12 



WINTER 



and what it would have done had it caught the big 

 fellow, I do not know. But I have seen the chase 

 often the gray squirrel nearly exhausted with 

 fright and fatigue, the red squirrel hard after him. 

 They tore round and round us, then up over the hill, 

 and disappeared. 



One of the rarest prints for most snow-hunters 

 nowadays, but one of the commonest hereabouts, 



is the quick, sharp track of the fox. In the spring 

 particularly, when my fancy young chickens are 

 turned out to pasture, I have spells of fearing that 

 the fox will never be exterminated here in this un- 

 tillable but beautiful chicken country. In the winter, 

 however, when I see Reynard's trail across my 

 lawn, when I hear the music of the baying hounds 

 and catch a glimpse of the white-tipped brush swing- 

 ing serenely in advance of the coming pack, I can- 

 :not but admire the capable, cunning rascal, cannot 

 but be glad for him, and marvel at him, so resource- 

 ful, so superior to his almost impossible conditions, 

 his almost numberless foes. 



We started across the meadow on his trail, but 

 found it leading so straightaway for the ledges, and 

 so continuously blotted out by the passing of the 



