Picking his way cautiously along the water’s edge, Red Ben noticed a muskrat swimming in the middle of the sluggish stream. Hoping it would land near him, he hid, but the wily rat went ashore on the far bank where he was safe from the fox, but not from a brown mink whose fierce eyes were also watching.

Mink was a swift swimmer whose thick fur shed water quite as well as that of Muskrat. He dove into the stream as noiselessly as a snake, swam under the surface until at a point below Muskrat, who just then was busy pulling up grass which he expected to carry to the stream and wash before eating.

Red Ben, in his excitement, leaped out on a bar of sand where he could see the chase more easily. Screech Owl, too, having caught a glimpse from a distant cedar, flew to a limb over the stream. All the creatures within that angle of the creek except poor old Muskrat seemed to know that something was going to happen. Even the bats flitted about without their usual dips and rushes after low flying bugs.

Muskrat, with mouth full of grass and roots, turned back just as Mink’s head came above the steep bank. For one breathless second the two furry creatures looked at each other, then the rat plunged headlong for the stream. Like a football player he charged down the bank, throwing the small but fierce Mink head over heels into the water. Muskrat dove and vanished so quickly among the stems of the spatterdocks and golden clubs that Mink was confused, and actually lost him.

A swirl near Red Ben showed him where Muskrat entered the under-water burrow in the bank, leading to his home. In the clear stream the fox had a glimpse of the brown body with forepaws held against its sides, driving itself through the water by great strokes of its webbed hind feet. Its long, flat, almost hairless tail acted as a rudder to guide its course.

Seeing nothing more of either animal, Red Ben trotted on. Ahead was a dead tree on which were large, black objects. These he knew were turkey buzzards which by day soared far and wide over the Barrens, searching for any dead animals that would afford them a feast. Here they gathered in the evening, a gruesome, ill smelling assemblage.

The fox avoided the tree and swung into the old wood path. It was the best thing he could have done that night, for it brought him face to face with a meal. Trotting along quite unconcernedly, his attention held by the buzzard tree, he was met by an explosion of rage, almost under his nose. He leaped wildly, to avoid he knew not what. Almost at the same moment he recognized the big gray tom-cat which had treated him so uncivilly when he visited Ben Slown’s farm.

His dignity had been badly jarred, and he felt angry all over. This stealthy, hostile creature, which belonged at the farm, had no right to dispute his way in the wild Barrens. Besides which it had a freshly killed wild rabbit under its paws.

As the two eyed each other, Red Ben felt the fur tingling along his spine. The alluring scent of the rabbit filled his hungry nostrils. He stepped closer—yes, the rabbit certainly was a fat one! Still nearer he went, always watching the furious eyes that glared at him. How the cat could growl! Now his nose was within a few inches of the rabbit. His eyes dropped for the fraction of a second, just to have one good look at it, and in that instant the raging cat struck with both front paws.

But Red Ben was not there. He had been quick enough to leap away from those claws. Back he circled and again dodged a furious blow. The hateful growl of the cat rose into a high pitched shriek of rage. Losing all caution, he made a spring after the fox, who neatly side stepped it and picked up the rabbit on the run. A yowl followed him, but as he looked over his shoulder, he saw the cowardly cat actually turn tail and dash for home.

This was the beginning of Red Ben’s rule over Oak Ridge and Cranberry Swamp. Before October ended, every animal who lived there had learned not to trifle with him. He knew them all by that time and respected their rights, but woe to the one that tried any mean tricks on him. He was growing big and strong, and very wonderful looking, in his orange-red fur, which, responding to the first frosts, was becoming long and rich. The most conspicuous thing to be seen on the Ridge was Red Ben, but he took care that he seldom was seen. Nevertheless his fame was growing.

CHAPTER XII
BEN’S HUNDRED DOLLAR FOX

Ben Slown had a good many days of corn husking ahead of him that Autumn. Every morning he carried his gun out to the field, turned loose the eager black and white hound with instructions to “sick ’em,” then busied himself in the profitable task of stripping the long yellow ears.

