The Fox and the Hound

by Daniel P. Mannix

  When it was over, the foxes lay side by side, thoroughly exhausted. Half in play, half in affection, Tod threw one of his long legs over her back, and the vixen turned to lick it. She whined and cuddled closer to him, thrusting her long nose under his leg. Tod looked down in awe at this half-crazy, puppy-like creature and felt a strange sense of proprietary affection toward it - not unlike the feeling he had for the tortoise shell where he had so often known the satisfaction of relieving himself. Vaguely he sensed that this remarkable creature that behaved in such unreasonable, unpredictable ways was putting herself under his protection and he would have to defend her, much as he had to defend his range from intruders, once. he had established it by urinating on the scent post. The realization worried and somewhat frightened him, and as the throbbing in his testicles was now relaxed, he decided it might be best to leave. He rose and began to trot away.

  The vixen promptly sprang up and trotted at his side. Tod had no idea what to do, In a way, he liked to have her companionship yet his native desire to be alone was still strong. Obviously the vixen had no such doubts, even when he quickened his stride she loped along beside him as though this was her predestined place. Tod was too polite to drive her away, yet it was clearly impossible for him to perform his regular runs and hunts with this curious creature running with him.

  They left the woods and started out across the open fields toward Tod's home range. Now the vixen started to show signs of nervousness. She whimpered and tried to turn back. When she saw that Tod was not turning with her, she darted in front and tried to turn him back by snapping at him. Swinging his muzzle from one side to the other, Tod avoided her bites, and kept on. When she persisted, he broke into a run. The vixen soon realized she could not keep up with him, and in a determined manner spun around and headed back to the safety of the woods she knew and away from the haunts of man. Glad to be rid of her, Tod kept on, slowing to a walk.

  He had gone nearly a mile and was close to his old range when he realized the vixen was following him. She had made her defiant move in the belief he would not desert her, but when it became obvious Tod would not yield to her wishes, she had, after a struggle, decided to follow her new mate to whatever place he preferred. Far from being flattered, Tod was distinctly annoyed. He thought he'd gotten rid of her at last.

  Ahead, the stars were tailing on a washed-out look, and Tod could smell the coming dawn as the early morning breeze flowed over the fields, bringing with it innumerable new scents. Tod realized he was ferociously hungry. The exertions of the night. had given him a ravenous appetite. He wanted rich meat to stay it - not the thin, stringy flesh of rabbits but the luscious, nourishing meat of birds. The farmers' hen roosts were dangerous at this hour, but Tod remembered the stand of pines where the pheasants roosted. There had to be one bird roosting too low this morning - there had to be! He swung away toward the pines, the vixen padding silently a few feet behind him.

  The sun had risen by the time they reached the pines, and the pheasants were awake, to Tod's disappointment. As soon as he saw the birds, he dropped flat on his belly, and the vixen dropped beside him. Both foxes lay motionless, only their bright eyes moving as they watched the pheasants mantle - stretch one leg and one wing together as they prepared to fly down. All the birds were too high for the foxes to reach, although that made no difference now they were awake. Not even the craftiest fox could steal up to the pines without the birds seeing him.

  Tod lay regretfully watching the pheasants, so near, yet so far out of reach. He could smell them now, and the delicious warm odor made his nostrils twitch. Wistfully, he thought of every trick. he knew. None would work.

  To his amazement he saw the vixen rise and deliberately trot past the pines in full sight of the pheasants. At once a chorus of cackling call went up, interspersed with the shrill warning cry of the cocks. The vixen paid no attention to the flock and continued on her way, utterly indifferent to the birds. The ground was hilly, and as the vixen passed behind a little rise so that she was hidden, several of the pheasants flew to higher limbs so as not to lose sight of her. The vixen passed the flock and, still without glancing in their direction, turned and entered the pines a few yards from the roosting place.

