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[Illustration: “The next minute Sharp Eyes found himself free.”]




                       _Kneetime Animal Stories_


                              SHARP EYES
                            THE SILVER FOX

                          HIS MANY ADVENTURES


                                  BY
                            RICHARD BARNUM

             Author of “Squinty, the Comical Pig,” “Mappo,
                the Merry Monkey,” “Tum Tum, the Jolly
                 Elephant,” “Tinkle, the Trick Pony,”
                    “Chunky, the Happy Hippo,” etc.


                           _ILLUSTRATED BY
                           WALTER S. ROGERS_


                               NEW YORK
                            BARSE & HOPKINS
                              PUBLISHERS




KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES

By Richard Barnum

_Large 12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid_


  SQUINTY, THE COMICAL PIG.
  SLICKO, THE JUMPING SQUIRREL.
  MAPPO, THE MERRY MONKEY.
  TUM TUM, THE JOLLY ELEPHANT.
  DON, A RUNAWAY DOG.
  DIDO, THE DANCING BEAR.
  BLACKIE, A LOST CAT.
  FLOP EAR, THE FUNNY RABBIT.
  TINKLE, THE TRICK PONY.
  LIGHTFOOT, THE LEAPING GOAT.
  CHUNKY, THE HAPPY HIPPO.
  SHARP EYES, THE SILVER FOX.


 BARSE & HOPKINS
 Publishers      New York


                           Copyright, 1918,
                                  by
                            Barse & Hopkins


                     _Sharp Eyes, The Silver Fox_


                          VAIL·BALLOU COMPANY
                        BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK




CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                                  PAGE
      I  SHARP EYES SEES SOMETHING          7
     II  SHARP EYES CATCHES SOMETHING      20
    III  SHARP EYES HEARS SOMETHING        28
     IV  SHARP EYES IS HURT                38
      V  SHARP EYES MEETS DON              48
     VI  SHARP EYES IS CAPTURED            59
    VII  SHARP EYES IS SOLD                68
   VIII  SHARP EYES GOES TRAVELING         76
     IX  SHARP EYES IN THE ZOO             87
      X  SHARP EYES MEETS CHUNKY           94
     XI  SHARP EYES GETS AWAY             101
    XII  SHARP EYES GETS HOME             112




ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                  PAGE

 “The next minute Sharp Eyes found himself free”         _Frontispiece_

 “He pretended a piece of wood was the partridge he was after”      13

 “‘Look what I got!’ he barked”                                     45

 “‘Hello, what’s the matter here?’ asked the dog”                   53

 “‘These men seem never to let us animals alone’”                   83

 “There was a crash, and Sharp Eyes sprang out”                    109

 “‘Sharp Eyes,’ she cried, ‘don’t you know me?’”                   123




SHARP EYES, THE SILVER FOX




CHAPTER I

SHARP EYES SEES SOMETHING


Away up in the North Woods lived a family of foxes. They had big, bushy
tails, like a dust brush, and they wore furry coats. Some of these
furry coats were of a reddish-yellow color, and some of them a sort of
gray. The foxes had long sharp noses and sharp teeth, and they were
very sly and cunning, as they had need to be.

For a fox is not strong, like a lion or a tiger, and to get his food he
must be quick and sly, and steal up when no one sees him, to get a fat
duck or a chicken from the farmyard.

Now in this family of foxes, about which I am going to tell you, there
was the father and mother, and three little ones. Mr. and Mrs. Fox were
well grown, fleet of foot, and they could both see and smell danger a
long way off, just as they could see and smell when they were near
some farmer’s house, where they might get a chicken or a duck.

The home of the foxes was in a hollow log, in the deepest and darkest
part of the North Woods, and in this hollow log the three little foxes
lived. They were named Sharp Eyes, Twinkle and Winkle.

Sharp Eyes was the oldest of the children, though they were all nearly
the same age. The reason he was called Sharp Eyes was because he had
such sharp, sparkling eyes, which seemed to look right through the
bushes and trees at anything he wanted to find.

Twinkle, who was Sharp Eyes’ brother, was so called because when he ran
downhill or uphill his feet seemed to twinkle in and out like flashes
of light.

Winkle, who was Sharp Eyes’ sister, was so called because she seemed to
winkle and blinkle her eyes, sleepy-like, when she looked at anything.

So Sharp Eyes, Twinkle and Winkle lived with their father and mother
in the hollow log in the big woods. The little foxes, at first, stayed
very close to the log. In fact, they did not go outside it until they
were pretty well grown, and about the size of puppy dogs. Each day
their father and mother would crawl out of the log, look carefully
around to make sure there were no dogs, hunters, or other dangers
near, sniff the air to see if they could smell anything that might harm
them or their little ones, and then one or the other would slink slyly
away through the woods, to look for something to eat, not only for
themselves, but to bring home to the little foxes.

One day when Mr. Fox had come home with a plump partridge and the
little foxes were having a good dinner, Sharp Eyes asked:

“Mother, where did my father get this fine meat for us to eat?”

“He caught it in the woods.”

Of course the Fox family did not speak the same kind of language that
you boys and girls use. They talked in their own language, which they
could understand as well as you can understand one another. But so
that you may know what the foxes said among themselves, and what they
thought, I have put their sayings into your kind of words.

Foxes, like other animals, talk with whispers, sniffles, snuffles,
whines, barks and howls, and it is very hard to understand them unless
you know their language, as I do. But, once you do, it is as easy to
know what they say as if you heard the boy on your next street call:

“Come on, spin tops!”

So now you’ll understand what I mean when I say a fox “says” this,
that, or the other.

“Where did my father get this fine meat?” asked Sharp Eyes, and when
his mother told him Mr. Fox caught it in the woods, the little fox, as
he gnawed a bone, smacked his lips and asked:

“But _how_ did he get it?”

“I’ll tell you, little Sharp Eyes,” said Mr. Fox. “And you listen also,
Twinkle and Winkle. For you must soon learn to catch your own dinners
and suppers, as well as breakfasts.”

So the little foxes listened while their father told them how to make a
living in the woods, where there are no stores at which animals can buy
what they want to eat.

“I was coming along under the trees,” said Mr. Fox, “and I was looking
on both sides of me for something to bring home to your mother and you
to eat. Up to then I had not caught anything. I sprang after a muskrat,
but it jumped into the brook and got away from me. Then I tried to
creep softly up behind a young wild turkey in the woods, but he heard
me and flew away.

