IS IT A LIFE OF FEAR? 



65 





, ing. More than once, in the warm moonlight, I, the j$ 

 fox, have led them on and on, spurring their lagging 



j muscles with a sight of my brush, on and on, through 

 the moonlit night, through the day, on into the moon v 

 again, and on until only the stir of -my own foot- 

 steps has followed me. Then, doubling once more, 

 creeping back a little upon my track, I have looked | 

 at my pursuers, silent and stiff upon the trail, and, 

 ere the echo of their cry has died away, I have 



.caught up the chorus and carried it single-throated; 

 through the wheeling, singing spheres. 



There is more of fact than of fancy to this. That 

 a fox ever purposely led a dog to run to death would 

 be hard to prove ; but that the dogs run themselves 

 to death in a single extended chase after a single fox 

 is a common occurrence here in the woods about the 

 farm. Occasionally the fox may be overtaken by the 

 hounds ; seldom, however, except in the case of a 

 very young one or of one unacquainted with the 

 y of the land, a stranger that may have been 

 driven into the rough country here. 



I have been both fox and hound ; I have run the 

 race too often not to know that both enjoy it at 

 times, fox as much as hound. Some weeks ago the 

 dogs carried a young fox around and around the 

 farm, hunting him here, there, everywhere, as if in 

 a game of hide-and-seek. An old fox would have led 

 the dogs on a long coursing run across the range. 

 But the young fox, after the dogs were caught and 



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