o his box, but at once returned and ran to meet his
mother with all the gladness that a fox could show. Quick as a flash
she seized him and turned to bear him away by the road she came. But the
moment the end of the chain was reached the cub was rudely jerked from
the old one's mouth, and she, scared by the opening of a window, fled
over the wood-pile.

An hour afterward the cub had ceased to run about or cry. I peeped out,
and by the light of the moon saw the form of the mother at full length
on the ground by the little one, gnawing at something--the clank of iron
told what, it was that cruel chain. And Tip, the little one, meanwhile
was helping himself to a warm drink.

On my going out the fled Into the dark woods, but there by the
shelter-box were two little mice, bloody and still warm, food for the
cub brought by the devoted mother. And in the morning I found the chain
was very bright for a foot or two next the little one's collar.

On walking across the woods to the ruined den, I again found signs of
Vixen. The poor heart-broken mother had come and dug out the bedraggled
bodies of her little ones.

There lay the three little baby foxes all licked smooth now, and by them
were two of our hens fresh killed. The newly heaved earth was printed
all over with telltale signs--signs that told me that here by the side
of her dead she had watched like Rizpah. Here she had brought their
usual meal, the spoil of her nightly hunt. Here she had stretched
herself beside them and vainly offered them their natural drink and
yearned to feed and warm them as of old, but only stiff little bodies
under their soft wool she found, and little cold noses still and
unresponsive.

A deep impress of elbows, breasts, and hocks showed where she had laid
in silent grief and watched them for long and mourned as a wild mother
can mourn for its young. But from that time she came no more to the
ruined den, for now she surely knew that her little ones were dead.
Tip the captive, the weakling of the brood, was now the heir to all her
love. The dogs were loosed to guard the hens. The hired man had orders
to shoot the old fox on sight--so had I but was resolved never to see
her. Chicken-heads, that a fox loves and a dog will not touch, had been
poisoned and scattered through the woods; and the only way to the yard
where Tip was tied, was by climbing the wood-pile after braving all
other dangers.

And yet each night old Vix was there to nurse her b