The Fox and the Hound (6 page)

He rose and trotted toward the noise. It had stopped now, and Tod hesitated, one foot upraised, snuffing the wind. It was against him, so he made a long circle to get downwind. As he loped along, a scent struck him that brought him up sharply, It was such a scent as he had never known. It was alien, uncanny, alarming, and yet as he inhaled it the pressure in his testes began to mount until it was almost unbearable. Tod ran back and forth, whining, snapping at the air in an agony of pain and fear, yet the odor drew him forward as though pulled by an invisible wire.

Agonized with suspicion, awe-stricken, furious with himself, Tod still crept closer, taking advantage of every bit of cover. The painfully exciting scent was now heavy in the air. There was a little glade ahead, and by the light of the full moon Tod saw something dart from the shadow of a tree into the even deeper shadow of laurel thicket. He dropped and lay waiting for it to reappear. Suddenly the squall came again, so close it made Tod start. The creature had stopped by the laurel, and was crying. Tod lay listening and watching, tom by conflicting emotions.

A night breeze swept through the grove, making air currents eddy. The squalling stopped. Tod knew the creature was aware of his presence; he knew because he could no longer wind it, and when he could not wind something, then the actions of creatures like the dog and the sheep had shown they could wind him. Also, the abrupt stopping of the squalling told him that the creature knew he was there. He was tempted to run, but did not dare reveal his presence or turn his back.

The creature came out of the shadows and approached him. Tod watched it come with apprehension tinged with interest. It was somewhat smaller than he was, which partly restored his confidence, and its motions were not belligerent; Tod's fine eyesight could detect the slightest motion of belligerency even more readily than he could tell the difference between one feeding dish and another. He rose to meet it.

The creature stopped, cringed, and began to whine. Tod studied it critically, checking with both nose and eyes. It had two odors: one was the strange, overpowering scent that had drawn him to the glade, and the other was the creature's personal scent. Tod gradually realized this scent was akin to his own. He was increasingly more interested, and advanced.

Suddenly there was an interruption. Another animal bounded into the glade. This stranger was fully as big as Tod, even slightly larger. It stopped short on seeing him. The vixen ran back and forth between them, whining and cringing.

The newcomer's attitude was surprised rather than aggressive, and he showed no sign of cringing. He approached Tod stiff-legged, and Tod, with many inner forebodings, came toward him in the same attitude. He vaguely realized now that both these animals were foxes and that the vixen was somehow different than he was, but whether this newcomer was a vixen or not, he did not know. Obviously the stranger was also in some doubt, for he kept his brush raised so the identifying scent from his anal glands could spread. Tod raised his brush, and the two gingerly circled each other head to tail, each trying to get a whiff of the other's anus.

Suddenly the newcomer bounded back. As he did so, Tod got a strong whiff of the stranger's anal glands. This was no vixen, but a dog fox like himself. The stranger had gotten his scent a moment before, and now there was no doubt of his belligerency. He snarled, his back humping and his head going down. Tod imitated him. Again they came together, still edging sideways toward each other, each guarding with his brush. The screams of the vixen increased in pitch and excitement.

The stranger hit Tod across the mask with his brush and then flung himself in for a hold, but Tod slapped his own brush into the open jaws and jumped clear. Again they circled each other while the vixen danced screaming around them. Tod tried to knock the stranger over by striking with his rump, but the older fox easily avoided the blow.

Tod was quite willing to retreat. Although the vixen's odor and behavior had attracted him, he was curious rather than lustful, and would have had little idea how to proceed even if this stranger had not arrived. The stranger was bigger and more determined than he was, and had it not been from fear of a rear attack, Tod would have fled. The stranger sensed his uncertainty and did not press home an attack. He wanted only to have Tod depart. Slowly the circling combatants edged away from each other and Tod would have retreated had not the vixen, still cringing, darted in, snapping right and left at both the males. The dog foxes were highly tense and this sudden attack infuriated them. In fact, in their keyed-up state they were not quite sure whether they had been attacked by the vixen or by each other. Screaming and hissing, they came together.

