The Fox and the Hound

by Daniel P. Mannix

  Seeing he was absorbed with the distant figure, the vixen went about her own business while Tod, after waiting until the Man was out of sight, trotted down the hill and began to trail him, stepping in his tracks. Tod enjoyed the game of stepping exactly in footprints just as when a pup he had followed in his mother’s footprints to make sure not to get lost. As the length of the Man’s stride was so different from his own, Tod made poor time. When he found that the man had left the route along the fence line and gone out into a field, Tod followed in his marks, still playing his game. Then he stopped suddenly. He had caught the strong odor of fish oil.

  Tod recognized the scent, having occasionally caught chub and sunfish during summer droughts when pools were low. The smell was very powerful indeed - there even seemed to be some skunk mixed with it - and it exerted a strong attraction. It was not so much that Tod liked to eat fish as it was that he enjoyed the smell for its own sake. Some smells fascinated Tod, such as well-rotted manure, and he liked to roll in them.

  Still following the Man's trail, Tod hurried on, thus making a wide swing as the human had done. Now he caught two more odors - the scent of fox urine and the delicious smell of nicely decayed woodchuck. Looking up, Tod saw ahead of him the unmistakable cache of another fox.

  Tod was outraged. This was his hunting grounds. Fearful that the intruder might still be about, he approached slowly and cautiously, sniffing at every step. The stranger had left his urine scent mark on a thistle to establish property rights, and Tod’s nose told him the woodchuck cache was right by the thistle. He could easily see where the other fox had scratched up the ground in front of the cache with his hind feet after leaving the scent marker, for there was a V of torn earth, the apex at the thistle and the sides stretching away from it toward his fence-line trail. Tod was hungry, and there was also the satisfaction of teaching this interloper a lesson by stealing his cache.

  Ordinarily Tod would have scented the fish-oil lure while walking along his usual route and cut directly over to it, this approaching the V through the open end. But because he had been following the Man, he came in from behind the thistle. With no trouble, he dug up the piece of woodchuck and bolted it, The fish-oil scent was strong and attractive. Although most of it was concentrated in the cache, a few drops had fallen in the open V. Thinking there might be another cache hidden there, Tod began to dig. The ground was surprisingly soft, and he made it fly.

  Suddenly there was an explosion. The earth under his nose flew in all directions. Something leaped up through the loose dirt, and two jaws flashed together with a terrible snap. Tod went straight up in the air, landed on all four feet, and fled like a flicker of light. Then, seeing he was not pursued, he made a long swing and came slowly back.

  The thing was lying on top of the ground, motionless. After circling it for half an hour, Tod inched in and smelled at it. The thing smelled of butternut wood and smoke, the odors combining to smother all other smells; but now that it was above ground Tod could get a faint scent of iron. Tod had no fear of iron. On his hunts, he had often run across iron horseshoes in pastures, crawled under iron manure spreaders, and used iron fences as scent posts. Iron meant nothing to him, and even if the thing had smelled to high heaven of iron and been left lying on the surface of the ground, Tod would have stepped into the middle of it without a second thought. The forest-bred vixen would have avoided it as she would have avoided anything connected with man, even a dropped handkerchief or a mislaid spoon, but Tod had no such feelings.

  Very carefully, he extended one paw and poked the thing. It moved slightly, and Tod sprang back. After watching with his head on one side, he poked it again. By now he was convinced that the thing was lifeless in spite of the way it had moved. A chain was attached to it, and by pulling the chain Tod tried to drag it off, but the chain was fastened to a stake that held it. After trying to pull the stake up, and failing, Tod ended by contemptuously urinating over the whole affair.

