They had visited the National Exhibition of silver foxes. They had spent days at successful fox farms, studying every detail of management and memorising the rigid4 diet-charts. They had committed to memory every fact and hint in Bulletin No. 1151 of the United States Department of Agriculture—issued for the help of novice5 breeders of silver foxes.
They had mastered each and every available scrap6 of exact information concerning the physical welfare of captive silver foxes. But, for lack of half a lifetime’s close application to the theme, their knowledge of fox mentality7 and fox nature was nil8.
2Now one may raise chickens or hogs9 or even cattle, without taking greatly into account the inner workings of such animals’ brains. But no man yet has made a success of raising foxes or their fifth cousin, the collie, without spending more time in studying out the mental than the physical beast.
On the kitchen wall of the Stippled Silver Kennel, Inc., was the printed dietary of silver foxes. On the one library shelf of the kennel was all the available literature on silver fox breeding, from government pamphlets to a three-volume monograph11. In the four-acre space within the kennel enclosure were thirty model runways, twenty by twenty feet; each equipped with a model shelter-house and ten of them further fitted out with model brood nests.
In twenty-four of these thirty model runways abode12 twenty-four model silver foxes, one to each yard at this autumn season—twenty-four silver foxes, pedigreed and registered—foxes whose lump value was something more than $7,400. Thanks to the balanced rations13 and meticulous14 care lavished15 on them, all twenty-four were in the pink of form.
All twenty-four seemed as nearly contented16 as can a wild thing which no longer has the zest17 of gambling18 with death for its daily food and which is stared at with indecent closeness and frequency by dread19 humans.
But the partners of the Stippled Silver Kennel, Inc., failed to take note, among other things, of the uncanny genius certain foxes possess for sapping and mining; nor that some foxes are almost as deft20 at climbing as is a cinnamon bear. True, the average silver fox is neither a gifted burrower21 nor climber. But neither are such talents rare.
For example, King Whitefoot II, in Number 8 run, could have given a mole23 useful hints in underground burrowing24. Lady Pitchdark, the temperamental young 3vixen in Number 17 run, might wellnigh have qualified25 as the vulpine fly. Because neither of these costly26 specimens27 spent their time in sporadic28 demonstration29 of their arts, in the view of humans, those same humans did not suspect the accomplishments30.
Then came an ice-bright moonlit night in late November—a night to stir every quadruped’s blood to tingling31 life and to set humans to crouching33 over fireplaces. Ten minutes after Rance and Ethan Venner, the kennel partners, finished their perfunctory evening rounds of the yards, King Whitefoot II was blithely34 at work.
Foxes and other burrowing beasts seek instinctively37 the corners or the edges of yards, when striving to dig a way out. Any student of their ways will tell you that. Wherefore, as in most fox-kennels39, the corners and inner edges of the Stippled Silver yards were fringed with a half-yard of mesh-wire, laid flat on the ground.
Whitefoot chose a spot six inches on the hither edge of a border-wire and began his tunnel. He did not waste strength by digging deep. He channelled a shallow tube, directly under the flat-laid wire. Indeed, the wire itself formed the top of his tunnel. The frost was not yet deep enough or hard enough to impede40 his work. Nor, luckily for him, did he have to circumnavigate any big underground rock.
In forty-two minutes from the time he began to dig, his pointed42 black nose and his wide-cheeked stippled black face was emerging into the open, a few inches outside his yard.
Wriggling44 out of his tunnel, he shook himself daintily to rid his shimmering45 silver-flecked black coat of such dirt as clung to it. Then he glanced about him. From the nearby wire runs, twenty-three pairs of slitted topaz eyes flamed avidly47 at him. Twenty-three ebony bodies 4crouched moveless; the moon glinting bright on their silver stipples49 and snowy tailtips.
The eyes of his world were on the fugitive50. The nerves of his world were taut51 and vibrant52 with thrill at his escapade. But they were sportsmen in their own way, these twenty-three prisoners who looked on while their more skilled fellow won his way to liberty. Not a whine53, not so much as a deep-drawn54 breath gave token of the excitement that was theirs. No yelping55 bark brought the partners out to investigate. These captives could help their comrade only by silence. And they gave him silence to a suffocating57 degree.
With their round phosphorous eyes they followed his every move. But twenty-two of the twenty-three forbore so much as a single motion whose sound might attract human ears. Couchant, aquiver, turning their heads ever so little and in unison58 to watch his progress, the twenty-two watched Whitefoot make for the high wire boundary fence which encircled the four-acre kennel enclosure—the fence beyond whose southern meshes59 lay the frost-spangled meadow.
Beyond the meadow reared the naked black woods, sloping stiffly upward to the mountain whose sides they draped;—the mountain which was the outpost of the wilderness60 hinterland to southward of this farm-valley.
But, as Whitefoot set to work at the absurdly simple exploit of digging under this outer fence—a fence not extending underground and with no flat width of wire before it—the twenty-third prisoner could stand the emotional strain no longer. Young and with nerves less steady than her companions’, little Lady Pitchdark marred61 the perfect symphony of noiselessness.
She did not bark or even yelp56. But she went into action.
5By natural genius she was a climber. Up the side of her ten-foot run-wire she whizzed; her long-clawed feet scarce seeming to seek toe-hold in the ladder of meshes they touched. Like a cat, she sped upward.
To provide against such an unlikely effort at jail-breaking, the four wire walls of the run sloped slightly inward. At their summit, all around, was a flat breadth of wire that hung out for eight inches over the run; projecting inside the walls. As a rule such deterrents62 were quite enough to bar an ordinary fox from escape. But nature had taught Lady Pitchdark more than she teaches the ordinary fox. She was one of the rare vulpines born with climbing-genius.
Up she scrambled63 her fierce momentum64 carrying her to the very top of the fence; to the spot where it merged65 with the eight-inch overhang. Here, by every rule, the vixen should have yielded to the immutable66 law of gravity and should have tumbled back to the ground with a breath-expelling flop67.
This is precisely68 what she did not do. Still helped by her momentum, she clawed frantically70 with both forefeet at the edge of the overhang. Her claws hooked in its end-meshes. Her hindfeet released their hold on the in-slanting fence and she swung for an instant between moon and earth—a glowing black swirl72 of fur, shot with a myriad73 silver threads.
Then lithely36 she drew herself up, on the overhang. A pause for breath and she was skidding74 down the steep slope of the fence’s outer side. A dart75 across the yard and she reached the kennel’s boundary fence just as Whitefoot was squirming to freedom through the second and shorter tunnel he had made that night.
Diving through, so close behind him that her outthrust muzzle76 brushed his sensitive tailtip, Pitchdark reached 6the safety of the outer world at almost the same instant as did he. Whitefoot felt the light touch at his tail. He spun77 around, snarling79 murderously, his razor-keen teeth bared. He had won his way to liberty by no slight exercise of brain and of muscle. He was not minded to surrender tamely to any possible pursuer.
But as he confronted the slender young vixen in her royal splendour of pelt80 and with her unafraid excited eyes fixed81 so mischievously82 upon him, the dog-fox’s lips slipped down from their snarling curl; sheathing83 the fearsome array of teeth and tushes. For a fraction of a second Whitefoot and Pitchdark faced each other there under the dazzling white moon; twin ebon blotches84 on the frost-strewn grass. Twenty-two pairs of yellow-fire eyes were upon them.
Then on impulse the two refugees touched noses. As though by this act they established common understanding, they wheeled about as one; and galloped87 silently, shoulder to shoulder, across the frosted meadow to the safety of the black mountainside forest.
Sportsmanship can go only just so far; even in cool-nerved foxes. As the couple vanished through the night, a shrilly89 hideous90 multiple clamour of barking went up from twenty-two furry91 black throats. The tense hush92 was broken by a bedlam93 of raucous94 noise. The prisoners dashed themselves against the springy sides of their wire runs. One and another of them made desperate scrambling95 attempts to climb the inslanting walls that encircled them—only to fall back to the frozen ground and add their quota97 once more to the universal din10.
Rance and Ethan Venner came tumbling out of the nearby house, grasping their flashlights and shouting confusedly to each other. Instantly blank silence overspread 7the yards. The foxes crouched48 low, eyes aflame, staring mutely at the belated humans.
The briefest of inspections98 told the brothers what had happened. First they found the tunnel leading forth99 from Whitefoot’s run. Then they discovered that Pitchdark’s run was empty; though they could find no clue to its occupant’s mysterious vanishing until next morning’s sunrise showed them a tuft of finespun black fur stuck to a point of wire on the overhang, ten feet above ground. Last of all the partners came upon the hole under the fence which divided the kennel from the meadow.
“Whitefoot was worth an easy $600 as he stood,” grunted100 Rance Venner, miserably101; as his flashlight’s ray explored the hole under the fence. “Nearer $700, in the coat he’s carrying this fall. And Pitchdark isn’t more’n a couple of hundred dollars behind him. Two of the best we had. A hundred per cent loss; just as we’re getting started.”
“Nope,” contradicted Ethan. “Not a hundred per cent loss. Only about fifty. The pelt of either one of ’em will bring $300, dressed. Any of a dozen dealers102 will pay us that for it.”
“If they was to pay us three million, we wouldn’t be any richer,” complained Rance. “We haven’t got the pelts104 to sell. You’re talking plumb105 foolish, Ethan.”
“We’ll have ’em both by noon to-morrow,” declared Ethan. “Those two foxes were born in a kennel. They don’t know anything else. They’re as tame as pet squirrels. We’ll start out gunning for ’em at sunrise. We’ll take Ruby106 along. She’ll scent107 ’em, double quick. Then all we’ll have to do is plant the shots where they won’t muss the pelt too much.”
