murmuring from a covey of quails sleeping in the brush
beside the path, and before I had time to think what it meant, a fox
trotted up the path I had just climbed, and halted in the edge of the
shadows directly at my feet.

I stood as stiff as a post. He sniffed at my dew-wet boots, backed away,
and looked me over curiously. I could have touched him with my fork. Then
he sat down with just his silver-tipped brush in the silver moonlight, to
study me in earnest.

The loud baying of the hounds was coming nearer. How often I had heard it,
and, in spite of my lost chickens, how often I had exclaimed, "Poor little
tired fox!" But here sat "poor little tired fox" with his tongue in his
head, calmly wondering what kind of stump he had run up against this time.

I could only dimly see his eyes, but his whole body said: "I can't make it
out, for it doesn't move. But so long as it doesn't move I sha'n't be
scared." Then he trotted to this side and to that for a better wind,
somewhat afraid, but much more curious.

His time was up, however. The dogs were yelping across the meadow on his
warm trail. Giving me a last unsatisfied look, he dropped down the path,
directly toward the dogs, and sprang lightly off into the thicket.

The din of their own voices must have deafened the dogs, or they would
have heard him. Round and round they circled, giving the fox ample time
for the study of another "stump" before they discovered that he had
doubled down the path, and still longer time before they crossed the wide
scentless space of his side jump and once more fastened upon his trail.

III

Back in my knickerbocker days I once went off on a Sunday-school picnic,
and soon, replete with "copenhagen," I sauntered into the woods alone in
quest of less cloying sport. I had not gone far when I picked up a dainty
little ribbon-snake, and having no bag or box along, I rolled him up in my
handkerchief, and journeyed on with the wiggling reptile safely caged on
top of my head under my tight-fitting hat.

After a time I began to feel a peculiar movement under the hat, not
exactly the crawling of a normal snake, but more like that of a snake with
legs. Those were the days when all my soul was bent on the discovery of a
new species--of anything; when the whole of life meant a journey to the
Academy of Natural Sciences with something to be named. For just an
instant flashed the hope that I had found an uncursed snake, one of the
original ones t