  Curious rather than alarmed, Tod continued to track the Man. Half a mile farther on, he smelled the fish-oil again and, following the odor, came on another of the curious caches. This time a burdock had been used as a scent post with the same scratch-mark V in front of it. Profiting from his previous experience, Tod swung around and unearthed the cache from the roots of the burdock, but his constant curiosity prompted him to see if there were another of the iron things in the V. With a careful paw, Tod dug in from the side of the V; and sure enough, within a few inches he touched a hard, curved edge. At once Tot! pulled back, expecting to see this one also leap into the air with a snap, but nothing happened. With fantastic delicacy of touch, Tod reached under the object and gave it the same flip he occasionally used to toss a mouse out of its tunnel. Then he got his explosion. This time Tod felt so proud of himself he not only urinated on the object but covered it with his feces as well

  Tod had now acquired two fine pieces of delicious woodchuck well seasoned, and was beginning to enjoy this business. Hurrying on, he found several more of the caches, each with one of the iron objects buried beside it, and he conscientiously sprang them all. Then that evening he came on one that had quite a different smell - a heavy, skunk-like odor - and trotting over to it. Tod found a mink caught by one foot.

  The tortured animal had torn up the ground in a circle around the central stake. It lay there panting, watching Tod. Tod's impulse was to spring in and kill the helpless captive; but he was fearful of some trick, and ran around the fatal circle. The mink was too exhausted to do more than turn its head. Then as Tod came closer, the mink writhed to its feet hissing, and tore at the trap. Crazed with pain the prisoner rolled on the ground, his teeth scratching on the iron, and then in his agony tore at his own foot, Tod felt no sympathy for the mink, yet the whole business frightened as well as fascinated him. He could only vaguely realize that had happened, and kept running back and forth, approaching the mink as closely as he dared and then leaping back to run wildly about, half hysterical with excitement and bewilderment. When the mink lay on its side at the edge of the circle, gasping and snarling, Tod crawled in on his belly until their noses were almost touching, and crouched there, snarling back. Then he sniffed at time mink inquisitively until a fresh spasm of the animal made him retreat.

  Tod stayed by the mink until the sun was so high that he decided to return to his lying-up place. The stench of fright, the odor of blood the tortured thrashing of the animal all had made a profound impression on him. Tod was able to understand that somehow these iron things could grasp and hold anything they caught even though they were not alive. This was a new idea to Tod, and difficult for him to connect with his past experiences, for to Tod anything that could seize a living creature was alive.

  Tod was profoundly puzzled. He had been able to adjust to being hunted by hounds, as the method used by the hounds to track him was not fundamentally different from the manner in which he himself tracked quarry. The efforts made to shoot him at a crossing had not unduly alarmed him - once he realized the danger of firearms - for he could understand how a human would wait in ambush for him while a hound drove him past the spot; after all, this was not too unlike the way he and his mate herded game to each other. These iron things presented a problem totally alien to his was of thought. Still, they could not chase him nor could they kill from a distance. He decided to find out more about them.

  From then on, Tod made a circuit of the trapline every night. He invariably sprang each trap after eating the bait. He gained no advantage from springing the traps; he simply enjoyed doing it. Except for the brief rutting season, he took no interest in sex, and generally obtaining food was so simple it had become routine. Tod was bored and he had an active mind. His catholic diet caused him to develop techniques not only for catching game but also for devising means of getting grapes (he did this by climbing into a sloping tree and then jumping down on the grapevines from above) and learning how to get the lids off garbage cans. He had become intensely curious about everything he encountered, and delig
hted in experimenting with unusual objects to see what would happen. Much of his hunting was play rather than a desire for food. He would go out of his way to stalk a squirrel because he knew how difficult squirrels were to catch. If he succeeded, he often did not bother to eat his kill - the satisfaction of the hunt was enough for him. He enjoyed springing the traps because it was a difficult thing to do. coupled with just enough danger to make it exciting.

  He tried taking the vixen around the trapline with him, but she was terrified of the whole business and could not imagine why he found this dangerous sport so pleasurable. She had a deathly fear of man and all his works, and once he showed her that there were traps in the V's before the nice-smelling baits, she refused to go anywhere near them. Being more cautious, she ran fewer risks, but she also learned nothing about traps. Tod became so expert at springing them he grew cocky and overconfident.