The hound would hunt through the woods, and, by the manner of his yelping, tell Ben Slown what he was finding there. A quick short yelp or two meant he had scared up a rabbit. An angry, loud baying in one spot meant that Gray Squirrel, or Red Squirrel, had been treed and was making fun of him from a safe height.

When the hound ran Woodchuck, or Muskrat, into a burrow, his baying was muffled, on account of his nose being in the mouth of the hole. But when he rushed full tilt through the woods with a musical “wu—uh, wu-uh, wu—uh” at regular intervals, that meant fox; and, near the Ridge, fox meant Red Ben.

Ben Slown no sooner would hear that, than down he would throw the corn bundle and off he would run for his gun, which was never left very far from his hands. Off, too, would dash Shep and the fox terrier, who ordinarily busied themselves with digging for mice around the corn shocks.

In the excitement, Red Ben always managed to get away, usually by hunting up Gray Fox, or some other member of the gray family, whom he had learned to find in the Pine Barrens a mile down Goose Creek. The hound had discovered that any other fox was easier to follow than Red Ben, so he gladly changed trails.

On one occasion, after a long, hard run, Red Ben, circling back by a new route, came across the scent of a fox entirely a stranger to him. With his usual caution he looked about and presently caught sight of a red creature like himself, watching him intently.

For a full minute he and the other fox studied each other without moving. Not since his mother vanished had Red Ben seen a red fox, and never before had he seen an animal quite so unkempt looking as this one. The red fur was all mangy and torn, the tail almost a stick.

Red Ben, in all the magnificence of his perfect coat, seemed like a different kind of animal from this wretched little she-fox. And yet there was a brightness of eye, as well as an alertness about her which commanded attention.

The baying of the hound close by changed the scene all too quickly. Red Ben went on his way in graceful bounds, the little she-fox watching him till out of sight, then herself vanishing in the wood.

This kind of daily persecution by Ben Slown and his hound wore heavily on Red Ben. The sleepless days, hard runs and constant worry made him unfit for hunting during the night. Often he went hungry. He quickly became embittered and reckless. Instead of running after swift rabbits and spending hours in digging out mice, he fell into the easy habit of catching the fat, stupid chickens and ducks that could be picked up at any farm yard without his expending much energy.

His cunning in work of this kind seemed endless. He learned how to catch the guinea hens in the gray light of early morning, how to climb over and under chicken yard fences and how to enter hen houses through windows. He became the vexation and terror of every poultry man within three or four miles of the Ridge. Bounties were offered in three villages for his capture. One hundred dollars in all hung over his head; and still he somehow managed to live on his much loved Ridge—the only place he knew as home.

To children Red Ben naturally became a real hero; stories of his cunning took the place of fairy tales, besides which he seemed to have a friendly as well as inquisitive feeling towards them which led him to follow them about in the woods on their winter-green and holly picking expeditions, cautiously of course, but showing in one so wild an interesting trustfulness.

Sometimes he would be glimpsed as he watched them from some thicket, far enough away to satisfy his shyness; at other times his orange colored form would slip past as silently as a shadow, to be swallowed immediately in the tangles all about. So the children, with their sharp eyes, had the thrill of seeing him more often than anyone else; and of all the hungry woods creatures he had first choice of crusts and lunch scraps they dropped.

Every fox is likely sooner or later to do something foolish that gets him into trouble, but Red Ben’s wonderful luck seemed unending. He was often seen when running ahead of the dogs. Perhaps some old farmer would be driving home his cows, when into the country road ahead would plunge the fox, his bright fur and big, bushy tail leaving no doubt as to his identity.

“Ah, there goes a hundred dollars,” the old man would sigh, as he thought of the reward, then he would admiringly watch the graceful fox until out of sight around the bend in the road, and pray that the dogs might not get him after all.

Red Ben of course jumped into the road ahead of the cows so that these big footed creatures, which kicked up the dust so plentifully as they walked, would spoil his trail before the dogs would get there. It was one of his ways of eluding them.