“We’ll do better’n that,” supplemented Rance, his 8spirits rising at his brother’s tone of confidence. “We won’t shoot ’em. We’ll get out the traps, instead. They’re both tame and neither of ’em ever had to hustle110 for a meal. They’ll walk right into the traps, as quick as they get the sniff111 of cooked food. C’mon in and help me put the traps in shape. We ought to be setting ’em before sunrise. The two foxes will be scouting112 for breakfast by that time.”
The newly optimistic Rance was mistaken in all his forecasts. The two fugitives113 were not scouting for breakfast at sunrise. Hours earlier they twisted their way in through the narrow little opening of an unguarded chicken-house belonging to a farm six miles from the kennel. Thither114 they were drawn by the delicious odour of living prey115.
There, like a million foxes since the birth of time, they slew116 without noise or turmoil117. There they glutted118 themselves; carrying away each a heavy fowl119 for future feasting; bearing off their plunder120 in true vulpine fashion with the weight of the bird slung121 scientifically over the bearer’s withers122.
Daybreak found them lying snugly123 asleep in a hollow windfall tree that was open at either end and which lay lengthwise of a nick in the hillside, with briars forming an effective hedge all about it.
Nor did the best casting efforts of Ruby, the partners’ foxhound, succeed in following their cleverly confused trail across a pool and two brooks125. In the latter brook124, they had waded126 for nearly a furlong before emerging on dry ground at the same side.
Thus set in a winter of bare sustenance127 for the runaways128. They kept to no settled abiding129 place, but drifted across country; feasting at such few farmsteads as had penetrable131 hencoops; doing wondrous132 teamwork in the 9catching of rabbits and partridges; holing in under windfalls or in rock-clefts136 when blizzards137 made the going bad.
It was the season when foxes as a rule run solitary138. Seldom in early winter do they hunt in pairs and never at any season in packs. But these two black and silver waifs were bound together not only by early association but by mutual139 inexperience of the wild. And while this inexperience did not blur140 nor flaw their marvellous instinct, they found it more profitable to hunt together than alone.
Only once or twice in their winter’s foraging141 did they chance upon any of the high-country’s native red foxes. A heavy hunting season had shifted most of the reds to a distant part of the county; as is the way with foxes that are overpressed by the attentions of trappers and hounds. In that region, pink coats and hunting horses and foxhound packs were unknown. But many a mountain farmer eked43 out his lean income by faring afield with a brace142 of disreputable but reliable mongrel hounds and a fowling143 piece as disreputably reliable; eager for the flat price of $10 to $12 per skin offered by the nearest wholesale dealer103. This sum of course was for the common red fox; silver foxes being as unknown to the region at large as were dinosaurs144.
(The dealer paid the farmer-huntsman perhaps $11 per skin. The pelt was then cured and dressed and mounted and equipped with snappers; at a total price in labour and material of perhaps $6 at most. After which, in marketable form, it sold at retail145 from $60 to $75 or even higher. Thus, there was money for every one concerned—except possibly for the ultimate buyer.)
The two silver foxes had the forest and farmland largely to themselves. The few reds they met did not attack them or affiliate146 with them at that hungry time of year.
10The winter winds and the ice-storms made Whitefoot’s coat shine and thicken as never had it done on scientifically balanced rations. The life of the wild put new depth to Pitchdark’s narrow chest and gave her muscular power and sinew to spare. Quizzical Dame147 Nature had lifted them from man’s wisest care; as though in object lesson of her own infinitely148 more efficient methods for conditioning her children.
Late January brought a sore-throat thaw149 and with it a melting of drift and ice-pack. Incidentally it ushered150 in the yearly vulpine mating season.
Spring was early that year. But before the frost was out of the ground, Pitchdark had chosen her nursery. It was by no means so elaborate nor sanitary151 as had been the costly brood-nests at the kennel. Indeed it would have struck horror to the heart of any scientific breeder.
For it was merely a woodchuck hole in an upland meadow, at the forest edge, a short mile from a straggling farmstead. Even here Whitefoot’s inspired prowess as a digger was not called into play. His sole share toward securing the home was to thrash the asthmatically indignant old woodchuck that had dug the burrow22. Then Pitchdark made her way cautiously down the hole and proceeded to enlarge it a little at the shallow bottom. That was all the home-making done by the pair.
Then, of a windy night, just before the first of April, the vixen did not join her mate in his expedition for loot. And as he panted homeward before dawn with a broken-winged quail153 between his jaws155, he found her lying in the burrow’s hollow, with five indeterminate-looking babies nuzzling close to her soft side.
Then began days, or rather nights, of double foraging for Whitefoot. For it is no light thing to provide food 11for a den38-ridden mate and, indirectly156, for five hungry and husky cubs158.
Nor was the season propitious159 for food-finding. The migratory160 birds, for the most part, had not shifted north. The rabbits for some silly reason of their own had changed their feeding grounds to the opposite valley. Farmers had suffered too many depredations161 from Whitefoot and Pitchdark during the past month to leave their henroosts as hospitably162 open as of yore.
The first day’s hunting netted only a sick crow that had tumbled from a tree. Whitefoot turned with disgust from this find. For, though he would have been delighted to dine on the rankest of carrion163, yet in common with all foxes, he could not be induced to touch any bird of prey.
That night he foraged164 again; in spite of having outraged167 his regular custom by hunting in daylight. There was no fun in hunting, this night. For a wild torrent168 of rain had burst out of the black clouds which all day had been butting169 their way across the windy sky.
Foxes detest170 rain, and this rain was a veritable deluge171; a flood that started the spring freshets and turned miles of bottomland into soggy lakes. Yet Whitefoot kept on. Grey dawn found him midway between his lair172 and the farmstead at the foot of the hill.
This farm he and Pitchdark had avoided. It was too near their den for safe plundering173. Its human occupants might well be expected to seek the despoilers. And just then those despoilers were in no condition to elude174 the chase. Wherefore, fox-fashion, the two had ranged far afield and had reserved the nearby farm for later emergencies.
Now the emergency appeared to call for such a visit from Whitefoot. A moment or so he hesitated, irresolute175 12whether to return empty-mouthed to his mate or to go first to the farm for possible food. He decided176 on the farm.
Had he gone to the burrow he would have known there was no further need to forage165 for those five beautiful baby silvers, so different in aspect from the slaty-gray infants of the red fox. A swelling177 rivulet178 of rain had been deflected179 from its downhill course by a wrinkle in the soil; and had poured swishingly down the opening of the woodchuck warren and thence down into the ill-constructed brood nest at its bottom.
For the safeguarding of newborn fox-babies, as of the babies of every race, dry warmth is all-essential. Chilled and soaked, despite their young mother’s frantic69 efforts to protect them, the five ill-nourished and perilously181 inbred cubs ceased to nurse and began to squeak182 right dolefully. Then, one by one they died. The last of them stiffened184 out, just before daybreak.
Rance and Ethan Venner would have cursed luridly185 at loss of so many hundred dollars in potential peltry. But the bereft186 little mother only cuddled her ice-cold babies the closer; crooning piteously to them. They were her first litter. She could not realise what had befallen them, nor why one and all of them had ceased to nurse.
Meantime, her mate was drifting like an unobtrusive black shadow through the rain toward the clutter187 of farm buildings at the base of the hill-pasture. His scent told him there was a dog somewhere in that welter of sheds and barns and houses. But his scent told him also that there were fowls188 aplenty. Preparing to match his speed and his wit against any dog’s, he crept close and closer, taking due advantage of every patch of cover; unchecked even by the somewhat more distant man-scent; and urged on by that ever stronger odour of live chickens.
13Presently he was skirting the chicken-yard. It and its coop were too fast-locked for him to hope to enter with less than a half-hour’s clever digging. He had not a half-hour. He had not a half-minute to spare.
Slinking from the coop, he rounded a tool-house. There he halted. For to his nostrils189 came again the smell of living food, though of a sort vaguely190 unpleasant to him. Hunger and the need to feed his brood formed too strong a combination for this faint distaste to combat.
He peered around the corner of the half-open door of the tool-house. From the interior arose the hated dog-smell, ten times stronger than before. But he knew by nose and by hearing that the dog was no longer in there.
He was correct in this, as in most of his surmises191. Not five minutes earlier, the early-rising Dick Logan had opened the tool-house door and convoyed thence his pedigreed collie, Jean, to the kitchen for her breakfast.
In the corner of the tool-house was a box half filled with rags. Down among the rags nestled and squirmed and muttered a litter of seven pure-bred collie pups, scarce a fortnight old.
Man-scent and dog-scent filled the air; scaring and disgusting the hesitant Whitefoot. Stark192 hunger spurred him on. A fleeting193 black shadow slipped noiselessly swift into the tool-house and then out again.
Through the welter of rain, Whitefoot was making for his mile-distant lair; at top speed; pausing not to glance over his shoulder; straining every muscle to get away from that place of double peril180 and to his waiting family. No need to waste time in confusing the trail. The sluicing194 rain was doing that.
Between his teeth the fox carried a squealing195 and struggling fat collie puppy.
Keen as was his own need for food, he did not pause to 14devour or even to kill the plump morsel197 he had snatched up. Nor did his pinpoint198 teeth so much as prick199 through the fuzzy fat sides of his prey. Holding the puppy as daintily as a bird dog might retrieve200 a wounded partridge, he sped on.
At the mouth of the warren, Pitchdark was waiting for him. She had brought her babies out of the death hole; though too late. They lay strewn on the rain-sick ground in front of her. She herself was crouched for shelter in the lee of a rock that stood beside the hole.
