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We have analysed a specimen of yellow Japanese brass and found Iron traces.

At the presence time brass is always obtained by founding only copper with zinc (without zinc ore.) Probably there are in Japan several varieties of brass with variable quantities of copper and zine. Some few weeks ago there were rumours current in the mercantile community that the old Japanese zeni (cash) contained a considerable quantity of gold. At the request of a mercantile firm we analysed two kinds of cash, one being 150 and the other 100 years old. We did not find a trace of gold, but on the contrary a considerable amount of impurities in them, consisting of sand and clay.

The oldest zeni contained:—

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text: Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan/Series 1/Volume 3/Part 1/Useful Minerals and Metallurgy of the Japanese (2)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 The general formal plan of The Dynasts has a distinct family relationship with that of Greek tragedy. As a trilogy it bears the same sort of resemblance to the classical form that a full-grown lion bears to a kitten. There is in it the same unity of theme and treatment, although greatly enlarged and complicated. Each part is complete in itself, like the separate Greek plays, and yet all three are indissolubly bound together by the absolute identity of the underlying theme and the philosophical background. Here Hardy is much closer to Æschylus than to either Sophocles or Euripides, because the elder dramatist felt the trilogy, and not the single play, as the essential dramatic unit. Nearly all the puzzling critical problems with which the Prometheus Bound is surrounded, and all the misconceptions which have grown up with regard to its ultimate ethical significance, would almost certainly be cleared up if its two companion-plays had come down to us. As the play stands, it is dramatically a small formal unit, but ethically a headless torso. It presents to the audience a truly remarkable, or complication, but hardly a shadow of a , or solution. As tragedy developed after Æschylus, as the importance of the chorus was diminished, as plays became longer because of the extra time thus given for the spoken dialogue itself, and as realism gradually crept in, the single play became the unit, and we find Euripides writing three almost independent plays. Æschylus might be said to have produced three-act tragedies; Euripides, cycles of loosely-connected one-act "social dramas." In its general form The Dynasts is Æschylean, while the works of Ibsen and of the manufacturers of the "well-


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 made play" are essentially Euripidean. It may remind the reader of the Shakespearean "chronicle-history" type—but "histories," from the lost Fall of Miletus on (which, according to Herodotus, caused an audience of Athenians to burst into tears), could nearly all come under the general heading of "tragedy." Hardy is closer to the Greeks than to modern writers in his lavish use of spectacle. The serious plays of to-day very rarely beguile their audiences with processions, pageants, armies, courts, or battles, but of these things the Greeks were very fond. They were naturally suggested also by the peculiar conditions of the vast open-air Dyonysiac theatre, built into the side of the Acropolis, and by the necessary processional entrance, choral evolutions, and exit of a large and stately chorus.

The function of the chorus when employed in a drama has never materially changed since the time of Æschylus. It has been called "the spectator idealized," but its greatest value, from the playwright's point of view, is that it enables him to reach the audience directly, and to permit the characters he has created to remain themselves. It is the instrument by which the dramatist relays what he considers to be the correct emotional or intellectual reaction to the audience. In The Dynasts the actors themselves merely act—they do not express the author's opinions, and the drama itself gains immensely in force thereby. The very individual interpretation of the significance of history is expressed solely through the "phantom intelligences" and their choruses.

Henry Newbolt has emphasized the differences between the choruses of The Dynasts and the Greek chorus


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 as definitely as they can be articulated at all. He points out that the "phantom intelligences" are not visibly embodied in the play, and are therefore unconditioned by it; and that the Greek chorus, as the spectator idealized, represents either the national spirit or the universal sympathy of human nature, whereas the choruses in The Dynasts represent the author alone, and his personal philosophy. It may also be claimed that Hardy's "Pities," "Years," and "Rumors" partake more of the character of the personified abstractions of the later mediaeval morality-plays than of the comparatively real persons of the Greek chorus. However, this is only partially true. That the representation of abstract qualities was not totally unknown, even in rather early Hellenic times, can be seen in the opening of the Prometheus, in which the unwilling Hephaestus is urged on to the ugly task of chaining the Titan to the rocks by the demons "Strength" and "Force."

Comparison of the various species of supernatural intelligences in The Dynasts with similar choruses in the extant work of Æschylus leads to interesting results. There is a remarkable parallelism between Hardy's "Pities" and the chorus of Ocean Nymphs in the Prometheus, who, because of their sympathy with the suffering Titan, voluntarily suffer all his agonies with him. Both choruses are distinguished by an incomparable beauty of conception. Both are composed of minor divinities in their authors' pantheons, and are intensely human in their feelings. With their essentially tender natures subjected to a heartrending strain, they display an unconquerable loyalty to ideals, although such loyalty involves,


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 in both cases, a revolt against the arbitrary and omnipotent power by which the universe is ruled. They thus squarely meet the severest test of true courage, and are embodiments of a most wonderful symbolic conception: that of infinite heroism coupled with infinite pity.

The Spirit and chorus of the Years may remind one of the chorus of the Argive elders in the Agamemnon, although certain differences immediately become evident. A somewhat better study could perhaps be made by comparing the "Spirits Sinister and Ironic" with the Eumenides in the play of that name. Here, however, the Greek conception is much more physical, barbaric, and unrestrained, although what we might call "intellectual savagery" is not wanting in Hardy's demons. Then, too, no hint is given as to the possible material representation of Hardy's "Intelligences," whereas we are fairly familiar, through accurate and very suggestive descriptions, with the images that were conjured up before the minds of the Athenians by the divinities of Æschylus, however crudely they may have been represented in the primitive theatre of his time.

The question of adequate theatrical presentation of the ideas treated by both writers brings us to a battlefield of art and criticism already torn and devastated by the scorching missiles of many a controversy. Let it be admitted at the outset that both dramatists are guilty of transcending infinitely in their works the mechanical stage limitations of their times. The dramas of Æschylus were in the first place conceived for the stage, however, and not for readers of literature, and the performances of them seem to have satisfied their audiences.


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 The history of the drama shows that there is almost no limit to the imagination of an audience, if properly coaxed, in supplying the deficiencies of the theatre. Let us consider for a moment the stage-problem which the Prometheus must have presented in its day. The scene is a gigantic cleft or rock in the most desolate part of Scythia. Against this rock the Titan is suspended, nailed and bound in "indissoluble fetters of adamantine bonds." Later come the winged ocean nymphs, Oceanus himself, with his car drawn by hippogriffs, the mad heifer-maiden Io, and finally the god Hermes. Realistic presentation of such scenes is manifestly impossible, even to-day. How it was managed in the crude theatre of Æschylus must remain a source of conjecture. It is obviously a futile thing, then, to condemn the dramatic form of The Dynasts on the grounds of its impossibility as a stage-play. No play can be given with complete realism, and it is a difficult thing to set a definite limit beyond which the author must not tax the imagination. Neither the Prometheus nor the Eumenides, nor the Dynasts is a real stage-play, yet all of these have been acted with success, winning their audience by means of their inherent dramatic power and effectiveness. The Greeks did not seem to mind the fact that in the Prometheus the rock was possibly represented by some kind of wicker-work and Prometheus himself by a huge dummy, as has been conjectured, and the London audiences seem to have accepted gladly Granville Barker's ingenious conventional representation of the many dramatic "absurdities" of The Dynasts. Aristotle, with whom it is always a pleasure to agree in such things, has himself said that the


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 power of tragedy should be felt apart from representation and actors.

The production of The Dynasts in abbreviated form at the Kingsway Theatre, London, on November 25, 1914, forms a rather unique paragraph in English stage history. It is the story of an unplayable play made playable. Hardy had already tentatively suggested in the Preface, that a performance some day might be made possible by the use of a "monotonic delivery of speeches, with dreamy conventional gestures, something in the manner traditionally maintained by the old Christmas mummers . . . with gauzes or screens to blur the outlines . . . and shut off the actual." This suggestion despite the rather apologetic manner in which it was thrown out, drew a small storm of ridicule from the reviewers, as might have been expected. Yet the actual performance proved "a success no less delightful than unlikely." A special prologue and epilogue were added by Hardy for this performance. The prologue is as follows:


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This is the epilogue:

The prose commentary was assigned to a reader, and such lyric passages as were retained were delivered by two stately "muses." It is interesting thus to find the most feasible way of dealing with the chorus-matter to be by means of the Elizabethan induction machinery. The stage itself was also handled in Elizabethan fashion, with an inner stage for "scenes," while only properties were used on the main stage. What this performance chiefly served to bring out, besides the possibility of presenting the poem on the stage at all, was the intense dramatic quality of the scenes. At the same time, this production did not attempt, nor did it achieve, the im-


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 possible. The inevitable shortcoming of any conceivable possible performance of The Dynasts is the manifest impossibility to do adequate justice to the remarkable expression of the author's philosophy as found in the work. Nearly all of the passages recited by the muses are reported to have been taken from the sections allotted to the "Pities." Although we can imagine the effect of this procedure to have been very satisfactory, the probability is that the poem suffered a total loss of the great spiritual conflict presented by the supernatural creations of the author, which in the reading overshadows and dominates the whole of the terrestrial action. We are told in the poem that the speech of mortals should sound rather thin when heard in comparison with the chantings of the divinities. In a production where, we are told, the "Immanent Will" is hardly mentioned at all, and then only near the close, the loss of philosophical unity must have been considerable. "The vast sweep of the poem," Mr. Harold Child says, "its poetic unity, its infinite variety, its mystery and majesty, in fact all the bigness of it—these were lost. The proportions were destroyed. Man became huge and the heavens were tucked away in corners."

