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It adheres to them like a growth. On examination I find the branches
coated with ice, from which shoot slender spikes and needles that
penetrate and hold the cord of snow. It is a new kind of foliage
wrought by the frost and the clouds, and it obscures the sky, and
fills the vistas of the woods nearly as much as the myriad leaves of
summer. The sun blazes, the sky is without a cloud or a film, yet we
walk in a soft white shade. A gentle breeze was blowing on the open
crest of the mountain, but one could carry a lighted candle through
these snow-curtained and snow-canopied chambers. How shall we see the
fox if the hound drives him through this white obscurity? But we
listen in vain for the voice of the dog and press on. Hares tracks
were numerous. Their great soft pads had left their imprint
everywhere, sometimes showing a clear leap of ten feet. They had
regular circuits which we crossed at intervals. The woods were well
suited to them, low and dense, and, as we saw, liable at times to
wear a livery whiter than their own.
The mice, too, how thick their tracks were, that of the white-footed
mouse being most abundant; but occasionally there was a much finer
track, with strides or leaps scarcely more than an inch apart. This
is perhaps the little shrew-mouse of the woods, the body not more
than an inch and a half long, the smallest mole or mouse kind known
to me. Once, while encamping in the woods, one of these tiny shrews
got into an empty pail standing in camp, and died before morning,
either from the cold, or in despair of ever getting out of the pail.
At one point, around a small sugar maple, the mice-tracks are
unusually thick. It is doubtless their granary ; they have beech-nuts
stored there, I'll warrant. There are two entrances to the cavity of
the tree,-one at the base, and one seven or eight feet up. At the
upper one, which is only just the size of a mouse, a squirrel has
been trying to break in. He has cut and chiseled the solid wood to
the depth of nearly an inch, and his chips strew the snow all about.
He knows what is in there, and the mice know that he knows; hence
their apparent consternation. They have rushed wildly about over the
snow, and, I doubt not, have given the piratical red squirrel a piece
of their minds. A few yards away the mice have a hole down into the
snow, which perhaps leads to some snug den under the ground. Hither
they may have been slyly removing their stores while the squirrel was
at work with his back turned. Once more night and he will effect an
entrance: what a good joke upon him if he finds the cavity empty!
These native mice are very provident, and, I imagine, have to take
many precautions to prevent their winter stores being plundered by
the squirrels, who live, as it were, from hand to mouth.
We see several fresh fox-tracks, and wish for the hound, but there
are no tidings of him. After half an hour's floundering and
cautiously picking our way through the woods, we emerge into a
cleared field that stretches up from the valley below, and just laps
over the back of the mountain. It is a broad belt of white that drops
down and down till it joins other fields that sweep along the base of
the mountain, a mile away. To the east, through a deep defile in the
mountains, a landscape in an adjoining county lifts itself up, like a
bank of white and gray clouds.
When the experienced fox-hunter comes out upon such an eminence as
this, he always scrutinizes the fields closely that lie beneath him,
and it many times happens that his sharp eye detects Reynard asleep
upon a rock or a stone wall, in which case, if he be armed with a
rifle and his dog be not near, the poor creature never wakens from
his slumber. The fox nearly always takes his nap in the open fields,
along the sides of the ridges, or under the mountain, where he can
look down upon the busy farms beneath and hear their many sounds, the
barking of dogs, the lowing of cattle, the cackling of hens, the
voices of men and boys, or the sound of travel upon the highway. It
is on that side, too, that he keeps the sharpest lookout, and the
appearance of the hunter above and behind him is always a surprise.
We pause here, and, with alert ears turned toward the Big Mountain in
front of us, listen for the dog. But not a sound is heard. A flock of
snow buntings pass high above us, uttering their contented twitter,
and their white forms seen against the intense blue give the
impression of large snowflakes drifting across the sky. I hear a
purple finch, too, and the feeble lisp of the redpoll. A shrike (the
first I have seen this season) finds occasion to come this way also.
He alights on the tip of a dry limb, and from his perch can see into
the valley on both sides of the mountain. He is prowling about for
chickadees, no doubt, a troop of which I saw coming through the wood.
When pursued by the shrike, the chickadee has been seen to take
refuge in a squirrel-hole in a tree. Hark! Is that the hound, or doth
expectation mock the eager ear? With open mouths and bated breaths we
listen. Yes, it is old "Singer;" he is bringing the fox
over the top of the range toward Butt End, the Ultima Thule of the
hunters tramps in this section. In a moment or two the dog is lost to
hearing again. We wait for his second turn; then for his third.
"He is playing about the summit," says my companion.
"Let us go there," say I, and we are off.
More dense snow-hung woods beyond the clearing where we begin our
ascent of the Big Mountain,-a chief that carries the range up several
hundred feet higher than the part we have thus far traversed. We are
occasionally to our hips in the snow, but for the most part the older
stratum, a foot or so down, bears us; up and up we go into the dim,
muffled solitudes, our hats and coats powdered like millers'. A
half-hour's heavy tramping brings us to the broad, level summit, and
to where the fox and hound have crossed and recrossed many times. As
we are walking along discussing the matter, we suddenly hear the dog
coming straight on to us. The woods are so choked with snow that we
do not hear him till he breaks up from the mountain within a hundred
yards of us.