Whitefoot dropped the collie pup in front of his mate; and prepared to join her in the banquet. Pitchdark nosed the blind, helpless atom of babyhood; as though trying to make out what it might be.
The puppy, finding himself close to something warm and soft and furry, crept instinctively toward this barrier from the cold and wet which were striking through to the very heart of him. At his forward motion, Pitchdark snarled201 down at him. But as his poking202 nose chanced to touch her, the snarl78 merged suddenly into a croon. With her own sharp nose, she pushed him closer to her and interposed her body between him and the rain.
Whitefoot, the water cascading203 from his splendid coat, stood dripping and staring. Failing to make any sense of his mate’s delay in beginning to devour196 the breakfast he had brought along at such danger to himself, he took a step forward, his jaws parting for the first mouthful of the feast. Pitchdark growled204 hideously206 at him and slashed207 at his advancing face.
Piqued209 and amazed at her ungrateful treatment, he hesitated a moment longer; then trotted210 glumly212 off into the rain; leaving Pitchdark crooningly nursing the queer substitute for her five dead infants. As he ran, he all but 15collided with a rain-dazed rabbit that hopped213 out of a briar clump214 to avoid him.
Five minutes later he and Pitchdark were lying side by side in the lee of the rock, crunching215 unctuously216 the bones of the luckless bunny; while the collie pup feasted as happily in his own fashion as did they, nuzzling deep into the soft hair of his foster-mother’s warm underbody.
Why the exposure to rain and cold did not kill the puppy is as much a mystery as why Pitchdark did not kill him. Nevertheless—as is the odd way of one collie pup in twenty—he took no harm from the mile of rainy gallop86 to which Whitefoot had treated him. More—he throve amain on the milk which had been destined217 for five fox cubs.
The downpour was followed by weeks of unseasonably dry and warm weather. The porous218 earth of the warren was dry within a few hours. The lair bed proved as comfortable for the new baby as it was to have been to his luckless predecessors219.
By the time May brought the warm nights and the long bright days, the puppy weighed more than twice as much as any fox cub157 of his age. He had ceased to look like a sleek220 dun-coloured rat and resembled rather a golden-and-white Teddy Bear.
On the moonlit May nights and in the red dawning and in the soft afterglow, he and his pretty mother would frisk and gambol221 in the lush young meadow grass around the lair. It was sweet to see the lithe35 black beauty’s complete devotion for her clumsy baby and the jealous care wherewith she guarded him. From the first she was teaching him the cunning caution which is a fox’s world-old birthright and which is foreign to a man-owned collie. With his foster-mother’s milk and from his foster-mother’s 16example he drank in the secrets of the wild and the fact that man is the dread foe222 of the beast.
Gaily223 as the two might play in the moonlit grass, the first distant whiff of man-scent was enough to send Pitchdark scuttling224 silently into the burrow; driving the shambling pup ahead of her. There the two would lie, noiseless, almost without breathing; while man or dog or both passed by.
This was not the season for hunting foxes. Their pelts were “off-prime”—in no condition for the market. Thus, the pair in the burrow were not sought out nor harried225.
Back at the Logan farm there was bewilderment at the puppy’s mysterious vanishing. His dam, returning from the kitchen after breakfast, had broken into a growl205 of sudden wrath226 and had changed her trot211 for a handgallop as she neared the tool-shed. Into the shed she had dashed, abristle and growling227, then out again, sniffing228 the earth, casting in ever widening circles, and setting off presently on a trail which the deluging229 rain wiped out before she could follow it for a hundred yards.
The stolen pup was the only one in the litter which had not been sold or else bespoken230. For the Logan collies had a just fame in the region. But that one pup had been set aside by Dick Logan as a future housedog. This because he was the largest and strongest and liveliest of the seven; and because of the unusually wide white ruff which encircled his broad shoulders like a shawl.
Dick had named the youngster “Ruff,” because of this adornment232. And now he was liked to have no use for the name.
Ruff, meantime, was gaining his education, such as it was, far more quickly than his super-domesticated233 collie mother and Dick together could have imparted it to him.
By example and by swift punishment in event of disobedience, 17Pitchdark was teaching him to crouch32, flattened234 and noiseless, at sound or scent of man or of alien beast. She was teaching him to worm his pudgy little body snakelike through grass and undergrowth and to make wise use of every bit of cover. She was teaching him—as foxes have taught their young for a million years—the incredible cunning of her race and the fear of man.
By the time his legs could fairly support him on the briefest of journeys, she was teaching him to stalk game;—to creep up on foolish fieldmice, to confuse and head off young rabbits; and the like. Before he was fairly weaned she made him try his awkward prowess at finishing a rabbit-kill she had begun. With Ruff it was a case of kill or starve. For Pitchdark cut off natural supplies from him a full week earlier than his own gentle mother would have done.
Pitchdark was a born schoolmistress in Nature’s grim woodland course of “eat or be eaten.” To her stern teachings the puppy brought a brain such as no fox could hope to possess. Ruff was a collie—member of a breed which can assimilate practically any mental or physical teachings, if taught rightly and at an early enough age. Pitchdark was teaching him rightly, if rigidly235. Assuredly, too, she was beginning early enough.
To the imparted cunning of the fox, Ruff added the brain of a highly sensitised collie. The combination was a triumph. He learned well-nigh as fast as Pitchdark could teach. If nine-tenths of the things she taught him were as reprehensible236 as they were needful, he deserved no less credit for his speed in mastering them and for his native ability to add to them.
At an age when his brethren and sisters, back at the farm, were still playing aimlessly around the dooryard, Ruff was grasping the weird237 secrets of the wild. While 18they were still at the Teddy Bear stage of appealing helplessness, his fat body was turning lean and supple108 from raw food and from much exercise and from the nature of that exercise. While they were romping238 merrily with an old shoe, Ruff was creeping up on fieldmouse nests and on couchant quail, or he was heading off witlessly racing239 rabbits which his foster-mother drove toward the cul-de-sacs where she had stationed him.
For a pup situated240 like Ruff, there were two open courses—abnormal thriving or quick starvation. Ruff throve.
By the time he was three months old he weighed nearly eighteen pounds. He was more than a third heavier than Pitchdark, though the silvered black vixen had the appearance of being fully183 twice his size. A fox is the most deceptive241 creature on earth, in regard to bulk. Pitchdark, for instance, gave the impression of being as large as any thirty-pound terrier, if of far different build. Yet, stripped of her pelt, her slim carcass would not have weighed eleven pounds. Perhaps it would not have weighed more than ten pounds, for she was not large for her kind.
Before Ruff was six weeks old, Whitefoot had tired of domesticity—especially with so perplexing a canine242 slant71 to it—and had deserted243 his mate and foster-son.
The warm days were coming on. The woods at last were alive with catchable game. The chickens on many a farm were perching out of doors at night. Life was gloriously livable. There seemed no sense in fettering244 himself to a family, nor for helping245 to provide for a huge youngster in whom his own interest was purely246 gastronomical247.
More than once Whitefoot had sought to slay248 and eat the changeling. But ever, at such times, Pitchdark was 19at him, ravening249 and raging in defence of her suckling.
Then crept the influx250 of spring food into the valley and mountain. There was dinner to be gotten more easily than by battling a ferocious251 mate for it, a mate who no longer felt even her oldtime lonely comradeship for the dog-fox, and whose every thought and care was for the sprawling252 puppy. Apart from this, the inherently hated dog-scent on Ruff was a continual irritation253 to Whitefoot; though maternal254 care had long since accustomed Pitchdark to it.
Thus on a morning in late April Whitefoot wandered away and neglected to return. His mate was forced to forage for herself and for Ruff. But the task was easy in this new time of food lushness. She did not seem to miss her recreant255 spouse256.
She and Ruff shifted their abode from the burrow whose narrow sides the fast-growing pup could scarce squeeze through. They took up changeable quarters in the hinterland forest. There Ruff’s training began in grim earnest.
So the sweet spring and the long drowsy257 summer wore themselves away. Through the fat months Pitchdark and Ruff abode together; drawn toward each other by the queerly strong tie that so often knits foster-dam and child, in the fourfoot kingdom;—a tie that is prone258 to be far stronger than that of normal brute259 mother and offspring.
This chumship now was wholly a thing of choice. For no longer did Ruff depend on the vixen to teach him how to catch his daily bread. True, he profited still by her experience and her abnormal cunning, and he assimilated it and improved on it—as is the way with a collie when he is taught something that catches his bright fancy. But he was self-supporting.
He continued to live with Pitchdark and to travel with 20her and to hunt with her; not because he needed to, but because he loved her. To this temperamental black-and-silver vixen went out all the loyal devotion and hero-worship and innate260 protectiveness which a normal collie lavishes261 on the human who is his god.
Together they roved the mountain, where Pitchdark’s technique and craft bagged illimitable game for them. Together on dark nights they scouted262 the farm-valleys, where Ruff’s strength and odd audacity263 won them access to hencoop after hencoop whose rickety door would have resisted a fox’s onslaught.
Twice, Ruff forced his way through the rotting palings of a sheepfold and bore thence to his admiring foster-mother a lamb that was twice as heavy as Pitchdark. Once in open field he fought and outmanœuvred and thrashed a sheep-herding mongrel; dragging off in triumph a half-grown wether.
There were things about Pitchdark the young collie could not understand; just as there were traits of his which baffled her keen wits. To him a grape vineyard was a place whose sole interest centred about any possible field-mouse nests in its mould. An apple orchard264 had as little significance to him. He would pause and look in questioning surprise as Pitchdark stopped, during their progress through an orchard, to munch265 happily at a fallen harvest apple; or while she stood daintily on her hindlegs to strip grapevines of their ripening266 clusters.