“So I was beginning to think I’d never get a meal for my family, and I
knew you were hungry, when, all at once, I saw this partridge. I walked
as softly as I knew how over the leaves and sticks in the woods, and,
without his hearing me, I got so close to the bird that I could jump
on him, pin him down with my feet, and catch him in my sharp teeth.
Then I brought him home to you. That’s how I got your dinner, Sharp
Eyes.”

“And a very good dinner it is, too,” said Mrs. Fox. “You animal
children ought to be very glad you have such a smart father. It is not
every fox that can catch a partridge.”

“Oh, well, we mustn’t be proud,” said Mr. Fox, as, with his tail, he
brushed smooth a place inside the log, where he could lie down. “Our
children will soon be grown, and they will learn how to catch wild
turkeys, partridges, quail and muskrats for themselves.”

“How do you catch wild things in the woods?” asked Sharp Eyes.

“Yes, tell us, so we may learn,” begged Twinkle.

“I will,” answered Mr. Fox. “It is time you little fox puppies learned
to hunt for yourselves. You are old enough. After you have had a nap
we will go outside the log house, and your mother and I will give you
lessons.”

So the little foxes went to sleep after their meal, as nearly all wild
animals do, and as even your cat and dog do after they have eaten. They
always seem to feel sleepy after eating. And when Sharp Eyes, Twinkle
and Winkle awakened after their nap, they felt fine and fresh, and
felt like jumping around.

In fact, Sharp Eyes felt so fresh that he cuffed his brother on the ear
with his paw.

“Ma, make Sharp Eyes stop!” cried Twinkle, in fox language of course.

“Oh, I wasn’t doing anything!” said Sharp Eyes.

“Yes he was, too!” barked Sister Winkle. “And now he’s tickling me!”

“I guess it’s time I gave you little foxes some lessons in
how-to-catch-things,” said Mr. Fox, as he stretched himself, for he,
too, had been sleeping. “You are so full of life that you are getting
into mischief. Come out, all of you, and I’ll show you how I caught the
partridge.”

Sharp Eyes would have rushed out of the log at once, but his mother
held him back with her paw, saying:

“Wait! Let your father take a look first, to see that there is no
danger. You must always be careful in going out of your house, whether
it is a hole under the rocks or a hollow log or a stump, to look for
danger. Watch your father!”

Mr. Fox stuck his nose out of the log a little way and sniffed the air.
Then he stuck it out a little farther. Next he looked around with his
bright eyes.

[Illustration: “He pretended a piece of wood was the partridge he was
after.”]

“Is everything all right?” asked Mrs. Fox.

“Everything is all right,” said Mr. Fox.

So out in front of the hollow-log house, where there was a smooth,
level place, went Mr. Fox and the three little foxes. Mrs. Fox stayed
in the log to shake up the dried leaves that made the beds. That was
all the housekeeping work she had to do, for foxes, like most animals,
live a very simple life.

“Now this is how I crept softly up behind the partridge,” said Mr. Fox,
as he went along, almost on his tiptoes, as you might say. “You must be
careful not to step on a stick so it breaks and makes a noise,” he told
the little foxes; “and do not rustle the dried leaves. For partridges
and other wild birds and all woodland creatures that we have to eat,
are very shy, and fly off or run away at the least noise. You see, we
have not sharp claws, like a cat, with which to grasp the things we
catch. We have to pin them down with our paws, as a dog does, or get
them in our sharp teeth, and we have to be very close to them before
they see us, so we can do that.”

So Mr. Fox showed his little ones how to creep along softly over
the sticks, stones and leaves. He pretended a piece of wood was the
partridge he was after, and, when he got close enough, he gave a jump
and came down on top of it, quickly getting it in his mouth.

“That’s the way I would have done it if it had been a real bird,” said
Mr. Fox. “Now you try, Sharp Eyes, and let us see how you would do it.”

So the little fox boy tried, and so did his brother and his sister, and
for many days after that their father or their mother gave them hunting
lessons outside the hollow log.

After a while Sharp Eyes, Twinkle, and Winkle learned to be very good
jumpers, and they could move over a bit of ground, covered with sticks,
stones and leaves, so softly that you never would have heard them.

“Now come out in the woods, and let us see if you can be as quiet when
there is something real to catch, instead of the make-believe birds and
rats, that are really only pieces of wood,” said Mr. Fox. For, up to
this time, he had let the fox children practise on bits of bark, clumps
of grass, or a stone, pretending they were grouse or partridges.

Through the woods went the family, Mr. Fox in front, then Sharp Eyes,
Twinkle and Winkle, and Mrs. Fox behind them all. The two old foxes
were looking out for danger, you see.

All at once Mr. Fox stopped, and, speaking in an animal whisper, said:

“Here is a mouse just in front of me, Sharp Eyes. He does not see me
yet. Come and see if you can get it!”

Up came Sharp Eyes very, very softly. He saw a big wood mouse under the
roots of a tree. The mouse was gnawing the soft bark.

“Now go softly,” said Mr. Fox.

Sharp Eyes tried to, but alas! he stepped on a dried stick, which broke
with a crack. The mouse heard it and started to jump down into his
burrow under the earth.

“No, you don’t!” cried Mr. Fox, and he made a big jump and caught the
mouse just in time.

“That’s the way to do it!” barked Mrs. Fox. “The mouse would have
gotten away from you, Sharp Eyes.”

“I’m sorry,” replied the little fox boy slowly and sadly.

“Never mind,” said his father. “You’ll do better the next time.”

But it was some days before the little foxes learned to catch anything.

“Oh, shall we ever learn?” asked Twinkle.

“Of course you will,” said his mother. “When I was a young fox, like
you, I thought I’d never catch my first mouse. But I did.”

So Mr. and Mrs. Fox had to keep on catching the things the little
foxes ate, though each day Sharp Eyes, Twinkle and Winkle were getting
quicker and better.

But one day Mr. Fox came home without any dinner.

“What’s the matter?” asked Mrs. Fox. “Couldn’t you catch anything
to-day?”

“No,” answered Mr. Fox. “In fact, I didn’t see a thing. I’ve tramped
all over these woods, but not a bird or an animal could I see. Of
course I saw cows and horses in the farmers’ yards, but they are too
big for me to carry off.”

“Couldn’t you get a chicken or a duck?”

“I saw some ducks and chickens on one farm,” replied Mr. Fox, “but the
farmer, or one of his men, was near them all the while with a gun or a
club, and I dared not try to catch one. I’d have been caught or hurt
myself if I had. I’m sorry, but we’ll have no dinner to-day.”

Sharp Eyes and his brother and sister felt sad on hearing this. They
were very hungry.

“Couldn’t we all go out hunting together?” asked Sharp Eyes, after a
bit. “Maybe we could see something you could catch,” he said to his
father.

