The Fox and the Hound (20 page)

Early one morning, as he started across, he noticed two sticks were lying across the log about a foot apart. Tod instantly stopped and examined them. They were strange, though not startling. He sniffed carefully, but there was no man scent whatsoever. Also, there was no sign of a trap, and this log was solid wood where no trap could be buried. It must be safe. And yet - and yet! Tod recalled those sticks on either side of the scent post in the trail. Though he had seen the other fox jump over one of them and get caught, Tod had learned to connect traps with earth, and there was no earth here. He sat down and thought about it for a long time. While he sat, a rabbit came loping slowly along the near bank of the stream.

Tod slumped down on the log and remained motionless, watching the rabbit. The rabbit was looking for new green stalks; not finding any, he went up the bank toward a stand of young willows that still had bark on them. As soon as he was gone, Tod slipped off the log. Running lightly and silently, he cut around behind his quarry, taking care to keep downwind, and then sneaked up on it. He saw the rabbit standing on its hind legs, trying to reach the still ungirdled bark. When the rabbit was looking away, Tod would lift himself and run forward a few steps, but so low his belly was touching the ground. Then he would drop liat again. Each time he made one of these swift rushes, he always stopped in some shallow depression or behind some well-nigh invisible bit of cover. After a few mouthfuls, the rabbit would turn his head to look around again, while Tod remained stretched at full length, not a whisker twitching. When the rabbit resumed feeding, Tod would slip forward another few yards. As he came doser, his advance was so imperceptible he scarcely seemed to move at all, yet the distance between him and his quarry gradually lessened.

Finally the rabbit suspected something. He could see Tod quite well; though as long as the fox did not move, the rabbit did not recognize him as a fox. Yet there was definitely something there, and it seemed to be constantly coming nearer. Not alarmed but vaguely doubtful, the rabbit began to hop away. Then Tod charged.

Fast as Tod was, the rabbit had seen the start of his rush out of the corner of its eye, and took off as only a frightened rabbit can. The stream was ahead of him, so the rabbit made for the log bridge, having often used it himself. He hit the bark, and with one great bound cleared the first stick. He gave a fearful piercing scream as the trap seized him, and tumbled off the log.

Frantic with the excitement of the chase, Tod ran to the spot. The trap had fallen into the stream, the rabbit in it, and both had gone to the bottom, although the trap was still fastened to the log by its chain. Now Tod saw that a notch about a foot long had been cut out of the log, the trap inserted, and then cleverly concealed by moss and strips of thin bark. The whole business had been done by a man standing in the water and using gloves rubbed with hemlock so as to leave no scent. Though Tod would have loved to reach the rabbit, he had no means of doing so, and was reluctantly forced to continue his hunting.

When spring came and his new vixen showed the typical female interest in holes, Tod decided this time to select the location of the den himself. He was bent on raising this litter, even though he knew the Man and Copper were equally determined to track him and the vixen down when they were tied to the helpless pups. Tod no longer felt confident of being able easily to outwit the Man or even the hound. Still, he was grimly resolved to do his best.

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Fifth Hunt - Formal Hunting

For several days, Copper had been aware of a growing sense of excitement. Something was going to happen; he did not know what. There were none of the usual signs. The leather-smelling men had not come to the cabin, nor the farmers with their shotguns nor any of the Master's usual hunting companions. Instead, men had been coming who did not smell like people at all, and even their clothes had a curious odor. True, these men often smelled of dogs and horses as did the farmers, but it was all wrong somehow. Their clothes were not saturated with sweat, and their boots did not smell of manure. Even the animal scents clinging to them were unnatural. Whenever the Master brought them up to meet him, Copper sniffed the strangers' trouser legs with interest. He had never smelled dog or horse odors like these. The animals must be on a different diet and kept differently from those he knew.