  Occasionally Tod would find another animal caught, often another fox, for the trapline was not confined to his range, and because it was winter, Tod had no hesitation about trespassing on adjacent properties. When the captive was a fox, it was usually a this-year's pup. The sight of the trapped fox invariably drove Tod half mad with anxiety. He would run around crying in his frenzy occasionally charging at the victim as though about to attack him and then later digging up a cache of food and bringing it to him. Tod did not precisely feel sorry for the doomed fox - even if he could have released him it is doubtful whether he would have done so, although in the case of a pup his parental feelings might well have been strong enough to cause him to save the prisoner. The scent of fear that poured from the captive like a stinking mist affected Tod's mind, just as the odor of a vixen in heat made it impossible for him to behave normally. He seemed to go temporarily insane. Yet the fact that he would bring the prisoner food (which was never eaten) showed he was not entirely indifferent to the captive's fate. He was especially attentive to pups, and would often stay with them until his nose told him the Man was coming. Then, and not until then, he would slip away.

  One morning while Tod was lying up in the lea of a stand of hemlocks, he heard a jay screaming in the valley. There was a standing feud between Tod and jays; many a time they had spoiled some of his most elaborate stalks by flying down and screaming at him, thus warning his quarry. Even so. Tod used the jays as sentinels, for if they screamed at him they also screamed at anything else dangerous or unusual. Tod lay for some time listening to the jay. The bird might be yelling at an owl who had not been able to make it back to the woods when daylight overtook him, or even at another fox. Still, there was a special note of insistency in this bird's voice that made Tod suspect he saw a man. Finally Tod rose, stretched, and made a swing downwind to investigate.

  There was a good breeze blowing and as Tod glided along through the cover - for in broad daylight he never exposed himself if he could help it - he caught the strong smell of the Man. If he had been on one of the farms where men were supposed to be, Tod would have paid no attention to him: nor should the jay have screamed. But the Man was on the overgrown slope of a hill, one of Tod's favorite hunting grounds, where men never went if they were attending to their own affairs.

  Still keeping downwind of the human, Tod snaked through the cover until he could see him. He was making one of the caches. For the first time, Tod saw how the iron thing was put in the V.

  When the men finally left, Tod went over to investigate. Everything looked as usual, but he circled the spot for a long time. He could smell the fish-oil lure and the bait - it was muskrat this time. At long last, he edged in cautiously, alert for any new device that might be awaiting him. With his nose checked every inch of the ground as he progressed, not only for the smell of iron but also for the odor of freshly turned earth. He also used his eyes, studying the ground ahead before putting his foot down to see if anything had been disturbed. His whole body was tense, ready to leap instantaneously if the ground moved beneath him. Occasionally he would pat the ground lightly with one extended forepaw before putting his weight on the spot.

  He reached the edge of the V. Sniffing, he could easily smell the iron thing under the loose soil. Always heretofore the traps had smelled of butternut wood or balsam, which hid the odor of iron, but there was no scent here except that of the trap. Tod could tell exactly where it was. Delicately he scooped out earth to one side of it until he could insert one paw underneath. Then he gave his flip.Instead of leaping up, the trap went off under the ground, and Tod to his indescribable horror felt the jaws seize his paw. The trap had been set upside down. Even as the jaws closed, Tod threw himself backward. His foot tore free. Tod was so amazed and startled he stood staring at the partly exposed trap. Then in a blind fury he tore it up by the chain and shook it like a rabbit. The jaws were still slightly open for a small stone had wedged between them. In his relief and anger, Tod defecated on the thing until he could force nothing more from his straining bowels. He left the trapline alone for the next couple of days because his foot was still sore; but the temptation to outwit the human proved so strong that on the third morning he went back to checking the line.

  So exquisitely sensitive was Tod's touch that after a little experimentation he could tell by feeling the edges of the traps how they were set, If they were set in the normal way, he flipped them up from below. If they were set upside down, he dug down from the top until he reached the release catch and jarred it loose. For two nights he systematically sprang all the traps along the line, confident now that he understood the whole system. These traps were not chained to a stake, buy to a drag that moved with the trap so a fox could not free himself by a quick jerk as Tod had done before.

