While the dogs are
puzzling that out, he has plenty of time to plan more devices on his
way to the big hill, with its brook, and old walls, and rail fences,
and dry places under the pines, and twenty other helps to an active
brain.
First he will run round the hill half a dozen times, crisscrossing his
trail. That of itself will drive the young dogs crazy. Then along the
top rail of a fence, and a long jump into the junipers, which hold no
scent, and another jump to the wall where there is no snow, and then--
"Oh, plenty of time, no hurry!" he says to himself, turning to listen
a moment. "That dog with the big voice must be old Roby. He thinks he
knows all about foxes, just because he broke his leg last year, trying
to walk a sheep-fence where I'd been. I'll give him another chance;
and oh, yes! I'll creep up the other side of the hill, and curl up on
a warm rock on the tiptop, and watch them all break their heads over
the crisscross, and have a good nap or two, and think of more
tricks."
So he trots past you, still planning; crosses the wall by a certain
stone that he has used ever since he was a cub fox; seems to float
across an old pasture, stopping only to run about a bit among some cow
tracks, to kill the scent; and so on towards his big hill. Before he
gets there he will have a skilful retreat planned, back to the ponds,
in case old Roby untangles his crisscross, or some young fool-hound
blunders too near the rock whereon he sits, watching the game.
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