Tod reared up and pushed at the stranger with his forefeet to hold him off. The stranger likewise reared, and the two foxes stood on their hind legs with their forefeet pressed against each other's chests, snapping at each other. They toppled over and rolled on the ground, snapping and trying for a hold. The stranger slid under Tod, his forelegs folded under him, trying to seize him by the testes. He struck a stone, or Tod would have been finished. Tod managed to leap back barely in time. Furious as he was, he did not dare to close again, and ran to and fro, snarling. The stranger ignored him and turned to the vixen. She yielded with only a perfunctory struggle. While the mating took place Tod ran in circles, barking, snarling, and biting at the frozen ground in an agony of jealousy and frustration.

The pair left together, and though Tod followed them a short distance he soon gave it up and turned away. After that, he kept his ears tuned for another barking vixen, and sniffed the breeze hopefully when out hunting, but without results.

Slowly Tod gained a knowledge of the territory. His short height was always a major problem. For that reason, he liked to go from rise to rise, stopping to look around each time. He

preferred to trot along the edges of woods where he could see; but because he always felt nervous and exposed in open fields, he followed the fence lines or hedgerows. When he had to cross an open field, he generally ran. He often ran along the top of a post-and-rail fence where he could see a considerable distance; but this did not do him much good in establishing distant landmarks, for when he jumped down again he could no longer keep the faraway objects in view. So he traveled from marker to marker, such as a special gateway, a stump, a knoll, a certain tree, or a large stone, passing close to his marker yet not touching it. When he found a trail, a sheep path, or a wagon track, he followed that for convenience. As time went on, his route became routine and he seldom departed from it. His range was about a square mile, and although when hunting was poor he was forced to extend it, he always left the known territory with reluctance.

In running his route, he knew from experience exactly where all the likely game spots were, and carefully checked them. When he drew a blank and was forced to go into strange country, he ran about aimlessly, yet knowing enough to check each thicket, brush pile, or snowdrift around the base of a tree, as he had learned game often lay up in these places. In the woods he never passed a fallen tree without running along it or a stump without jumping on top. He did this partly so he could look around, but also because he liked climbing on objects simply for the fun of it.

Mice were his staple. Even with snow on the ground, he could scent a mouse tunnel, and would plunge his long nose into the snow to check. At first he dug up the tunnels, hoping to find the mice, but he soon found this was a waste of time. He could hear mice running through the tunnels several feet away, and he would give a great bound, land with his forefeet pressing down the tunnel on either side of the quarry, and bite between his paws blindly. Sometimes he got only a mouthful of leaves or snow, but often he got a mouse. Not only could he hear very faint sounds a surprising distance; he could also pinpoint the exact location of a nearby sound in an instant, but if a sound came from far away, he had considerable trouble locating the source, and was more inclined to depend on his nose than on his ears in such cases, by swinging downward to smell what was making the disturbance.

Rabbits were his favorite quarry. Mice he could swallow at a gulp, and there was really no great fun in capturing them. Rabbits were bigger, smarter, and gave him a real run. He liked the flesh better, and there was more of it. One rabbit would last him two or three days, yet he hunted them for the sport quite as much as for food.

One of his favorite rabbit grounds was an orchard where the rabbits came to strip the young trees when there was snow on the ground and other herbage was covered. Tod had first gone to the orchard looking for half-frozen windfalls, and discovered the rabbits by accident. Once he was aware of their presence, he took to circling the orchard first to get downwind and then coming in cautiously, often crawling catlike on his belly. On a straightaway the rabbits could outrun him; however, they usually tried to dodge around the trees, and Tod could turn faster than they could. The rabbits had burrows along the edge of the orchard, and this was another advantage for Tod. When a rabbit went down a hole, he had to hesitate for a split second at the mouth to get his way clear, and in this second Tod could often grab him. It was safer for a rabbit to plunge into a brier patch, for he could hit the brambles at any angle.