  The next night he found a cache freshly baited, and located the trap without trouble. He dug under it. It was upside down, so Tod began to dig in from above. The trap jumped to meet him. The jaws flew shut on his paw. At the same instant there was another explosion under the trap. Two traps had been set, one above the other, the bottom one upside down.

  In his fear and agony, Tod ran blindly, the drag bumping behind him. Going at top speed, Tod tore between two rocks. Here the drag caught. There was a sudden racking jerk that brung Tod down, but when he got up again he was free. The trap had been tom from his paw.

  Tod limped for many days afterward. It would seem incredible that after such a lesson he would again return to springing traps, yet he did. Tod needed excitement almost as much as he did food. The jug hunters with their nocturnal hunts had provided it for a while, but the country was getting built up now, and the jug hunters came no more. When Tod was playing with a trap, little spasms of delightful ecstasy trembled through him as the threat of imminent danger set his adrenalin gland pumping blood through his veins. After such an experience Tod could eat the bait with a satisfaction impossible under any other circumstances; and when he rejoined the vixen, he would even try to mount her in play as he never did otherwise. He could no more forego the divine emotion that only danger induced than he could forego the sexual drive. It was to those pulsing shots of adrenalin that Tod owned his quicksilver reflexes, and his whole being revolved around them. He was prepared to run great risks to obtain that thrill, and besides, he had not been really seriously hurt - as yet.

  Tod now worked out a new trap-springing technique. Using the side of his paw and employing delicate, surface strokes, he would brush away the loose dirt covering the pan of the trap. Tod usually lay on his side when performing this operation. Once the trap was uncovered, Tod could then see how it was set and how to best deal with it.

  Tod began to notice a new odor to the traps - the acrid scent of filed steel where the rough edges of the pin and release catch had been filed away to give the trap a hair trigger set. But he had developed so fine a touch at the ticklish operation of uncovering the pan that no matter how lightly the trap might be set, he did not spring it. Now Tod was sure he was safe; man had nothing more to show him.

  One evening as Tod lay brushing the loose earth from a trap's pan, he felt something pr
ick his paw, When Tod tried to jerk his paw away, the thing's curved tip clung to his fur for a fraction of a second - only a fraction, but enough to set off the trap. A fishhook had been soldered to the pan, and this time Tod was caught full and fair.

  Tod spun around and ran. For a wonderful moment he thought he could escape even with the trap fastened to his foot, as he had before, but when he came to the end of the chain he was thrown down with a force that sent spasms of torture up his leg. This time the chain was not fastened to a drag, but to a stake. Now it was Tod's turn to rave and tear at the iron jaws, to bite at his own leg, to tear up the ground in a circle around the immovable stake, and finally to fall exhausted and panting on the snow. He fought in silence; no sound escaped him in spite of his pain. Time and again he rushed the full length of the chain, only to be brought down again.

  He tried to chew his foot off, but it was not numb enough yet to be anesthetized. He knew well what would happen to him when the trapper returned. He had smelled the fate of other foxes caught in the bloody snow. Frantic, Tod made another rush, racing from one side of the circle he had made straight across to the far edge. Again he was pulled off his feet, but the abrupt yank had jerked his foot a fraction of an inch clear.

  Tod collapsed gasping. Spasms of pain ran up his leg, and he wanted to do nothing but lie still and suffer. Still, he forced himself to stand, and then made another rush. The fearful tearing jerk was almost more than he could bear, but again his pad was pulled slightly through the trap's jaws. Again and again he made the effort, until his tortured brain refused to function and he fought in a haze of suffering without purpose or hope, yet always running the full length of the long chain to build up momentum for the final yank. How many rushes he made he did not know; yet finally, after one rush, he pitched forward and somersaulted on the snow. He struggled to his feet and charged on again. This time the chain did not yank him back, and he went on and on, falling, recovering himself, and still making wild rushes, unable to realize that at last he was free.