Everyone who saw the red fox talked about it and about the reward, and though to the children he was always Red Ben, to the farmers he was now Ben’s Hundred Dollar Fox.

“He’s the most valuable thing on your old farm, Ben,” some neighbor would tell Farmer Slown.

“And he won’t be there much longer,” Ben would answer in his usual ugly manner.

“How’s that? Are you going to try sticky fly paper next?” But Ben would stalk off without answer.

The answer came when five of the village dogs died from some mysterious poison for foxes they had picked up in the fields. After that people began to pass Ben Slown on the road without speaking.

CHAPTER XIII
RED BEN TRAVELS

On the first very chilly night of the season, Red Ben, trotting briskly along the woods path towards Cranberry Swamp, came face to face with Gray Fox. According to the law of the woods the old fellow had no right to hunt on another fox’s home ground; but what cared he, where the despised red fox was concerned? This time, however, he did grow a trifle worried. Red Ben was beginning to look very different from the thin, long legged pup he used to be.

Each slowed down to a cautious walk and resolved that the other should get out of his way. The result of course was that they met, and in an instant were locked in furious battle. On their hind legs and on the ground, they tussled and rolled and bit and scratched until fur flew.

Once again Red Ben’s training helped him. He fought with the speed of lightning—the kind of fighting his mother had taught him. He tore Gray Fox on this side and that, mauled and pummeled him, threw him down; and when the snarling old enemy tried to get away, Red Ben followed with speed that was irresistible, nipping, worrying and driving him on. There had probably never been a more bitter fight in the history of the Barrens.

When the completely whipped gray reached his own range there was not a particle of courage left in him. Never would he dare to face again the Red Fox of Oak Ridge. But Red Ben was not so happy as he might have been. As his enemy vanished in the woods, he felt more than ever before the loneliness of his life.

This feeling surged over him until it became unbearable. He wandered over to Cranberry Swamp, and finally to the very end of his hunting territory, where he had seen the mangy little she-fox; but this time she was not there, so he did not stop. Something drove him on, into the land of the unknown in the direction of the rising sun, whence the faint night breeze was coming, bearing innumerable scents. It was then he heard, far behind him, probably all the way from the Ridge, the bay of a hound. He stopped to listen; sitting there in the lonesome Barrens, he picked out, one after another, the joy notes of Farmer Slown’s big brute, following his trail. That decided him. There would be no turning back.

Full of bitterness now, he hastened on until broad daylight came. Fortunately he had caught a few crickets and two deer mice on the way. These had helped to sustain his strength, but he was very tired. For nearly an hour a turkey buzzard had been circling over him; now close, now far, but always within sight. It was like a bad omen.

Badly as he needed a rest, it was not for him to enjoy one that day. Scarcely had he found a soft bed in a pepper bush thicket, when once more he heard the hound. Evidently the patient dog had been unravelling the trail for hours; now he was coming close.

Up jumped Red Ben and once more loped off towards the East. He was soon skirting farms he had never seen before, and crossing cement roads lined with prickly hedges, or wire. Behind him the noise was growing. Other dogs, picked up from the farms, were joining in the chase. Each time he looked back over the fields he could see several of them, running in loose pack formation, with Ben Slown’s black and white hound in the lead.

Red Ben suddenly realized he was getting tired out. A kind of desperation seized him. He crossed barn yards, where the children delightedly shouted at him; dodged down roads in plain sight of people in automobiles, and in his ignorance of the country, did other things which in the old days on the Ridge would have seemed impossibly reckless.

Everyone shouted and cheered and followed as well as they could, until Red Ben lost them in a friendly wood. Here he threw himself down, panting as never before. His limbs ached all over and smarted where he had been bitten in the fight with Gray Fox; he felt indeed as if he could never get up. But when the dogs came over the meadow in plain view, he somehow jumped up once more and circled the wood; then he found the scent of another fox.

With new hope he turned into the wind and followed it unerringly until he reached long rows of wire pens in which were a number of creatures that seemed to be foxes, but were black. He had stumbled upon a fox ranch, kept by a dealer who raised the beautiful black ones for their pelts, which he sold. Every fox Red Ben saw there was worth many hundreds of dollars.