The strangers not only smelled differently; they spoke in shrill, fast voices very unlike the drawling tones Copper knew. They moved the way they spoke, jerkily and quickly, instead of an easy, swinging lounge. When the Master spoke to them his voice changed. He sounded nervous and respectful. Copper knew he was not at ease with these outsiders. Neither was Copper, although they seemed friendly enough.

As soon as the strangers had left, Copper would jump frantically on the Master, try to lick his face, roll on the ground, and gambol clumsily around him, giving wailing cries. He knew these strangers wanted. something done - something that would involve his services, for they always showed great interest in him and when they talked to the Master his name was frequently used. Whatever it was, he would do his best and he wanted the Master to know it. The Master would pat him, scratch him behind the ears, and speak comfortingly. As long as the Master loved and had confidence in him, Copper did not care about anything else.

One morning while he and the Master were returning from the trapline, he heard the sound of a horn. Copper pricked up his ears, for he had never heard a horn like that. It was not the deep note of the cows' horns the jug hunters used or the even deeper call produced by blowing over the barrels of an open shotgun. Then the wind shifted and brought him the information he wanted. There were hounds near - many hounds. He also smelt the tangy odor of sweating horses, tobacco, and the scent of men. Then he heard men's voices, cut through by the clear call of the horn. The Master stopped and Copper stopped with him. There was a crackling in the half-frozen sumac bushes, and hounds began to leak out of the cover, followed by men on horseback, talking and laughing.

Copper had little interest in the men. His attention was riveted on the hounds. Several ran over to him, wagging their tails, sniffing, ears laid back and the skin on their foreheads pulled taut by their open, grinning jaws. Copper stood stiff-legged with upraised, rigid tail, scowling with his massive forehead ridged with wrinkles. These strange hounds were too friendly by half. Copper was no brawler, but even so there were certain formalities to be observed when dogs met; the stiff-legged gait, the upraised tail, the lips half curled in the beginnings of a snarl just to let the other fellow know who you were. He was also baffled by the number of the creatures. Copper had never seen more than half a dozen dogs together in his life.

He sniffed suspiciously, instantly recognizing the curious dog odor that had been on the strange men's clothes. Several of the hounds urinated on trees or bushes, and as the smell reached him Copper realized that they all must eat exactly the same food. It was meal with some meat mixed with it, not table scraps or the remains of wild game shot or trapped. They were all much alike, with long necks, legs straight below the knee, and small, rounded catlike feet. From the way they moved among each other, exchanging signals by motion of heads, tails, and bodies, Copper knew they were used to working as a pack - they even had much the same smell, as though they all slept together. They seemed to have no individuality. Even though Copper was used to hunting with the Triggs, Julys, and Plotts, each hound tended to work independently and was slightly jealous of the others, keeping his distance and avoiding touching another hound. There was no such mutual suspicion here.

The riders came up on their great horses, talking and laughing with the Master while the hounds moved fearlessly among the horses' hooves, to Copper's surprise. Horses were dangerous things; as a pup Copper had been badly kicked by one in a field when he tried to smell the animal's hind legs. Copper had never seen men riding on horses before, but this did not interest him - men did all sorts of queer things of no concern to dogs - but the free and easy relationship that obviously existed between these strange hounds and the horses puzzled him greatly.

The Master seemed eager to have him make friends with these strangers, and Copper politely smelled a few anuses and had his smelled in return, but he had little interest in these foreigners and they had no more in him. He was relieved when the horsemen moved off and the pack followed a quick blast of the horn.

Several mornings after this chance meeting Copper heard the stranger pack hunting. He and the other hounds burst from their barrels at the first faint, distant cry of the pack and, lifting their heads, wailed at the injustice of being tied when other hounds were running. From the sound of the hound music, Copper knew well these strangers were having their troubles, for often the cry sounded more puzzled than eager; it often faded away as the pack checked, and when the cry stopped it was seldom indeed that he heard the excited yelp that meant a hound had picked up the line again. Copper was confident that if the Master would only turn him loose, he could show these noseless foreigners how to work out a line, and he filled the air with his lamentations. Yet days passed and his services were never required.