“Well, perhaps that would be a good plan,” replied Mr. Fox. “Come on,
we’ll all go out and see if we can find a meal.”

So out into the woods went the five foxes――the two large ones and the
three smaller ones. Slowly and carefully they went along, looking from
side to side, and sniffing the air for any sign of something to eat.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything,” said Mrs. Fox, with a hungry sigh.

“No,” answered Mr. Fox, “there doesn’t. I never saw the woods so scarce
of food.”

All of a sudden Sharp Eyes, who had gone a little way ahead, came
softly back.

“I see something!” he said. “Shall I try to get it for our dinner?”

“What is it? Where is it?” asked Mr. Fox eagerly. “I don’t see
anything,” and he looked as hard as he could through the bushes.

“Right over there, by the old stump,” said Sharp Eyes. “Don’t you see?
It’s a big chicken.”

Mr. Fox looked. Then he said:

“That isn’t a chicken! It’s a wild turkey! If we get that it will make
a fine meal for all of us! Sharp Eyes, you were rightly named. You saw
this turkey when neither your mother nor I could see it. It’s a good
thing you did. Now we’ll have a fine meal!”




CHAPTER II

SHARP EYES CATCHES SOMETHING


Slowly and carefully, making not the least sound, Mr. Fox began to
creep through the woods toward the wild turkey. The big bird was eating
some forest berries, and had his back toward the fox.

“Let me catch him!” whispered Sharp Eyes. “I saw him first, let me
creep up and jump on him!”

“No,” whispered his mother. “It is true you had very keen sight to
see the turkey, Sharp Eyes, and when you grow up you will be a smart
fox. But just now, when we are all so hungry, it would not do to let
that turkey get away from us. They can fly faster than you can run or
jump. Even your father will have hard work getting it. But he can do it
better than you.

“You saw the big bird first, Sharp Eyes. Now let your father get it for
us. Then we shall all have something to eat. The next wild turkey you
see you may catch for yourself.”

“All right,” said Sharp Eyes. So he carefully watched his father to
see how the old fox would go about it to catch the wild turkey.

Nearer and nearer crept Mr. Fox to the big bird, which was still eating
away, not hearing or seeing the danger that was so close to him. Mrs.
Fox and the three little foxes waited very anxiously indeed, for they
were very hungry.

“Oh, I hope he gets it!” whispered Twinkle.

“So do I,” said Sharp Eyes.

“It was awfully smart of you to see it,” murmured Winkle.

“Hush, children!” softly called Mrs. Fox. “Watch your father!”

Just then Mr. Fox made a jump for the turkey. Up in the air went Sharp
Eyes’ father, and down he came, right on the back of the big, wild bird.

“Gobble-obble-obble!” cried the turkey, and that was all he said. A
little later the fox family had a fine dinner, and they didn’t have to
wait for the turkey to be roasted, either. They ate it raw.

Of course it was too bad for the turkey, but animals must live, and if
one lives on the other that is the law of the woods. There is no need
of feeling sorry. The foxes had to eat the turkey, just as the turkey
had to eat grasshoppers.

“Oh, that was a fine meal!” cried Twinkle, when the turkey was all
gone, and nothing but the bones was left.

“Yes, and if it hadn’t been for Sharp Eyes we might not have had it,”
said Mrs. Fox.

“That’s right,” said Mr. Fox. “I looked and looked under the trees and
through the bushes, but I never saw that turkey. It took Sharp Eyes to
see it for us. His name is the right one if ever a name was.”

Of course Sharp Eyes felt very proud and happy on hearing this, just
as you children feel when you do anything that pleases your father and
mother.

“But I wish I could catch something myself,” said the little fox boy.

“Oh, you will, some day,” his mother answered. “You are young yet――you
have plenty of time to learn.”

After their turkey dinner the fox family went back to their home in the
hollow log and had a long sleep. And they did not need to hunt anything
more until the next day, for the turkey was a large one. Foxes or other
wild animals, hardly ever save anything over from one meal to the next.
They have no ice boxes or pantries. When they are hungry they go out
and get what they can to eat, and they don’t hunt for anything more
until they are hungry again.

Of course, by the next day, Sharp Eyes, his brother and sister, as
well as his father and mother, were hungry once more.

“I will go out and see what I can find,” said Mr. Fox. “The rest of you
stay here.”

“Can’t I come with you?” asked Sharp Eyes.

Mr. Fox seemed to think for a minute.

“Yes,” he answered, “I guess it will be a good thing for you to come
along. My eyes are getting old, and are not as good as they once were.
Yours are young and bright. You may see something I can’t. Come with
me, Sharp Eyes.”

“And us?”

“Well―― Well, no, Twinkle and Winkle. This isn’t a lesson in hunting. I
think, if I take only Sharp Eyes along, we’ll be able to get something
to eat sooner.”

So Sharp Eyes went hunting with his father, while Mrs. Fox remained at
home in the hollow log with Twinkle and Winkle.

“I hope we’ll see another wild turkey,” said Sharp Eyes, as he trotted
along beside his father across the meadow.

“Don’t expect such good luck,” answered the older fox. “If we get a
couple of wood mice, or perhaps a little duck that has paddled off down
stream away from the others, I shall be glad.”

So to the woods they went, looking for mice which live in hollow stumps
or in the ground under the roots of trees. But all the mice seemed to
be away that day. Not one could Sharp Eyes or his father see.

“Now we’ll go to the brook,” said the old fox. “Sometimes there are
little ducks there, who know no better than to swim too far from the
big ones, that, if I jump in among them, can make a loud quacking noise
and bring the farmer with his gun. Maybe we can steal up on a little
duck.”

So down to the brook went Sharp Eyes and his father. But though there
were ducks and geese in the water (for the brook was near a farm) not
one of the fowls was off by itself. They all kept together and not far
from them was a farmer plowing in a field.

“He may have a gun near him, or a club,” said Mr. Fox, “and with either
of those he could hurt us very much. We’ll not try to get a duck now.
We’ll have to go somewhere else for our dinner.”

“But where?” asked Sharp Eyes. “I am hungry, and I know my mother is,
and so are the others.”

“I know,” answered his father. “I am also hungry. We’ll go to the woods
once more. Maybe there’ll be some mice now.”

So back to the woods they went.

On all sides, among the trees and through the bushes, looked Mr. Fox
and Sharp Eyes. But no mice could they see. Nor did there seem to be
any partridges, quail or other wild birds. As for wild turkeys, not
even the gobble-obble of one could be heard.

“What shall we do?” asked Sharp Eyes.

