w-brown form drifting
on the prairie as though wind-blown under sail of that enormous tail.
For this is the big-tailed variety of Red Fox.

But if you wish to see the Fox in all his glory you must be here in
winter, when the deep snow cutting off all other foods brings all the
Fox population about the hotels whose winter keepers daily throw out
scraps for which the Foxes, the Magpies, and a dozen other creatures
wait and fight.

From a friend, connected with one of the Park hotels during the early
'90's, I learned that among the big-tailed pensioners of the inn, there
appeared one winter a wonderful Silver Fox; and I heard many rumours
about that Fox. I was told that he disappeared, and did not die of
sickness, old age, or wild-beast violence; and what I heard I may tell
in a different form, only, be it remembered, the names of the persons
and places are disguised, as well as the date; and my informant may have
brought in details that belonged elsewhere. So that you are free to
question much of the account, but the backbone of it is not open to
doubt, and some of the guides in the Park can give you details that I do
not care to put on paper.

THE POACHER AND THE SILVER FOX

How is it that all mankind has a sneaking sympathy with a poacher? A
burglar or a pickpocket has our unmitigated contempt; he clearly is a
criminal; but you will notice that the poacher in the story is generally
a reckless dare-devil with a large and compensatory amount of
good-fellow in his make-up--yes, I almost said, of good citizenship. I
suppose, because in addition to the breezy, romantic character of his
calling, seasoned with physical danger as well as moral risk, there is
away down in human nature a strong feeling that, in spite of man-made
laws, the ancient ruling holds that "wild game belongs to no man till
some one makes it his property by capture." It may be wrong, it may be
right, but I have heard this doctrine voiced by red men and white, as
primitive law, once or twice; and have seen it lived up to a thousand
times.

Well, Josh Cree was a poacher. This does not mean that every night in
every month he went forth with nefarious tricks and tools, to steal the
flesh and fur that legally were not his. Far from it. Josh never poached
but once. But that's enough; he had crossed the line, and this is how it
came about:

As you roll up the Yellowstone from Livingston to Gardiner you may note
a little ranch-house on the west of the tr