  The pheasants watched her suspiciously, although they knew that they were perfectly safe. A young hen flew from one pine to another, watching the fox and crying constantly, afraid to let the predator out of her sight. To follow the progress of the fox among the trees, the hen had to fly lower and lower so that her vision would not be cut off by the broad fans of green needles Yet she was careful never to get too near the fox while still giving her alarm call.

  The entire flock was standing with upcraned necks, trying to see the vixen. Now Tod slunk forward, belly to the ground. Like a cat he crawled through the pines, watching the hen pheasant. As she flew from limb to limb, screaming at the fox almost as a jay would have done, all her attention was concentrated on the vixen. Now she was only a few feet above the ground.

  Tod balanced himself, swayed back and forth, and then made his rush. In seconds he was under the tree. As he sprang upward, the rest of the flock saw him, and from a dozen throats went the shrill danger scream, The hen stopped her scolding and looked stupidly around for the threat; as she did so, Tod had her by the leg. Bird and fox crashed through the dead twigs to the ground, the pheasant beating desperately with her wings, the fox holding on for all he was worth. She might have gotten away with the loss of a leg had not the vixen spun around at the first sound of struggle and sped to help. With the skill of long experience, she hurled herself at the thrashing bird and with one nip broke its neck. Then she leaped lightly back and sat down, having no wish to be struck by one of the lashing wings, and knowing the end was sure. Tod, not being certain what had happened, continued to maintain his grip, and got unpleasantly kicked and beaten during the bird’s dying struggles. After all, Tod was not much bigger than a large house cat and to him a pheasant was as formidable an adversary as a swan would be to a man. A man could overcome a full-grown cob, but it is not a pleasant experience.

  When the pheasant ceased struggling, Tod prepared to feed. To his indignation, the vixen raced in, snapping at him in a fury. Tod stood back, whereupon she seized the bird and, still snarling, dragged it away. Whenever Tod approached, she hissed at him, pulling the pheasant out of reach. As Tod regarded the bird as his property, he considered such conduct an outrage, but when he tried to assert his rights the vixen attacked him with such a frenzy of rage he gave way. This was not the half playful snapping and squalling she had shown previously; she really meant it. Not until she had eaten her fill was Tod allowed. to approach the bird.

  After gorging, Tod retired to one of his lying-up places. The vixen accompanied him, but to Tod's relief, picked her own spot some distance off. He was already beginning to grow accustomed to her presence, and even took a certain satisfaction in having her around, yet he still insisted on privacy. Obviously she felt the same way, so although they kept within scenting range of each other, they maintained their distances.

  To Tod's surprise and pleasure, the vixen turned out to be a most useful hunting companion. When hunting by himself, Tod went along the edges of the bramble patches in the hope of cutting off a rabbit feeding in the open as it made a dash for cover. Now the vixen accompanied him on his rounds, and as soon as she got to know the country she would leave him to make a swing around any likely territory and drive the rabbits to him. This maneuver was especially effective with pheasants who, if not pressed too hard, would run a long distance before taking to the air. Tod had almost never been able to catch a pheasant, no matter how carefully he stalked them, until the vixen showed him how it was done. When their noses told them pheasants were feeding in cover, the vixen would circle around behind them, leaving Tod crouched in ambush. She was amazingly dexterous in herding the flock toward him cutting them off when they tried to turn to one side and, if the flock showed signs of too great alarm, dropping flat on her belly and wait
ing until they calmed down. These were the same techniques that Tod had used to herd the sheep in play, and now he saw their value. Working as a team, the pair of foxes did considerable damage to the pheasant population. They also, unwittingly, saved many of the young apple trees in the orchard from being girdled by rabbits and mice. Tod had long ago discovered that an excellent place to look for mice was around the roots of the apple trees, and nearly every tree showed where he had dug up the mice during the nocturnal hunts. Rabbits had been much harder to get, but the vixen changed all that. Once he had shown her the hole under the wire fence, she would lie there while Tod went into the orchard after the rabbits. When the rabbits dashed for the hole, she was ready for them. They also used the same trick at runways in the hedges where formerly Tod had been forced to wait for an hour or more before a rabbit happened to use the hole.