Scenic impossibilities have been overcome by both Æschylus and Thomas Hardy by the simplest of all means, the use of description. When the ancient dramatist cannot have the scene he wishes placed before the physical eye of his audience, he presents it to the mind's eye by letting one of the dramatis personæ describe it. This is true of the description of the setting of the Prometheus, and of the Battle of Salamis, which is re-


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 ported by messenger in The Persians. Hardy's manner of portraying battles is essentially the same, except that he lets the stage directions or "dumb show" tell the story which the Athenians would have heard narrated by the messenger. In both dramatists these descriptions are intensely vivid and effective. In The Dynasts there is nothing which surpasses the following passage, dealing with the close of the Battle of Waterloo:

The reds disappear from the sky, and the dusk grows deeper. The action of the battle degenerates into a hunt, and recedes further and further into the distance southward. When the tramplings and shouts of the combatants have dwindled, the lower sounds are noticeable that come from the wounded: hopeless appeals, cries for water, elaborate blasphemies, and impotent execrations of Heaven and hell. In the vast and dusky shambles black slouching shapes begin to move, the plunderers of the dead and dying.

The night grows clear and beautiful, and the moon shines musingly down. But instead of the sweet smell of green herbs and dewy rye as at her last shining upon these fields, there is now the stench of gunpowder and a muddy stew of crushed crops and gore.

Who could wish to exchange this terrible and pitiful picture for even the most beautiful stage-set that can be contrived? The reader is reminded of a few lines in The Persians whose similarity, in idea and expression, to the close of many of Hardy's battle-scenes is unmistakable. Both poets seem to have been acutely affected by the mingled horror and beauty of a moonlight night following a battle. The very words of Æschylus cannot fail to associate the two authors together immediately:


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 miral to the cabin-boys. Both poets also use the great national watchwords and battlecries, Hardy quoting with great effect Nelson's famous signals to his fleet, and Æschylus putting lines into the mouth of the messenger that must have drawn out all the enthusiasm the Athenians were capable of expressing on the occasion of their solemn dramatic and religious festival. Opposed to the small, confident, and high-spirited bodies we see in the one case the imperfect amalgam of French and Spanish units, under the leadership of the tragically hopeless and vacillating Admiral Villeneuve, and in the other, the vast conglomeration of Persian and countless other barbarian vessels arrayed in all their exotic and decadent splendor. In the portrayal of the losing side in both instances, we receive a vision of oriental power, pomp, and magnificence, touched with a characteristically oriental note of sadness and fatalism. Although there was as little doubt as to the outcome in the minds of the Greek audience as there is to modern readers of The Dynasts, yet the suspense is admirably sustained by both poets, and the parallel scenes can be read again and again, and retain their fascination undiminished.

Heroic characters in The Dynasts and in Æschylean tragedy present a series of most interesting Plutarchian studies and comparisons. Napoleon, as the great central figure of the modern epic-drama demands our first attention, although Mr. Abercrombie makes the very suggestive observation that the whole Napoleonic chronicle occupies a position in Thomas Hardy's work analogous to that of the single character of Prometheus in Prometheus Bound. Hardy undoubtedly set out to present Napoleon


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 as the undisguised villain in the great tragedy of nations. This aspect of his character is the first to come to mind, and presents a direct parallel to the treatment of Xerxes in The Persians. Both are imperialists and militarists par excellence, and they go the way of all militarists in an age of budding democracy. They arouse no pity and little sympathy as their careers are unfolded, except when we get premonitory hints of the doom in store for them. At the end, however, they present truly tragic figures of fallen greatness, and commiseration is no longer withheld. Viewed in this light, Bonaparte ceases to be the pure villain and becomes, like Agamemnon, the tragic hero of the drama and the champion of his own hopeless cause against the unfeeling and resistless hand of Destiny. This impression is the one with which we are left as Napoleon makes his final appearance after Waterloo. On the other hand, instances of villainy and blackheartedness are not wanting in the poem. It is only necessary to call to mind his desertion of the remnant of the army retreating out of Russia, treated in what is perhaps the most gruesome scene in the work, and his brutal treatment of Josephine.

If Napoleon as villain and hero resembles Xerxes and Agamemnon, there is still another aspect in which he is more like the Titan Prometheus, who was gifted with foresight beyond gods and men. He often spoke of his star, and this recognition of himself as a child of Destiny makes him peculiarly fitted for a living exponent of Hardy's ideas. Both Prometheus and Bonaparte realize and advocate the claims of a higher unalterable Law against the prevailing notion of an omnipotent and be-


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 nevolent Personality. As Æschylus does not hesitate to declare that Zeus himself would come to grief if he disobeyed the predestined Law, so Napoleon's Promethean vision is clearly set forth in the most critical moments of his career, at the opening of the Russian campaign and at Waterloo, where he declares himself to be moved "by laws imposed on me exorably!"

Again the female characters in The Dynasts may be compared with the women of classical tragedy. The weak and altogether pathetic figures of the two empresses, Josephine and Marie, represent the characteristic Greek attitude towards women, as childlike, rather "no-account" people.

They are in effect the only real puppets in the work, and in themselves exercise almost no influence over the main action. Essentially futile, also, is the character of Queen Louisa of Prussia. Except for his rather sentimental treatment of these women (the deathbed scene of Josephine exceeds almost anything in the novels for sheer pathos), Hardy is more typically Hellenic in his rigid subordination of female characters than is Æschylus himself. The fifty suppliant-maids, Antigone, Ismene, Atossa and perhaps also Cassandra, represent the types we expect to find in Greek tragedy and in classical literature in general, but there are no parallels in The Dynasts for the strength of will exhibited by Electra, and more particularly by Clytemnestra.

The supernatural plays a large role in most of Æschylus's tragedies and in The Dynasts. Both poets display a temperament taking a keen and naïve delight in playing with all the old machinery and tinsel belonging to the realm of the ghost-story. Dramatic use of prophecies,


text: Trade Unions in Soviet Russia/The All Russia Agricultural Workers Union


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 premonitions, ominous happenings, and similar astrological "business" is not disdained by either. There are no old-fashioned, frank, outspoken ghosts in The Dynasts, as there are in The Eumenides and The Persians, except for their occasional appearance in visions, such as the apparition of the Duke of Enghien to Napoleon before Waterloo. Both the "Shade of Darius" and the "Ghost of Clytemnestra" are invoked by Æschylus at opportune moments and act their parts without the scene to lose either dignity or dramatic effect. The same is not completely true of the scene in The Dynasts in which an enamel portrait of Marie Antoinette falls down on its face as Marie Louise of Austria consents to become Napoleon's wife. It is very dexterously explained, however, as having been caused by a natural shudder of the "Shade of the Earth" upon hearing the news. Cassandra's incoherent and blood-curdling prophecy before and during the murder of Agamemnon is paralleled by the visions and premonitions of the spirits created by Hardy. On the day of Sir John Moore's death, for instance, the Spirit of the Pities has a vision of his monument in the Garden of San Carlos.

If the excitation of the emotions of fear and pity in the audience is regarded as the ultimate aim of all tragedy, it will readily be seen how this requirement is satisfied by Hardy. At the first glance it may seem that the element of fear is stronger in Æschylus while that of pity is the dominant note in all of Hardy's work. But we must not forget the pathos of The Suppliants, of Prometheus, and of The Persians in our admiration for the skill with which the atmosphere of impending doom is evoked


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Bradley Quality Books

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 low, Captain Abraham Pannell Commander; with whom I continued three years and a half, making a voyage or two into the Levant, and ome other parts. When I came back, I reolved to ettle in London; to which Mr. Bates, my Mater, encouraged me, and by him I was recommended to everal Patients. I took part of a mall Houe in the Old Jury; and being advied to alter my condition, I married Mrs. Mary Burton, econd Daughter to Mr. Edmund Burton Hoier, in Newgate-Street, with whom I received four hundred Pounds for a Portion.

, my good Mater Bates dying in two Years after, and I having few Friends, my Buines began to fail; for my Concience would not uffer me to imitate the bad Practice of too many among my Brethren. Having therefore conulted with my wife, and ome of my Acquaintance, I determined to go again to Sea. I was Surgeon ucceively in two Ships. and made everal Voyages, for ix Years,


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Nearly all animal biographies are composite—that is, the life of the particular animal represented, is made up from facts drawn from many sources.

