120 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



longer and his feet are much larger, with a deeper im- 

 press, for he weighs three times as much as a fox. There 

 was no mistaking, then, one morning after a fresh, light 

 snowfall, the trail of a fox across the garden. We have 

 no chickens, and I was surprised that he had crossed our 

 lot, till I followed the trail. He had come up on the ice 

 of the sluggish, sunken brook behind, thus being con- 

 cealed by the high banks, had turned out in my back- 

 yard and followed the shelter of the fence up to the 

 garden, crossed that, gone through the fence on the 

 other side, and drawn near a chicken-coop. But some- 

 thing had then frightened him the bark of a dog per- 

 haps for his tracks suddenly swerved, turned from a 

 lope to a gallop, and he streaked for the sunken brook 

 again. Once there, he had settled down to his old pace 

 and gone on his way. 



On this same brook I have occasionally found the 

 track of a mink, coming up, no doubt, from the more se- 

 cluded river to reach the chicken-and-duck farm near 

 the source. The mink, when he is taking it easy and the 

 snow is deep and soft, makes paw tracks on either side 

 of a line drawn by his tail. He is a crafty animal, and 

 we have but one boy in town who can trap him. My 

 wife, not usually bloodthirsty, looked sadly at those 

 tracks in our backyard. " To think of mink going right 

 past our house," she sighed, "and my old furs so 

 shabby!" Woman's tenderness curiously breaks down 

 at certain points. 



