第62章 THE RABBIT AND THE HEN(1)

"YOU had foxes up in Maine, I suppose Mr. Wood, hadn't you?"asked Mr. Maxwell.

"Heaps of them. I always want to laugh when I think of our foxes, for they were so cute. Never a fox did I catch in a trap, though I'd set many a one. I'd take the carcass of some creature that had died, a sheep, for instance, and put it in a field near the woods, and the foxes would come and eat it. After they got accustomed to come and eat and no harm befell them, they would be unsuspecting. So just before a snowstorm, I'd take a trap and put it this spot. I'd handle it with gloves, and I'd smoke it, and rub fir boughs on it to take away the human smell, and then the snow would come and cover it up, and yet those foxes would know it was a trap and walk all around it. It's a wonderful thing, that sense of smell in animals, if it is a sense of smell. Joe here has got a good bit of it.""What kind of traps were they, father?" asked Mr. Harry.

"Cruel ones steel ones. They'd catch an animal by the leg and sometimes break the bone. The leg would bleed, and below the jaws of the trap it would freeze, there being no circulation of the blood. Those steel traps are an abomination. The people around here use one made on the same principle for catching rats. Iwouldn't have them on my place for any money. I believe we've got to give an account for all the unnecessary suffering we put on animals.""You'll have some to answer for, John, according to your own story," said Mrs. Wood.

"I have suffered already," he said. "Many a night I've lain on my bed and groaned, when I thought of needless cruelties I'd put upon animals when I was a young, unthinking boy and I was pretty carefully brought up, too, according to our light in those days. Ioften think that if I was cruel, with all the instruction I had to be merciful, what can be expected of the children that get no good teaching at all when they're young.""Tell us some more about the foxes, Mr. Wood," said Mr.

Maxwell.

"Well, we used to have rare sport hunting them with fox-hounds.

I'd often go off for the day with my hounds. Sometimes in the early morning they'd find a track in the snow. The leader for scent would go back and forth, to find out which way the fox was going. I can see him now. All the time that he ran, now one way and now another on the track of the fox, he was silent, but kept his tail aloft, wagging it as a signal to the hounds behind. He was leader in scent, but he did not like bloody, dangerous fights. By-and-by, he would decide which way the fox had gone. Then his tail, still kept high in the air, would wag more violently. The rest followed him in single file, going pretty slow, so as to enable us to keep up to them. By-and-by, they would come to a place where the fox was sleeping for the day. As soon as he was disturbed he would leave his bed under some thick fir or spruce branches near the ground.

This flung his fresh scent into the air. As soon as the hounds sniffed it, they gave tongue in good earnest. It was a mixed, deep baying, that made the blood quicken in my veins. While in the excitement of first fright, the fox would run fast for a mile or two, till he found it an easy matter to keep out of the way of the hounds.

Then he, cunning creature, would begin to bother them. He would mount to the top pole of the worm fence dividing the fields from the woods. He could trot along here quite a distance and then make a long jump into the woods. The hounds would come up, but could not walk the fence, and they would have difficulty in finding where the fox had left it. Then we saw generalship. The hounds scattered in all directions, and made long detours into the woods and fields. As soon as the track was lost, they ceased to bay, but the instant a hound found it again, he bayed to give the signal to the others. All would hurry to the spot, and off they would go baying as they went.

"Then Mr. Fox would try a new trick. He would climb a leaning tree, and then jump to the ground. This trick would soon be found out. Then he'd try another. He would make a circle of a quarter of a mile in circumference. By making a loop in his course, he would come in behind the hounds, and puzzle them between the scent of his first and following tracks. If the snow was deep, the hounds had made a good track for him. Over this he could run easily, and they would have to feel their way along, for after he had gone around the circle a few times, he would jump from the beaten path as far as he could, and make off to other cover in a straight line.

Before this was done it was my plan to get near the circle; taking care to approach it on the leeward side. If the fox got a sniff of human scent, he would leave his circle very quickly, and make tracks fast to be out of danger. By the baying of the hounds, the circle in which the race was kept up could be easily known. The last runs to get near enough to shoot had to be done when the hounds' baying came from the side of the circle nearest to me. For then the fox would be on the opposite side farthest away. As soon as I got near enough to see the hounds when they passed, I stopped.

When they got on the opposite side, I then kept a bright lookout for the fox. Sometimes when the brush was thick, the sight of him would be indistinct. The shooting had to be quick. As soon as the report of the gun was heard, the hounds ceased to bay, and made for the spot. If the fox was dead, they enjoyed the scent of his blood. If only wounded, they went after him with all speed.

Sometimes he was overtaken and killed, and sometimes he got into his burrow in the earth, or in a hollow log, or among the rocks.