80 
FOREST AND STREAM 
February, 1922 
The fox took a look in the direction of my blind and scented danger 
* 
to a certain fur dresser and have it 
made into a nice warm muff for my best 
girl and I wondered if they could hitch 
that beautiful brush to one corner of 
the muff. He was a good deal easier to 
hit than a deer or a rabbit even, so far 
as I could see. Fox-hunting was pretty 
soft, if I could bar the hard walking and 
running I had done to arrive in the 
middle of this forty-acre lot. 
Then the dog arrived in a little patch 
of evergreens near the stump fence- 
where the fox had come through. When 
he had come within about a hundred 
yards there seemed to come a slip in 
the machinery as he suddenly stopped. 
He looked right at me. I could see that 
he saw me. He didn’t like my looks a 
bit and the look of disgust that he gave 
me told me so from the distance. He 
stopped and looked back. The dog \yas 
just making the stump fence. Fig him- 
self was also appearing on the scene. 
Now was my chance when they drove 
that fox to me. But he didn’t drive. 
He suddenly became a red line disap- 
pearing into white space. He did not 
bob up and down. He just squirted out 
of sight and was gone. 
F ig was a man of few words, so I 
was tpld and had found out, but he 
did say more things in five minutes than 
most men say in as many hours. Indeed 
he said a good many things that I can’t 
mention here. Anyhow I was instructed 
that I never ought to leave myself out 
carelessly in plain sight when waiting 
for a shot at a fox. To all of which I 
agreed. Hadn’t I just learned? It may 
be all right to stand in the open and 
wait for a deer to run over you, or. a 
rabbit, or a bear, or almost anything, 
but don’ try it with foxes. 
I have hunted ducks a good deal and 
I know how to build a blind, so the next 
stand that Fig sent me to I blinded. It 
was in a fence corner near some little 
oak brush that had not lost its leaves 
when cold weather came. The fence 
was of wire, so I took fifteen minutes 
to cut and weave some oak brush into 
that fence corner. It was a dandy blind. 
You couldn’t blame any fox for not see- 
ing me this time. I could almost stand 
up in it and I was ready when the hound 
started his bugle. The fox came into 
view up out of a gully where Fig had 
smelled him and which I had gone 
around. This time I was taking no 
chances. I had everything to my ad- 
vantage but a periscope. He was my 
fox. I would retrieve the ill fortune 
that had caused me to lose number one. 
But that confounded fox took just one 
look in the direction of my blind and 
he saw the light of danger. Somehow 
the oak brush in the fence, twined as 
natural as you please, didn’t look regular 
to him and he fairly dissolved back into 
the very brush he had come from and 
right on top of the hound. Fig has 
never been able to explain why that fox 
played leap frog with his hound. I knew 
but I never did like to tell a real well- 
informed person something that he 
wouldn’t understand. I have found it 
best to assume a silent mien and say 
not a word. By the time Fig arrived 
where I had been there was no blind in 
the wire fence. You bet I was getting 
foxy enough as I didn’t want him to 
send me that look of utter contempt 
again. 
The hound and fox may be running 
yet for all I know. They were going 
westward like a sixty-mile gale when 
I last saw and heard of them and al- 
though Fig walked fast and I ran rapid- 
ly we could not get within hearing of 
them and it came toward night. I was 
mighty glad ! 1 hate to he marked as a 
quitter and a whole day of cross-country 
sprinting was not exactly in ffl'y line 
Jim HoiiyS Cbluinn 
I am a Member 
of Iwo Clubs 
One is chiefly used by middle aged and 
elderly men — fine old boys, all of us. 
The other is an athletic club— young 
fellows mostly. 
In the interest of science, I recently 
investigated the shaving technique of fifty 
members of each club, b, me out of 
fifty elderly men use Mennen Shaving- 
Cream, and thirty-seven of the fifty young 
sports. _ , , • 1 
I suppose there is a great psychological 
or philosophical truth concealed in the 
above fact, but I am chiefly concerned 
with the problem of brightening the sunset 
trail of mv old friends by blasting them 
loose from their addiction to hard soap. 
It's a terrible thought, but I wonder if 
we all reach an age when the intake 
valve of the old idea reservoir gets all 
rusted and refuses to open any more. 
Anyway, it’s not a tendency to be 
encouraged. Every- man ought to take 
out his habits and prejudices now and 
then and dust them off and scrutinize them 
to see if they measure up to the standards 
of youth. 
No matter what sacrifice of preconceived 
ideas is involved, a man cannot afford to 
grow old. 
Lincoln and Napoleon and Alexander 
the Great bad no choice — they had to 
use hard soap or raise beards — preferably 
the latter. 
But every niaii who ever made the 
daring experiment knows that 
Mennen’s is so infinitely superior to old- 
fashioned soap that even now, 
after months or years 
of gorgeous Mennen 
shaves, he still shudders 
when he recalls the old 
bloody combats with his 
beard. 
A man is young so 
^ long as he will try a 
rroT better way. So I 
earnestly beg you to 
send 10 cents for my 
demonstrator tube. 
rj (Mennen Salesman) W 
Th^ n^nn^rt ^ONP^nv 
^ Pl/€^ 
n^WflRK. H-J- VJ-S-Ak, 
It will identify you^ 
