were no longer to be feared,
being restrained by law, and he roamed the woods with greater freedom
than ever. He seemed to know that he was safe at this time, and more
than once I trailed him up to his hiding and saw him whirr away through
the open woods, sending down a shower of snow behind him, as if in that
curious way to hide his line of flight from my eyes.

There were other enemies, however, whom no law restrained, save the
universal wood-laws of fear and hunger. Often I found the trail of a fox
crossing his in the snow; and once I followed a double trail, fox over
grouse, for nearly half a mile. The fox had struck the trail late the
previous afternoon, and followed it to a bullbrier thicket, in the midst
of which was a great cedar in which the old beech partridge roosted.
The fox went twice around the tree, halting and looking up, then went
straight away to the swamp, as if he knew it was of no use to watch
longer.

Rarely, when the snow was deep, I found the place where he, or some
other grouse, went to sleep on the ground. He would plunge down from
a tree into the soft snow, driving into it headfirst for three or four
feet, then turn around and settle down in his white warm chamber for the
night. I would find the small hole where he plunged in at evening, and
near it the great hole where he burst out when the light waked him.
Taking my direction from his wing prints in the snow, I would follow to
find where he lit, and then trace him on his morning wanderings.

One would think that this might be a dangerous proceeding, sleeping
on the ground with no protection but the snow, and a score of hungry
enemies prowling about the woods; but the grouse knows well that when
the storms are out his enemies stay close at home, not being able to
see or smell, and therefore afraid each one of his own enemies. There is
always a truce in the woods during a snowstorm; and that is the reason
why a grouse goes to sleep in the snow only while the flakes are still
falling. When the storm is over and the snow has settled a bit, the fox
will be abroad again; and then the grouse sleeps in the evergreens.

Once, however, the old beech partridge miscalculated. The storm ceased
early in the evening, and hunger drove the fox out on a night when,
ordinarily, he would have stayed under cover. Sometime about daybreak,
before yet the light had penetrated to where the old beech partridge was
sleeping, the fox found a hole in the snow, which