  Thus, based on habit and mutual assistance, a bond grew up between them that slowly ripened into a deep affection lasting long after the vixen had passed her period and the rut was over. It was even possible that for this vixen whom he had sought out in alien territory and brought to his own range, Tod had a special feeling that he would not have felt for a local female even though he would have equally readily mated with her. He had, so he thought, defeated two powerful rivals for her affections and rescued this weak, helpless creature from her dismal land of thick timber and little food to bring her to the pleasant, open farm country well stocked with provisions. The old vixen, on the other hand, had immediately known that Tod was young, inexperienced, and would be easily molded. He was also big and strong, two factors that strongly appealed to her female instincts. So she had deliberately selected him from two older, more sophisticated males, although it would have never occurred to Tod that the whining, abject female was actually dominating the whole affair.

  They were well mated; the older, more experienced vixen to the powerful, enthusiastic young male in the full glory of his youthful prowess. The vixen had been mated three times before, her last mate dying only a month before under the blows of a club as he writhed helplessly in a trap. Even though they had been mated for three years and had always been faithful to each other, the vixen had at once set out to find a new mate once she knew he was dead. Tod had been her choice, and she had every intention of molding him into a model mate. Tod, in pride of possession over this poor, weak female, would have been greatly surprised if he could have known what she had in mind.

  5

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  Third Hunt - Gassing

  Spring was raw and wet that year, and the vixen, used to living in the protection of heavy cover, suffered especially. While Tod was content to lie out in the worst of weathers, the vixen south of the shelter of overhanging rocks and during especially heavy storms even went down holes. This conduct bothered Tod as he regarded it not only as most unfoxlike but also dangerous; if you were under the overshoot of a rock you couldn't see what was coming up behind you, especially as heavy rain killed scent, and going down a burrow was even worse - you might be trapped down there by terriers. Tod remembered his own childhood experience vividly. None of these considerations bothered the vixen, as she had been brought up in a wilder district where men were scarce and dogs nonexistent. If Tod had been an older more decided male she might have followed his example. As it was, she went her own way.

  Tod became far more conscious of his territorial rights than ever before, and in this he was amply abetted by the vixen. The growth of sperm in his testicles during the rutting season made him combative; and instead of regarding visiting foxes with goodnatured curiosity, he now considered them thieves and invaders. For a while foxes without a territory of their own could avoid him by checking the scent posts and seeing when Tod would be on a certain section of his range at a given time, for with their marvelous sense of smell they could tell when a post had been used within an hour or so. As it took Tod three or four days to make the complete round of his range, they hunted before or after he made his tour. Now, however, the thought of poachers so infuriated Tod that he altered his once rigid schedule to catch interlopers. Even though the trespasser was bigger and stronger than Tod, he would seldom put up even a token resistance, but fled at once, for he recognized Tod’s property rights as laid out by the scent posts. In his fury, Tod would often pursue the stranger off his range, but as soon as the interloper was well clear of his marker territory, he would slow down and eventually turn to fight. When that happened, Tod, who had been blind with rage, would suffer a change of heart. The two foxes would slowly revolve around each other, side to side and head to tail, ready to feint with their brushes or knock the opponent over with a flank bump. Nearly always the duel ended with both combatants gingerly edging apart, scratching contemptuously with hind feet, and defiantly urinating before going their separate ways.

