24 Walks in New England 



leading his free-foot pursuers to the place where 

 they must perforce lose him. There is nothing 

 more interesting in its way than the insouciant 

 fashion in which a fox will regard the dog that is 

 chasing him. He will loiter, and turn, and sniff, 

 and swing his broad brush, and then dart off, with 

 a sure lead, and anon double and cross, and pres 

 ently vanish. Then the free-foot dog will 

 pause, and cry, and give it up after a while, un 

 less the man is along; and the man does not 

 make it sure. 



Curious things may be observed, as for instance 

 when among a lot of mouse tracks one perceives a 

 straight mark between one line of individual toes, 

 and realizes that an unfortunate mouse has had 

 his tail broken so that it trails behind him. Mice 

 have ways of their own. They work along un 

 der the snow until they reach the edge of a drift 

 beneath a ledge, or the stem of some tree or bush, 

 with its melted passage to the ground, when they 

 emerge, thus covering their real home from dis 

 covery. The forest is full of tricks, full of evi 

 dences of the wisdom of the furry or feathery 

 tribes that inhabit it. And their wisdom and 

 folly, whichever is shown, is marvelously akin to 

 the human wisdom and folly. 



Now surely the spells of the frost are loosened, 

 and those skunk cabbages that choose, and that 



