246 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



acquaintances, who is highly successful, never, of 

 course, touches any of his rusty fox-traps with his 

 hands, and uses every other known precaution, yet 

 he says he has buried a meaty bone under the same 

 snow-pile for a week, to find it dug out by a fox the 

 next morning, and then; on the morning after he 

 had at last placed a trap beneath the snow-pile and 

 the bone, found tracks all around, but not a sign of 

 digging. On the whole, I think the best fox story 

 that I know, and one which cannot be questioned, 

 was told to me by Hamilton Gibson, a son of Will- 

 iam Hamilton Gibson, the beloved artist-naturalist. 

 When the younger Mr. Gibson was about seventeen, 

 in Washington, Connecticut, he was the proud pos- 

 sessor of a speedy, high-bred Kentucky fox-hound, 

 a real fox-hound that made the local dogs look like 

 amateurs. He was walking with her one snowy 

 winter day when she picked up a track in a field 

 and began to run it. This track, her master noted, 

 was that of an evidently injured fox, one hind-paw 

 mark being consistently missing. 



The dog was working up a slight incline, toward 

 woods and a large rock, nose half buried in the 

 snow, and had almost reached the boulder, when 

 suddenly from behind this rock a big fox sprang out 

 directly in her path, obviously to attract her atten- 

 tion. She was off after him in a flash, her silvery 

 challenge ringing out. There was no use in his try- 

 ing to follow, so Mr. Gibson sat down to wait, 

 knowing that if the dog lost her prey she would 

 return here to the first track. Sure enough, after 

 an hour, back she came, panting, weary, a bit 

 crestfallen, got her nose into the original scent 



