A SWING AROUND VERMONT 



5'9 



ledges had had advance warning of the com- 

 ing change, for the tracks were discourag- 

 ingly old. We descended to a more com- 

 fortable altitude and separated to look for 

 deer, their fresh tracks being abundant. 



Perhaps an hour had passed when I had 

 trailed a heavy buck to the edge of a large 

 aspen thicket just over the top, on the south 

 side, of a ridge I had been following. I was 

 circling to windward of the thicket with a 

 view to driving the buck out by my scent, 

 when of a sudden I heard the sharp pound 

 of a running deer, and turning my head I 

 saw a buck and a doe coming in toward the 

 thicket from the northwest. I stood in fairly 

 open woods, beside a big pine tree, and 

 could see easily for nearly two hundred yards 

 through the timber. I stood perfectly still 

 and the deer, alarmed by something (by 

 Chase, I afterward learned), ran up to 

 within forty or fifty yards of me before 

 they winded me. And, then I Down brakes ! 

 They stopped so suddenly that they slid for 

 a yard or more in the soft wet snow. Out 

 they thrust their wonderful noses, right and 

 left, testing the wind, their ears fanned for- 

 ward, their eyes big with fear, every line 

 showing tremendous nervous energy. A 

 second they paused, and, ah! had only the 

 camera not been strapped impotently on my 

 back. Then with a bound and a flicker of 

 white flags they were gone, leaving me tense 

 and listening. 



Yes, Chase had seen them; weren't they 

 beauties? And we pondered on their cun- 

 ning and their wonderful acuteness. 



On the way home, Chase, knowing an 

 excellent place for foxes, decided to try a 

 new fox call, a little instrument not unlike 

 a duck call with which he could imitate the 

 cry of a wounded hare. I forgot to say that 

 our bear dog had taken the back track for 

 home after we saw the uselessness of looking 

 for a bear. He certainly was a specialist, 

 that hound. He would not even sniff at 

 fresh fox tracks. 



It was a good place for foxes, certainly, 

 and I soon found that, on his own territory, 

 Chase knew a lot about still-hunting other 

 game than deer. He imitated the distress 

 cry of a snowshoe rabbit to a nicety. But 

 after ten minutes of careful calling without 

 any results, we moved on. Once more, 



then, before we left the open woods that 

 bordered the high pastures behind the town, 

 we crept down behind a stone fence to near 

 where Chase said an old red fox was wont 

 to lie and contemplate the valley, with out- 

 lying Bennington poultry yards tantaliz- 

 ingly near. We reconnoitred the field from 

 behind the fence, but saw no sign of a fox. 

 Then we rested, and by and by Chase took 

 off his gloves and called. Twilight began 

 to set in. This was the close of my last day 

 in Vermont; I did not like it that I must 

 leave Chase so soon, must exchange my flan- 

 nel shirt for a starched thing with a white 

 collar. I had grown very fond of Chase and 

 of my short-lived vagabondia. 



Suddenly there was a movement farther 

 down the fence. A fox! Who would have 

 thought it? But he was far away, far, far 

 away; more than three hundred yards, I 

 thought, and fingered the peep sight of my 

 rifle. The fox disappeared; we sat still as 

 death. Then after a few minutes Chase 

 called again, the startling falsetto of the call 

 rising and falling in perfect cadence. We 

 waited, with the hammers of our rifles at full 

 cock. Minutes slipped by. Would that fox 

 ever come, or had he gone away ? I wanted 

 to stand up and look over the fence. A man 

 at his barnyard chores in the valley below 

 whistled merrily. It was getting dusk and 

 cold. Still we waited. There! 



The fox no sooner caught his balance on 

 the round boulder on top of the wall, upon 

 which he had leaped, than he saw us 

 crouched there so near. He turned like a 

 flash, but we had been ready; ah, yes, and 

 we laid the bold fellow low, with two .38- 

 calibre bullets through his vitals. 



Back to the city. Ah, well! was I not 

 leaving the mountains with the crack of the 

 rifles ringing in my ears? And did not my 

 friend and I share side by side at the very 

 last this little coup of a red fox killed with- 

 out the aid of dogs ? Aye, and more power 

 to Shanks 's pony, we had put sixteen long, 

 roughmiles behind us, shoulder to shoulder, 

 and talked little but from the heart. So 

 now, we went singing down the mountain 

 with our game, each intent on outdoing the 

 other in jollity, that he might not find time 

 to meditate on the morrow which would 

 bring the parting of the ways. 