The naturalist very carefully collects all his own experiences with the special species and all those of his friends, as well as those of other writers in whom he has confidence. So all the authors' friends among hunters, trappers and woodsmen contribute to the story, the aim being to keep the story well within the known facts. In this way the author is enabled to give the reader a complete picture of the life of the animal under all conditions. Hence, it goes without saying, in describing the life of the animal by this composite method, more adventures befall the particular animal hero, than would ordinarily under normal conditions, but probably not many more than might befall an exceptional animal hero of the species.

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 For there is great difference in animals, just as there is in folks. The lives of some people are drab and uninteresting, while others are colorful and full of adventure. So the Red Fox whose fortunes we follow in these pages is a fox born to adventure and narrow escapes, but none of his adventures are impossible in the life of a common red fox, who uses his wits and fights the battle of life as only a fox can.

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Probably there is no more cunning, or clever, wild animal in the entire domain of nature, than the ordinary red fox, who, by the way is not ordinary, but very extraordinary, in his native ability and habits of life.

He has lived so long within the domain of man, and often in thickly settled country, and has so long fought his enemies, both boy, and man, and dog, and fought the fight against guns, traps, and poison, that he would long ago have perished off the earth had not his wits been of the keenest, and his fleetness very remarkable as well.

So skilful is the fox in evading those who would get a glimpse of him, that nine tenths of the people who live upon his range, have never seen him in the wild, although he may frequent the farm daily, or even occasionally

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 trot down the main village street in the small hours of the early morning.

The fox about which I am going to write, and the one which is most familiar to my readers, is the Red Fox, whose range is throughout the northern part of the United States and Canada.

His color is a variety of shades of red, and rarely are two red foxes marked alike.

Although the novice seeing the fox at a distance would say that he is as large as a fair sized dog, yet when he is stripped of his long warm coat, he is the slightest built animal that I know of. The very lankiest greyhound is heavy and cumbersome compared with him. His little legs which carry him for hours over the roughest country, keeping him out of the reach of hounds which weigh five times as much as he does, are no larger than a lead pencil. His head which holds such a fertile brain, is fairly snakey, while his greatest girth is not much more than a man's wrist.

There is not an ounce of fat on him. His muscles are like whipcord.

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 He thinks like lightning, and then acts like chain lightning.

In a fight with a dog he always draws the first blood, and although he is no match for a gritty dog when cornered, yet he often beats off dogs several times his size, by his shear grit and seeming fearlessness.

The fox that is most closely associated with red fox is his first cousin, the cross fox. His range is throughout western British Columbia, and Alaska, and also in Utah and Idaho. Cross fox is a cross between the red fox and the black fox.

He has a dark colored cross on his shoulders, a steel gray body and head, a big black tail with a snow white tip, and black legs.

The swift fox is the smallest of all the foxes, and probably not much swifter than the rest of the family. He is found on the great plains of the Rio Grande up to Saskatchewan, and his color is a beautiful silver gray with a tinge of yellow.

The Arctic fox is snow white during the cold months, while in the summer he is some-

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 in the Agamemnon. Nor does the motif of terror play any minor part in The Dynasts. Perhaps the acme of "fear" of the usual tragic kind is reached in the presentation of the retreat of the Grand Army from Moscow through Lithuania and over the Beresina. There are not many effects that can equal the horror of the mad soldiers' song found in this section of the work. Aside from scenes of a similar nature, it will be observed that a note of terror is the ground-tone of the whole trilogy—and a deeper terror by far than any mere fear for the fate of the characters in a play could possibly inspire—a terror at the complete abandonment of the whole human race to its unknown and sinister destiny. It is a terror that strikes us all, concerns each individual personally, and all that he loves most in the world. The Dynasts was intended by its author not as an illusive stage-spectacle, but as a drama wherein we can see ourselves most nearly concerned. And Hardy at certain inspired moments can present it in its most ghastly aspects with overwhelming sincerity. No human feeling is quite so terrible as that of utter helplessness in the face of the unknown. But just as in reading Æschylus, one cannot emerge from the tremendous experience which a surrender of one's self to the charm of the work amounts to, without feeling that a genuine betterment and enlargement of the soul have taken place. As Mr. Abercrombie has put it:


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 times brown. He ranges the farthest north of all the foxes. He is often found well above the Arctic circle.

The blue fox is the most tractable of all the foxes, and has been successfully raised on the islands of Behring Sea, where there are forty companies raising blue foxes merely for pelts. He can be easily caught in a wire box trap, and then tamed and handled almost as freely as one would a dog.

Yet the blue fox is the homeliest of all this beautiful family. His ears are short cropped, and his head is rounder than other foxes while his countenance is covered with bristly hair, giving him a grotesque appearance.

The white fox of the south is another member of the fox family.

But black fox, who ranges through Saskatchewan and British Columbia, and all through Alaska, is the most important of all. Think of wearing a coat worth nearly three thousand dollars and having men and boys, with traps, poison, and guns, all after

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 it. It is certainly a case of being cumbered with a priceless possession.

The black fox is also called the silver gray, because the tips of his hair are usually just touched with silver, which makes him sometimes look silver gray.

This rare fellow is also being successfully raised for the market, and many men whom I know, have made fortunes raising this wonderful animal.

But be the fox red, cross, black or white, he always retains certain fox characteristics. He is always that nimble witted fleet fellow who fights the battle of life as only a fox can, and always gives a good account of himself, from his own point of view.

Not only is he fleet and beautiful, as well as swift and cunning, but in many ways he so nearly approaches the way of man, that the adjective "foxy" is very often applied to man, meaning a resourceful, quick witted man, one who always takes advantage of all the breaks in the game.

One of the most beautiful scenes in the wilderness, and one that many woodsmen

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 have not seen, is to behold a fox, standing with one forepaw partly lifted, with his head cocked on one side, his tail partly curled about his hind quarters, listening for mice in the grass. This picture is the last word in wild life.

From Æsop down, men have told of the wit and wisdom of the fox, and their praise has not gone to his head, nor dulled his wits, for he still carries on amid the haunts of his worst enemy, man. He barks defiance at the farm dog from a distant wall, and eludes him usually as a rabbit would a tortoise.

Some men and boys always shoot at him when they get sight of him, but for my part, I rather admire this clever freebooter, who flaunts his beautiful brush in the very face of man, and still wears it to the end of the chapter.

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T was Springtime in the woods. Not the full tide of Spring, but late April, when all the forces of nature were feeling out their powers. Life was stirring and stretching in its sleep, just as it does before the full awakening.

There were no leaves on the trees, but just a faint ghostly shimmer in the poplars and white birches, and a touch of red in the soft maple. But under last year's dead leaves life was still more apparent, for in every warm corner, adder tongues, partridge berries, and wintergreen leaves were starting into new life. But there was a look to the bark on all the trees which was still more telltale to the eye of the woodsman. It had

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 lost the pale ghostly grays of midwinter, and there was a vitality and flush to all the colors that suggested life that tingled and rioted just beneath the outer bark.

All of the wood folks also were astir, the crows were cawing lustily, and the woodpeckers were pounding away as though this beautiful Spring morning had given a new zest to their appetites, and they had got to work hard for the morning meal.

There was life also at the entrance to the den in the spruces, for Mother Fox had just come out to see how the morning went, and to see if she could discover anything of her lord, the great hunter, for the four blind fox pups in the den pulled heavily upon her strength and substance, and her appetite this morning was like that of the proverbial wolf.

The first thing that she did on coming out into the open was to stretch and get the kinks out of her muscles. There was not as much room in the den for her as there had been before the whelps came. She had to be careful and not lie upon them, so she of-

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 ten sustained a cramped position for hours. Her mate was not allowed in the den while the pups were still unweaned, but even so, the den was often cramped.

If Mr. Fox even dared to poke his head in at the burrow to see how things were going, he was promptly invited to get out. This was not because he might have killed the pups as a tomcat will often do with kittens before their eyes are open, but just a bit of jealous mother love, which would not suffer anyone but herself to care for these small wriggling woolly things, that would some day be real full grown foxes.

After stretching and yawning until it would seem as though her jaw would be put out of joint, Mother Fox looked about amid the darkening shadows of the ancient woods. With her keen yellow eyes she searched out every dark thicket, but there was no game in sight, not even a wood mouse. So she sat down upon her haunches to wait for the mighty hunter.

Half an hour before daylight he had arisen from a deep thicket where he had

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 slept during the night in the top of a fallen spruce, and started for the river to see if he could bag a muskrat for Mrs. Fox's morning meal.

He knew just how hungry she was, because his own appetite was as keen as a razor. It seemed that his stomach fairly ached with hunger, and the sight of an occasional bird which he discovered in the treetops made saliva drip from his jaws.

He went at a steady dog trot until he came within perhaps a score of rods of the creek, then he tested the wind to see what direction it was. Muskrats were not so very keen of scent, but a good hunter never stalked his quarry down the wind, it is against good hunting instincts.

If you have a good rule always stick to it. Mr. Fox discovered that he would be hunting in the teeth of the wind, which was just a morning zephyr. That was good, so he began creeping slowly towards the creek. For the last hundred feet, he went almost upon his belly, keeping behind bunches of weeds, and clumps of alders, which fringed

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 the creek's bank. Finally, after fifteen minutes of careful manœuvering, he gained the position he wanted.

