“We’d better go out early in the morning when the trails are still fresh,” Buck answered. “Foxes don’t move around much during the day, and it’s hard for the dogs to pick up a scent then.”
“How early, Mr. Queen? This’ll be one time I won’t mind hearing the alarm go off.” The men laughed.
“Well, let’s see, the sun comes up about seven now. I guess seven thirty would be early enough.”
“Think I’ll come along,” said Charlie. “Like to see that fox myself.”
“Count me in,” Cy added.
“All right,” said Buck. “We’ll all go, and it’ll be a hunt that you’ve never seen the like of before. ’Cause if we’re hunting Vulpes, I can tell you it won’t be just a jaunt in the woods. It may last days.”
“If it does,” said Gordon, rising and reaching for his coat, “I’m going to call the office and tell them I won’t be in. I’m sick of that desk anyway.”
One by one the men got up and put their coats on. They were all excited by the thought of the hunt and the house emptied quickly. The dogs barked loudly as they left.
As Gordon walked down the road to his farm, his steps were light. He pictured himself raising his shotgun and getting the fox that had gained the admiration of all the men who lived along the river.
CHAPTER TEN
VULPES AND FULVA WERE running over the bottomlands and hills of Muddy Branch when the men left Buck’s parlor. Starlight twinkled brightly through the bare limbs of the trees, and the foxes found the cold damp trails exciting and full of interest. They led to pools where the ice was forming. Sharp crisp notes sang through the quiet hills as the ice closed in against the bank. Rabbits were nibbling roots and digging for fruits under the dark loam. A screech owl quivered from his perch low in a pine tree. His feathers stood out from his body in a puffy circle, his head pivoted freely and swiftly on his shoulderless body as he surveyed the night life below him.
Around midnight, Fulva wandered back to the laurel slick above Muddy Branch to curl up under the smooth glossy leaves. As she dozed off to sleep she could hear Blarina, the shrew, tunneling under the earth. In the silent darkness his subterranean explorations sounded as though he were uprooting the whole earth.
After Fulva left him, Vulpes turned to the high lands and trotted easily from ridge to ridge. The cold freeze of winter had brought renewed vigor to the fox and with this bubbling restless energy coursing through him, he was anxious to be off through the forests, following the wild instincts within him to live and match his wits against his enemies and prey of the fields and river. It was just dawn when he left the hills and crossed through the bottomlands below Buck’s farm to return to the laurel thicket where Fulva was sleeping. He curled up at the other end of the brush and closed his eyes as the sun touched the gray tops of the sycamores and poplars. The light streamed across the Potomac River and sketched long shadows to the west of the Maryland trees.
Half an hour earlier Gordon’s alarm clock went off and the young man awoke to stretch, and yawn as he rubbed his eyes. He remembered the hunt and ran from his bunk to dress in the shivering cold.
Over on River Road Will Stacks was already up. He was dressing warmly for he knew he would need plenty of covering before the hunt was done.
Cy Cummings had built a fire in the wood stove in his kitchen and was finishing breakfast before he went out to start his car.
Charlie Craggett was crossing the fields to Cy’s house. His breath crystallized into white clouds as he thumped across the frozen furrows.
Buck Queen had eaten breakfast and was out in the backyard with his dogs. He had his morning chores to finish before the hunt.
Just at dawn Cy’s car bounced up the corduroy road to the gate. Buck could hear the wheezing motor of Will’s car on the feeder road. He followed its progress in the quiet morning. The noise carried distinctly across the hill. Jim Gordon was coming around the bend in the road, running to keep the cold out of his bones.
As the men gathered all were anticipating the hunt that lay ahead of them this day. Their guns were greased and in order. The vision of the princely red fox ran through each man’s mind. He was lined along the sights of Cy’s shotgun, and Will’s shotgun, and Charlie’s shotgun and Jim’s.
The frosted air sent the blood tingling through their veins and each hunter knew that this was his day. The weather promised to be clear and cold. No winds were blowing.