“I’ll tell you,” his father answered. “There are two of us. If we keep
together we can be in only one place in the woods, but if you go one
way and I the other we can be in two places, and we’ll have a much
better chance to find something.”

“All right,” said Sharp Eyes. “I’ll go this way,” and with his paw he
sort of pointed down among some trees where the shadows were deep and
dark.

“It looks as though you could catch something there,” observed Mr. Fox.
“I’ll go the other way, and whichever of us first catches anything must
bark and howl. Then the other will know.”

“I’ll do it,” said Sharp Eyes.

So off he trotted by himself. It was the first time he had hunted
alone, and he felt a bit queer about it. Still he was a sly, cunning
chap, as are all fox creatures, and he wanted to show what he could do.

“I’ll get another turkey,” said Sharp Eyes to himself.

Through the woods he went, very softly and quietly, looking on all
sides, and sniffing the air to get a smell of something he might catch
as a dinner for himself and the rest of the fox family.

All at once Sharp Eyes saw something moving behind a bush. It made a
rustling sound.

“I wonder what that is,” thought the fox boy.

Once more he sniffed the air. The wind was blowing toward him from
whatever was in the bush, and the wind brought to the nose of the fox
boy a wonderful perfume.

“It smells like something good to eat!” thought Sharp Eyes.

There was another rustling in the bushes.

Then the fox boy saw some feathers shining in the sun.

“It must be another wild turkey,” said Sharp Eyes to himself. “Oh, I
wonder if I can jump on it as my father did! I’m going to try!”

As softly as he could, the fox boy crept up behind the bush. He heard
a scratching sound among the dried leaves. He saw more feathers, and
something red.

“That’s the funny red thing that hangs down under a turkey’s chin,”
said the fox boy to himself. “I am having good luck! Oh, if I can only
jump on that bird before he hears or sees me and flies away!”

Nearer and nearer he crept. He could see the big bird now. It did not
look exactly like the wild turkey.

“Maybe it’s a new and better kind,” thought Sharp Eyes. “If I get it
I’ll bark for my father to come and see what good hunting I can do!”

Nearer and nearer he crept. The big bird which was picking up something
from the ground under the bush, and scratching in the leaves, did not
seem to hear.

“Ah ha!” whispered Sharp Eyes to himself. “Now for a good dinner for
all of us!”

Through the air he jumped, and he landed with his front feet right on
the big bird’s back.

“Burr-r-r-r-r!” barked Sharp Eyes, almost like a dog.

“Cock-a-doodle-do!” crowed the big bird, and then it was very still.




CHAPTER III

SHARP EYES HEARS SOMETHING


“Ah ha!” cried Sharp Eyes in fox talk, “I have caught you, my fine wild
turkey!”

Then, with the big bird held tightly under his paws, the fox boy lifted
his nose high in the air and howled and barked. That was his way of
saying:

“Come and see what I have, Father! I’ve caught a fine wild turkey!”

Away off in the woods, where he was looking for something to eat, Mr.
Fox heard the call of Sharp Eyes.

“Ah, I wonder if he is hurt, in danger, or if he has something for
dinner,” said Mr. Fox to himself.

Mr. Fox listened carefully, and then by the difference in the howl and
bark, he could tell what Sharp Eyes was saying. It was this:

“I have caught something! I have caught something!”

“Ah, my little fox boy has had good luck,” said Mr. Fox. “Better luck
than I have had. I must go and see what he has caught!”

Not having found anything that he could take home for his family’s
dinner, Mr. Fox turned and ran quickly through the woods toward Sharp
Eyes. He could tell where his little fox son was by noticing the
direction from which his howls and barks came.

“What is it?” asked Mr. Fox as he came near.

“I have caught a big wild turkey,” answered Sharp Eyes, still keeping
the large bird between his paws.

“Ha! that is not a turkey,” said Mr. Fox, as he came near and saw what
Sharp Eyes had.

“No?” asked the little fox in surprise. “What is it then?”

“It’s a rooster,” said his father. “A great, big rooster that lives
down on the farm where the ducks are,” for there were farms near
the North Woods, though there were no cities. “Well do I know that
rooster,” went on Mr. Fox. “Many a time, when I have been creeping up
to get a chicken, he has seen me and crowed so loudly that the farmer
came out with a gun to drive me away. And so you have caught him, Sharp
Eyes!”

“Yes, but I thought he was a wild turkey like the one I saw before. I
never have seen a rooster.”

“He is as good as a wild turkey to eat,” went on Mr. Fox. “You have had
good luck. You have quick legs as well as sharp eyes. Now we shall not
be hungry.”

So Mr. Fox carried the big rooster home to the other foxes in the
hollow log. The bird would have been too heavy for Sharp Eyes, who was
not yet full grown.

“Oh, what a fine dinner!” said Mrs. Fox, when she saw the rooster. “Who
caught it?”

“Sharp Eyes did,” answered his father. “We ought to be quite proud of
him!”

“I am,” said the little fox boy’s mother.

Then they had a rooster dinner, and Twinkle and Winkle listened as
Sharp Eyes told how he had caught the fowl, thinking it was a wild
turkey.

“Though when it said ‘Cock-a-doodle-do!’ instead of ‘Gobble-obble-obble,’
I thought it was funny,” said the little fox boy.

“You are a real fox now――you can go out and catch things for yourself,”
said his father. “Now, Twinkle and Winkle, it is time you started in.
To-morrow let us see what you can do.”

So the next day the three little foxes started off together on a
hunting trip. At first they saw nothing, but, after a bit, they spied
some wood mice and each caught one.

“They are not as big as a rooster or a wild turkey,” said Sharp Eyes,
“but they will do for a start. We can’t catch big things every day.”

Twinkle and Winkle were quite delighted with the mice. They were the
first things they had caught, except some grasshoppers, and they felt a
little bit proud of themselves.

From then on the little foxes hunted every day. Twinkle and Winkle soon
learned to do nearly as well as Sharp Eyes, but their brother could
always see things in the woods before they could.

His eyes seemed to grow sharper and brighter each day, and he could
tell a turkey, a partridge or other wild bird a long way off, so that
even his father used to say:

“Sharp Eyes is the best hunter of us all. He is a fine fox!”

Not far from where these foxes lived was another family, not quite the
same kind, though. One of these foxes, named Red Tail, as he heard
Sharp Eyes tell of having caught the rooster, said one day:

“You had better look out for yourself, Sharp Eyes.”

“Why had I, Red Tail?”

“Oh, because,” was the answer, and that was all Red Tail would say just
then.

“Pooh! I s’pose he means a hunter might shoot me,” said Sharp Eyes.
“But I’m not afraid. I’m going off in the woods now and see what I can
find for dinner.”

