Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/188

114 and cautiously prowled and snuffed about—and this time he found that the man had set three traps at each place.

Curling back his whiskers in a scornful laugh. Silver-gray kicked them all full of stones; and when he had eaten the birds he dragged the three traps together and threw rubbish over them, to show the man how he disdained them.

But on the next night he found the traps all set again, the fresh birds and the sweet smells all there. And though once more he dragged them all into a pile to show his derision, on the night after that there were birds again awaiting his arrival.



Night after night, no matter how often he robbed them of bait, he always found the traps the same; yet each time he scratched about just as warily, for he knew that the man was full of tricks and all the time was trying to catch him.

For a month, with all his patience and skill, Old Ransome tried to catch Silver-gray—but every trick failed. No matter how carefully he buried the traps, no matter how, craftily he shifted them about, Silver-gray was always on the watch, and his cunning never failed. Old Ransome hid litle traps out in the rocks; he buried them under the sticks and in the dirt, where Silver-gray went for rubbish to kick over the big traps; he concealed them in all the little paths that Silver-gray had made. He even spent days following the tracks in the snow and seeking for Silver-gray’s den.

But, despite his skill and patience, in all things the fox was too cunning for him. If traps were set in his path he turned aside and ran up over the rocks. Never did he come in by the same trail twice.

When the man hunted for his den he hid in the heavy underbrush, where only a fox could crawl. And every time that he fooled the man his whiskers would curl back as he laughed. But one night he laughed too soon.

To catch the grouse with which he baited his steel traps Old Ransome had set snares on the mountain-side, and one night it happened that Silver-gray passed by the place and heard a bird fluttering in the snare. In a moment all his savage instincts were aroused. He flitted across the snow like a flash of moonlight, and, with a great leap, seized it by the neck. Mumbling and snarling, he devoured the poor bird. Then he sat down and curled his whiskers in a laugh; and that night he did not even visit the anise-tree.

In the morning, when Old Ransome looked at his steel traps, his face fell, for Silver-gray had not been near them, and he feared that he