The five men gathered in Buck’s kitchen and enjoyed the steaming drink that had been prepared for them before starting along the trails. They left silently, buttoning their jackets tightly around their necks. There was little talk. Stacks checked his pockets to make sure he had sufficient ammunition. Jim slung his gun over his shoulder and looked across the farm to the shadowy hills beyond. Somewhere among the trees and bushes lay Vulpes, the Red Fox.
Buck released Brownie and Joe. They loped through the yard sensing the excitement in the waiting men. Brownie hit the road and dropped his head to smell the cold frosted earth. Joe followed closely on his heels. The hounds ran nervously from one side of the road to the other. The men closed in behind.
The Red Bone left the road a short distance from the house and slid through the brush and honeysuckle of the bottom lands. He held his nose close to the ground as he traveled. Then he crossed the trail that Vulpes had taken as he returned to the laurel slick. The hound’s voice rang out. He caught the scent again, and another deep note sounded through the silent hills.
As he followed the cold trail to the hill his tones became more excited.
“They’re on a trail,” Buck said quietly to the men. “Let’s go up the ravine and take stations on the hills.”
Vulpes raised his head as he heard the hounds top the hill. They were still far away. He did not know whose trail they might be following. As the dogs dropped into the valley and their voices were lost between the hills, Vulpes put his head down again. But he was curled loosely, and was ready to leap at the first alarm. He heard the hounds once more. This time they were much closer. The fox rose to his feet. He listened to their course in the still woods and knew they were coming his way. He waited until Brownie and Joe came down the hill a quarter of a mile beyond and then trotted out of the thicket. Now he knew the Red Bone and the Blue Tick hound had found his trail. The first hunt of the season was on. Vulpes turned away and drifted easily from the laurel patch.
The fox was full of life and vigor this crisp autumn morning and quickly gathered speed until he was sprinting down the hill before the baying of the hounds. Brownie picked up his fresh trail at the edge of the laurel thicket and the tone of his voice changed. It was excited and sharper. He had hit the new warm trail and knew he had roused Vulpes. Joe was close behind him. Vulpes had led the dogs safely away from Fulva, who was still resting on the hill. She lifted her head as the hounds went past the far end of the ivy patch and watched them go down over the hill toward the stream where Vulpes had just been. They came within fifty yards of her.
Far behind, uphill from the road, the party of hunters were standing on a knoll, waiting anxiously to catch the sound of the hounds. Then they heard the voice of Joe. It came ringing plaintively across the hills, rising from the river bottoms.
“They’ve headed down toward Muddy Branch,” said Buck. He motioned to the men to follow him across the top of the hill and out to an old lumber road that led through the woods.
“Guess we’d better get to our stations. They’ll be circling back before long.” In single file the men walked quietly through the valley, across a swampy little stream and climbed the next hill.
“Gordon, you stand on that hill by the fence. Watch that field. He’ll probably go down that fence line.” Gordon draped his gun through his arm and pushed up the trail. The climb was steep and he was glad to make the top. He sat down on the nearest log and looked around. Not a twig was stirring. A few crows flew over the field and he aimed his gun at them.
“Bang! I sure would have gotten them,” the young man mused proudly. H
e watched the field as Buck had told him to do. He could hear the rest of the party stealing over the dry leaves to their posts. They seemed far away. Gordon looked at the field again. It was silent and uninteresting. He looked down at an acorn at his feet. It had been chewed empty by a squirrel. Then he remembered he must look at the field. Hours seemed to pass and still the young man neither heard the dogs nor saw the fox. He wondered how much longer he could sit on the cold uncomfortable stump. Gordon shifted his position to lodge himself more comfortably between the uneven slivers of wood. Then he looked up at the field.
Meanwhile, down in Muddy Branch Vulpes was standing on a log with his head cocked to one side. He had dashed ahead of the hounds and was waiting for them to come within earshot. High above him a squirrel, disturbed by the fox’s presence, was chattering at him from his limb. The fox looked up at him, blinked as if bored, and glanced back through the woods in the direction of his pursuers.
The mellow notes of the hounds rang out. The great fox turned and walked slowly along the woodland floor and circled back toward them. As their baying became louder and louder, Vulpes slid behind a log and watched them pass not one hundred yards away.