The fable268 of the fox and the sour grapes had its basis in natural history. For the fox, almost alone of carnivora, loves fruit. Ruff cared nothing for it. Few collies do.
Also, he could see no reason for Pitchdark’s rapture269 when they chanced upon the rotting carcasses of animals. True, he felt an æsthetic thrill in rubbing first one 21shoulder and then the other in such liquescent carrion and then in rolling luxuriously270 over on his back in it. But it was not good to eat. Ruff knew that. Yet Pitchdark devoured271 it in delight. On the other hand, when the two came upon a young hawk272 that had fallen from its pine-top nest, Pitchdark gave one sniff at the broken bird of prey; and then pattered on, leaving it alone. Ruff killed and ate it with relish273.
By the first cool days of autumn, Ruff stood twenty-four inches at the shoulder. He would have tipped the scales at a fraction above fifty pounds. His gold-red winter coat was beginning to come in, luxuriantly and with a sheen such as only the pelt of a forest-dweller can boast. His young chest was deep. His shoulders were broad and sinewy274. His build was that of a wild beast; not of a domesticated dog. Diet and tremendous exercise and his mode of life had wrought275 that vast difference.
He had the noiselessly padding gait and the furtive276 air of a fox. Mentally and morally he was a fox; plus the keener and finer brain of a collie. His dark and deepset eyes had the glint of the wild, rather than the straight-forward gaze of a collie. Yet those eyes were a dog’s and not a fox’s. A fox has the eye of a cat, not of a dog. The iris277 is not round, but is long and slitted, like a cat’s. In bright sunlight it closes to a vertical278 line, and does not contract to a tiny circle, like dog’s or man’s.
Nor did Ruff have the long and couchant hindlegs and short catlike forelegs of Pitchdark. His were the honestly sturdy legs and sturdy pads of a collie.
The wolf is the dog’s brother. They be of one blood. They can and do mate as readily as dog and dog. Dog and fox are far different. Their cousinship is remote. Their physique is remoter;—too remote to permit of 22blending. There is almost as much of the cat as of the dog in a fox’s cosmos;—too much of it to permit of interbreeding with the cat-detesting dog.
Yet Ruff and Pitchdark were loving pals279. They profited materially from their association; so far as food-getting went. They were inseparable comrades, through the fat summer and autumn and in the lean winter which followed.
In the bitter weather, when rabbits were few and when most birds had flown south and when rodents280 were holed in, it was young Ruff whose daring and strength enabled them to snatch fawns281 from snow-lined deer-yards in the mountain creases282 and to raid sheepfolds and rip through flimsy hencoop doors. He kept them alive and he kept them in good condition. Daily he grew larger and stronger and wilier.
At a year, he weighed a full sixty pounds; and he had the strength and uncanny quickness of a tiger-cat. It was he now who led; while Pitchdark followed in meek283 adoration284. Such foxes as they chanced to meet fled in sullen286 terror before the collie’s assault. Ruff did not like foxes.
The next autumn brought forth the hunters. A few city folk and farm-boys ranged the hills with fowling piece and with or without bird dog or rabbit hound. These novices287 were ridiculously easy for Ruff and Pitchdark to avoid. They offered still less menace to Whitefoot ranging in solitary comfort on the thither side of the mountain wall.
But the real hunters of the region were a more serious obstacle to smug comfort and to safety. They were lanky288 or stumpy men in woolly old clothes and accompanied by businesslike hounds. These men did not bother with mere152 sport or pot hunting. Red fox pelts brought 23this year $11.50 each, uncured, from the wholesaler289 down at Heckettville. Fox hunting was a recognised form of livelihood290 here in the upland valley district.
It was not like quail shooting or other sport open to any amateur. It was an art. It called for craft and for experience and for a rudimentary knowledge of the habits of foxes and for perfect marksmanship. Also it required the aid of a well-trained foxhound;—not the type of foxhound the pink coats trail after, in conventional hunting fields—not the spruce foxhound on exhibition at dogshows—but rangy and stringy and wise and tireless dogs of dubious291 pedigree but vast fox-sense.
A veteran hunter with a good hound, in that part of the country and in those days, could readily pay the year’s taxes and improvements on his farm by the fox-pelts he was able to secure in a single month’s roaming of the hills. Wherefore, now that the year’s farmwork was done, these few experts began their season of lucrative292 and sportless sport.
Time and again some gaunt and sad-faced hound, that fall, hit Pitchdark’s confused trail; only to veer293 from it presently when his nostrils caught the unmistakable dog-scent along with it. Still oftener did a hound cling tenaciously294 to that trail; only to be outwitted by the vixen’s cleverer manœuvres.
Pitchdark had as much genius for eluding295 pursuit as for climbing unclimbable fences. There are such foxes.
In these retreats from pursuing hounds it was she who took up afresh the leadership she had laid down. Ruff followed her, implicitly296, in her many mazelike twists and doublings. At first he followed, blindly. But gradually he began to get the hang of it, and to devise collie improvements on the hide-and-seek game.
He and she were alone in their wanderings; especially 24since the hunting season forced them higher among the almost inaccessible297 peaks of the range. Foxes that crossed their path or happened to sight or scent them fled as ever in terror at the dog-smell.
In midwinter, the day after a “tracking snow” had fallen, one Jeffreys Holt, an aged166 fox-hunter, tramping home with his tired hound at his heels, chanced upon an incredible sight.
An animal rounded a bend of rock on a hillside perhaps a hundred yards in front of him; and stood there, stockstill, for a few seconds, sharply outlined against the snow. Then, as Holt stared slackjawed, the creature oozed298 from sight into a crevice299. Holt plunged300 ahead, urging his weary hound to the chase. But by the time he reached the crevice there was no sign of the quarry301.
The cleft135 led through to an opening on the far side of a rocky outcrop. Thence a hundred-yard rib302 of rock jutted303 above the snow. Along this, presumably, had the prey fled; for there were no further marks of him in the whiteness. Holt cast his dog futilely304 upon the trail. He studied the footprints in the snow at the point where first the beast had been standing85. Then he plodded305 home.
Whitefoot, from the safety of another double-entry rock-lair, a furlong away, watched him depart. Long immunity306 had made the big dog-fox overbold. Yet this was the first time human eyes had focused on him for two years.
At the store, that night, Rance Venner glanced up from his task of ordering supplies for the Stippled Silver Kennels and listened with sudden interest to the harangue307 of an oldster among the group around the stove.
“I’m telling you,” Holt was insisting, in reply to a doubter, “I’m telling you I saw him as plain as I see you. Jet black he was, only his tailtip was white, and one of 25his hindfeet; and there was shiny grey hairs sticking out from his shoulders and over his eyebrows308. He—”
“Somebody’s black dog, most likely,” suggested the doubter.
“Dog nothing!” snorted Holt. “I’ve killed too many foxes not to know ’em from dogs. This was a fox. A reg’lar ol’ he-one. A corker. And I’m telling you he was coal-black; all but the tip of his tail and them hairs sprinkled all over his mask and—”
“Well,” soothed309 the doubter, seeking to calm Holt’s vexed310 vehemence311, “I’m not saying there mayn’t be black foxes with white tails and white hindfeet and grey masks. For all I know, there’s maybe foxes that’s bright green and foxes that’s red-white-and-blue, or speckled with pink. There may be. Only nobody’s ever seen ’em. Any more’n anybody’s ever seen a black-and-white-and-grey one, till you seen that one to-day, Jeff. I—”
Rance Venner came into the circle of disputants. He did not mingle312 with the folk of this village, six miles from his fox-farm. This was his first visit to the store. The emporium nearest his home had burned down, that week. Hence his need to go farther afield for supplies.
“You say you saw a silver fox?” he asked excitedly, confronting Holt.
Holt stared truculently313 at him; suspecting further banter314 and not relishing315 it from a stranger.
“Nope,” solemnly spoke231 up the doubter. “Not silver. Rainbow-colour, with a streak316 of this here radium you’ve likely heard tell of. Jeff Holt don’t see queer things, often. But when he does, he sure sees ’em plenty vivid.”
“My name is Venner,” went on Rance, still addressing Holt. “My brother and I run the Stippled Silver Fox Farm, up above Croziers. Two years ago a couple of our silver foxes got loose on us. They—”
26“Sure they wasn’t di’mond foxes?” asked the doubter, politely.
The audience snickered at this scintillant317 flash of native wit. But Rance went on, unheeding. Briefly319, he explained the appearance and general nature and value of silver foxes; and expanded upon the loss of the two that had escaped from his kennel.
His oration285 gained scant320 personal interest; until he made a cash offer of $75 to any one who would bring him Whitefoot’s or Pitchdark’s pelt in good condition. He made an offer of $125 for either fox if captured alive and undamaged.
At this point incredulity reached its climax321 among his hearers. But when Venner pulled twenty-five dollars from his hip88 pocket and deposited it with the postmaster-storekeeper in evidence of good faith, the sight of real money caused a wholesale conversion322.
This conversion became rockbound conviction when, next night, Holt returned from a call upon the wholesale pelt-buyer at Heckettville, fifteen miles away.
“Say!” reported Holt, to the group of idling men at the stove-side. “That Venner cuss ain’t loony, after all. Gannett told me all about them silver foxes. They’re true, all right. Showed me a picture of one. The spitting image of the one I seen. Gave me this circ’lar to prove it. It was sent to him by the gov’ment or by some sort of association. Listen here.”
Drawing out a folder323, he began to read at random324:
"Some silver foxes are cheap at $1,000.... If every silver fox in the world should be pelted325 in November or December, when the fur is prime, they could all be disposed of in a city the size of New York, in less than a week, at a fab—at a fab’lous sum."
