He was therefore more than wary. With the first crash of the Hired Man's thunder stick, he led his little herd to a distant cedar swamp, where they were soon joined by other groups as nervous as themselves at this new peril that could pick them out and wound them from so far away.
Sometimes, even then, a member of the band would have a race for his life.--And sometimes he never came back! But Fleet Foot and her five pulled through in safety.
Then the thunder-stick ceased to roar in the woods about Mount Olaf. The "season" was over, and the entire, band set about making active preparations for the on-coming winter. Already there were chill, drizzly days when all the world looked gray.
The former rivals now chewed their cuds together as peacefully as you please, the bucks sleeping on one side of the thicket, the does and their fawns on the other.
It was a surprise for the Red Fox Pup as well.
Frisky, the Red Fox Pup, had learned many lessons since the day he so nearly hanged himself in the wild grape-vines.
There was the day of the first snow, for instance.
Awakening one morning, cramped and chilled because he had not lined his bed deeply enough with leaves to keep off the cold, he peered from his little den on the hillside with wide eyes.
The air seemed filled, as far as he could see, with tiny white feathers, and the ground was covered with them.
He peered this way and that, wondering what kind of birds they could be whose plumage was being shed so freely. It must be a flock large enough to cover the whole sky, he decided, mystified.
He crept stealthily from the den, afraid, because he did not understand.
The instant his black feet touched the cold stuff, he leaped high into the air, with a yip of fright and amazement. But when he opened his mouth he got a taste of the falling flakes.
"Ha!" he said to himself, "that accounts for it. It is just rain turned white."
Still, he crept warily down to Pollywog Pond for his breakfast, stepping high, because he hated wet feet.
Arrived at the pond he stopped for a drink, when his lapping tongue came plump against a film of something hard and shining that seemed to cover the water. What could it be, he asked himself, lapping up a mouthful of the snow-flakes to ease his thirst. (He wisely held them in his mouth till they had melted, for fear of chilling his stomach.)