Scarcely knowing what to do, he followed the outer fence a short distance, then slipped to a thicket where he could hide and watch what would happen.

The dogs came soon in a long line, five of them, with Ben’s big hound still in front. They blundered into the first line of wire, looked up, and saw the foxes running in all directions. At this sight, one mighty yell burst from every one of them. They leaped around the outer enclosure in frantic efforts to get in. Trails were forgotten now that foxes were actually in sight. Indeed the one idea of each was to catch a fox before the others got him; so they jostled each other and scrambled and fought, with such a din that the ranch owner came running out with his gun and broke up the party with two stinging loads of bird shot, one of which peppered the black and white hound in a way he would not soon forget.

Quiet instantly followed. The black foxes were so well protected by the double line of fencing that they were not in the least hurt, or even much scared. They soon slipped out of their shelters and basked in the sun, while Red Ben in his thicket sprawled out flat and slept. His first day of travel had been an eventful one.

CHAPTER XIV
BLACKIE

In the afternoon, soft snow, the first that Red Ben had ever seen, fell for several hours. He did not fear it, but wondered at its whiteness, which soon wiped out the green and brown colors of his thicket and deadened all the woodland scents he was used to. Nevertheless, as soon as darkness made it safe to move about, he crept out of his hiding place and again visited the fox ranch. On three sides he found thickly planted spruce trees, which sheltered the yards, and made them so secluded and cozy that the timid animals could live there almost as happily as in the North Woods, whence those came which had not been born in captivity.

The whole ranch was enclosed with the strong wire which had kept out the dogs. Inside this fence were the pens, each holding a pair of the wonderful silver black foxes. A shed ran along their northern side, giving protection against rain and the coldest winds.

Red Ben moved stealthily between the snow laden spruce boughs, climbed the outside fence with the ease of a cat, and approached the first pen. Here stood watching him a beautiful fox, jet black to the tip of her tail, which was pure white. Blackie seemed mightily interested in Red Ben. She even stuck her dainty black nose through the wire for him to touch, which he did rather shyly.

This friendliness was such a new thing to him, used as he was to the intensely suspicious, shy creatures of the woods, that it thrilled his every nerve. He scarcely looked at the other foxes, preferring to romp about Blackie’s pen in a spirited game, thought out on the spur of the moment, in which they had races and tag, in spite of the wire between.

When the fun was at its height there was a sudden rush: Red Ben found himself facing, instead of gentle Blackie, a tall, lean, black fox, whose jealous snarl at once showed him to be a rival.

Only the fence between prevented a furious fight. As it was, indeed, they tore at each other through the wire, Red Ben charging against it again and again in vain attempt to break through. There was an over-hang of wire at the top which stopped him from climbing over, and wire laid along the ground in a way to make digging-under nearly impossible, so he, a creature of the wild, could not get in.

The black rival meanwhile did all he could to tease and anger him; but worst of all was the way he bossed and maltreated poor Blackie, who seemed to live in constant fear.

Red Ben was fairly raging. He felt as he had long ago, when Gray Fox treated his mother so badly. Somehow he would get in! But whenever he tried to climb up the wire, the other fox bit his toes cruelly and gloated over his helpless fury.

It was after one of these climbs that he found a ladder leaning against the shed. He had never before seen one, but was clever enough to guess that it might be climbed. One foot at a time, his big tail helping to balance him, he moved up the slippery rungs. Almost at the top he lost his footing and fell all the way down with a thud, but, none the worse for this, he tried again, and actually reached the roof.

Now, at last, he could look down on Blackie and know that one jump would bring him to her side, where he could give the lean, black bully the thrashing he deserved.

Proudly he stood there, while all the foxes in the row of pens watched and waited. Something was warning him not to leap. If he did, could he get out again? Was not this a kind of trap?