"We have turned the fox!" we both exclaim, much put out.
Sure enough, we have. The dog appears in sight, is puzzled a moment,
then turns sharply to the left, and is lost to eye and to ear as
quickly as if he had plunged into a cave. The woods are, indeed, a
kind of cave,-a cave of alabaster, with the sun shining upon it. We
take up positions and wait. These old hunters know exactly where to stand.
"If the fox comes back," said my companion, "he will
cross up there or down here," indicating two points not twenty
rods asunder.
We stood so that each commanded one of the runways indicated. How
light it was, though the sun was hidden! Every branch and twig beamed
in the sun like a lamp. A downy woodpecker below me kept us a great
fuss and clatter,-all for my benefit, I suspected. All about me were
great, soft mounds, where the rocks lay buried. It was a cemetery of
drift boulders. There! that is the hound. Does his voice come across
the valley from the spur off against us, or is it on our side down
under the mountain? After an interval, just as I am thinking the dog
is going away from us along the opposite range, his voice comes up
astonishingly near. A mass of snow falls from a branch, and makes one
start; but it is not fox. Then through the white vista below me I
catch a glimpse of something red or yellow, yellowish red or reddish
yellow; it emerges from the lower ground, and, with an easy, jaunty
air, draws near. I am ready and just in the mood to make a good shot.
The fox stops just out of range and listens for the hound. He looks
as bright as an autumn leaf upon the spotless surface. Then he starts
on, but he is not coming to me, he is going to the other man. Oh,
foolish fox, you are going straight into the jaws of death! My
comrade stands just there beside that tree. I would gladly have given
Reynard the wink, or signaled to him, if I could. It did seem a pity
to shoot him, now he was out of my reach. I cringe for him, when
crack goes the gun! The fox squalls, picks himself up, and plunges
over the brink of the mountain. The hunter has not missed him aim,
out the oil in his gun, he says, has weakened the strength of his
powder. The hound, hearing the report, comes like a whirlwind and is
off in hot pursuit. Both fox and dog now bleed,-the dog at his heels,
the fox from his wounds. |
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In a few minutes there came up from under the mountain that long,
peculiar bark which the hound always makes when he has run the fox
in, or when something new and extraordinary has happened. In this
instance he said plainly enough, "The race is up, the coward has
taken to his hole, ho-o-o-le." Plunging down in the direction of
the sound, the snow literally to our waists, we were soon at the
spot, a great ledge thatched over with three or four feet of snow.
The dog was alternately licking his heels and whining and berating
the fox. The opening into which the latter had fled was partially
closed, and, as I scraped out and cleared away the snow, I thought of
the familiar saying, that so far as the sun shines in, the snow will
blow in. The fox, I suspect, has always his house of refuge, or knows
at once where to flee to if hard pressed. This place proved to be a
large vertical seam in the rock, into which the dog, on a little
encouragement from his master, made his way. I thrust my head into
the ledge's mouth, and in the dim light watched the dog. He
progressed slowly and cautiously till only his bleeding heels were
visible. Here some obstacle impeded him a few moments, when he
entirely disappeared and was presently face to face with the fox and
engaged in mortal combat with him. It is fierce encounter there
beneath the rocks, the fox silent, the dog very vociferous. But after
a time the superior weight and strength of the latter prevails and
the fox is brought to light nearly dead. Reynard winks and eyes me
suspiciously, as I stroke his head and praise his heroic defense; but
the hunter quickly and mercifully puts an end to his fast-ebbing
life. His canine teeth seem unusually large and formidable, and the
dog bears the marks of them in many deep gashes upon his face and
nose. His pelt is quickly stripped off, revealing his lean, sinewy form. |
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The fox was not as poor in flesh as I expected to see him, though
I'll warrant he had tasted very little food for days, perhaps for
weeks. How his great activity and endurance can be kept up, on the
spare die he must of necessity be confined to, is a mystery. Snow,
snow everywhere, for weeks and for months, and intense cold, and no
henroost accessible, and no carcass of sheep or pig in the
neighborhood! The hunter, tramping miles and leagues through his
haunts, rarely sees any sign of his having caught anything. Rarely,
though, in the course of many winters, he may have seen evidence of
his having surprised a rabbit or partridge in the woods. He no doubt
at this season lives largely upon the memory (or the fat) of the many
good dinners he had in the plentiful summer and fall.
As we crossed the mountain on our return, we saw at one point
blood-stains upon the snow, and, as the fox-tracks were very thick on
and about it, we concluded that a couple of males had had an
encounter there, and a pretty sharp one. Reynard goes-a-wooing in
February, and it is to be presumed that, like other dogs, he is a
jealous lover. A crow had alighted and examined the blood-stains, and
now, if he will look a little farther along, upon a flat rock he will
find the flesh he was looking for. Our hound's nose was so blunted
now, speaking without metaphor, that he would not look at another
trail, but hurried home to rest upon his laurels.
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