THE FOX 118 



explained, " so when, one day, I found there was 

 a litter of cubs in a certain earth, I soon fetched 

 some help, and we set to work to dig them out. 

 I thought we should get the vixen as well, but, 

 though we found the cubs all right, she wasn't 

 with them, and it was the old fox I wanted worst 

 of all. After thinking for a bit I sent the men 

 off home, and then took the cubs and put them 

 down in a patch of fern a few yards from the 

 earth. They were quite young and much too 

 small to crawl away, but they kept whining, and 

 I made sure that she would come back towards 

 evening and would then either hear or wind them, 

 and that if I waited quietly behind a tree, down 

 wind of where they lay, I would get a shot at her. 

 Well, I waited and waited, but nothing happened, 

 not so much as a grass blade stirred, and I will 

 swear I never took my eyes off the spot. At 

 last the dusk began to fall, the owls started hooting, 

 and then I gave it up. I went to pick the cubs 

 up, but they weren't there ! I remembered they'd 

 stopped whimpering some time before, yet I 

 couldn't believe they'd gone. I searched every- 

 where, and then it dawned on me that that blessed 

 old vixen must have fetched them from under 

 my nose ! There was a bit of a ditch, not much 

 of one, which she must have crawled up. It 

 was hardly more than a furrow in the ground, 

 still that was the only way she could have 

 done it, and she must have made the journey 

 five times, for there were five cubs, and all were 

 gone." 