Although Blackie was coaxing him, his caution held him back. He climbed down the same way he had come up and trotted away, not however without first taking a last jolly romp with Blackie and giving a good growl of warning to her disagreeable, black companion. He had three mice for supper. They had been overtaken by the snow away from home, and were rushing back in long leaps when he found them. As soon as dawn came he was again cozily hidden in the thicket.

Later in the morning he noticed excitement among the foxes and saw a boy wheeling a barrow laden with things which he put in the pens. He saw that this boy somehow entered without climbing over the wire.

Red Ben was exceedingly interested in this, so interested that he did not note how carefully the boy walked around Blackie’s pen, looking at the tracks in the snow, nor how long a time he spent fixing something in the pen. Red Ben, indeed, had not yet learned that snow holds footprints and tells the story of the night travels of every creature that touches it. How, therefore, could he guess that everything about his visit was plain to this wide awake boy, who, thrilled by the idea of a big, wild fox being near, was plotting to catch him?

The sun melted very little of the snow, so when he started out that night, the ground was still white and cold. He hurried to Blackie, who frisked about in great excitement at seeing him again. Eagerly he tried the spot where the boy had entered with food and water, but of course was stopped by the peg on the door. Blocked in that hope, he turned to the ladder, and soon was once more on the shed roof, looking down at Blackie’s companion, who was in his usual disagreeable, jealous mood.

It was then that he noticed, for the first time, a ladder leading from the roof into the pen—a ladder very much like the one he had just climbed. He went towards it cautiously. It had not been there the night before. There was also about it the scent of the boy, but no more noticeably than on other things, such as the gate. Still, he feared it.

Perhaps he would have left the place without venturing to set foot on it, if at that moment Blackie had not given a shrill whine of fear. She was crouching in a corner of the pen with the black fox standing menacingly before her.

Down the ladder sprang Red Ben, his heart fairly afire. Before the snarling black knew what had happened, he was rolling in a whirlwind of snow, with jaws like iron closing on his furry neck. His snarl suddenly changed into a whine of abject fear; then Red Ben let him up.

However, the black one was treacherous. He sneaked around the pen, and when Red Ben was looking with wild eyes at the ladder which had suddenly fallen, rushed up and caught him in the flank. Down went Red Ben, but so quickly that the other was also thrown off his feet.

How they fought, there in the dark, on the trampled snow! How fur flew! Little tufts of it dotted the yard; black tufts they were, worth many dollars apiece. But what cared Red Ben?—as soon as the ladder fell he knew he had been trapped—he, who had laughed at all the traps on Oak Ridge. Bitterly he fought until the black one had more than enough and cowered like a scared rat in the farthest corner of the shed. Then Red Ben let loose his muscles in the wildest leaps and the most frantic rushes of his life. Madly he ran around and around the enclosure, or up the quivering wire.

Blackie could not be made to understand what was the matter. She was a ranch bred fox; this was her home. But to Red Ben, reared in the wild tangles of the Ridge and Swamp, freedom meant everything. He would have it!

In the morning he was still climbing or digging, still pushing and pulling at the door, or tearing up and down the yard. Even the coming of the delighted boy did not calm him for an instant. With red fur standing on end, eyes flashing, sharp teeth bared as he panted from exertion, he was the wildest looking creature seen on the ranch for many a day.

Finally he dropped to the ground, exhausted, but not discouraged. Blackie came timidly to him then and licked his bruised and torn feet, and the bites on his ears which, without her care in taking out the poison, might have turned into angry sores.

With her so close, Red Ben seemed to forget the wire that held him in; but the instant he heard a footstep approaching, all his fears awoke and he was once more the untamed, splendidly active creature so admired by the boy.

In the afternoon, the boy’s father, who owned the ranch, came home from a long trip he had made the day before. After seeing his family, his first thought was of the valuable foxes, so the boy, hoping to give him a pleasant surprise, said nothing about having trapped a new fox, but eagerly led him to the pens.

As these two came through the spruce trees, Red Ben flattened himself against the ground under the shed, hoping to be passed unseen. But the man noticed the tufts of fur lying about the pen and strode over there.

