62 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
sure eye told him he could make the leap to ice 
that would bear up his few pounds, on the other 
side. Then he jumped. After that he trotted 
south again much more leisurely, crossed the river 
once more at a bridge, and never heard more from 
the dogs. 
It was one clear, starlit night in February, 
when Reddy was roaming the woods, restless he 
knew not quite why, that he heard a curious fox 
bark not far away. It was the bark of Whitetip, 
the she-fox he had been thinking about. It 
seemed to call him. He answered with a blood- 
curdling yell that would have done credit to a 
panther (and was, indeed, thought to be a wildcat 
by the people it woke up in a house by the edge of 
the woods a quarter of a mile away), and leaped 
‘into a bounding gallop. His tracks converged 
upon Whitetip’s. As their paths met, they both 
dropped to a trot, side by side, with little whines 
and barks into each other’s ears. Thus they 
trotted on, courting, over the snow, under the 
leafless trees and the cold stars, till Whitetip, coy 
at first, was won. 
Dawn was coming when, still side by side, they. 
