218 A TRICKY FOX. 



occasionally losing sight of the game altogether and now having 

 the stimulus of seeing him before me, either tracking the snow with 

 blood from the wounded foot, or slowly climbing the hillock in 

 front. Sometimes he would make a turn to the right, expecting to 

 throw me off the scent, and often to the left for the same purpose ; 

 but the island was small, and the ridges so far distant, compar- 

 atively, that it was impossible, now at least, for him to gain his 

 object. On we went over hill and dell, sometimes one gaining and 

 sometimes the other. At last the end of the island was reached, 

 and the fox was running across a narrow pass, covered with ice, 

 between this and another island ; I had gained on him and he was 

 now less than two hundred yards away, so I determined to fire. 

 Hastily kneeling behind the crest of a hillock, and resting on a 

 stone there, I fired ; the ball reached the fox but did not hit him ; 

 and, though I had already run several miles across the island, and 

 had shot away my only charge, I started in pursuit again, across 

 the pass and away over the next small island. Here comes the 

 strange part of the chase ; the footing led plainly across the snow 

 for a short distance, and then, mingling with another recent one, 

 diverged ; but which was which I could not tell. 



The island was hilly though small ; upon gaining the summit of the 

 crest the fox had disappeared. Following the slope downward to- 

 wards a small point of land to the westward, I soon came across 

 the bloody track of the fox again ; it disappeared when I reached 

 the front, then appeared again along the edge of the rocks quite 

 near the ice of the bay and below the rocks. This was a cute 

 trick to escape detection, but the next step was more so. The 

 tracks disappeared all of a sudden in the centre of a patch of snow 

 with moss around it, and not a trace of them could be found 

 anywhere. I carefully searched the narrow point over, and looked 

 behind each rock, ascended each crest, examined each old fox 

 footing, partially filled with drifting snow, so that I could not have 

 mistaken it, and not a sign appeared. The fine fellow had played 

 me another of the many tricks for which Sir Reynard is noted, and 

 left me, four miles from home, heated with running, cross and 