One afternoon when Tod was loping along his usual path that paralleled a fence, he saw cattle in the field, Tod stopped short to stare at them. The cattle had been in the barn most of the winter, and this was as the first time he had seen them. Curious as ever, Tod trotted over to investigate. The cons raised their heads to look at him. Tod, uncertain of his reception, ran from side to side, trying to make them panic as he had done the sheep. Instead, two heifers charged him. Their attack was so unexpected, Tod was nearly caught, and only by rapid clodging was he

able to escape. Even so, he returned again, fascinated by the huge creatures. He soon found that by moving slowly and keeping close to the ground he could pass right through the herd without the cattle paying any particular attention to him. He also found that even though the creatures were dangerous, they charged in a straight line and could be easily avoided. From then on, Tod frequently turned aside from his regular route to torment the cattle, dodging around them, snapping at their legs, and making them chase him. Then, merely to show his mastery of the dull brutes, he would stop, let them quiet down, and deliberately slink through the herd, pausing to lie down in the middle of them, and finally trotting off, his mouth open in his distinctive foxy grin of triumph.

That spring Tod also encountered dogs. They were farm dogs, mongrels without especially good noses, who liked to go hunting in the fields and woods, The first time Tod heard one of them on his trail he stopped, puzzled, and even waited for the animal; but one look at the oncoming dog speedily convinced him this baying creature meant him no good. He ran, mad with panic; and the dog, scenting the odor of fear when he came to the place in the trail where Tod had turned, burst into excited cries.

Tod followed his standard route automatically, even running along a fence rail at a spot where he usually jumped on top of the fence to look out across the valley. He did not stop to look today, racing along two sections of fence before dropping down to continue his wild flight. He started to pant and unconsciously slowed his gait. Then he realized the dog was no longer giving tongue. Tod stopped and, making a circle, cautiously swung around to study his back trail. He found the bewildered dog running up and clown the fence line, trying to pick up the broken trail. Tod lay silently watching him for a long time. The dog's behavior was sufficiently similar to his own actions when trying to find a lost line so that he realized what the dog was doing, just as he had been able to recognize gestures of friendship or play on the part of the terrier because they were basically the gestures a fox would use under the same circumstances. When the dog finally gave up, Tod trotted off thoughtfully. He knew now that the dog had been following him by his scent, as he followed the scent of a rabbit, and that by fence-running, he could throw the animal off. From then on, whenever he was chased by a dog he would follow his usual route to the fence, run along the top rails, and drop off. It did not immediately occur to him that any fence would do as well - he always went to the same spot - but slowly he picked up a repertoire of tricks to throw off dogs. Most of these tricks he learned by sheer chance, like the fence-running. Whenever the dog was at a loss, Tod memorized that particular spot and what he had done. He was not analytical. Once he threw off two dogs by running across a newly plowed field, and from then on he always cut across that field when chased. He could not understand why when wheat started to come up in the field the trick no longer worked and the dogs could follow him easily. However, he still continued to run the field because of the original success.

Tod was not entirely incapable of associating ideas. Once when a dog was after him Tod saw the cattle in the field and had an idea. He knew that the dog was comparatively clumsy, as the little terrier had been, and that the cattle would attack any large animal running carelessly among them. Tod turned off his usual route and ran across the field toward the cattle. When he drew close to them, he dropped and slunk forward among the grazing cons, worming his way into the middle of the herd. Then he turned so as to be able to watch his back track, and waited. In a few minutes the dog came racing along in full cry. Intent on the trail, he never lifted his head, and charged blindly toward the cattle. The cows bawled and turned toward him with lowered horns; nevertheless the dog kept on, A cow charged him, The startled dog was barely able to avoid her horns, and as he sprang aside another cow caught him and rushed him against the fence. Tod, sitting up to see better, watched the dog go flying into the air, yelping with pain and fright. Another cow caught the dog as he tried desperately to escape along the fence line. He finally managed to get away, and departed crying with pain while Tod bounded in the air to watch, dancing with delight and grinning until his jaws nearly met at the back of his neck. He was perfectly safe, for the cattle were watching the dog. Tod was so proud of himself and in such ecstasy at the success of his trick that he deliberately went looking for dogs thereafter to lure them into the field. He kept it up until every farm dog in the neighborhood learned to avoid the herd, to Tod's great disappointment.