Off went the little fox boy on another hunt. He looked all around, and
listened and smelled, and at last he saw something moving along the
ground.

“Ha! Maybe that is another rooster or a turkey,” thought Sharp Eyes.
“I’ll get that for dinner.”

Softly, softly he crept up toward the animal on the ground. Sharp Eyes
could now see it was an animal, and not a bird, and at first he thought
it was an extra large wood mouse. For the animal was of the same color,
a light gray. But when Sharp Eyes saw the big, curving bushy tail of
the creature he said:

“Ha! I know him. It is a gray squirrel! Well, they are as good as a
rooster or a wild turkey, though not as large. I’ll get him!”

Sharp Eyes crept toward the gray squirrel, but, just as the fox was
going to jump on it, something happened.

With a chatter of his teeth and a frisk of his tail the squirrel sprang
up into a tree, and from there, safely out of reach, sitting on a limb,
with his tail curled up along his back the squirrel looked at Sharp
Eyes.

“Ha! You thought you’d get me! didn’t you?” chattered the squirrel.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not so very hungry,” drawled Sharp Eyes,
pretending he hadn’t been fooled when the squirrel jumped away.

“Oh, yes you did! You tried to get me, but I was too quick for you――I
got away!” laughed and chattered the squirrel. “What’s your name,
little fox boy?”

“Sharp Eyes. What’s yours?”

“Oh, I am called Slicko, the jumping squirrel, and it’s because I
can jump so well that I got away from you,” answered the little gray
animal. “Haven’t you heard about me?”

“Heard about you?” asked Sharp Eyes. “What do you mean? I hear you
talking now, and I heard you scrabbling around in the leaves.”

“No, I mean, didn’t you hear about my having adventures, and being put
in a book?” asked Slicko.

“No,” answered Sharp Eyes, looking hungrily up at the squirrel, “I
didn’t.”

“Well, I _am_ in a book,” went on Slicko, “and it tells how I was
caught by some boys, and put in a cage. But I got away and came back to
the woods I love so well. But if you haven’t read the book about me, I
don’t s’pose you know Blackie, the lost cat, nor Don, the runaway dog.”

“No,” said Sharp Eyes, “I don’t know either of them. I don’t like
dogs.”

“Oh, but you’d like _Don_,” said Slicko. “He’s the nicest dog that ever
was! He’s in a book, too.”

“I don’t know anything about books,” said Sharp Eyes. “All I know about
is being hungry――that’s why I tried to catch you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” chattered Slicko.

“So am I,” said the fox. “I guess I can easily catch a turkey or a
mouse or a rooster. I’ve caught roosters before. But now I wouldn’t
like to catch you as I like to hear you talk, though I don’t know
anything about books.”

“Neither do I,” said Slicko. “All I know is I’m in one. And there’s a
book about Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. I don’t s’pose you know him,
either, do you?”

“Is an elephant like a wild turkey?” asked Sharp Eyes.

“I should say _not_!” laughed Slicko. “An elephant looks as if he had
two tails, but one is his trunk. Tum Tum was a jolly chap. He was in
the same circus with Mappo, the merry monkey. But excuse me, I have to
go now. I’ll see you some other time.”

“I wish you would,” said the fox boy. “I’ll promise not to catch you. I
like to hear you talk. Tell me some more about your elephant and monkey
friends.”

“I will,” promised Slicko, “and about the book I’m in, too. I had a
lot of adventures. Maybe you’ll have some, too, and have them put in a
book.”

“Oh, no! That will never happen to me!” said Sharp Eyes.

But you see how little he knew about it, for here he is in a book, and
I have a lot of adventures to tell you about him.

So Slicko, the jumping squirrel, scrambled off among the trees, and the
little fox boy went to look for something to eat.

Sharp Eyes presently caught a fat duck that had swum too far down the
brook, away from the farm, and, slinging her across his back, off to
the hollow log he trotted.

And later that day, when Sharp Eyes was telling his friend, Red Tail,
about catching the duck, Sharp Eyes said:

“I think I am getting to be a pretty good hunter, don’t you?”

“Yes, you are,” said Red Tail. “But you had better look out.”

“You said that the other day,” went on Sharp Eyes. “What do you mean?
Do you mean I’d better look out for Slicko, the squirrel?”

“Oh, no,” answered Red Tail. “But did you ever stop to think that your
coat of fur is different from those that most of us wear?”

“Why, no, I never took much notice,” said Sharp Eyes, as he looked at
himself as well as he could. “What’s the matter with my fur?”

“Nothing, except that it is very beautiful,” said Red Tail. “Now you
are going to hear something that may scare you. Though you may not know
it, you are a silver fox.”

“What’s that?” asked Sharp Eyes.

“It means your fur is the color of silver,” went on Red Tail. “That
color is very scarce, and hunters like to get a silver fox more than
any other. That means they’ll hunt you out, and try to catch you rather
than any of us, for our fur is common. But yours is silver shade, and
can be sold for a lot of money. So you want to look out.”

“Look out for what?” asked Sharp Eyes.

“For hunters,” answered Red Tail. “I’ll tell you how I happen to know.
Last year, when I was a tiny little fox, I was caught in a trap. A man
who was a trapper of wild animals up in these North Woods caught me. He
took me home to his cabin, and there I saw the skins of many foxes hung
up to dry.

“There were many like mine, but only one or two of a silver color. As I
was so small, the trapper kept me to tame me, and I stayed in his cabin
a long time. There I learned to know a little of the talk that men
hunters and trappers speak.

“Other hunters and trappers used to come to the cabin to buy furs, and
they paid more for that of a silver fox than for any other. That is
how I know your silver coat would bring a lot of money if a hunter or
a trapper caught you. So you want to be careful when you go out in the
woods.”

“Thank you, I will,” promised Sharp Eyes. “I’ll be careful. Thank you
for telling me, Red Tail.”

The two foxes talked in animal talk a little longer, and Sharp Eyes was
just going back to his hollow log when, all of a sudden, a loud clap,
like thunder, sounded in the woods.

“What’s that?” cried Sharp Eyes. “Is it going to rain?”

“No! That was the sound of a gun!” cried Red Tail. “That was a hunter’s
gun! We had better hide, Sharp Eyes! The hunters, even now, may be
after your silver fur!”

And away ran Red Tail and Sharp Eyes.




CHAPTER IV

SHARP EYES IS HURT


Sharp Eyes, the silver fox, could run very fast. So could Red Tail.
And they knew they must run fast to get away from the dogs of the
hunter. For when men go out to hunt wild animals or to trap them, dogs
generally go with the men, and though a man can not run as fast as a
fox or a deer, dogs can.