It was within about forty feet of a large muskrat house which was situated at the point of a promontory that jutted out into the stream. This house was the abode of a large family, and Mr. Fox had bagged more than one of its members. The muskrats were not very careful to protect themselves, and they did not long remember these hard lessons. This was probably because the children were so numerous and came so often. When there are four litters a year, averaging eight at a time, children are not so precious, as they might otherwise be.

If one had glanced casually at the river bank he might possibly have made out partly hidden in the underbrush, what at first he would have decided was the end of an old log, it looked so lifeless. But had he possessed the eyes of a woodsman, he would have seen that it was the mighty hunter. He was stretched out at full length, with his head between his paws, seemingly asleep.

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 Yet he was far from sleeping, for his two hungry yellow eyes were glued upon the conical muskrat house at the point of land in the stream. Not a movement in the entire scene escaped him. Also his keen nostrils were sifting the morning air, for the first faint scent of the rats.

For half an hour he lay there, without moving so much as a muscle. A less patient hunter would have become discouraged and gone in search of other quarry, but not so the red fox. He knew that patience is the hunter's long suit, so he watched and waited.

At last his patience was rewarded, for a sleek young muskrat, nearly grown, came slowly out of the house and looked warily about him. He too was hungry, and he wanted to see if he could find some roots along the shore which were to his taste. Slowly he ventured forward, looking this way and that. Did Mr. Fox make a dash and try to catch the rat before he should return to his house? Not he, he would wait and make sure of his prey. He would let

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 the rat get so far from home that he could get between him and his refuge. Then he would make his dash.

For fifteen minutes the cunning hunter waited. Finally the unsuspecting rat was in just the right position. He was too far from the house to get back, and not too close to the water. Reynard would not go into the water after him if he could help it, besides there was a fair chance that the rat could escape if he once got to the water. So Mr. Fox waited until the rat had turned his head, and was busy feeding, then he crept slowly forward, and made the final dash, which consisted of two or three quick springs. There was a frightened squeak from the rat, and a quick rush for the creek, but before that safety zone was reached, the fox's powerful jaws had closed over the rat's back, and with a sudden crunch his back was broken.

Then the proud hunter picked up the rat and started for his den in the spruces. He made all haste as he knew his mate was hungry, and waiting for her breakfast.

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 Proudly the hunter laid the kill down at the ravenous mother fox's feet, and himself drew back until she should have had her breakfast. He would not have tried to get a portion of the rat had she chosen to eat it all. She fell upon the muskrat with great fury, and ripped it ruthlessly and savagely. At last, she stepped back, and in fox language, indicated that her lord might help himself, which he proceeded to do without a second invitation.

Finally the mother fox went back into the den to suckle the whelps, and the old fox went to the meadow to hunt for mice. His portion of the rat had been small, and he was still hungry.

Meadow mice were a much choicer dainty than muskrat, and he wanted to take good care of his family in the spruces during the critical period.

The pups at this time were simply four small balls of woolly fur. They would keep this woolly coat for three or four months, until they shed their puppy coat. But even at this stage of their existence the young

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 foxes had some of the fox characteristics.

Another muskrat hunt Mr. Fox had which was not so successful, and it nearly cost him his own life. The Red Hunter had gone to find Mrs. Fox's breakfast. The hunting had been rather lean for the past two days, and Mrs. Fox was fairly ravenous, as she was indirectly feeding the four pups. The Red Hunter had himself gone almost entirely without food so that she might have more.

So this morning he went very early to the creek, and took up his favorite position in a clump of bushes near to the muskrat house. The rats had become rather shy, but he felt that his patience would again be rewarded.

The water was very high, and there was another hunter abroad on that fine morning. This was none other than Bud Holcome, and he was out hunting muskrats. He was following along the creek on the other side from the muskrat house, carrying in the hollow of his arm a twenty-two rifle. His favorite gun.

Now, while Bud was looking for musk-

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 rats, yet he was not averse to bagging a fine fox. The rat's skin might be worth two or three dollars, but a fox's such as that the Red Hunter wore was worth at least twenty-five.

It was mere accident that the boy discovered the fox crouched in the bushes. At first he thought it an old log, and he had to look for a long time before he satisfied himself.

Even then he would not have been sure had not the fox moved his head slightly. This was enough for Bud. Here was such hunting as he had not even dreamed of in his wildest moments, so he snapped the rifle to his shoulder, and took a hurried aim. He was so excited, and the fox skin looked like such a great prize to him, that he did not take pains enough with his aim, otherwise the fox family would have lost their hunter that morning.

But as it was, the bullet struck the fox a glancing blow just over the eye, and glanced off his skull, although it cut a bad gash, and

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 for a few moments his vision faded and everything looked black to him.

Then in a flash it cleared, and he saw the boy on the further side of the creek again pointing the deadly thunder stick at him. He knew firearms full well. Several times in the course of his adventurous life he had heard this dread sound, and had carried away small pellets in his fur, so now the Red Hunter broke from cover and ran for his life. As he bolted he kept such cover as he could between himself and the boy.

Bang, went the small rifle again, and the bullet kicked up some sand between the flying fox's feet. Bang again, and this time the bullet struck ten feet behind him. The boy was miscalculating the speed of the flying fox. Out and in he zigzagged, all the time making for the deep woods on the bluffs above. In almost less time than it takes to tell the fox was out of sight, leaving the boy rubbing his eyes, and wondering how he had missed him three times.

But Mr. Fox thought he had come close

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It has already been mentioned that the main sources of inspiration for both writers were similar—that they both looked to the immediate historical past of their nations and found there a chronicle of glorious deeds worthy to be immortalized. Both poets wrote from the standpoint of the winning side and both believed they were recording the defeat of a vaunting and unjustified despotism. With all their intense nationalism, however, neither of them failed to be actuated at times with the keenest pity for their fallen or vanquished enemies. In The Persians the note of triumph of the Greeks is almost completely submerged in the pity and horror at the misfortunes of the oriental nation. The essential identity, both of intention and of effect achieved by both writers can be best observed in a comparison of the wonderfully vivid and gripping description of the Battle of Salamis in The Persians with Hardy's justly admired picture of the Battle of Trafalgar, in which the progress of the struggle is told in the "stage-directions" or the "dumb show." Striking superficial similarities are not lacking. Both battles show the victory of a small but compactly organized and trained naval force of a single nation over a large and unwieldy combination of ships of various nationalities. The Greeks and the English are both inflamed with a fervent patriotism and love of the democratic institutions they defend—and this spirit is in both cases represented as inspiring every man, from the ad-


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 enough. He had a bad gash over his eye, and his head throbbed from the blow upon his skull. He went to the spring, and, thrusting his nose deep in the water, cooled his throbbing head. Finally, after a couple of hours, he went back to his hunting, but he did not go to the creek again for several weeks, and even then he took great precautions.

For five or six weeks Mother Fox nursed the pups in the den, while Father Fox hunted for the entire family. He was very persistent in his hunting, and usually brought home game.

During all this time, he did not venture into the den, but each day laid his kill at his mate's feet at the mouth of the den. But he always slept in the spruces nearby, and the mother fox knew if she had need of him, he could usually be found close at hand, for when he was not hunting, he was on guard.

Finally, one bright morning, early in June, a change came over the life of the burrow.

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 The foxes were getting so active and so playful, and it was so hard to keep them straight in the burrow, that it had been decided to introduce them to the great world outside. The entire fox family was to have its coming out.

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HERE was much excitement in the spruces on that momentous morning, when the fox pups were first brought forth into the great wide world. That is, the mother fox was excited and the pups caught the excitement from her. Her excitement was due to the fact that she was to bring forth into the world, the four small fuzzy balls of foxhood, which she had begun to love more than her own life. She had fed and cared for them for six weeks, and each day they had become dearer to her, just as the human babies do to their mothers.

Now the battle was to begin between the cruel world, with its many lurking dangers, and the wilderness babies. A battle where no quarter was to be given, and where only one very bad mistake might end fatally.

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 Father Fox had gone very early to hunt in the meadow for mice, so Mother Fox had dined upon her favorite breakfast half an hour before she brought forth her family.

Then Father Fox scoured the country for half a mile around in every direction to see if the range was free of all their enemies so far as he could discover. Of course there were enemies that no vigilance could guard against. A great owl might swoop down from a thick treetop and snatch up a small fox in the twinkling of an eye. So silently he might come that not even the sharpest ear could hear his coming.

This is because his wings are fringed with down so he can approach his prey silently. Not even a fox's alertness might prevent such a calamity as that. But such possibilities were among the regular chances which the wild creatures had to take. They were as cunning and watchful as they might well be, and for the rest, well, that was left to fate, or the Guardian of the wild creatures.

To all the fox family life was a great game. The stakes were life itself. One

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 killed or was killed, as fate might will, and one did what one could, to be on the winning side.