Impressively and for the most part taking the more 27unfamiliar words in his stride, Jeffreys Holt continued to read. Nor did he cease until he had made his eager audience acquainted with every line of the folder, including the printer’s name and address in the lozenge at the foot of the fourth page.
Next morning all available fox traps for some miles around were on duty in the woods and among the hilltop rock-barrens. Every man who understood the first thing about fox hunting was abroad with gun and dog, as well as local wealth-seekers to whom the fine art of tracking foxes was merely a thing of hearsay326. In that meagre community and in that meagre time of a meagre year, the lure327 of $75, to say nothing of $125, was irresistible328. The village went afield.
Rance Venner and his brother were among the hunters, they and their little mixed-blood foxhound, Ruby.
Before dawn, Ruff and Pitchdark caught the distant signs of the chase, and they denned329 in, far among the peak rocks, for the day. At that, the chase might perhaps have neared their lofty eyrie before sunset, but for Whitefoot.
The big dog-fox had enjoyed long immunity from harm. He lacked Pitchdark’s super-caution. His adventure with man and dog, two days earlier, had resulted in no harm to himself. With entire ease he had blurred330 pursuit. Seeking rabbits again, in the clefts of the same rockridge, at sunrise on this day of universal hunting, he heard hounds baying futilely in far quarters of the valley and foothills below him.
Instead of denning331 in, as had his former mate and Ruff, he went on with his own hunt. Lacking a confederate like the collie to help him find food which was beyond his own vulpine powers to capture or slay, Whitefoot had begun to feel the pinch of winter-hunger. Unappeasable appetite 28made him take chances from which the vixen would have recoiled332.
For example, the sound and smell of the distant hunt, this morning, did not send him to cover. All autumn and early winter he had been hearing such far-off sounds, had been catching133 the man-and-dog scent. Never had he come to harm from any of it. He had been able to keep out of its way. Until that afternoon when Holt chanced upon him, no human eye had seen him. And even then there had been no trouble about getting away clean.
There were rabbits hiding in these clefts and crevices333 along the ridge134-side. Whitefoot could smell them. With luck he might be able to stampede one of them into a cul-de-sac cranny big enough to admit his own slim body.
An empty and gnawing334 stomach urged him on. It urged him on, even after he caught the scent of human footprints which had passed that way, not an hour agone. It urged him on, even when, in a cranny, he came upon a contrivance of wood and iron which fairly reeked336 of human touch. The thing reeked of something else—of an excessively dead chicken which lay just beyond it in the cleft.
Too crafty337 to go past such a man-made and man-scented338 contrivance, yet Whitefoot felt his mouth water at the ancient odour of the chicken. He craved339 it beyond anything. Detouring340 the top of the ridge, he entered the cleft from the other side. No visible object of man’s workmanship checked him here or stood between him and the tempting341 food. Of course the man-scent was as strong here as at the opposite end. But the morning wind was shifting through the cleft, bearing the reek335 with it.
Cautiously the half-starved fox padded forward through the drift of dead leaves toward the chicken which itself was half buried in leafage. His jaws closed on it.
29As he backed out with his treasure-trove, steel jaws closed on his left forefoot.
An hour later, Rance Venner and Holt climbed the ridge to visit the former’s newfangled patent fox-trap. In the centre of a patch of bloody342 trampled343 snow lay a magnificent silver fox; moveless, his eyes rolled back; his teeth curled away from his upper jaw154. Limp and pitifully still he lay.
Venner ran forward with a cry of joy and knelt to unfasten the trap jaws from the lifeless creature’s paw.
“It’s our King Whitefoot II!” he exulted344, laying the supine body in his lap and smoothing the rumpled345 glory of pelt. “But I can’t figure why he’s dead. Maybe the shock killed him, or else he broke a blood-vessel in his brain trying to tear loose. He—”
The rambling96 conjecture346 ended in a hoot109 of pain. There was an indescribably swift whirl of the inert347 black body. Rance Venner’s thumb received a lightning bite from teeth which scraped sickeningly into its very bone. Whitefoot was flying like mad for the nearest available rock-cranny.
Venner once more was increasing his knowledge of fox-character. Apart from enacting348 prodigies349 at digging and at climbing, it appeared now that foxes, in emergency, understood to perfection the trick of playing dead.
Away flashed Whitefoot, his lacerated forepaw marring his speed not at all. Jeffreys Holt was an old enough huntsman to act on sheer instinct. Through no conscious volition350 of his own he whipped to his shoulder the gun that had hung idle in his grasp while he watched Rance open the trap. Taking snap aim, he pulled trigger.
Whitefoot did not stop at once his panic flight. He continued it for two yards longer; rolling over and over 30like a mechanical toy, before thumping351 against the rock-side, stone dead.
“There’s another good stunt353 we done, in getting that ol’ feller,” remarked Holt, ten minutes later, as he and Venner made their way downhill with their prize. “I’ll bet my share of his pelt he’s the fox that’s been working the hencoops all along the valley, this winter. He’s a whooping354 big cuss. And no common-size fox could ’a busted355 in the coop doors like he did at a couple of places. Now that we got the fox, I s’pose it’s up to us to get the wolf.”
“What wolf?” mumbled356 Venner, still sucking his bitten thumb.
“Why, the one the Grange reward is out for, of course,” answered Holt in surprise at such ignorance. “First wolf that’s been in this section in thutty years or more. He’s been at sheepfolds, all over. At hencoops, too. First-off folks thought maybe it was a stray cur. But no dog c’d do the smart wolf-stunts that feller’s done. Pizen-shy and trap-wise. It’s a wolf, all right, all right.”
The store was jammed, for two hours or more, that evening, by folk who came to stare at the wonder-fox. Next day and the next the whole community was out in quest of the priceless vixen.
All the second day, after a night of successful forage, Ruff and Pitchdark denned amid the rocks of their peak. At nightfall they fared forth again, as usual. But as they were padding contentedly357 back to their safe eyrie at grey dawn, Pitchdark failed to note a deadfall which had been placed in a hillside gully three months earlier.
Going back and forth—always of course by different routes—during the past three days, she and Ruff had scented and avoided a score of shrewdly-laid traps scattered358 here and there. But this clumsy deadfall had been in place since November, when a farm lad had set it and 31then forgotten all about it. Rains and snow and winds had rubbed it clean of any vestige359 of man-scent. It seemed nothing but a fallen log propped360 against a tree-trunk.
By way of a short cut, Pitchdark ran under it.
There was a thump352, followed at once by an astounded361 yell. The vixen, flattened out, lay whimpering under the tumbled log.
Ruff was trotting362 along; a yard or so behind her. The fall of the log had made him spring instinctively sideways. Now he went over to where Pitchdark lay moaning and writhing363. Tenderly he sniffed364 at her; then he walked around the log and her pinioned365 body. In another second he was at work clawing and shoving at the weight that imprisoned366 her.
The log was too light for its purpose. Also the boy who made and set the trap was a novice. The end of the log had come to rest on a knot of wood near the tree base. Ruff’s weight and applied367 strength set it a-rolling. Off from the vixen it bumped; while she cried out again in agony.
Ruff turned to greet her as she should leap joyously368 to her feet. But she did not leap. The impact of the falling log had injured her spine369. The best she could do was to crawl painfully along, stomach to the ground; whining370 with pain at every step. Her hindlegs sagged371 useless. Her forepaws made all the progress.
Yet she was a gallant372 sufferer. Keenly aware that she was in no condition to face or flee any possible dangers of the open, she made pluckily373 for the eyrie on the distant peak. The great collie slackened his pace to hers. At a windfall, too high for her to clamber over, he caught her gently by the nape of the neck with his mighty374 jaws and scrambled over the impediment, carrying her with him.
Thus, at snail-pace, they made their way homeward; the 32collie close beside his crippled chum; quivering from head to foot in distress375 as now and then the pain forced from her a sharp outcry.
Dawn deepened into daylight. Up came the winter sun, shouldering its sulky way through dun horizon mists. The day was on. And Ruff and Pitchdark were not yet within a mile of their hiding place.
The last mile promised to be the worst mile; rising as it did, almost precipice-like, to the summit; and strewn with boulder376 and rift130. To the light-footed pair, such a clamber had ever been childishly easy. Now it threatened to be one long torment377 to the vixen.
No longer, since the accident, did they seek as usual to confuse or obliterate378 their homeward trail. There was no question now of wasting a step or of delaying the needful moment of safety.
Then, as they came to a ten-foot cliff, at the base of the peak’s last stiff climb, they halted and looked miserably upward. Along the face of this rock wall a narrow rudimentary trail ran, from bottom to top; a widened rock-fissure. The fox and the collie were wont379 to take it almost at a bound.
But now there was no question of bounding. Nor was the collie able to navigate41 the tricky380 climb with Pitchdark suspended from his jaws. It was not a matter of weight but of leverage381 and of balance. He had sense enough to know that.
For the past half-mile he had been carrying the vixen, her helpless hindlegs dragging along the ground. Very tenderly, by the nape of the neck, he had borne her along. Yet the wrenching383 motion had forced cries from her, so that once and again he had set her down and stared in pitiful sorrow at her.
33Now, Pitchdark took matters into her own hands. At the base of the cliff was an alcove384 niche385 of rock, perhaps two feet deep and eighteen inches wide; roofed over by a slant of half-fallen stone. It was bedded with dead leaves. There were worse holes into which to crawl to die, than was this natural den. Into it, painfully, wearily, the vixen dragged her racked body. There she laid herself down on the leaf-couch; spent and in torture. She had come to the end of her journey; though still a mile on the hither side of the den where she and Ruff were wont to hide.