Red Tail told this to Sharp Eyes as they hurried along together. Behind
them could be heard the rumble and roar of the man’s gun, sounding like
thunder.

“Hurry, Sharp Eyes!” cried Red Tail. “Don’t let the hunter see you!”

“What will he do if he sees me?” asked the little fox boy.

“He’ll try to shoot you with his gun. That is, he will if he can not
catch you alive.”

“Why would he want to catch me alive?” asked Sharp Eyes, as he trotted
along beside the other fox. They slunk down between bushes, ran under
fallen trees, crawled beneath old logs, and even ran in brooks of
water.

“He’d like to catch you, instead of shooting you, because you are now a
small fox, and will be bigger some day,” answered Red Tail. “The bigger
you are the more fur you’ll have, and it is for your fine silver fur
that the hunter or trapper would like to get you.”

“Wouldn’t he like yours, too?” asked Sharp Eyes.

“Well, yes, I guess he’d take my fur, too, if he could get it,”
answered Red Tail. “But mine is not so nice as yours. Of course it
keeps me just as warm, and all that, but people who want fox furs seem
to like your silver color better, though why, I don’t know. You are a
rare fox, and more hunters or trappers will try to get you than would
try to get me. So be careful!”

“I will,” promised Sharp Eyes. Then he asked: “Don’t you think we can
stop running now and take a rest? I’m tired,” and indeed the little fox
boy was weary. His tongue was hanging out of his mouth and his legs
ached.

“No, we can’t stop yet,” said Red Tail. “We must run on a little more.
Then we can hide in the dark woods away from the hunter and his dogs
and take a long rest.”

So on the two foxes ran farther and farther until at last Red Tail, who
was older than Sharp Eyes, and who had been chased by dogs and hunters
before, and knew their ways, said it would be safe to rest. They lay
down on the leaves under a tree and stayed as quiet as mice. They
listened, but could not hear the barking of the dogs nor the bang of
the gun.

“I guess we got safely away,” said Red Tail, as he crept out a little
way and lapped up some water from a brook. Sharp Eyes did the same, for
they were both very thirsty from their run.

“Is it all right to go home now?” asked Sharp Eyes, when he had rested
till his tongue was no longer hot nor his legs tired.

“I’d better take a peep around and see,” answered his friend. “I know
more about hunters and dogs than you do.”

So Red Tail peeped out from behind some bushes, ready to skip back
again and hide in case he saw danger. But he saw none, and, after a
little while, he and Sharp Eyes went on to their homes, which were not
houses such as you live in, but a hole in a hollow log or a den under
the earth with some rough stones for a front door.

“Well! where have you been, Sharp Eyes?” asked his sister Winkle, as he
scrambled down inside the hollow log.

“Oh, I’ve been chased by a hunter and his dogs, and I heard his gun
fired,” answered the little fox boy.

“You did?” cried his mother, who was listening to what he said. “Oh,
Sharp Eyes, you must be careful!”

“I will. That’s what Red Tail told me.”

“And don’t go too much with that Red Tail boy, either,” said Mr. Fox.
“He is a daring sort of chap, and he might lead you into danger. Once
he went to a farmyard in broad daylight and took a chicken. He ought to
have waited until night. He is very daring.”

“Well, he was good to me,” said Sharp Eyes. “He showed me how to run
away from the hunter.”

“You must have had a terrible time,” said little Winkle.

“Oh, it was a sort of adventure,” answered Sharp Eyes.

“What’s adventure?” Twinkle, his brother, asked.

“It’s things that happen to you,” answered Sharp Eyes. “And then they
are put into a book. That’s what happened to Slicko.”

“Who’s Slicko?” asked Winkle.

“A jumping squirrel,” replied Sharp Eyes, and he told of the talk the
two had had together.

For some days after this nothing much happened to Sharp Eyes. He stayed
with his father and mother and brother and sister in their hollow log
house, going out now and then to get something to eat, or to drink
water at the brook.

“That boy of ours is going to be very smart,” said Mr. Fox to his wife
one day.

“What makes you think so?” she asked.

“Why, when we were out hunting in the woods to-day he saw a big muskrat
that I couldn’t see, and he caught it.”

“Yes, I think he has the best eyes, for seeing things to eat, of
any foxes in this wood,” said Mrs. Fox. “I only wish his fur was a
different color.”

“Why?”

“Because it is too beautiful. If it was red or brown, like yours and
mine, the hunters and trappers would not be after him so much. But he
is a silver fox, and you know how such skins are prized. There is a big
reward for a silver fox skin, Red Tail’s mother told me.”

“Yes, I suppose there is,” said Mr. Fox. “I remember hearing, when I
was a boy, that a silver skin was much sought after by hunters. I never
was colored that way myself, but I knew a fox who was a boy when I was.
He had silver fur, and one day he did not come to play with us. We
asked where he was, and his father said a hunter had shot him to get
his silver fur.”

“It’s too bad,” said Mrs. Fox. “I wish the hunters would leave us
alone. I must tell Sharp Eyes to be careful.”

Each night, now that he was big enough, Sharp Eyes went out with his
father or mother, Twinkle or Winkle sometimes going with them, to hunt
for things to eat. When they dared they went to a farm which was not
far from the North Woods where they lived.

“It is easier to get a chicken or a duck than to hunt for a wild turkey
or the wood mice,” said Mr. Fox. “We’ll eat at the farmyard if we can.”

And often they did, though sometimes the dogs barked when the foxes
came near, or the farmer and his men would come out with guns, and
the foxes would have to run away. At such times they had to hunt for
something to eat in the woods. And, if they did not find it, they would
go hungry. That was no fun.

One night, when the whole fox family had been out hunting and had been
frightened away from the farm by barking dogs, they were all very
hungry.

“I wish I had something to eat,” sighed Winkle.

“Well, we can’t have anything, so we’ll just have to wait,” said her
mother.

“Where’s Sharp Eyes?” asked Mr. Fox. “Didn’t he come back with us?”

“He said he was going back to the farm, and try to get a chicken or a
duck,” returned Twinkle. “He said he was terribly hungry. And so am I.”

“Sharp Eyes may be caught,” said Mrs. Fox. “You had better go back and
make him come with you,” she went on to Mr. Fox.

“I will,” said he, but just as he started out on the woodland path,
Sharp Eyes came running along, with a big chicken slung over his back.

“Look what I got!” he barked, as he laid it in front of his mother.

“Where did you get it?” asked Winkle.

“At that farmyard. I waited until the wind was blowing the other way,
so the dogs could not smell me coming, and then I crawled in and got
this bird.”

