第63章 THE RABBIT AND THE HEN(2)

"One day, I remember, when I was standing on the outside of the circle, the fox came in sight. I fired. He gave a shrill bark, and came toward me. Then he stopped in the snow and fell dead in his tracks. I was a pretty good shot in those days.""Poor little fox," said Miss Laura. "I wish you had let him get away.""Here's one that nearly got away," said Mr. Wood. "One winter's day, I was chasing him with the hounds. There was a crust on the snow, and the fox was light, while the dogs were heavy. They ran along, the fox trotting nimbly on the top of the crust and the dogs breaking through, and every few minutes that fox would stop and sit down to look at the dogs. They were in a fury, and the wickedness of the fox in teasing them, made me laugh so much that I was very unwilling to shoot him.""You said your steel traps were cruel things, uncle," said Miss Laura. "Why didn't you have a deadfall for the foxes as you had for the bears?""They were too cunning to go into deadfalls. There was a better way to catch them, though. Foxes hate water, and never go into it unless they are obliged to, so we used to find a place where a tree had fallen across a river, and made a bridge for them to go back and forth on. Here we set snares, with spring poles that would throw them into the river when they made struggles to get free, and drown them. Did you ever hear of the fox, Laura, that wanted to cross a river, and lay down on the bank pretending that he was dead, and a countryman came along, and, thinking he had a prize, threw him in his boat and rowed across, when the fox got up and ran away?""Now, uncle," said Miss Laura, "you're laughing at me. That couldn't be true.""No, no," said Mr. Wood, chuckling; "but they're mighty cute at pretending they're dead. I once shot one in the morning, carried him a long way on my shoulders, and started to skin him in the afternoon, when he turned around and bit me enough to draw blood. At another time I dug one out of a hole in the ground. He feigned death. I took him up and threw him down at some distance, and he jumped up and ran into the woods.""What other animals did you catch when you were a boy?" asked Mr. Maxwell.

"Oh, a number. Otters and beavers we caught them in deadfalls and in steel traps. The mink we usually took in deadfalls, smaller, of course, than the ones we used for the bears. The musk-rat we caught in box traps like a mouse trap. The wild-cat we ran down like the loup cervier ""What kind of an animal is that?" asked Mr. Maxwell.

"It is a lynx, belonging to the cat species. They used to prowl about the country killing hens, geese, and sometimes sheep. They'd fix their tusks in the sheep's neck and suck the blood. They did not think much of the sheep's flesh. We ran them down with dogs.

They'd often run up trees, and we'd shoot them. Then there were rabbits that we caught, mostly in snares. For musk-rats, we'd put a parsnip or an apple on the spindle of a box trap. When we snared a rabbit, I always wanted to find it caught around the neck and strangled to death. If they got half through the snare and were caught around the body, or by the hind legs, they'd live for some time, and they'd cry just like a child. I like shooting them better, just because I hated to hear their pitiful cries. It's a bad business this of killing dumb creatures, and the older I get, the more chicken-hearted I am about it.""Chicken-hearted I should think you are," said Mrs. Wood. "Do you know, Laura, he won't even kill a fowl for dinner. He gives it to one of the men to do.""'Blessed are the merciful,'" said Miss Laura, throwing her arm over her uncle's shoulder. "I love you, dear Uncle John, because you are so kind to every living thing.""I'm going to be kind to you now," said her uncle, "and send you to bed. You look tired.""Very well," she said, with a smile. Then bidding them all good-night, she went upstairs. Mr. Wood turned to Mr. Maxwell.

"You're going to stay all night with us, aren't you?""So Mrs. Wood says," replied the young man, with a smile.

"Of course," she said. "I couldn't think of letting you go back to the village such a night as this. It's raining cats and dogs but I mustn't say that, or there'll be no getting you to stay. I'll go and prepare your old room next to Harry's." And she bustled away.