When the four little balls of woolly fur were finally pushed out into the light of day, a wonderful sight burst upon their eyes. A sight that made them blink and wink, and scurry back into the burrow as fast as they could. Then, one by one, they came creeping back into the daylight. Hitherto they had been used to the semi-darkness of the burrow, but here was a great wide new world all strange and shimmering, full of new sights and smells. The only smell that they had known before was the rather pungent, musty fox odor of the burrow, but here were all sorts of smells, and how they did revel in them.

They went snuffing and poking about in the dead leaves, and among the new weeds and ferns, half afraid and very curious.

Each new and unfamiliar sound sent them scuttling back to the burrow, and if the sound was very pronounced they went scurrying down into the darkness where they

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 felt quite safe. But they would always come back again. The outside was so strange and so alluring.

It was a wonderful morning. Birds were singing in the treetops, and the woods were full of the sounds of joyous life. Crows were cawing in the distance, and a woodpecker was pounding on a dead tree only a few rods away. All of these sounds made the little foxes cock their small ears and look very alert.

They stayed out only two or three hours that first day, but it was the beginning of such glorious times. Days full of bright sunshine, and sweet smelling odors, days of wonderful frolics. For the small foxes were always playing. Usually it was a sort of "tag" game. One would pick up a bit of wood, or perhaps some feather, or bit of skin left over from the morning breakfast and run with it, and all the others would try to catch the playful one and get the coveted morsel away from him.

This play very soon grew into sham fights, and gradually developed that real fighting

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 spirit which is the mainspring of the very existence of wild life.

One of their best playthings was Mother's tail. They would catch hold of it and pull and pull, or even allow her to drag them about while their puppy teeth sank deeply into the woolly substance.

But as they grew larger and their teeth became sharper and their jaws stronger, Mother Fox insisted that they give up this play. This she indicated by several sharp nips when the play became too wearing.

Even at this early stage in the development of the pups they were quite different, both in size, markings and general characteristics.

The very largest of the entire litter was a perfectly marked red fox, so I shall call him "Redcoat." He was dark red above and lighter red on the belly, where it approached yellow. The next in size was almost as large as Redcoat, but he was a perfect cross fox. Cross foxes sometimes occur in the red fox litters, and red foxes in the cross fox litters.

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 The smallest of the litter was also another perfect-red fox, and we will call him "Little Brother," while the fourth was a female, with a generous sprinkling of long hair on the face so we will call her "Fuzzy."

In all their plays and sham fights, Redcoat was the most skilful. Cross Fox was almost as good, but Little Brother and Fuzzy were not in their class.

Perhaps the most exciting occurrence in the whole day was the coming of Father Fox with the morning meal. At first he brought the mice already killed for them to eat, but after a while he would put a live mouse in their midst and allow them to kill it. Here Redcoat always distinguished himself, although he and Cross Fox sometimes had a lively fight over a choice morsel.

But as the pups grew larger Father Fox developed their training each day. Sometimes he would bring the feed very early before the pups were out and hide it some distance from the den. Then there would be a lively scramble to see who would find the breakfast first.

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 One morning in midsummer Father Fox came as usual, but this time he brought an animal about as large as the pups. It was not dead, and it showed a white shining set of teeth when the pups surrounded it.

Cross Fox sprang forward, as he was nearer the quarry than was Redcoat, but the young woodchuck gave him a savage nip in the face, and he shrank back. Then Redcoat sprang in. The young woodchuck served him in the same way he had his brother, but Redcoat didn't quit. Instead he clinched with the woodchuck and a very lively battle ensued. Finally Redcoat emerged from the fray conqueror, and laid the dead woodchuck before his brothers and sister. He had two bad gashes in the face, but he had won, and this made him even more of a bully than he had been before. But he felt well satisfied with the exploit.

Finally, on moonlight nights Father Fox and Mother Fox took the small foxes into the meadows to hunt mice with them. This was after they had learned to hunt grasshoppers, and crickets, and after they

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 had killed many frogs, and squirrels that Father Fox had brought home alive for them.

They soon became quite expert in mouse hunting, and would stand as patiently as their parents above the runways of the mice, which were very easily smelled out in the grass roots.

One day Father Fox discovered one of those dangerous men creatures in the woods pounding upon a tree. He watched him for a long time, and finally the tree came crashing to earth, and Father Fox ran away in great haste.

When the man had gone home and the woods no longer rang with the sound of his axe, Father and Mother Fox took the four little foxes to where he had been chopping wood and together they investigated all the sights and smells where the man had been.

The old foxes smelled out the tracks of the man and then invited the small foxes to sniff the strange scent. They had never smelled anything like it before, and although they did not at all know what it meant, yet this

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 new scent sent a strange tingling fear along their spines, and made their nerves thrill with excitement. Instinctively they feared the scent that all foxes had feared since the dawn of history. This was their natural heritage of wisdom handed down through countless generations of foxes. Finally the Father Fox discovered the man's axe hidden away in the woodpile, and he and the four little foxes climbed up the woodpile and smelled the axe carefully. This was a very important scent that the Father Fox wished the little foxes to note very carefully, for it would give them the smell of traps, or iron, one of the most dangerous scents to foxes.

When they had fully examined the place where the man had been, the two old foxes drove the small foxes from the place with great ferocity, nipping them and hustling them away in great seeming alarm, and the entire fox family raced back to the den in the spruces as though the devil were after them.

A few days later on Father Fox found an old steel trap which had been left out all

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 winter and finally discarded and forgotten. So he again brought the young foxes to smell the iron scent, which was so much to be dreaded. After smelling the trap for several minutes, and viewing it from all angles, although they did not approach very near to it, Father Fox drove his family away from the scene with great haste, trying to instill into the minds of the young foxes the fact that this was also a dreaded scent.

I do not know whether or not he told them in fox language, that the man was their worst enemy, and that he often set this strange clam which could spring together so quickly, and catch an unsuspecting fox by the paw. I do not know if he told them to beware of this iron smell by the brookside, or in a mossy low lying spot, where they might find it in connection with some dainty food which they did not have to kill. But if it was possible for him to get such a message and such warning across, you may be sure that he did so, for he schooled the four young foxes well in all the dangers of the woods.

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 On another occasion, Father Fox found some meat which had been cut up in small pieces, and dropped beside a spring. A spring that the foxes often frequented, because the water was cool and sweet. When Father Fox had been young he had once eaten such meat which he found under similar conditions. He had only saved his life after being dreadfully sick, by his knowledge of very primitive medical methods, so now he knew better than to eat this meat. But here was another chance to give the fox family a further lesson, so he brought them with great haste to the spring and showed them the meat. The small foxes were very eager to eat the meat, but the Father Fox indicated the man scent that could be plainly discerned about it and then drove the young foxes from the scene even more savagely than he had from the man's axe, and the old steel trap.

This meat which made foxes so deadly sick was another danger, so he made it very emphatic that it was to be left alone.

One twilight in the early autumn they

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 heard a series of long drawn out sounds, which reverberated along the mountainside, and rolled away into the distance. They were evidently sounds made by some animal, even the young foxes knew that instinctively. But the sounds seemed to disturb the old foxes. For they got the pups together and Mother Fox went with them into a distant portion of the forest, while Father Fox went to intercept the hound and to lead him far away from his family.

Father Fox did not return for hours and when he did come back he seemed very weary, but he did not lie down to rest, instead he took the small foxes away into the swamp where the strange sounds had first come from, and after smelling about for a while they located the tracks of the hound. Father Fox was very careful that the youngsters got this scent into their nostrils very decidedly, for this was still another dangerous scent. After they had surely identified the hound scent, Father Fox took his family away to the old burrow in the spruces where he rested for the rest of the night.

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 One twilight when Father Fox was hunting rabbits in the great swamp he discovered a bobcat sitting upon an old log watching one of the rabbit runways. It was only because Father Fox was eternally on the lookout, with his ears and eyes, and sharp nose always testing the air, that he discovered the bobcat in time. Had the bobcat landed fairly upon his back he would never have been seen again in the old den by the spruces.

But the cat did not get his sharp raking claws upon Father Fox's back as he intended and the old hunter escaped after a long hard run.

But here was another scent to which the fox family had to be introduced. This Father Fox did returning after several hours to the very log from which the bobcat had sprung at him.

After this lesson it seemed to the young foxes that the great woods and the fields were full of danger sights and sounds. There were so many scents that spelled danger and so much to be avoided.

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 Still another time, later on in the autumn, they heard a very loud sound several times. This sound was like thunder and it rolled away in many echoes through the ancient woods. Father Fox and Mother Fox seemed much disturbed by the sound, but it was just Bud Holcome hunting partridges. But after the sun had set Father Fox went on a searching party, and finally discovered an empty shell which Bud had thrown on the ground. This he carefully marked down and again brought his entire family to investigate.

Other lessons there were. Lessons intended to put the young foxes on guard against all the many dangers that lurked in ambush for them. It was not Father Fox's fault, if any member of his family ultimately came to grief, for he did his work well.

As far as he could, he made his family proof against the wiles of man, boy and dog, or trap and poison. But who can guard against the chances and the lottery of the life in the wild? It was a great game of

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 chance. The stakes were life itself, if you played the game well you survived, but if not—well that is another story and we will leave it for a later chapter.