“It’s a wonder you weren’t caught yourself,” said his father. “You are
getting as reckless as Red Tail. You must look out for danger.”

“I did,” answered Sharp Eyes. Then they all ate the chicken he had
brought, and his mother said he was very clever.

“But you’ll not always be as lucky as that,” said Red Tail to Sharp
Eyes the next day, when the fox boy told what he had done. “Some day
you may be caught in a trap.”

“What’s a trap?” asked Sharp Eyes. “Is it like a book that Slicko the
squirrel had adventures in?”

[Illustration: “‘Look what I got!’ he barked.”]

“No, a trap is something that hurts you,” said Red Tail.

A few days after that the silver fox had a chance to see for himself,
and feel for himself, what a trap was like.

Sharp Eyes was trotting along through the woods, not far from the
farmer’s yard; and as he was looking toward it hoping he might catch a
stray duck or a rooster, all of a sudden he saw a chicken lying to one
side of the path.

“Oh, ho!” said Sharp Eyes to himself. “I’ll just get that and take it
home for lunch.”

So he crept softly up on the chicken, which did not seem to know a fox
was so near. When he was close enough, Sharp Eyes gave a jump and came
straight down on top of the fowl, making a grab for it with his teeth.

At the same time there was a sharp click, and Sharp Eyes felt a sudden
pain in one paw. It stung and ached.

“Oh!” cried the fox boy. “I’m hurt! Something has me fast by the foot!
Oh, what can it be? Did the chicken bite me?”

He tried to pull his paw loose, but could not. He was caught, and was
held fast.




CHAPTER V

SHARP EYES MEETS DON


After the first pain felt on being caught, and when he found he could
not pull his paw loose, Sharp Eyes lay quietly on the ground, partly
covering up the chicken. He did not howl, which was his way of crying
when he was hurt, though he wanted to do so very much. But foxes and
other wild animals do not make much noise in the woods, for they like
to keep quiet so no larger animals, or hunter-men with their dogs, may
know where to find them.

“Something terrible has happened to me,” thought Sharp Eyes, as once
more he tried to pull loose his paw. But he could not, and each time he
pulled the pain was worse.

“If I make too much noise,” thought Sharp Eyes, “Bruin, the bear, may
hear me and come to bite me. Or the hunters may come with their dogs,
and I could not get away.”

There were bears in the North Woods where Sharp Eyes lived, and hunters
and dogs often came to the forest.

“And, now that I am caught fast, I can’t get away if they should come
up close to me,” thought the little fox boy. “I must keep quiet and not
make too much noise, though I would like to call and ask my father or
mother to come to help me.”

Sharp Eyes whined a little from the pain, and then he tried to be brave
and not mind it.

“I wonder what it is that has caught me,” said the little fox boy to
himself. “And why didn’t the chicken flutter and try to get away when I
jumped on her? That was very funny!”

He soon saw the reason the chicken did not move. It was dead, and Sharp
Eyes knew he had not killed it.

“She must have been dead when I jumped on her,” said the little fox
boy. “And now to see what has caught me.”

He could move about a little, and, pawing with one of his feet that was
not caught, Sharp Eyes brushed the chicken to one side. Then he saw
that his left forefoot was caught between two jaws of iron.

“Oh, I’m in a trap!” exclaimed Sharp Eyes. “I never saw a trap before,
but this is just what my father said they were like. He told me to keep
out of them, but I didn’t see this one. The chicken was in the way, or
I might have noticed the trap. Oh dear! I wonder if I will ever get
loose!”

Sharp Eyes pulled some more, but the pain in his foot soon made him
stop.

“If you had only been alive you could have told me about the trap, and
then I wouldn’t have been caught in it,” said Sharp Eyes, speaking to
the dead chicken, as though it were alive.

If he had only known, the chicken was put there near the trap, partly
covering it, on purpose. It was bait for the trap, just as mousetraps
are baited with cheese. And the trap was set in the woods by a hunter
who hoped to catch a fox or some other wild animal in it.

The chicken had been killed and put near the trap, for the hunter knew
wild animals like such things to eat. And the hunter knew that if a
fox came along, the first thing it would do would be to jump for the
chicken, thinking it was alive.

Underneath the outspread wings of the chicken was the open trap, and as
soon as Sharp Eyes’ paw touched the spring, snap! shut went the jaws of
the trap, catching him fast there. It was the jaws of the trap pressing
on Sharp Eyes’ paw that hurt him.

“Oh, if I could only get away!” said the little fox boy to himself. “If
I can only get away I’ll never jump at a chicken again, without looking
first to make sure there’s no trap!”

But it was too late to think of that now. Sharp Eyes was caught, and
every time he pulled his leg it hurt him so that he soon stopped.

“Red Tail was right,” he whispered to himself. “He said something would
happen to me some day, and it has. Oh dear!”

Sharp Eyes kept quiet as long as he could, and then his paw pained him
so that he had to cry out. But he cried very softly. Then he called for
his father and mother, using fox language, of course.

But they did not answer him, for they were far away.

“Twinkle! Winkle! Can’t you come and help me out of the trap?” barked
the little fox boy, held fast, all alone in the woods, near the dead
chicken.

But neither Twinkle nor Winkle answered. They, too, were far away. They
were off hunting with their father and mother, and though they wondered
where Sharp Eyes was, they thought he was safe.

“Sharp Eyes can take care of himself,” said his mother.

“But I hope the hunters or trappers don’t get him and take his lovely,
silver fur,” said Winkle. If they could only have known what had
happened to poor Sharp Eyes they would surely have gone to help him,
wouldn’t they?

“But I _must_ get away,” thought Sharp Eyes. “If I stay in this trap
much longer the hunter will come and get me. Or his dogs will come and
bite me! Oh, I must get loose!”

So he pulled and tugged away to get out of the trap, but his foot hurt
him more and more and he had to stop.

Sharp Eyes was in such pain, and so troubled about what might happen to
him, that he did not even feel like eating some of the chicken, though
he had been hungry a little while before. Now his appetite was all gone.

The little fox did not know what to do. He called again for his father
and his mother, and for Twinkle and Winkle, but none of them came.
Then, all at once, there was a noise in the bushes, and something
seemed to be coming toward Sharp Eyes where he was caught fast in the
trap.

“Oh, I hope it’s my father or mother!” thought the fox.

But it was not. Instead, a big dog, who was kind-looking, and not
fierce and angry, burst through the bushes.

“Oh dear!” thought Sharp Eyes. “This is the hunter’s dog! Now I am
surely lost. They’ll take my silver fur. Oh, if I had only kept out of
the trap!”