It was no hiding place, no safe refuge, this niche of rock wherein she lay. But it was the best substitute. Panting, she settled down to bear her anguish386 as best she might. Above her, at the opening of the niche, stood the heartsick dog that loved her.
Puzzled, miserable387, tormented388, he stood there. At times he would bend down to lick the sufferer, crooning softly to her. But she gave him scant heed318.
A rabbit scuttled389 across the snowy open space in front of the cliff. With a dash, Ruff was after him. A few rods away the chase ended in a reddened swirl of the snow. Back to Pitchdark trotted Ruff, the rabbit in his mouth. He laid the offering in front of her. But she was past eating or so much as noticing food.
Then, as he watched her, his deepset dark eyes sick with pity and grief, he stiffened to attention; and his lip curled away from his curving white teeth. The morning breeze bore to him a scent and a sound that had but one meaning.
The scent was of dogs. The sound was of multiple baying.
Instinctively he glanced at the cliff-trail—the trail he could surmount390 so quickly and easily, to the safety of the 34peak’s upper reaches. Then his unhappy gaze fell on Pitchdark. The baying and the odour had reached her even more keenly than it had reached Ruff. She read it aright; and the realisation brought her out of the pain-daze into which she had fallen. She tried to get to her feet. Failing, she fell to whimpering softly.
Once she peered up, questioningly, at Ruff. The big collie was standing in front of the niche, shielding it with his strong body. His head was high and his eye had the look of eagles. Gone from his expression was the furtiveness391 of the wild. In this crisis he was all collie. The sun blazed on his flaming red-gold coat and his snowy mass of ruff and frill. Every muscle was tense. Every faculty392 was alert.
Zeb Harlow knew nothing about fox-hunting. Indeed, he knew little enough about anything. But at the store conclave393, the preceding night, his fancy had been fired by tales of the silver foxhunt. He had an inspiration.
Before daybreak he was abroad; gun in hand. Going from one sleeping neighbour’s to another’s, he loosed and took along with him no fewer than five chained foxhounds.
The dogs all knew him well enough to let him handle them. There was not one of the five that would not have followed anybody who carried a gun. So his one-man hunt was organised. He and the five hounds made for the ridge where, two days before, Whitefoot had been caught.
From reading nature-faked tales of rattlesnakes, Zeb argued that the slain394 fox’s mate would be haunting the scene of her spouse’s death. It was a pretty theory; as pretty as it was asinine395. Like many another wholly idiotic396 premise397 it led to large results—of a sort.
As Zeb was traversing a wooded gully on the way to the ridge, the foremost hound gave tongue. The pack had come to the spot where Pitchdark had been crippled. 35From that point a blind mongrel puppy could have followed the pungent398 trail.
Oblivious399 of Harlow, for whom they had all a dog’s amusedly tolerant contempt for an inefficient400 human leader, the quintet swept away on the track. Zeb made shift to follow as best he could. Not being a woodsman, his progress was slow.
Up the gully they roared and out into the hillside birch woods beyond and thence to the patch of broken ground over which Ruff had carried Pitchdark so tenderly. The scent was rankly strong now. It was breast-high. No longer was there need to work with nostrils to earth. The dragging hindfeet of the vixen were easier to follow than an aniseseed lure.
Out into the cleared space they swung—the clearing with the ten-foot cliff behind it. There, not fifty yards in front of them, clearly visible between the braced401 legs of a shimmering gold-and-white collie on guard at the niche opening, crouched their prey.
Deliriously402 they rushed to the kill.
The kill was there. But so was the killer403.
Perhaps there are two foxhounds on earth which together can down a normal collie. Assuredly there is no one foxhound that can hope to achieve the deed. Most assuredly such a hound was not the half-breed black-and-yellow leader of that impromptu404 pack.
The black-and-yellow made for the niche, a clean dozen lengths ahead of his nearest follower405. Blind to all but the lust267 of slaughter406, he dived between the braced legs of the movelessly-waiting collie, and struck for the cowering407 vixen.
Ruff drove downward at him as the hound dived. The collie’s terrible jaws clamped shut behind the base of the leader’s skull408. The aim, made accurate by a thousand 36snaps at fleeing rabbits and rising birds, was flawless. The jaws had been strengthened past normal by the daily grinding of bony food.
Ruff tossed high his head. The black-and-yellow was flung in air and fell back amid his onrushing fellows; his neck broken, his spinal409 cord severed410.
But that was Ruff’s last opportunity for individual fighting. The four following hounds were upon him; in one solid battling mass. Noting their leader’s fate they did not make the error of trying to jostle past to the vixen. Instead, they sought to clear the way by flinging themselves ravenously411 on her solitary guard.
The rest was horror.
There was no scope for scientific fighting or for craft. The four fastened upon the collie, in murderous unison. They might more wisely have fastened upon a hornet-nest.
Down, under their avalanche412 of weight went Ruff; battling as he fell. But a collie down is not a collie beaten. As he fell, he slashed to the bone the nearest gaunt shoulder. By the time he had struck ground on his back, he lunged upward for one flying spotted413 hindleg that chanced to flounder nearest to his jaws. The fighting tricks of his long-ago wolf ancestors came to him in his hour of stress. Catching the leg midway between hock and body he gave a sidewise wrench382 to it that wellnigh heaved off the pack that piled upon him. The possessor of the spotted hindleg screeched414 aloud and gave back, tumbling out of the ruck with a fractured and useless limb.
Up from the tangle415 of fighting hounds arose Ruff, his golden coat a-smear with blood. High he reared above the surrounding heads. Slashing416, tearing, dodging417, wheeling, he fought clear of his mangled418 foes419.
For an instant, as they gathered their force for a new 37charge at this tigerlike adversary420, the great collie stood clear of them all. A single bound would have carried him to the cliff trail. Thence, to its top would have been a climb of less than half a second. At the summit he could have fought back an army of dogs or he could have made his escape to the fastnesses beyond. Never was there a foxhound that could keep pace with a racing collie.
The coast was clear, if only for an instant. There was time—just time—for the leap. Ruff made the leap.
But he did not make it in the direction of the inviting421 trail. Instead, he sprang back again in front of the trembling vixen as she crouched in her niche.
A fox would have fled. So would any creature of the wild. But no longer was Ruff a creature of the wild. In his supreme422 moment he was all collie.
Whirling to face his oncoming enemies he took his stand. And there the charge of the hounds crashed into him.
By footwork, by dodging, by leading his foes into a chase where they should string out, he could have conquered them. But this he dared not do. He knew well what must befall Pitchdark the moment he should leave the niche unguarded. So he stood where he was; and went down once more under the rush.
There were but three opponents atop him, this time. The spotted hound was out of the fight, with a crunched423 leg and a craven heart. Nor were any of the three others unmarked by slash208 or nip or tear.
Now, as Ruff fell he pulled one of the three down with him; his awful fangs424 busy at the hound’s throat. A second of the trio rolled over with them; the forequarters of his inverted425 body sprawled426 within the niche. While he bit and roared at the fast-rolling Ruff, the vixen saw her chance. Darting427 her head forward, she set her needle 38teeth deep in the hound’s throat. Instantly, seared by the hurt, he was atop her; ripping away at her unprotected back; tearing it to ribbons. But, with death upon her and the rear half of her paralysed, she did not abate428 the merciless grinding at the hound’s throat. Presently, the needle teeth found their goal.
Ruff was up again; one of his assailants gasping429 out his life beneath him; the other with Pitchdark clinging in death to his throat. Torn and bleeding and panting as he was, Ruff flew at the fourth dog; the only one of the five still in fighting condition.
Before that one-to-one onset430 the mongrel hound’s heart went back on him. He turned and fled; but not before Ruff’s madly twisting jaws had lamed46 him for life.
The battle was fought and won. Of the five hounds, one lay dead; two more were dying, a fourth was lying helpless with a crunched hindleg. The fifth was in limping flight.
The young collie staggered, then righted himself. Crossing to Pitchdark, he bent431 painfully down and licked her face—the face whose teeth were locked in her oppressor’s throat.
Never now would that glorious pelt sell for hundreds of dollars; or even for hundreds of cents. The dying hound had seen to that. So had the dog now limping away. This latter had taken advantage of Ruff’s preoccupation with his two fellows, as they rolled in the snow, to tear destructively at the silken coat as the vixen’s teeth were finding their way to his comrade’s jugular432.
Crooning, licking, Ruff sought to make his loved little foster-mother awaken433. Then he lifted his head and wheeled wearily about to face a new intruder.
Across the snow toward him was clumping434 a slack-faced man who gripped in both hands a cocked gun and who was 39shouting foolishly in his excitement. Zeb Harlow had caught up to the hunt at last.
Ruff had not been so near to any human since he was a fortnight old. The carefully-taught lessons of Pitchdark warned him to turn and flee. The cliff trail was still open to him. But into the brain that was once again all collie there seeped435 a queer sensation the big dog could not analyse.
His dear little comrade was dead. Without her the old life would be empty. His was the collie heritage—the stark need for comradeship; coupled with the unconscious craving436 to be owned by man and to give his devotion to man, his god.
Still unable to analyse his own unwonted feelings, Ruff bent again and licked Pitchdark’s dead face. Then, hesitant, he took a step toward the stormily advancing Harlow. He took another irresolute step; paused again and wagged his plumy tail.
“Attacked me, he did!” bragged437 Zeb Harlow, that night at the store. “Come straight for me, like he was going to eat me alive. But I stopped him, all right, all right. I stood my ground. After the second step he took, I let him have both bar’ls. You saw for yourselves what he looked like after he tried to tackle ME.”
