14 THE FALL OF THE YEAR 



match the fox. In literature the cunning of the fox 

 is very greatly exaggerated. Yet it is, in fact, more 

 than equal to that of the hound. 



A fox, I really believe, enjoys an all-day run be- 

 fore the dogs. And as for house dogs, I have seen 

 a fox, that was evidently out for mischief and utterly 

 tired of himself, come walking along the edge of 

 the knoll here by the house, and, squatting on his 

 haunches, yap down lonesomely at the two farm 

 dogs below. 



This very week I heard the hounds far away in 

 the ledges. I listened. They were coming toward me, 

 and apparently on my side of the brook. I had just 

 paused at the corner of the barn when the fox, slip- 

 ping along the edge of the woods, came loping down 

 to the hen-yard within easy gun-shot of me. He 

 halted for a hungry look at the hens through the 

 wire fence, then trotted slowly off, with the dogs 

 yelping fully five minutes away in the swamp. 



How many minutes would it have taken that fox 

 to snatch a hen, had there been a hen on his side of 

 the fence ? He could have made chicken-sandwiches 

 of a hen in five minutes, could have eaten them, too, 

 and put the feathers into a bolster — almost ! How 

 many of my hens he has made into pie in less than 

 five minutes ! 



As desserts go, out of doors, he has a right to a 

 pie for fooling the dogs out of those five crowded 

 minutes. For he does it against such uneven odds, 