Brownie’s nose was high now. He was intently following the trail and did not see the fox watching him from the covert. The wind was blowing toward Vulpes. The smell of hounds came to him. He sniffed, watched them take his circling trail into the woods, and then moved on. His route took him back to the laurel patch where he had left Fulva. She had smelt him approaching and was coming down the hill toward him. Vulpes thought about the race and was worried to see his mate. The dogs might pick up her trail if they met, and start out after her. Swiftly, he dashed and wheeled into the slick.
The booming voice of the Red Bone suddenly alerted the vixen and she bounded forward. Right over the hills before the hounds she sped. Her path led toward the hunting party. Vulpes waited. He heard Brownie hesitate a moment where the two trails met. His cry became confused. Before he could check the speed of his advance which carried him along, he caught Fulva’s warm trail and was off. Vulpes lay down and listened to the hunt.
Fulva ran along the ridges and slipped through the brush and thickets wherever she could. She was pleased to find she could keep so far ahead of the dogs. Fulva had discovered the joy of the hunt and the pleasures of leading the singing hounds over the hills and valleys. She sprinted ahead, threading her way around the trees and over the rocks. The lovely vixen jumped from stone to stone in the creek bottoms and then waited on the other side of a hill to hear the Red Bone come to the water’s edge and run in circles as he sought her lost scent.
At the crest of the next hill she stopped. An open field lay in her path. This was one of her favorite hunting areas. She turned swiftly and ran down the fence row. Gordon was not fifty feet away. He had just dropped his eyes to look at the acorn at his feet. The vixen checked her run when she caught the scent of the man. She was about to turn back, but the distant cry of the hounds pressed her forward. The red fox wound through the bushes and grasses that hugged the fence and darted silently past the hunter. She did not turn a twig. When she was just beyond his view she left the fence, cut into the woods, circled the knoll on which he was sitting, below his line of vision, and sprinted back to Muddy Branch. She took the rocky ridges where her trail would be hard to follow.
As she covered the miles to the Branch, Joe and Brownie burst out of the woods and whipped down the fence row past Gordon. The young man looked up. Joe saw him sitting close to the trail and wagged his tail happily. He had brought the fox to the hunter.
Then Gordon knew what had happened. The fox had passed in front of him and he had not seen it. The young man jumped to his feet and with great embarrassment trained his eyes on the field. But it was too late. He watched the dogs practically circle his feet as they followed the scent of Fulva. He moaned painfully. He had missed his big chance to bring down the clever fox.
Buck heard the hounds close in on the fence rail. He waited to hear the shot that would end the hunt. Cy Cummings from his station was also following the progress of the fox and hounds and he, too, looked toward the hill where Gordon stood. All was quiet.
Gordon was running after the hounds as they circled the hill. He snapped the safety on his gun and stood poised and ready; but there was nothing in sight. Only the motionless trees and the dry leaves of the oaks still clinging to the limbs. He heard Buck coming over the path toward him.
“Looks like he went right by,” said the old hunter when he was within earshot of the young man.
“I sure didn’t see a thing,” Gordon said meekly.
“You have to watch close. Can’t drop your eyes a minute or they’ll slip right by. They’re way ahead of the dogs.”
Gordon hooked his gun under his arm and followed Buck silently. He had nothing to say. The hounds had done their part, but he had not been ready. Old Buck Queen was smiling as he led the young man along. He enjoyed seeing the clever animals outwit the hunters.
“That fox has wind of us now,” he said presently. “He’ll head down to Muddy Branch again. Guess we’d better move on. He won’t come back here.”
From out of the glades and dusky trees and vines, the other hunters came. Will seemed to come from the side of a tree like a piece of bark. If he had not moved Gordon would not have seen him at all. Cy left his thicket of spice bushes. It was as if part of the woods had moved away. Jim Gordon realized he was a novice in the art of stalking prey.
Fulva cut sharply to the left of the path she was following and reached the laurel slick. Vulpes was waiting for her. He was glad to see her coming down through the autumn landscape, her brushy tail held straight out behind her. She was coming swiftly, and Vulpes sensed the fear in her anxious steps. He knew this was not a hunt to exercise the dogs. Fulva had seen men. He waited until she reached his side. The big fox looked down at his mate and nudged her gently. Then he carefully started off along her footsteps. At the crest of the hill he turned and disappeared into the woods. Fulva watched him go. She walked far back into the dense protective leaves and curled up quietly.