Then one heavenly morning, just at daybreak, the Master came for him. Copper went mad with joy, while the rest of the pack screamed in jealousy and disappointment. He and the Master got in the car and started off.

They drove into a gray light, for the sun had not risen above the hills. Copper lay in his seat, ardently inhaling the fresh morning smells that he knew would turn stale and weak as the sun grew hotter. Rags of mist hung across the road, whirling apart as the car hit them. Copper sniffed the moisture-laden air anxiously. Too much humidity deadened the scent and made it lie heavily, but he could not tell how conditions really were because the rush of air through the car created an artificial wind that was confusing.

They came to a crossroads, and the Master stopped the car. Instantly Copper smelled the odor of horses, people, hounds, and the exhausts of cars. When the Master opened the door, he jumped out hopefully, yet somewhat doubtful.

There were only three buildings at the crossroads: an old country store, a shipping shed, and a farmer's house under a stand of great elms. The farmer and his family were sitting on the steps, and the children knew Copper and shouted to him. Copper indulgently waved his tail to them, but his eyes and nose were concentrated on the pack, assembled behind a rider and guarded on the sides by two more riders with long whips in their hands. There seemed to be cars and horses everywhere. Copper did not especially object to the horses as long as they did not come too close to him, but he hated the cars because of the stink of their exhausts.

The Master went over to talk to the rider in front of the pack, and Copper followed gingerly at his heels. He knew at once that these hounds were going hunting; they were intent, always keeping one eye on the mounted huntsman, yawning with nervousness and with tilted noses checking the slight breeze. Copper could tell from their actions that they could scent the presence of rabbit, a cat, several house dogs, and even the faint, distant suggestion of deer as well as he, yet they made no attempt to follow these smells, which was more than could be said of some of the Master's younger hounds, who were only too prone to run trash whenever the opportunity offered.

There were crowds of people, some of them mounted and walking their horses around and around in constant circles while other horses were being unloaded from vans or held by men who chewed tobacco and smelled strongly of stables. Many of the people were on foot, and several went up to pat the hounds, who accepted the caresses good-naturedly, grinning at the people with smooth foreheads and drawn back corners to their mouths. Some people came up to Copper; but he hated to be touched by anyone but the Master; and although he was too well bred to growl, he drew back and the people, taking the hint, left him alone.

A little drizzle started and coat collars were turned up. Scent dropped sharply as the rain absorbed it and pulled the particles into the ground. At long last the huntsman sounded his horn and rode away, the pack following him in a compact mass, picking their way among the water-filled ruts. The men with whips came next, and then the field trailed along behind. Copper was over-awed by the myriad smells, the click of the horses' hooves on the stones, the loud talking, the penetrating tobacco odor from countless cigarettes, and above all by the irritating, all-prevailing cloud of gasoline fumes from the cars, many of which started their engines and followed too.

The Master spoke to him and cut away across country, with Copper thankfully following, He was glad to get away from the variegated blanket of smells that stung his nostrils, as well as from the noise and strange sights. He thought that now he and the Master would go hunting alone, and he trotted along with relief.

The Master headed for a ridge, his boots crunching through curving tongues of frozen snow that streaked the hillside. Copper followed, stepping in the man's footmarks to save breaking through the crust. On top of the hill was a dogwood grove, barely showing behind the curtain of wind-blown rain. As they climbed higher, a wind sprang up and the rain gradually stopped. The sun broke through the clouds, casting a strange light on the fields and the rain wisps now being swept over the ridge. With the wind, scent began to rise from the ground, which was now warmer than the air. Copper could smell where a pheasant had walked through the field earlier that morning, dropped his nose to sniff briefly at a rabbit track, and then hit the line of a fox. He almost broke into a bay, the scent seemed so