“Why, what’s all this, son?” he asked. “Have Blackie and her friend had a disagreement? This looks pretty bad. They are the best pair of all. If anything happened to one of them, I don’t know what I should do.”

At this the boy began to feel mighty uncomfortable. All the joy of the surprise was suddenly gone. He hung back, fearful of what his father would say when he found out what really had happened.

“This is awful!” his father went on. “Something has gone wrong. What could it be?” And then, as if in answer to the question, Red Ben sprang up in all his wildness and dashed up the wire like a cat, only to be thrown down by the netting at the top.

The old rancher stepped back in a dazed way, then with sudden suspicion, looked at his son. He read part of the story in the poor boy’s unhappy face, and drew out the rest with a few questions.

He was a sensible father. He gulped down all his disappointment about the injury to one of his favorites, gave the boy a hearty slap on the shoulder, just to show it was all right, and congratulated him on his cleverness in outwitting a fox.

“You were mighty smart to cut the three bottom rungs off that ladder to keep the blacks from climbing out before the other fox knocked the ladder down. Suppose you see, now, whether you can set a trap in the pen that will catch that big, red scalawag and not the others. His fur is wonderful, the longest I ever saw. We’ll make him into a fine rug for the parlor.” With that he strode off without noticing what a woeful glance the boy gave the “fine rug,” so wonderfully alive at that moment.

CHAPTER XV
FREEDOM IS SWEET

Red Ben’s doom seemed sealed. Even if he scorned the box trap set for him by the dutiful boy, he was still in the rancher’s power. He knew all about box traps. Instead of getting caught himself, he drove Blackie’s companion into it and every now and then looked in through a crack to see how the black fellow was enjoying the place. Shut in there, the other fox could growl and be as nasty as he chose.

After that, Red Ben once more began his attacks on the wire. He never lost hope of getting away. The gate, too, he worked over nearly half the night. It shook when he struck it. It seemed the weakest part of the pen. He pawed its edges, climbed up its sides, and then all at once felt it give. He had sawed the peg until it moved back. The gate swung open, he was free!

Cautiously he slipped out and started for the spruce trees, then stopped suddenly and looked back. Blackie was not following. She stood on the threshold of the pen looking after him. Instantly he turned back and began to coax her. He would run towards the thicket, and then back again. He pulled at her velvety ears and played in front of her. Still she would not venture out.

At last, however, she very carefully took a few steps, and then a few more. With Red Ben beside her, almost shoving her along, she came to the tall outside wire, under which a hole was soon dug. Once past this she had the whole country before her, the Pine Barrens, the swamps, everything that delighted Red Ben. But the farther they went from the ranch, the more nervous she became. Twice she started back, only to he coaxed forward again by her ever faithful companion. Every bush and tree was something new to her, every shadow and strange scent a cause of fear. In all her life she had never gone farther than around and around her little pen, and now she wanted to go around and around in the same way, instead of straight ahead with Red Ben.

A dog barked from a nearby farm house. Blackie instantly stopped. The dog barked again; the wind had brought to him the scent of the foxes. He was coming nearer to investigate. Red Ben did not move. He knew it was a small dog he had seen several times from a distance. Again the bark, very near and very loud.

Blackie crouched for an instant, then turned. Red Ben could not stop her. She was panic stricken in this strange new place. Over the snow she sped, back to the pen and to her favorite bed in the old shed. This was home to her. Here she felt safe. Red Ben could love his woods, but she was a ranch bred fox.

Red Ben stood at the entrance of the pen and waited, but she would not move. He wandered out to the spruce trees and called, but she did not come. Out in the woods he called again. Mournfully the woods echoed it. “Yap, Yarrrrrr,—Yap, Yarrrrrr.”

There was no answer.

Into the woods he wandered, scarcely knowing where. On and on in the steady lope he always used when getting away from his enemies. The rancher could come now and fuss and fume all he wanted to. He would find a fox in his trap all right, but not the Red Fox of Oak Ridge.