Vulpes was leading the chase now. He walked slowly so that when the hounds came to the crossing of the two trails his would be the fresher and easier to follow. The woods and hills lay before him, cold and shining in the sunlight. Through the trees he could see the river gleaming. Chipmunks left their seeds and nuts and scurried to the branches above as the big fox moved forward. He ignored their frantic efforts to escape him. Vulpes was listening to Brownie, his voice rising and falling as he covered the rolling woodlands. The deep lugubrious cry of Joe punctuated the song of the Red Bone. The hunt was fierce and earnest. Vulpes glided down to the waters of Muddy Branch excited and thrilled with the chase. He felt no fear.
The hounds had followed Fulva’s trail to the fork. They never hesitated as they dashed along the path she had followed. Immediately they picked up the fresh scent of Vulpes and ran down the hill toward the stream where he stood.
The fox followed the slowly winding water to the canal. He looked the situation over a moment and then decided what he would do. The stream went under the canal at this point. Engineers had tunneled it beneath the waterway in a large stone aqueduct. The fox slipped along the ledge at the side of the tunnel and ran out the other end. He clambered up the bank on the opposite side and raced up the tow-path. Half a mile up the canal he caught the scent of a mouse in the grasses near-by. Vulpes quietly stalked him and dined in the long grasses while Brownie and Joe worked out the puzzle at the foot of the stream.
The old Red Bone reached the canal bank and swerved to follow it. The intriguing patterns that Vulpes left in the leaves and streams for him to solve would have baffled the ordinary hound. But Brownie had not become a lead hound and the pride of old Buck Queen for nothing. He worked out the problems of the trail with almost human wisdom. Skillfully and methodically he covered the probable route Vulpes had taken. Finding nothing, he returned to the edge of the aqueduct wh
ere he had lost the trail. Once more he went over the fox’s course. Joe was still working the near-by woods and the top of the canal bank. Brownie went down to the edge of the stream. Picking his feet high he waded the cold, shallow waters and sniffed the air of the tunnel. Suddenly he caught a faint wisp of the fox odor. He traced it to the ledge that ran along the inside of the arching wall. His loud, long cry told Joe he had at last found the lost trail. Joe raced to the stream, splashed through the shallows and sped through the tunnel beneath the canal. As he burst into the sunlight on the other side of the canal Brownie had already climbed to the tow-path.
Joe sprinted up the hill after the Red Bone who had found the fresh trail leading up the path.
Vulpes had finished his meal. He pricked up his ears when he heard the hounds on the path. He knew they had worked out his trail and even as he heard their piercing cries he rose and trotted off. About a quarter of a mile farther, he crossed the canal again, this time on the Violet Locks, and climbed up the rocks to the hills. From the rocky blasted precipice high above the waterway he could see far down the tow-path. There were Brownie and Joe, their heads high as they bayed into the wind. The fox pranced and crouched in the leaves as he watched them coming along the opposite shore of the canal and then turned to trot away over the rocky cliffs.
Suddenly Vulpes stopped. A twig snapped in the woods to the left of him. The leaves were rustling strangely. His sharp ears caught the sound of heavy footsteps. Vulpes knew the hunters were around him. He stepped around a rock and tried to pass the men. The fox was picking his way cautiously ahead when a slight movement by the base of a poplar tree caught his attention. He turned his head quickly and detected the motionless form of Will Stacks. The man was not moving a muscle. Vulpes watched him for some minutes trying to be sure the brown figure was not just part of the trees and forest. He was certain he had seen movement. Then Will Stacks put his hand to his face. He rubbed a wheal on his cheek where a twig had stung him. With that movement the man took shape for Vulpes. He saw the hunter clearly. Swiftly he darted below the rim of the hill and dashed along the slippery rocks. When he had put several hills between himself and the hunter, Vulpes decided to leave the country. The woods were full of men.