggestion of escape. The pasture was bounded on the further side by a massive stone wall, extending as far as he could see in either direction. What there might be on the other side of that wall he had no least idea; but assuredly, whatever there was, it could not be worse than what there was on this side. With hardly strength enough left for the leap, he sprang to the top of the wall, – and dropped instantly down the other side.
CHAPTER XIX.
TRIUMPH
It was in a dusty road winding between stone walls on either hand and stiff rows of Lombardy poplars that Red Fox now found himself. For perhaps twenty yards he ran on, down the middle of the road, where he knew the dry, hard earth would not hold his scent. Then the jog-trot and jangle of leisurely team approaching caught his ear, and he hid himself in a clump of tall woods to let it go by. His tongue was hanging far out. He was all but spent. And he heard the voices of the pack in the woods just across the pasture.
The approaching team, as it came around a turn of the road, proved to be a big, lumbering farm-wagon, drawn by two horses, with the driver half-asleep on the seat. The roomy body of the wagon was filled with boxes and a barrel, a winnowing machine, several bags of feed, a bundle of dry salt codfish, and a bale of some kind of coarse cloth. The sight reminded Red Fox of the things which had accompanied his crate on the journey from the settlement to the station. In that wagon he had been safe. Why not so in this one? There was no time for indecision. The voices of the pack were already loud in the open pasture. One noiseless leap as the wagon passed, – and he had climbed in softly over the tail-board, and curled himself down out of sight under the winnowing machine, behind a bag of feed.
Not two minutes later the pack arrived, and came tumbling over the wall into the lane. Fifty yards away in his hiding-place, Red Fox heard the sudden change in their voices as they found themselves at fault. Around and around, up and down, and over the wall on the other side, they quested for the lost trail, whimpering in bewildered disappointment. Here was the trail, faint but unmistakable, right in the middle of the road. And here it ended, as if Red Fox had grown wings and sprung into the air. The pack, being very wise in the wiles of foxes, now scattered, some running in one direction, and some in the other, along the tops of both walls, and also parallel with the farther one. In this way they made sure of ultimately picking up the trail, – and failing in this they were overwhelmed with confusion. Presently the field came hurrying up, all excitement. Some praised the craft of the quarry, some cursed the stupidity of the pack; and the babble and wonder grew. But Red Fox, meanwhile, curled up small beneath the winnowing machine, was being carried farther and farther away from the fate that had so nearly clutched him; and at last the baleful voices died upon his ears. Once more his destiny and his wits had worked together to save him.
For hours the big wagon rumbled and jolted on, in no haste; and all the time Red Fox lay quite still, recovering his strength. He wanted to be carried as far as possible from that skilled pack and those terrible scarlet hunters. At last, however, the wagon stopped, and the driver heavily dismounted. Hearing him begin to unhitch the horses, – a process which he had often watched in the settlement from a hiding-place in some overlooking field, – Red Fox peered warily forth. He found the wagon standing in the middle of a spacious, well-kept barn-yard. About twenty paces away, however, was a garden thick with shrubbery and tall, half-withered plants, – and beyond the garden he saw a patch of woods. There was covert, within his easy reach. Noiselessly he dropped from the cart-tail. The driver, a sandy-bearded, big fellow, with a wide straw hat, happening to turn his head at the moment, saw what passenger he had been carrying, and rapped out a sharp oath of astonishment. In the next instant Red Fox had disappeared.
Darting through the currant-bushes and tall hollyhock clumps of the garden, he presently gained the trees, which proved to be but a narrow belt of woodland. Beyond the woodland was an open pasture field, full of hillocks and knolls, and dotted with red cattle feeding peacefully. Very near, however, and straight ahead across the pasture, he saw the mountains. They were rough with rocky shoulders, and dark with pine, – very dark and safe-looking; and there, said his heart, was where he must be. But between them and the pasture lay a scattered village, full of dangers.
Very cautiously he skirted the field, fearing to show himself in the open. One of the red cattle caught sight of him, however, and stared at him resentfully, till all the rest turned and followed him, with lowered horns and hostile mutterings. This attention was anything but what Red Fox wanted, so presently, in disgust, he shrank back into the woods, and so out-flanked the pasture. Then he came to a deep, ragged ravine, filled with a tangle of young trees and weeds and wild vines. Immediately beyond was the first house of the village. So here he hid himself, and lay quiet until well past nightfall.
At last, when the village had grown quiet and most of its windows had been darkened, he ventured forth, bold but wary. Reaching a highway leading straight through the village, in the direction which he wished to go, he followed it, keeping in the middle of the track, where his scent would not lie. Once a cur, catching the musky odour on the still night air, rushed out upon him, barking wildly. In silent bitterness he punished his assailant so sharply that the latter fled back to his doorstep, yelping. But all the dogs of the village were now giving tongue; so Red Fox darted indignantly up a lane, through a garden, and out across the back fields, still keeping his face toward those dark shapes of mountain towering against the western sky. In a very few minutes the clamour of the village curs was left behind. At last he crossed a noisy, shallow brook; and then the ground began to rise. Wild underbrush was all about him, and ancient trees; and soon he was climbing among rocks more harsh and hugely tumbled than those of his native Ringwaak. Once only he stopped – having heard some tiny squeaks among the tree-roots – long enough to catch a woodmouse, which eased his long hunger. Then he pressed on, ever climbing; till, in the first gray-saffron transparency of dawn, he came out upon a jutting cape of rock, and found himself in a wilderness to his heart’s desire, a rugged turbulence of hills and ravines where the pack and the scarlet hunters could not come.