  It was the vixen who goaded Tod to keep poachers off his range. From her actions at the scent posts, Tod knew she violently resented trespassers, and he tried to observe her wishes. Tod's anger was directed toward other males; he had no feelings toward females, and whenever he came upon a visiting vixen he was polite to her - if she was still in season, more than polite. He soon discovered that his mate viciously resented this chivalrous attitude he considered so natural. Once she came upon him sniffing courteously at the hindquarters of a cowering, squalling vixen, and at once attacked the husband-stealer with an insane frenzy that horrified Tod. The strange vixen, nothing loath, went at her with equal fury. Tod watched aghast while the two vixens tore at each other, screaming at the top of their voices and observing none of the etiquette of fox fighting. The strange vixen soon went down before the murderous intensity of his mate's delirium, and Tod expected to see her give the formal token of surrender by presenting her jugular - a signal that was always acknowledged and respected among males, Nothing like this happened. His mate got the foreigner by the back of the neck and shook her until the victim's eyes rolled up, her hind legs kicked convulsively, and she finally lay limp. Even then the maddened vixen did not give up, but worried the body until all sign of life was gone. Finally she dropped the corpse on the bloody snow and limped stiffly away with the awestruck Tod following behind her. Tod could not know that she was not fighting for prestige or simply for sport, as did the males, but for her mate; and the mate was now all-important, for new life would soon be stirring within her and she had to have the male to hold the range and provide food for the pups when they were born. Under these conditions, she would kill anything that stood in her way.

  As March came on, Tod was well past the rut, and his belligerency declined while the vixen's increased. There would have to be plenty of food on the range for the pups as they grew, but she savagely begrudged every mouse taken by poachers. Tod had never before known what hatred was; he had never hated the quarry he killed any more than he hated the apples he ate, nor did he hate the hounds that chased him or the men who tried to kill him - he feared and dreaded them as he might fear a bolt of lightning striking near him, but he did not hate the lightning. Now he learned to hate other foxes with a deep, fanatic intensity of purpose that would last until autumn when the pups were on their own. He did not know why he hated these strangers except that it was his nature to do so, and the vixen encouraged him.

  Coming from an area where food was scarce, the vixen wanted him to maintain a range some five miles square; but as Tod soon discovered, there were several other dog foxes in the district who were mated to vixens with similar expansive ideas, and good hunting preserves were limited. Fighting broke out all along the boundary lines, and even though the combats never had serious results, the males soon became tired of the business. By an unspoken agreement they reduced their ranges to areas of about a square mile, which in a land flowing with mice and rabbits was ample. The vixens did not approve of this compromise; but after all it was the males who had to do the fighting, so they were forced to accept the limited ranges.

  So far, the vixen had kept her slender shape and was as active as ever, although
she no longer liked to play with him. Tag had been their favorite game, and they would chase each other for twenty minutes at a time over the fields and through the open woods. Now she began to grow heavy and inactive. She also became increasingly quick-tempered. The growing pups were draining the calcium from her system to make their bones, and the loss made her weak and irritable.

  She started to show remarkable interest in burrows, investigating and often enlarging every one she found. In one such burrow she encountered a large woodchuck, just emerging from his winter’s sleep. Tod could have told her that such an animal was best left alone, but in her overwrought mood the vixen attacked him. She was so far down the burrow that only the white tip of her brush was showing, and Tod, dancing around eagerly outside, heard her screams of anger followed by the grunts and teeth-chattering of the chuck. As the underground battle raged and the inflaming odor of adrenaline rose, Tod dug desperately through the half-frozen earth to squeeze down and get at the chuck himself. To his astonishment, the vixen turned on him. Both foxes burst out of the burrow, screaming at each other, rearing up on their hind legs, their teeth clashing together. For once Tod was in the same blind passion as the vixen, and grabbed her by the loins, he clamped down until his long canines drew blood. Instead of being cowed, the vixen continued to fight. The taste of fox blood brought Tod to his senses. He turned and ran, pursued by the screaming vixen. He could easily outdistance her, and kept a few yards ahead of the hysterical termagant until she dropped, panting and exhausted. Tod stopped and stood regarding her gravely until she recovered from the fit and they could resume normal relations.

  After enlarging and then abandoning what seemed to Tod innumerable burrows, the vixen at last settled on an empty woodchuck hole in a cover of scrub oaks on the extreme northern edge of the range. The burrow was small, but the vixen dug it out to suit her needs, loosening the earth with her forefeet and then kicking it out with her hind. Even when finished, the den was a modest affair. The main room, the highest part of the den for drainage purposes, was only two feet square; there was only one entrance, and the passageway was a little more than ten feet.