Where Silence Is Eloquent 



can tell whether he is just "projeckin' around/' as 

 Uncle Remus says, or whether his mind is set on 

 going somewhere. In the latter event he almost 

 invariably follows runways, or fox roads, which 

 are as well known to him as are footpaths and 

 stream-crossings to a country lad. But the trail 

 of this particular fox was different from any other 

 that I ever followed. That he was a male and 

 was "going somewhere" was evident enough; but 

 he was not following runways or paying any at- 

 tention to them. He left no signs at places where 

 any ordinary dog-fox would surely have left them, 

 and he was stopping to listen or to ward himself 

 at uncommonly frequent intervals. So, running 

 it backward, I read the story of his journey mile 

 after mile, till the oncoming trail changed to the 

 devious, rambling trot of a questing fox; and be- 

 yond that I had no interest in it. 



The place where the fox seemed to have found 

 his bearings, or where he stopped his rambling to 

 head straight for his mate, was some four miles 

 distant from the captive in a bee-line. The course 

 he took was entirely different from that taken by 

 the man who brought the vixen home, thus exclud- 

 ing the theory that he followed the trail by scent; 

 and the latter part of his way led through the out- 

 skirts of a village, where the track of a fox had 

 not been seen for many years. From the distant 

 12 I l6 S ] 