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HEN Autumn finally came the young foxes were glad, for it gave such a zest to living. The mornings were crisp and cold, the air was clear and bracing, and it made them want to run and leap, just in sheer exuberance of living, and it gave them such appetites that they were almost painful. That is, they were annoying until they were satisfied.

On such mornings as these, when the frost was very heavy, it gemmed the weeds along the brookside with diamonds, and fringed the ferns with a wonderful frost work, which was like the finest lace. Finally it did wonders to the trees. The soft maples along the water courses were painted scarlet, while the berries of the staghorn sumac were almost as red. Other trees it painted a fainter

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 red, with yellows and saffrons,—browns and russets.

Finally, all the campfires of Autumn were kindled, and they burned high upon every hillside, in wonderful barbaric beauty.

Then it was, when the skins of the foxes were prime, that the war between men, boys, guns, traps and poison, and the wits, and the fleet legs of the foxes was on. A war which did not show mercy, or give quarter.

The twenty-five dollars which an ordinary red fox's pelt brought looked very large to the average country boy, and he was out to get it. Mr. Fox also prized his brush and he was out to keep it. So, many were the battles of skill, cunning, endurance, and strategy which the foxes and the men waged.

About the middle of October a mishap befell the fox family which was much more serious than it first seemed, for it made the entire family more vulnerable to the enemy. It happened in this way. It was just one of those accidents in the out-of-doors to which any wild animal is liable. No matter

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 how cunning he may be, or how carefully he may guard himself, somewhere or somehow even the most cunning animal may be taken by the most unskilful hunter or trapper.

It happened that Father Fox was out on the great meadows at the end of the mountain hunting mice. He had often hunted there before. It was well away from the country road which skirted the foot of the mountain, but a footpath which the humans sometimes frequented ran close to this meadow where Father Fox was hunting.

It was a very bright moonlight night, and he took a chance hunting then; but the wild creatures always take chances.

Now, it happened that Bud Holcome had been out to a neighbor's and was coming home. By mere accident he had his little twenty-two rifle on his arm and by a mere chance he espied Father Fox who was silhouetted against a dark bush. He was not over a dozen rods away.

Bud did not think he could hit him because he could not see the sight well, as the

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 moonlight made it glimmer, but he took the wild chance. For a moment he let the sight glitter against the dark fox silhouetted against the bush, and then pulled the trigger.

To his great surprise, the old hunter sprang into the air, gave two or three feeble jumps and then tumbled upon the ground.

Bud ran to him in all haste, but even when he reached the fox he did not dare touch him. He might be shamming, so he shot him again through the head. But there was no shamming. Father Fox was quite dead, and the excited boy shouldered the fox and carried him home.

Mother Fox and the young foxes never knew just what became of him. All they knew was that he was never seen again in the spruces, or upon the range where they had hunted together.

Thus it was that the fox family lost their guardian and protector at a very important time. Had Father Fox lived to school them still more against hounds and hunters, as well as to give them more valuable lessons on traps and poison, things might have

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 turned out very differently, and there might have been several branches to this story, instead of one main theme.

Mother Fox of course did all she could, but she had not the cunning of the old hunter. Neither did she have the strength. She could not lead the hounds away from the home burrow and take them miles away and then snarl up the track so that the family might be saved. But all that she could do she did, even as fearlessly as Father Fox would have done.

So, when the Fox Club in the city not eight miles distant from the den where the little foxes had been reared took up their Autumn sport, the fox family were not fully prepared to successfully withstand their onslaught.

Usually the Meadow City Fox Club staged their hunts on the western side of the great river, but the Autumn of which I write the first hunt took place on the eastern side of the river, along the mountain range where the fox family had their burrow. This mountain range extended from the meadows

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 close to the great river back to the foothills ten or twelve miles away.

The fox burrow in the spruces was in a little ravine about a mile from the western end of the mountain and on the northern slope. To the north, a mile away, the lowlying farm land began. The first of these farms at the foot of the mountain was that of the Holcome family, where Bud lived.

The Fox Club, twenty strong, with twelve hounds, left their teams at the Holcome farm and swarmed up the mountain side, spreading out so as to cover a strip half a mile wide. The hounds were kept in twos or threes until the fox should be started.

Redcoat, who was out very early that morning, discovered the hunting party and gave the alarm. Mother Fox commanded that all should follow her and started to lead her family through the most inaccessible country, back along the mountain range. Redcoat and Cross Fox did as she told them, but Fuzzy and Little Brother very foolishly slipped away to the spruces and hid in the burrow. If the hounds had discovered their

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 trail and followed it to the burrow they would have been lost, for it would have been an easy matter to dig them out.

But, instead, the hounds took the trail of Mother Fox and the two obedient ones and followed it hotly along the mountain. Then all the hounds were loosed and the pack took up the chase and the outcry was tremendous. The echoes rolled along the mountain side and far down into the valley. It was sweetest music to the ears of the hunters, but to the poor foxes it was a terrible sound.

As soon as the direction of the chase had been established, several of the hunters hurried to advantageous points where they would wait in ambush for the fleeing foxes. Such a position was the roadway which crossed the mountain two miles east of the fox burrow. Pour hunters were posted in this road at intervals of twenty rods, awaiting the oncoming pack.

The foxes were so obsessed by the din behind that they did not notice the danger ahead until they burst into the road.

Bang! Bang! went the man-creatures'

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 thunder sticks, and Mother Fox pitched headlong in the snow.

Bang! Bang! went the thunder sticks again and a pellet stung the flank of Cross Fox, while another passed through Redcoat's ear.

But these sounds only lent wings to the legs of the terrified foxes, so they fled on along the mountain range to the east. The cries of the pack grew fainter and fainter in the distance and were finally lost, but after two hours the hounds came straggling back, for a pack will often quit after a six or eight mile straight-away run. So, Redcoat and Cross Fox gave them the slip that time. Long after dark they came back to the spruces and found Little Brother and Fuzzy waiting for them.

The next fox hunt was held in the great meadows on the west side of the river. It was an unwritten law in fox cunning, known to all mature foxes, that one should not cross the river until after it had frozen over. The broad plank trail that the man-creatures used was not a safe trail for foxes.

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 If one did cross to the other side, he was almost sure to be caught or shot on the broad meadows where there was little cover.

If Father Fox had lived he would have taught the young foxes this danger, but as it was they did not know.

Cross Fox and Little Brother had been hunting mice in the meadow on the east side of the river one morning early in November. Cross Fox came back to the mountain, but Little Brother strayed along the roadway to the north and finally came to the man-trail. He crossed the river and had a glorious time hunting mice in the great meadows beyond. But, it is better to catch two or three mice and keep one's skin than it is to catch half a dozen and lose one's brush. The Fox Club were out early that morning and Little Brother paid the extreme price for his folly. In our human lives we may make mistakes and retrieve them; but in the lives of wild creatures one mistake is often fatal.

Not only had the young foxes not been schooled in regard to hounds and men as

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 they should have been, but also their education in regard to poison and traps had not been completed. It was Fuzzy's fate to succumb to the trapper's art. Neither Redcoat nor Cross Fox ever knew just what happened to her. All they knew was that she went away one moonlight night to hunt mice in the meadows and did not come back.

A couple of weeks later, Cross Fox and Redcoat were hunting mice one morning in the meadows on their own side of the river. They were so intent on their hunting that danger stole upon them unawares, for the Fox Club got between them and the mountain and picked up their trail and the chase was on. The two foxes kept together and led the hounds a merry chase far down the river. After a couple of hours, they doubled back along the way they had come, wishing to get back to the mountain where they felt there was some safety. Redcoat had far outrun his brother and was perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead when a new danger arose, for one of the men suddenly appeared upon the trail one hundred feet behind Cross Fox

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 and he was leading another of those dreadful animals that run after foxes and make such hideous cries. But this animal was much taller and gaunter than the rest of the pack. As soon as the man loosed the greyhound he came after Cross Fox like the wind. Redcoat, straining to reach the mountain, looked back occasionally to see this new danger that was so rapidly approaching his litterbrother. Nearer and nearer the greyhound came to the straining fox. Soon Cross Fox had to double and twist in his trail to keep from the jaws of the greyhound, and Redcoat knew that his brother was lost. Presently the greyhound caught the straining fox as he rushed past him. His long jaws closed upon the back, just behind the fore legs. He threw the fox high in the air and when it landed in the snow its back was broken. A savage shake or two more and Cross Fox was dead.

Redcoat observed all this as he fled up the mountain. He wished to make his own escape, but he was so fascinated by the scene that he had to look back.

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 Presently the tall hound left Cross Fox and came after him, but he was now well in the lead. As he strained up the mountain side it seemed to him that his heart must burst with the exertion. If he could only stop and take a few short breaths, but he could not, so he fled on. The way grew steeper and steeper, and presently friendly trees opened their branches to receive him and he fled into the depths of the ancient wood and was lost from sight.

The greyhound follows only by sight, so Redcoat's pursuer gave up the chase as soon as the fox disappeared in the woods.

Redcoat had saved his own brush this time, but there were other days coming; and of all the fox family that had played in the spruces in June and romped in the woods in the summer time, he alone was left.

