The Adventures of Fleetfoot and Her Fawns Part 6

But where was the other fawn?-They found him wedged in between the boulders,-the one place where he could ever have escaped the beat of those wings. Fleet Foot praised him mightily for having so much sense, and he felt quite c.o.c.ky,-though of course his brother was the real hero of the day.

One other danger marred their summer.

Every now and again, as they were pa.s.sing beneath some low-hanging branch, they would catch a glimpse of a tawny form flattened along the limb, watching them with pale yellow eyes that gleamed through narrowed lids.

Perhaps it would be in a deep, dark hemlock thicket, or a cedar swamp, that they would meet the giant cat.

He was a ferocious-looking fellow, was Old Man Lynx, with his great, square, whiskered face, and his ears with their black ta.s.sels and the black stripe down the middle of his back. And my, how his claws crunched the bark as he sharpened them! How his whiskers twitched and his mouth watered as the fawns pa.s.sed beneath him! He seemed all teeth and claws.

Perhaps the little family would be drowsing peacefully in the shade of a long September afternoon when suddenly some spirit of their ancestors, (or was it some guardian angel of their antlered tribe?) would whisper "Danger!" and set their fur to rising along their spines in a cold shiver of nameless fear.

Had Old Man Lynx ever really put it to the test, he could have won out with Fleet Foot. But he knew the sharp drive of her little hoofs, and he was terribly afraid of pain. (Did he not wear a great scar in his side, due to an adventure of his rash young days, when a fat buck had given him a rip with his antlers?)

Perhaps that was why Fleet Foot always raced away in a wide curve that presently brought her back to where she could peer curiously at the invader of her solitude, without herself being seen.

She used to spy in the same way on Old Man Red Fox, and Frisky, his promising young hopeful.

In fact, what with Frisky spying on the fawns, and the fawns watching Frisky, these children of hostile tribes kept pretty close track of one another.

The summer pa.s.sed on the whole, however, with no more adventure than the sound of the lonely "Hoo-woo-o-o-o" of a loon at twilight, or the sudden whirr of a startled pheasant's wings, or a quarrel between some wicked red squirrel caught robbing a crow's nest. (Or was it a crow that had robbed the squirrel's little h.o.a.rd, and was getting handsomely scolded for his villainy?).

CHAPTER X.-WILD GRAPES.

It had been one of those cool, crisp days when the sun shone just warm enough to feel good to the furred and feathered folk. Frisky, the Red Fox Pup, had been creeping up on a flying squirrel, who sat nibbling the ripe berries of the Solomon's Seal with her three little ones beside her, when the entire family took alarm and went leaping back to the beech-nut tree.

Now Frisky had not reached the age of six whole months in vain. He had sharp eyes, and he used them. And he had never seen a squirrel that could spread sail like that. He felt that his eyes must have deceived him.

He forgot his surprise at the very next turn of the trail, when he suddenly spied a tangle of wild grape vine that hung in a canopy of the luscious purple cl.u.s.ters over the stag-horn sumac.

Frisky Fox had never seen wild grapes before, though he had often pa.s.sed the vines when the fruit was green. Now his keen little nose told him enough to make him eager for a taste.

But the fruit hung just too high. Leaping into the air, he occasionally got a nibble from the low-hanging bunches. But these only served to whet his appet.i.te for more.

To add to his discontent, Fairy the Flying Squirrel suddenly sailed down from a tree-top, alighting on the very top of the grapevine canopy. And there she perched saucily and munched and sucked at grape after grape before his very eyes.

This was too much for Frisky. Around and around the vines he circled, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his courage for a leap.

He finally discovered a place where the vine hugged a slanting tree trunk, and he climbed as far as he could.

The next instant Fairy had sailed back to her branch as easily as if she had been laughing at him. But Frisky didn't mind that. It would take just a stretch of his neck and his jaws would close on a great cl.u.s.ter of the fragrant fruit.

If young Frisky Fox had only been content with that one taste, all might have been well. But just beyond was a larger bunch. Frisky gave a leap, landing on his tip-toes on crossed vines. But the vines parted beneath his weight, and down he plunged-almost to the ground, but not quite. Not far enough for a foot-hold.

And there he hung, head downward, hind legs tangled in the vines, unable to better his position!

My, how he writhed and squirmed, and bit at the vine that shackled him!

But to no avail! He was a prisoner, just as surely as if he had been tied with a rope. Little his brains availed him now.

If any one had asked young Frisky Fox, as he hung head downward from that grapevine, what he thought of the situation, he would have said it couldn't be worse.

Yet it speedily became worse,-so much worse, indeed, that Frisky redoubled his efforts to free himself,-though he had an awful feeling that it was no use.

It was Tattle-tale the Jay who warned him.

Tattle-tale kept pretty close track of all that went on in the forest, and then told all he knew.

So many times had he flown ahead of Frisky Fox, screaming at the top of his lungs: "A Fox! A Fox! Beware!" that Frisky had come to dread the sound of his voice.

This time Tattle-tale, who played no favorites, was doing Frisky a good turn, but the little fox was in no position to appreciate the fact.

"Look out, there! Look out, everybody," Tattle-tale was screaming. "Old Man Lynx is coming!"

"Old Man Lynx!" squeaked Shadow Tail, the Red Squirrel, making for his hole in the oak tree.

"OLD MAN LYNX, Mammy, Old Man Lynx!" squealed Timothy Cottontail, hopping madly for a hollow log.

"Old Man Lynx!" grunted Unk-Wunk, the Porcupine. "A lot I care!" And he rolled himself up into a p.r.i.c.kly ball in the top of a swaying birch tree.

"Old Man Lynx!" thought Frisky Fox, fairly beside himself with frenzy.

Hanging there heels uppermost in the grapevine, he was as helpless as a mouse in a trap. And here was the great cat, his ancient enemy, creeping, creeping, creeping through the shadows, his nose sniffing this way and that for the scent that would tell him where to find a good supper.

Another moment and out of the tail of his eye he saw the great, heavy, bob-tailed cat, with his cruel face, squared off with a fringe of whiskers that framed his chin, and sharp ears ta.s.seled with little tufts of fur at their tips.

The yellow eyes gleamed evilly as Old Man Lynx caught sight of Frisky hanging there so helplessly, and his grizzled gray-brown fur rose along his spine.

Now he was wriggling along the ground flattened out like a snake. Now he was creeping up the tree trunk as silently as a shadow, and now he was gathering his legs beneath him for the leap that would land him squarely on Frisky Fox.

Frisky knew that one crunch of those gleaming teeth would end it all, so far as the Red Fox Pup was concerned.

But Frisky had a trick up his sleeve. His wits were still in working order.

"What a pity!" sighed Shadow Tail, the Red Squirrel, as he peered from his hole in the oak tree.

For Old Man Lynx had no objection what-ever to having fox for supper.

The only objection he had to foxes was that he could never catch one.

For to look at poor Frisky Fox, his red-brown fur still soft and silky, his black feet tapering so delicately and his white throat exposed, it didn't seem as if he had a show in the world of escaping the huge cat.

But Old Man Lynx was stupid. He had nothing but his powerful muscles and his murderous teeth and claws, whereas Frisky had the nimble wit of one who lives by being both hunter and hunted.

And even as he waited for the leap for which he saw the Lynx preparing, he thought of a way out of both the grapevine and the danger he was in.