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1
stippled
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| v.加点、绘斑，加粒( stipple的过去式和过去分词 )；（把油漆、水泥等的表面）弄粗糙 | |
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2
kennel
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| n.狗舍，狗窝 | |
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3
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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4
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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5
novice
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| adj.新手的，生手的 | |
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6
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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7
mentality
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| n.心理，思想，脑力 | |
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8
nil
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| n.无，全无，零 | |
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9
hogs
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| n.（尤指喂肥供食用的）猪( hog的名词复数 )；（供食用的）阉公猪；彻底地做某事；自私的或贪婪的人 | |
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10
din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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11
monograph
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| n.专题文章，专题著作 | |
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12
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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13
rations
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| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
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14
meticulous
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| adj.极其仔细的，一丝不苟的 | |
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15
lavished
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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17
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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18
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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19
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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20
deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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21
burrower
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| 借钱人； 借用人，剽窃者 | |
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22
burrow
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| vt.挖掘(洞穴)；钻进；vi.挖洞；翻寻；n.地洞 | |
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23
mole
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| n.胎块；痣；克分子 | |
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24
burrowing
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| v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的现在分词 )；翻寻 | |
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25
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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26
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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27
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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28
sporadic
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| adj.偶尔发生的 [反]regular；分散的 | |
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29
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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30
accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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31
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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32
crouch
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| v.蹲伏，蜷缩，低头弯腰；n.蹲伏 | |
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33
crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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34
blithely
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| adv.欢乐地，快活地，无挂虑地 | |
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35
lithe
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| adj.(指人、身体)柔软的，易弯的 | |
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36
lithely
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| adv.柔软地，易变地 | |
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37
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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38
den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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39
kennels
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| n.主人外出时的小动物寄养处，养狗场；狗窝( kennel的名词复数 )；养狗场 | |
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40
impede
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，阻止 | |
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41
navigate
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| v.航行，飞行；导航，领航 | |
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42
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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43
eked
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| v.（靠节省用量）使…的供应持久( eke的过去式和过去分词 )；节约使用；竭力维持生计；勉强度日 | |
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44
wriggling
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕 | |
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45
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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46
lamed
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| 希伯莱语第十二个字母 | |
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47
avidly
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| adv.渴望地，热心地 | |
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48
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
stipples
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| v.加点、绘斑，加粒( stipple的第三人称单数 )；（把油漆、水泥等的表面）弄粗糙 | |
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50
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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51
taut
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| adj.拉紧的，绷紧的，紧张的 | |
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52
vibrant
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| adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的 | |
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53
whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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54
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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55
yelping
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| v.发出短而尖的叫声( yelp的现在分词 ) | |
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56
yelp
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| vi.狗吠 | |
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57
suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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58
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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59
meshes
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| 网孔( mesh的名词复数 )； 网状物； 陷阱； 困境 | |
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60
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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61
marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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62
deterrents
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| 制止物( deterrent的名词复数 ) | |
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63
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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64
momentum
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| n.动力，冲力，势头；动量 | |
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65
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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66
immutable
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| adj.不可改变的，永恒的 | |
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67
flop
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| n.失败(者)，扑通一声；vi.笨重地行动，沉重地落下 | |
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68
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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69
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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70
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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71
slant
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| v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向 | |
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72
swirl
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| v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形 | |
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73
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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74
skidding
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| n.曳出，集材v.（通常指车辆） 侧滑( skid的现在分词 )；打滑；滑行；（住在）贫民区 | |
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75
dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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76
muzzle
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| n.鼻口部；口套；枪(炮)口；vt.使缄默 | |
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77
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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78
snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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79
snarling
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的现在分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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80
pelt
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| v.投掷，剥皮，抨击，开火 | |
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81
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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82
mischievously
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| adv.有害地；淘气地 | |
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83
sheathing
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| n.覆盖物，罩子v.将（刀、剑等）插入鞘( sheathe的现在分词 )；包，覆盖 | |
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84
blotches
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| n.（皮肤上的）红斑，疹块( blotch的名词复数 )；大滴 [大片]（墨水或颜色的）污渍 | |
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85
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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86
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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87
galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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88
hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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89
shrilly
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| 尖声的； 光亮的，耀眼的 | |
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90
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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91
furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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92
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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93
bedlam
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| n.混乱，骚乱；疯人院 | |
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94
raucous
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| adj.(声音)沙哑的，粗糙的 | |
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95
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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96
rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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97
quota
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| n.（生产、进出口等的）配额，（移民的）限额 | |
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98
inspections
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| n.检查( inspection的名词复数 )；检验；视察；检阅 | |
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99
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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100
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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101
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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102
dealers
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| n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者 | |
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103
dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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104
pelts
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| n. 皮毛，投掷, 疾行 vt. 剥去皮毛，（连续）投掷 vi. 猛击，大步走 | |
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105
plumb
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| adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深 | |
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106
ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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107
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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108
supple
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| adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺 | |
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109
hoot
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| n.鸟叫声，汽车的喇叭声； v.使汽车鸣喇叭 | |
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110
hustle
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| v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌) | |
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111
sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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112
scouting
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| 守候活动，童子军的活动 | |
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113
fugitives
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| n.亡命者，逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 ) | |
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114
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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115
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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116
slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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117
turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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118
glutted
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| v.吃得过多( glut的过去式和过去分词 )；（对胃口、欲望等）纵情满足；使厌腻；塞满 | |
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119
fowl
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| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
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120
plunder
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| vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠 | |
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121
slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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122
withers
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| 马肩隆 | |
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123
snugly
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| adv.紧贴地；贴身地；暖和舒适地；安适地 | |
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124
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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125
brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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126
waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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127
sustenance
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| n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计 | |
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128
runaways
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| （轻而易举的）胜利( runaway的名词复数 ) | |
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129
abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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130
rift
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| n.裂口，隙缝，切口；v.裂开，割开，渗入 | |
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131
penetrable
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| adj.可穿透的 | |
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132
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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133
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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134
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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135
cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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136
clefts
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| n.裂缝( cleft的名词复数 )；裂口；cleave的过去式和过去分词；进退维谷 | |
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137
blizzards
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| 暴风雪( blizzard的名词复数 )； 暴风雪似的一阵，大量（或大批） | |
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138
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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139
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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140
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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141
foraging
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| v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的现在分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西） | |
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142
brace
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| n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备 | |
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143
fowling
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| 捕鸟，打鸟 | |
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144
dinosaurs
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| n.恐龙( dinosaur的名词复数 )；守旧落伍的人，过时落后的东西 | |
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145
retail
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| v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格 | |
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146
affiliate
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| vt.使隶(附)属于；n.附属机构，分公司 | |
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147
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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148
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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149
thaw
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| v.（使）融化，（使）变得友善；n.融化，缓和 | |
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150
ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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151
sanitary
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| adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的 | |
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152
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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153
quail
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| n.鹌鹑；vi.畏惧，颤抖 | |
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154
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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155
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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156
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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157
cub
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| n.幼兽，年轻无经验的人 | |
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158
cubs
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| n.幼小的兽，不懂规矩的年轻人( cub的名词复数 ) | |
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159
propitious
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| adj.吉利的；顺利的 | |
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160
migratory
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| n.候鸟，迁移 | |
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161
depredations
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| n.劫掠，毁坏( depredation的名词复数 ) | |
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162
hospitably
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| 亲切地，招待周到地，善于款待地 | |
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163
carrion
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| n.腐肉 | |
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164
foraged
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| v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西） | |
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165
forage
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| n.(牛马的)饲料，粮草；v.搜寻，翻寻 | |
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166
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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167
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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168
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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169
butting
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| 用头撞人（犯规动作） | |
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170
detest
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| vt.痛恨，憎恶 | |
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171
deluge
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| n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥 | |
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172
lair
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| n.野兽的巢穴；躲藏处 | |
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173
plundering
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| 掠夺，抢劫( plunder的现在分词 ) | |
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174
elude
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| v.躲避，困惑 | |
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175
irresolute
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| adj.无决断的，优柔寡断的，踌躇不定的 | |
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176
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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177
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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178
rivulet
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| n.小溪，小河 | |
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179
deflected
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| 偏离的 | |
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180
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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181
perilously
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| adv.充满危险地，危机四伏地 | |
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182
squeak
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| n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密 | |
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183
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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184
stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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185
luridly
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| adv. 青灰色的(苍白的, 深浓色的, 火焰等火红的) | |
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186
bereft
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| adj.被剥夺的 | |
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187
clutter
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| n.零乱，杂乱；vt.弄乱，把…弄得杂乱 | |
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188
fowls
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| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
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189
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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190
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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191
surmises
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| v.臆测，推断( surmise的第三人称单数 )；揣测；猜想 | |
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192
stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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193
fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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194
sluicing
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| v.冲洗( sluice的现在分词 )；（指水）喷涌而出；漂净；给…安装水闸 | |
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195
squealing
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| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的现在分词 ) | |
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196
devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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197
morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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198
pinpoint
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| vt.准确地确定；用针标出…的精确位置 | |
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199
prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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200
retrieve
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| vt.重新得到，收回；挽回，补救；检索 | |
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201
snarled
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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202
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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203
cascading
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| 流注( cascade的现在分词 )； 大量落下； 大量垂悬； 梯流 | |
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204
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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205
growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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206
hideously
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| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
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207
slashed
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| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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208
slash
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| vi.大幅度削减；vt.猛砍，尖锐抨击，大幅减少；n.猛砍，斜线，长切口，衣衩 | |
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209
piqued
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| v.伤害…的自尊心( pique的过去式和过去分词 )；激起（好奇心） | |
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210
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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211
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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212
glumly
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| adv.忧郁地，闷闷不乐地；阴郁地 | |
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213
hopped
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| 跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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214
clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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215
crunching
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| v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄 | |
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216
unctuously
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| adv.油腻地，油腔滑调地；假惺惺 | |
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217
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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218
porous
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| adj.可渗透的，多孔的 | |
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219
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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220
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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221
gambol
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| v.欢呼，雀跃 | |
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222
foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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223
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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224
scuttling
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| n.船底穿孔，打开通海阀（沉船用）v.使船沉没( scuttle的现在分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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225