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FTER the last of that bewildering series of tragedies which took the last member of Redcoat's family and left him all alone, a great sense of loneliness came over him. He had been associated with his brothers and sister ever since their birth in early Springtime. He had looked to Father Fox and Mother Fox for food and protection, so that they had become a necessary part of his life. He had romped with the rest of the young foxes, even up to the coming of Autumn and the fox hunters, so it was no wonder that he now felt lonely.

Somehow he could not understand that they had gone away for good and that he never would see them again, anywhere upon the fox range. True he had seen his mother go head over heels in the snow at the sound

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 of the thunder stick, but even so, he could not appreciate the fact that the great sleep had claimed her. Somehow, somewhere, she must come to life again and come trotting to meet him, either upon the meadows or on the mountains.

So, Redcoat spent several days in hunting for his kin. First, he searched the whole length of the mountain range, even going back into the foothills ten miles away from the home burrow. Then, he spent long moonlight evenings searching the meadows. He also went in close to the farmhouses trying to see if he could discover any of his kin. These men-creatures were so cunning. Perhaps they were keeping his family from him. Surely something was keeping them all.

Finally, as a last resort, Redcoat searched the home burrow, in all its branches, to see if in any way he had overlooked his family. Then gradually it came over Redcoat that his kin had gone forever, and he ceased to look for them, but he did put in several moonlight nights, sitting upon

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 a cliff which overlooked the great meadows, looking and wondering. Occasionally he would lift his pointed nose to the moon and howl, a long thin howl, which was the very epitome of grief. But finally even his grief was forgotten in the struggle to get food and to keep his own brush safe from the men who were after him so persistently.

Hitherto he had usually hunted with one or more members of his family but from this time forth Redcoat hunted upon the meadows in the moonlight, or in the great rabbit swamps three miles away, to the south of the mountain, or about the farm buildings in the lowlands near the mountains, by himself.

He was thrown entirely upon his own resources. By his own wits he must live or die, and Redcoat decided that he would live, and live well. The mountain, the fields and the woods belonged to him, or at least the foxes had claimed their inheritance in the wilderness ever since the first fox had hunted mice, and Redcoat would continue to claim his own. Not only that, but he would take

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 from his enemy, the man, as often as the chance permitted. From what his father had taught him and what he had observed, he was now convinced that war between the foxes and the men was on. In fact, it had always been on. He would do what he could to make them pay for what the fox family suffered at their hands. Their chicken coops, their duck houses, and even their turkey roosts would pay tribute to the fox family. It was a dangerous game, but all life was dangerous. Yet, it was an exciting game. One that was well worth playing.

Thus the weeks went by and Redcoat lived the life, and fought the battles, of a fox. He hunted mice upon the great meadows on his own side of the river, but he never ventured across the river by the broad plank trail which the men used. Later on, when he was more experienced in the ways of men, he would take the chance, but not now.

He hunted quail on the upland farms a mile or two from his mountain. He found these birds in the cornfields, or in the stubble. He hunted rabbits in the rabbit war-

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 ren. It was a long way to the rabbit swamp, but the hunting was good once he got there and it was very safe hunting.

He was always on the lookout for partridge, but very seldom could he surprise that wary bird.

Often he prowled about the outlying buildings of the farms of the valley. There was always a chance that he might pick up some refuse from the table, which had been flung to the hens and not eaten by those fowls, or perhaps at the farms where the hens ran outside during the day and were shut up at night, a foolish pullet or rooster might be left outside, and be hiding under a sheltering bush. In that case, Mr. Fox took care that there should be no "fuss or feathers" about "the kill." He usually gave one quick sharp bite upon the neck. This silenced the telltale squawking, and it shut off life as well. When the fowl had ceased to struggle, the fox, with a toss of his head, would swing the kill over his shoulder and make for the nearest woods.

When the first snow came Redcoat's diffi-

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 culties were greatly increased. He had thought them hard enough before, but now he had to use great care in sneaking about the farm buildings because he left telltale tracks wherever he went. He was at first much disgusted with this soft white stuff which was so cold that it chilled his feet. Also when the new snow rattled off a bush upon him as he passed beneath it, it made him start, but he soon got used to it.

But, the greatest of the difficulties was that the Fox Club in the nearby city redoubled their efforts as soon as the new snow came. It was now much easier following for the hounds, and harder running for the fox, and much harder to elude the pack.

Ruses that had fooled the pack on bare ground went for nothing when there was snow. All of which Redcoat had to learn by sad experience. Several long chases the Fox Club gave him, and several narrow escapes he had. He usually followed the plan that his mother had mapped out on that fateful day when he had lost her upon the mountain. But now he always remembered

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 that the man-trail, which crossed the mountain two miles from the burrow, was a danger place. When Redcoat came to this trail, he would gather all his fleetness and cross at two bounds where the trail was narrow. Once, even so, the man's terrible thunder stick went "bang, bang," and small pellets pattered all about Redcoat. If he had not been going at his best pace he would have fared as badly as his mother had. He found that if he ran hard and fast enough, away into the foothills, the animals with which men chased foxes would leave him. So, his plan was usually to bolt after snarling up the track.

Thus, with protecting his brush and getting his living, Redcoat was very busy.

As the snow grew deeper and deeper and winter came on apace, the cold increased in intensity and the winds howled through the treetops on the mountainside in a dismal manner. When it was very cold for several days at a time, hunting was bad and Redcoat often went supperless to bed.

About the middle of January the loneli-

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 ness that had come upon him after the loss of his family returned with great intensity. Once again he took up the futile search for his family. He found other fox tracks on the meadows and in the rabbit swamp but none of them were made by his kin. Finally, he became so lonely and so longed for companionship that one evening he went down to the Holcome farm and sat upon the wall a few rods from the farm buildings, and lifting up his nose to the moon, howled pathetically. Finally his wailings aroused Scotty, the farm dog, and he came out and drove the fox away. But even this seemed better to Redcoat than being entirely alone. It was something to have even the farm dog chase him.

Finally one day when the loneliness was greater than ever, he found a fox track in the rabbit swamp which interested him. It was not made by any of his kin, but there was something about it which drew him on. He followed it persistently for several hours. Sometimes he would think that he was very close to the one who made it, but

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 the track led on and on. Finally just as he was about to give up in disgust and go away to the meadows to hunt mice he came out into a little open spot in the woods, and there, standing backed up against a bush, with the moonlight falling full upon her, was a beautiful fox. Not as large or as dark as Redcoat, but with a wonderful skin. Her fur was all fluffed up in her excitement and she looked much larger than she really was. Redcoat always remembered her in future years as he had seen her that first night in the moonlight. But when he advanced to be friendly with her she turned and galloped away through the forest. But now he knew that there was a real live fox on the trail ahead of him. Redcoat himself did not care, but exulted in the chase. Out and in through the laurel he followed the trail until the stranger again halted, and this time he came up and sniffed noses with her, but once again she was off. For another half hour he lost sight of her and then another trail appeared close by hers. There were two foxes, but Redcoat's good nose

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 soon told him that the newcomer was a rival; so he started after him in hot haste. He soon overtook them and fell upon his rival with great fury, and after a running battle of half a mile, he discomforted him and drove him away out of the rabbit swamp. Then he went back to Fluffy and this time she did not flee from him.

This night of playing tag in the rabbit swamp, and of racing through the pines and the aspens on the side of the mountain, was the first of many mad frolics under the February moon.

As Redcoat looked back and remembered how lonely he had been he now seemed like another creature. The joy of life and of wild untamed living was in their veins. Their blood exulted as did the sap in the maple. They were one with the life that thrilled in the wild flowers down under the snow. The mating madness was upon them and they lived it to the full.

Thus the happy weeks went by until late in April when Fluffy became less inclined to play. Often she seemed to wish

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 to be left alone and would drive Redcoat away with a petulant snarl.

Then she began searching in the spruces where the old fox den had been. Soon she found a sheltered spot under a great rock, and here she began to dig. Redcoat tried to help her but she would have neither his company nor his help. After a week's time, she had finished a new burrow under the great rock. The man who dug out this fox family would have to first lift a five-ton boulder.

There, in the new burrow, in the darkness, under the great rock, four little fuzzy foxes were born. They were tiny, fluffy, blind, helpless things, that whimpered and nuzzled at their mother's flank; and this little wilderness mother was as wise and tender with them as a human mother could possibly have been.

We may wonder who taught her how to care for the little foxes. To snuggle them up and keep them warm, and feed them when they were hungry.

It was the great Mother Nature, who

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 either directly or indirectly teaches us all.

When Fluffy communicated the news of what had happened in the burrow to Redcoat he became very proud and redoubled his efforts at hunting. Then it was, seeing how the pups were pulling on Fluffy, that a daring enterprise came into the Red Hunter's mind. One that nearly proved fatal.