And Blackie? Long after Red Ben had vanished, she became uneasy. Perhaps he would not return. She once more stood on the threshold of the pen, looking out at the woods where she had last seen him. Poor, silly Blackie! For once in her life she too felt lonely. Raising her head she barked, and then barked again, until her lonesomeness affected the other foxes in the nearby pens and they too barked. It was a wonderful chorus, a goodby to the big, wild fox.

Many miles from the ranch, Red Ben lay down to rest and lick his wire torn feet. He was in a small swamp, where a stream of brownish water flowed between soft masses of sphagnum moss. The first signs of dawn were in the sky. Hardly had he made himself comfortable when a swishing of wings made him look up in time to see a flock of black ducks going over. They swerved, threw out their feet, and with a lot of splashing settled in a shallow pool nearby.

New strength seemed to shoot into Red Ben’s tired limbs. He was almost famished, and here was meat. Stealthily he slipped along the ground towards the water, guided by the soft quacks of the drakes, which were steering the flock carefully nearer to the bank. There, more water weeds and snails could be found.

Soon Red Ben could see the dark forms and hear the water being filtered through the fringes of their bills as they sifted out all that was eatable. The feeding was good; they were having a fine time.

Nearer to shore they came, the wary drakes examining its edges and seeing nothing to alarm them. One climbed up on the bare mud near some bushes. He flapped his wings and then began to oil his feathers. First he rubbed his bill on the oil that every duck has at the point on his back where the tail feathers begin; then he rubbed his oily bill over his feathers. This kept water from soaking them and made him able to swim or dive a long time without getting his feathers wet. Another duck joined him and began to arrange its feathers in like manner.

Suddenly a red streak shot out of the bushes. The first duck saw it and, with a startled quack, leaped into the air; but the second duck, being behind the other, did not see it in time. It leaped, but the streak leaped too and brought it down. Amid wild quacking and splashing as the flock flew up, Red Ben proudly carried off the first real meal he had tasted for two days.

After that he scraped away the snow from the leaves in a clump of laurel and, with nose buried in his fur and covered by his warm, bushy tail, slept through the long day. Downy woodpeckers hammered the old limbs overhead, hawks screeched, and quail, running past to get a drink at the stream, rustled the leaves where the snow was thin; but still Red Ben slept on.

All the terrors of his day in the pen were wiped out by that sleep. Even beautiful Blackie, whom he had played with and loved, became fainter in his memory, like part of a wonderful dream.

CHAPTER XVI
THE ROAD TO THE SEA

Towards evening clouds began to gather; then a gentle wind from the South brought the first signs of thawing weather. Later a warm rain drenched the woods, washing away the snow and leaving the swamps cloaked in vapor.

This was the kind of winter weather the woodsfolk preferred to any other. Nearly all of them came out. Even the raccoons and the skunks, who sleep in cold weather no matter how long it lasts, crept forth to have a good hunt before the next cold spell began.

They had never before seen Red Ben, so each eyed him very carefully and left plenty of room between. As usual, the coons followed the water, the possums wandered along the edges of the swamp, and the skunks roamed the open places. None of them seemed sociable. The only ones Red Ben saw together were two coons who were having a loud altercation in the top of a hollow hickory. Each wanted the hollow entirely for himself, but neither could throw the other out of the tree.

In the stream a mink suddenly appeared. He had a frog in his jaws which he carried ashore and left on a tussock of grass. Returning to the water he dove, searched the muddy bottom, found another frog that was hibernating there, and laid it on the tussock beside its fellow. When he had collected four fat ones he finished his meal, leaving what he did not need, for other less expert hunters, like the possum, to find, if they could.

A larger animal than the mink also came swimming down the stream; it had a flatter head and lighter color. Red Ben, who was sitting on a high part of the bank watching all that was going on, saw at once that this was a creature not to be found in Goose Creek and Cranberry Swamp. It was an otter, on its way to winter quarters farther down the stream. Like most of the other woodsfolk, it had to find a snug, safe hole to live in during the many cold days ahead.

