Page:Redcoat (1927).djvu/65

 a cliff which overlooked the great meadows, looking and wondering. Occasionally he would lift his pointed nose to the moon and howl, a long thin howl, which was the very epitome of grief. But finally even his grief was forgotten in the struggle to get food and to keep his own brush safe from the men who were after him so persistently.

Hitherto he had usually hunted with one or more members of his family but from this time forth Redcoat hunted upon the meadows in the moonlight, or in the great rabbit swamps three miles away, to the south of the mountain, or about the farm buildings in the lowlands near the mountains, by himself.

He was thrown entirely upon his own resources. By his own wits he must live or die, and Redcoat decided that he would live, and live well. The mountain, the fields and the woods belonged to him, or at least the foxes had claimed their inheritance in the wilderness ever since the first fox had hunted mice, and Redcoat would continue to claim his own. Not only that, but he would take