harried
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| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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226
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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227
growling
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| n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼 | |
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228
sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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229
deluging
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| v.使淹没( deluge的现在分词 )；淹没；被洪水般涌来的事物所淹没；穷于应付 | |
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230
bespoken
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| v.预定( bespeak的过去分词 )；订（货）；证明；预先请求 | |
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231
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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232
adornment
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| n.装饰；装饰品 | |
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233
domesticated
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|
| adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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234
flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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235
rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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236
reprehensible
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| adj.该受责备的 | |
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237
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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238
romping
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| adj.嬉戏喧闹的，乱蹦乱闹的v.嬉笑玩闹( romp的现在分词 )；（尤指在赛跑或竞选等中）轻易获胜 | |
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239
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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240
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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241
deceptive
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| adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的 | |
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242
canine
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| adj.犬的，犬科的 | |
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243
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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244
fettering
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| v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的现在分词 ) | |
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245
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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246
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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247
gastronomical
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| adj.美食法的，美食学的 | |
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248
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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249
ravening
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| a.贪婪而饥饿的 | |
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250
influx
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| n.流入，注入 | |
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251
ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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252
sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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253
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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254
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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255
recreant
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| n.懦夫；adj.胆怯的 | |
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256
spouse
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| n.配偶(指夫或妻) | |
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257
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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258
prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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259
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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260
innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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261
lavishes
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的第三人称单数 ) | |
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262
scouted
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| 寻找，侦察( scout的过去式和过去分词 )； 物色（优秀运动员、演员、音乐家等） | |
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263
audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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264
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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265
munch
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| v.用力嚼，大声咀嚼 | |
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266
ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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267
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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268
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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269
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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270
luxuriously
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| adv.奢侈地，豪华地 | |
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271
devoured
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|
| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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272
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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273
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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274
sinewy
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| adj.多腱的，强壮有力的 | |
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275
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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276
furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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277
iris
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| n.虹膜，彩虹 | |
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278
vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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279
pals
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| n.朋友( pal的名词复数 )；老兄；小子；（对男子的不友好的称呼）家伙 | |
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280
rodents
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| n.啮齿目动物( rodent的名词复数 ) | |
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281
fawns
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|
| n.（未满一岁的）幼鹿( fawn的名词复数 )；浅黄褐色；乞怜者；奉承者v.（尤指狗等）跳过来往人身上蹭以示亲热( fawn的第三人称单数 )；巴结；讨好 | |
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282
creases
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的第三人称单数 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹 | |
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283
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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284
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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285
oration
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| n.演说，致辞，叙述法 | |
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286
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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287
novices
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| n.新手( novice的名词复数 )；初学修士（或修女）；（修会等的）初学生；尚未赢过大赛的赛马 | |
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288
lanky
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| adj.瘦长的 | |
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289
wholesaler
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| n.批发商 | |
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290
livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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291
dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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292
lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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293
veer
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| vt.转向，顺时针转，改变；n.转向 | |
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294
tenaciously
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| 坚持地 | |
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295
eluding
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的现在分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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296
implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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297
inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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298
oozed
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| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的过去式和过去分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
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299
crevice
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|
| n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝；缺口 | |
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300
plunged
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|
| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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301
quarry
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|
| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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302
rib
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| n.肋骨，肋状物 | |
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303
jutted
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|
| v.（使）突出( jut的过去式和过去分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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304
futilely
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| futile（无用的）的变形； 干 | |
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305
plodded
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|
| v.沉重缓慢地走（路）( plod的过去式和过去分词 )；努力从事；沉闷地苦干；缓慢进行（尤指艰难枯燥的工作） | |
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306
immunity
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| n.优惠；免除；豁免，豁免权 | |
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307
harangue
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| n.慷慨冗长的训话，言辞激烈的讲话 | |
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308
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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309
soothed
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|
| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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310
vexed
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|
| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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311
vehemence
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|
| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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312
mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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313
truculently
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314
banter
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| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
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315
relishing
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| v.欣赏( relish的现在分词 )；从…获得乐趣；渴望 | |
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316
streak
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|
| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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317
scintillant
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|
| adj.产生火花的，闪烁（耀）的 | |
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318
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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319
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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320
scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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321
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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322
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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323
folder
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| n.纸夹，文件夹 | |
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324
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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325
pelted
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|
| （连续地）投掷( pelt的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续抨击； 攻击； 剥去…的皮 | |
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326
hearsay
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| n.谣传，风闻 | |
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327
lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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328
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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329
denned
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| vi.穴居（den的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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330
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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331
denning
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| vi.穴居（den的现在分词形式） | |
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332
recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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333
crevices
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| n.（尤指岩石的）裂缝，缺口( crevice的名词复数 ) | |
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334
gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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335
reek
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| v.发出臭气；n.恶臭 | |
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336
reeked
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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337
crafty
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| adj.狡猾的，诡诈的 | |
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338
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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339
craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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340
detouring
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| 绕道( detour的现在分词 ) | |
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341
tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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342
bloody
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|
| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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343
trampled
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|
| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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344
exulted
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| 狂喜，欢跃( exult的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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345
rumpled
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| v.弄皱，使凌乱( rumple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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346
conjecture
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|
| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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347
inert
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|
| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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348
enacting
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的现在分词 ) | |
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349
prodigies
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|
| n.奇才，天才（尤指神童）( prodigy的名词复数 ) | |
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350
volition
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| n.意志；决意 | |
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351
thumping
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|
| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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352
thump
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| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
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353
stunt
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| n.惊人表演，绝技，特技；vt.阻碍...发育，妨碍...生长 | |
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354
whooping
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| 发嗬嗬声的，发咳声的 | |
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355
busted
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|
| adj. 破产了的，失败了的，被降级的，被逮捕的，被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词 | |
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356
mumbled
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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357
contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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358
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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359
vestige
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| n.痕迹，遗迹，残余 | |
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360
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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361
astounded
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| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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362
trotting
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| 小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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363
writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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364
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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365
pinioned
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| v.抓住[捆住]（双臂）( pinion的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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366
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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367
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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368
joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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369
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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370
whining
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| n. 抱怨，牢骚 v. 哭诉，发牢骚 | |
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371
sagged
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| 下垂的 | |
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372
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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373
pluckily
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| adv.有勇气地，大胆地 | |
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374
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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375
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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376
boulder
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| n.巨砾；卵石，圆石 | |
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377
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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378
obliterate
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| v.擦去，涂抹，去掉...痕迹，消失，除去 | |
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379
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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380
tricky
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| adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的 | |
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381
leverage
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| n.力量，影响；杠杆作用，杠杆的力量 | |
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382
wrench
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| v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受 | |
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383
wrenching
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| n.修截苗根，苗木铲根（铲根时苗木不起土或部分起土）v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的现在分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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384
alcove
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| n.凹室 | |
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385
niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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386
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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387
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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388
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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389
scuttled
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| v.使船沉没( scuttle的过去式和过去分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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390
surmount
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| vt.克服；置于…顶上 | |
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391
furtiveness
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| 偷偷摸摸，鬼鬼祟祟 | |
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392
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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393
conclave
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| n.秘密会议，红衣主教团 | |
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394
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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395
asinine
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| adj.愚蠢的 | |
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396
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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397
premise
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| n.前提；v.提论，预述 | |
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398
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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399
oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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400
inefficient
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| adj.效率低的，无效的 | |
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401
braced
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| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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402
deliriously
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| adv.谵妄（性）；发狂；极度兴奋/亢奋；说胡话 | |
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403
killer
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| n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者 | |
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404
impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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405
follower
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| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
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406
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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407
cowering
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| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的现在分词 ) | |
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408
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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409
spinal
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| adj.针的，尖刺的，尖刺状突起的；adj.脊骨的，脊髓的 | |
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410
severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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411
ravenously
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| adv.大嚼地，饥饿地 | |
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412
avalanche
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| n.雪崩，大量涌来 | |
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413
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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414
screeched
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| v.发出尖叫声( screech的过去式和过去分词 )；发出粗而刺耳的声音；高叫 | |
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415
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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416
slashing
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| adj.尖锐的；苛刻的；鲜明的；乱砍的v.挥砍( slash的现在分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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417
dodging
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| n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避 | |
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418
mangled
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| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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419
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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420
adversary
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| adj.敌手，对手 | |
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421
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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422
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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423
crunched
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| v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的过去式和过去分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄 | |
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424
fangs
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| n.（尤指狗和狼的）长而尖的牙( fang的名词复数 )；（蛇的）毒牙；罐座 | |
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425
inverted
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| adj.反向的，倒转的v.使倒置，使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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426
sprawled
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| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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427
darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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428
abate
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| vi.(风势，疼痛等)减弱，减轻，减退 | |
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429
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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430
onset
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| n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始 | |
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431
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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432
jugular
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| n.颈静脉 | |
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433
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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434
clumping
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| v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的现在分词 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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435
seeped
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| v.（液体）渗( seep的过去式和过去分词 )；渗透；渗出；漏出 | |
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436
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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437
bragged
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| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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