Even the big owls always sought holes when the leaves fell from the trees and the North Wind began to moan in the woods. They hunted out hollows in trees; so did the animals that could climb; but the others, the mink, the skunk, the muskrat and the weasel, slept in holes in the ground. These they dug themselves, if they had to; but generally it was possible for them to find old holes that would do very well. They were very lazy about that kind of thing, far different from animals like the squirrels, which built such snug nests for themselves in summer as well as in winter.

Red Ben found a possum carrying his bed along with him. Instead of holding the grass in his mouth as a squirrel would, he wrapped his queer tail around a big pile of it. Whenever he came across some more material that was suitable, he stopped, picked it up with a front foot and, reaching under his body, tucked it also into the bundle. The tail was curved down and then under his body, so the ends of the grass stuck out on each side, making him look, from the rear, like a little haystack wandering about.

It was not difficult to get food. There were still acorns under the oaks and fruit under the wild apple and persimmon trees. Red Ben, who of course knew nothing of this part of the country, found the trees by following the trails of the creatures that lived in the neighborhood. He looked for wild ducks as he later travelled down the edge of the stream, but found them too wild to be caught. The farther he went the more ducks he saw. The stream was joining other streams and getting wider and wider, until suddenly it came out of the woods and wound through a flat stretch of grass land.

There was now a different scent in Red Ben’s nostrils, a dull roar always in his ears. He had reached the salt marshes, close to the ocean; just beyond them were the waves of the Atlantic hurling themselves on the hard beach of sand. Here were coon tracks in all directions, but no signs of other woods animals.

Red Ben trotted cautiously to the big sand dunes that edged the beach. Beyond them was the roar he had heard all the way from the woods. Climbing the soft sand, he looked over the top of the dunes and saw before him the Ocean, stretching as far as his eye could travel. For a long while he stood there watching the waves. Then he saw a fox, a gray, trotting along the beach. It was not afraid; why should he be cautious?

Down the dune he loped and over the hard, shell studded beach, to the very edge of the water. The gray walked forward to meet him, saw he was a stranger and at once put on all the hostile airs he could.

Red Ben, however, was not surprised. By this time he knew a good deal about gray foxes. He walked around the other, eyeing him sharply, but giving him every chance to attack if he wanted to. The gray was fooled. With a snarl he leaped at the apparently stupid red, only to be met by a blaze of teeth. The fight was over in a moment. The gray did not stop running until he had the big sand dunes between him and that red whirlwind.

Red Ben found crabs, fish, snails and clams washed up on the beach. He had never seen so much food. Some he ate, and some he carried to the dunes and buried for future use. He did not know that a new supply was washed in by every tide. Soon, however, he gave up the idea of burying all the fish he found; there were hundreds of them! Here indeed was the place in which to live and hunt—no traps, no hounds, no hunger. Red Ben sprang into the air in pure joy and raced down the beach and back again, and in and out of the dunes, and then off to the woods to find a resting place for the day.

All through January and the first weeks of cold February he lived by the sea. Then one warm night the loneliness came upon him again. The woods were wet and sweet, the ground was thawing; Spring seemed in the air. Instead of going to the beach, he wandered about the woods and then started West, towards the Pine Barrens. Often he stopped, but always trotted on again; something was calling him. Was it the sunny Ridge, so far from the angry winds and mists of the ocean? Red Ben did not know, but each hour brought him nearer.

With day came a change in the air. Snow began to fall, very softly, but very thick. Nearly blinded, Red Ben curled up under a laurel bush and waited, while inch by inch the flakes rose on the ground around him. No creature was stirring. There was something so determined in the way the snow fell that they were cowed and glad to hide in their snug beds. All night, too, it snowed, and all the next day. Red Ben lay now in a room of snow; on all sides and on top, except where his breath had thawed a hole, was the white blanket. He was completely snowed in.

CHAPTER XVII
THE OTHER FOX

On the second night the snow stopped falling, but the icy northwest wind came in shrieking blasts, whirling the flakes in every direction. It was a terrible time for any creature without a snug home.