One evening just at dusk he started for the Holcome farm determined, if it were possible, to secure a fat hen for Fluffy. As he approached the barn he discovered that the men were busy about the buildings for a light was coming and going. The henhouse at the Holcome farm was attached to the barn, and the outside door, which the hens usually used, was often shut up for several days in the winter, while the hens came and went through the big barn door. As Redcoat watched from a distance he could see the hens scratching in the chaff on the barn floor. Finally one by one they passed through the small door into the hen-

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 house, and the listening fox could hear them flying upon the roosts.

He could not discover the men anywhere in the barn. The door leading from the barn floor to the henhouse was open. The moment seemed auspicious if he made a sudden dash and did his work quickly. In less time than it takes to tell it, Redcoat dashed through the barn door and into the henhouse and seized a fat pullet. But, unfortunately for him, he did not get her by the neck at the first bite and she set up a frightful squawking in which the entire flock joined. As Redcoat turned to make his escape, through the barn door, one of the men appeared in the door carrying the bright light. When he saw Redcoat he slammed the door together and shouted to his companion.

"Dad, Dad, come here quick. There's a fox in the henhouse, and he has got one of the white pullets."

Mr. Holcome, who was milking, came running at Bud's outcry.

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 "You watch the door, Dad," cried Bud excitedly, "and I'll run to the house for my rifle. We've sure got him this time."

Meanwhile poor Redcoat ran backward and forward in the small henhouse, looking for a way out, but there was no opening. There seemed to be an opening, but it was so high up that he doubted whether he could use it or not. It was a window and Redcoat could see the moonlight outside. But, it was his only chance. He gripped the pullet still more firmly in his mouth, stepped to the other side of the henhouse to get a start, gave a light spring to the middle of the room, and then sprang with all the intensity of his steel muscles towards the light. There was a sound of breaking glass and splintering wood, and Redcoat landed in a sorry heap in a snow bank outside. It was lucky for him that he struck in the snow instead of upon the ground, but even so, he was badly stunned and lay in the snow for several minutes.

Finally Bud reappeared with the rifle and he and Mr. Holcome cautiously opened the

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 henhouse door. With the cocked rifle in his hand Bud peered into the henhouse.

"Gosh, Dad, he's gone," he cried. "He's got away."

"Are you sure there was any fox here at all?" inquired the man incredulously. "I don't see how he could get out."

"Look at that window, Dad," cried Bud excitedly. Mr. Holcome looked and saw that two panes and the sash, which had been broken, were gone.

Meanwhile, the sound of their voices aroused Redcoat and fear gave strength to his muscles. He struggled to his feet and trotted away into the darkness just as Bud reappeared at the big barn door, closely followed by Mr. Holcome.

"There he goes, Dad," cried Bud excitedly, raising the rifle.

"Bang," went the thunder stick, and Redcoat heard something go singing over his head and he quickened his pace.

"Where is he, Bud?" inquired the farmer. "I don't see him." Mr. Holcome strained his eyes in the direction Bud indi-

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 cated and finally burst into a loud gaffaw. "Fox nothing," he snorted. "It's just your imagination, Bud."

It was not until they found the tracks outside the window, and blood and some feathers on the snow, that Mr. Holcome admitted there might have been a fox in the henhouse after all.

Half an hour later, Redcoat proudly laid down his kill at the mouth of the burrow and with a sharp joyous bark summoned his mate. Fluffy came forth in much excitement to see what he had brought her. Then Redcoat laid down upon his belly in the snow his jaws dripping saliva, for hunger gnawed at his own vitals, and watched his mate devour the better part of the pullet.

When she was fully satisfied, she backed away, and with a fox smile and a wag of her tail, invited the hunter to dine. There was only the head and neck, the feet and the offal, left, and this Redcoat speedily devoured. And, then he went away to the old burrow to sleep, while Fluffy returned to the pups in the new burrow. Redcoat's

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 own appetite had been only partly appeased, but he had provided for his mate and the pups and he was satisfied. It was the way of the wild, that the male should hunt and fight for the mother and the little ones, and he was satisfied with this code. On the morrow he would look for a breakfast for himself.

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HUS it came about that once again there was enacted in the clump of spruces, the drama of the fox family. It was very much as the previous drama of the foxes had been, only to Redcoat it was much more interesting. Then, he had been one of the small foxes but now he was the head of a family just as his sire had been the year before.

Now he was the one to be eternally on guard, to hunt for the rest of the family, and if there was not food enough for all, to go hungry himself.

Just as his sire had done before him, Redcoat now brought each day the pile of field mice and laid them at the mouth of the den for Fluffy. Later on he brought live frogs and snakes for the young foxes to kill, and

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 even field mice, although he stayed close by when this game went on to see that the breakfast did not escape.

Later on he brought a half grown muskrat, and placed it among the pups to see which one had fight and grit enough to stay in and kill the muskrat. It was a rather long and hard battle, but finally the largest of the pups came off conqueror, just as Redcoat himself had done the year before.

It was now Redcoat's turn to take up a commanding position, and with nostrils constantly sifting the air, and ears cocked to listen for danger, to utter that warning sharp bark, which is the danger sign in all foxdom.

Redcoat's little family was subject to all the dangers and adversities, that his sire's family had been, but Redcoat, although he was young, watched and guarded his family better than the previous fox family had been protected.

One very close call to tragedy occurred when the pups were about two months old. Only the watchfulness of the head of the

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 family prevented a sad ending to this sudden danger.

The small foxes were having a wonderful romp, one bright night, chasing each other and biting and snarling, in mock battle. Fluffy herself was asleep. When Redcoat was on guard she usually slept at the mouth of the den.

Redcoat was perhaps fifty feet from the romping pups. Everything seemed to be going on merrily, when one of the small foxes uttered an agonized squeak. At the same time Redcoat noted a large black shadow on the ground beside him. He sprang to his feet like a red flash.

Glancing towards the mouth of the den he saw a large bird swooping down for one of the pups who was dodging and trying vainly to elude the great bird.

Fluffy had seen the danger at the same time, and was in ahead of Redcoat, as she was nearer. As the sharp talons of the great horned owl closed upon the small fox, Fluffy's jaws closed upon his leg. He flapped mightily, and for a moment it

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 seemed as though he would raise the full grown fox in air. But while he still flapped, and the mother fox fought him, a red flash shot in several lightning bounds across the intervening distance, and Redcoat struck the great owl like a catapult. He did not stop with a leg, but closed upon the bird's neck. For several seconds there was a furious battle.

The owl tore with his talons, and struck with his sharp beak.

Finally he ceased to struggle, and Redcoat laid him upon the ground quite dead. He had inflicted several bad wounds upon the two adult foxes but he had paid for his daring, with the price of his life, and the pup had been saved.

It was a great victory, and filled Redcoat with pride at his cunning.

Redcoat had always been a good hunter, but after the coming of the pups, he had developed resources, and invented new methods of hunting that probably made him the most clever fox that ever hunted upon the mountain, or the great meadows. He had

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 the quality of imagination and this made him resourceful. He succeeded where other foxes would have failed. To illustrate: In February, about the time of his first meeting with Fluffy, a very hard crust developed. It was not a thick crust, but icy and it covered the meadows where the mice were still carrying on under two feet of snow. The mice were there in abundance, but how to get at them was the question. A fox by persistent scratching, could dig through the crust, but it was necessary to break through in many places so it would have taken all the time just to break the crust, had not Redcoat invented a novel way of breaking it. An old hunter who watched him through a glass vouches for the fact.

Redcoat would trot along the snow, with his keen nose close to the crust, until he smelled mice. Then he would place his four feet close together, jump into the air three or four feet, and come down with all his paws close together, and the impact of his feet usually broke the crust.

One bright day in early spring Redcoat

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 was watching the great river from his perch upon a cliff on the side of the mountain. This was a point where he often observed what was going on in the valley below. The water was high, it being the time of spring freshets. Redcoat knew that the muskrat hunting was good, but he wanted something better than the tough rats for Fluffy and himself. After a while the Red Hunter observed some large birds swimming about in a small section of backwater.

They were wild ducks, and Redcoat immediately set his keen mind to work, how to get duck for the fox family breakfast. He observed that the ducks always fed in the same spot, and that it was not very far from the shore. So Mr. Fox laid his plans accordingly.

On the following morning, at about the same time, he was creeping stealthily towards a point which ran out into the backwater where the ducks fed.

He had noted this point the day before, and also an old log which would help him in the stealthy advance. Belly to earth the

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 wary hunter went until he reached the end of the land, and then he slipped silently into the water and swam to the old log, just the tip of his nose showing.

Behind the log he waited for several minutes marking the position of the nearest duck with great care. Then he again slipped noiselessly into the water. This time he swam till within twenty feet of the duck with his nose just showing, and then it too disappeared.

When the duck towards which Mr. Fox had been swimming, suddenly sank from sight, quite noiselessly, the rest of the ducks concluded that it dove for something under the water. Once under the water the Red Hunter silenced the duck with a crushing bite upon its neck. Then he slowly, and without a ripple, swam back to his point of attack behind the old log.

He laid the dead duck beside the log where it was out of sight, and went back for another. Again he was successful, and soon the second duck lay beside the first. But on the third attempt the duck moved just

title: Page:Redcoat (1927).djvu/88