[Illustration: “‘Hello, what’s the matter here?’ asked the dog.”]

Once more Sharp Eyes tried to get loose, but the pain in his leg made
him stop. He looked at the dog, and got as far away as he could. But
the trap was fast to a chain, of which one end was wound around a tree
and could not be pulled off.

“Hello, what’s the matter here?” asked the dog, who, of course, could
speak animal talk, though not exactly the same language that Sharp Eyes
and his friends used. “What’s the matter?”

“Oh, you know well enough what’s the matter,” said Sharp Eyes sadly.
“I’m caught in a trap your master set, and I suppose you and he are
coming to get me now.”

“What’s that? A trap? I don’t know anything about a trap,” answered the
dog. “And I’m sure my master never set one. He lives in a big house far
away from here. I used to live in a house where there was a nice little
girl. I liked her very much, and often I went for walks with her.
Once I took her to a park menagerie, and she fell into the tank where
Chunky, the happy hippo, lived. But Chunky lifted her out of the water
on his broad back and saved her. Chunky is a friend of mine.

“My people have taken a bungalow over on the lake off there, and we’re
staying there for a while. It’s a good way off from here, but not so
far as our real home, where we live all the time.

“To-day I wanted to have some adventures, so I trotted off from my
master’s bungalow. They don’t need me to-day, as they have all gone
visiting. So I came to the woods, but I never expected to see you. Are
you another dog? You look a little like one, only your nose is sharper
than mine, and you are not so large.”

“No, I am a fox, and my name is Sharp Eyes,” came the answer. “And I am
caught in a trap. But please don’t bite me.”

“Bite you? Why should I bite you?” asked the dog.

“Why, I thought all dogs belonged to hunters or trappers and that they
bit us foxes,” said Sharp Eyes.

“Well, I don’t,” was the reply. “My name is Don, and once I was a
runaway dog, but I ran back. I am a little like a runaway dog to-day,
but I am going to run back home to-night, as soon as I have had some
adventures in the woods. This is the start of one, I guess. I’m sorry
you are in the trap.”

“Are you, really?” asked Sharp Eyes, who had been taught that all dogs
were bad and cruel.

“Of course I am, Sharp Eyes,” answered Don. “I know what it is to be in
pain, and I can see that where your paw is caught it must hurt you.”

“Indeed it does,” answered the fox. “I’ve tried to get away but I
can’t.”

“How did you get in the trap?” asked Don.

“Oh, I didn’t look closely enough before I made a jump for this
chicken. It was right over the trap, to hide it, and now I am fast.”

“Well, maybe you can get loose,” said Don. “I’ll help you. This is what
my friend Slicko, the jumping squirrel, would call an adventure.”

“Oh, do _you_ know Slicko?” asked Sharp Eyes, and he was so surprised
that he forgot his pain for a moment.

“Of course I know Slicko,” was the answer. “I stayed two or three
nights in the same woods with Slicko.”

“Now I know who you are,” went on the fox. “I met Slicko, and we spoke
of you, though I never expected to meet you. And who is this Chunky you
talked of, and who saved your master’s little girl?”

“Chunky is a hippopotamus, or, as I call him for short, a hippo,” said
Don. “He lived in a jungle in Africa for a long time and had lots
of adventures. Then he was caught in a pit trap and brought to this
country. He was in a circus, and I met him in the park menagerie. He
knew Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, Mappo, the merry monkey, and other
friends of mine. Chunky had a book written about him. I’ve had a book
written about me, too!”

“So had Slicko,” said Sharp Eyes. “My! it seems quite fashionable to
get in a book nowadays.”

“It is fashionable,” answered Don. “Almost as fashionable as your
silver fur. That’s why you were trapped, I presume. Some hunter wants
your fur.”

“I suppose so,” said Sharp Eyes sadly. “Oh, I wish I could get out of
this trap!”

“Hark!” cried Don suddenly. “Don’t you hear something?”

“Yes, I do,” answered Sharp Eyes, listening. “But I can’t see anything,
held fast as I am.”

“I’ll look,” offered Don, peeping out between two bushes. What he saw
made him cry out in animal talk:

“Oh, it’s a man coming with a gun! I guess he’s coming to get you,
Sharp Eyes! He must have set the trap.”

“Oh dear! what shall I do?” asked Sharp Eyes.




CHAPTER VI

SHARP EYES IS CAPTURED


Don, the kind dog, as soon as he had seen the hunter coming toward the
place in the woods where the trap that had caught the fox was set, ran
back toward Sharp Eyes.

“What are you going to do?” asked Sharp Eyes.

“I am going to try to help you get loose,” was the answer. “I don’t
want to see you taken away by the hunter, and maybe kept until you grow
to be a big fox, so they can take off your silver fur. I’m going to try
to help you get loose.”

“How?” asked the fox.

“Well, I’ll sort of push you, and you can sort of pull, and maybe you
can pull your leg loose from the trap.”

“But it hurts when I pull on it,” said Sharp Eyes.

“No matter,” replied Don. “It is better to be hurt a little on the foot
than to be kept a prisoner and maybe be hurt a lot, or even killed,
when they take your silver fur. And we must be quick! The hunter will
soon be here!”

“Oh, I would like to get away!” cried Sharp Eyes.

“Then pull as hard as you can on your leg that is caught in the trap,”
said Don. “There is a way to open spring traps by stepping on them, but
I don’t know about it. If my master were here he could do it. But he
isn’t. You must help yourself and I’ll help you. Come now, pull!”

“Oh, but it hurts!” whimpered Sharp Eyes, as he pulled a little.

“No matter! It must be done!” said Don. “You pull and I’ll push you,
Sharp Eyes.”

Don, the kind dog, put his shoulder against that of Sharp Eyes. The fox
pulled on his leg as hard as he could. It hurt him very much, but the
hunter could be heard coming nearer and nearer and Sharp Eyes did not
want to be caught.

“Pull! Pull!” softly barked Don. “Are you pulling?”

“I am! I am!” answered Sharp Eyes. He felt as if his leg would come
off, and the pain in his toes was very bad. But he did not give up,
and, at last, with his pulling and Don’s pushing, out came the fox
boy’s foot from the trap. Sharp Eyes’ toes were cut, and the skin and
fur were scraped off so that he could not put that paw to the ground.

“But don’t mind about that!” barked Don. “You can run on three legs
nearly as well as on four. I’ve done it myself when I’ve cut my foot
on a sharp stone or a bit of glass. Come on, the hunter is very close!
Run!”

So Sharp Eyes ran, and Don ran with him, the fox limping on three legs.
The fox and the dog dodged in and out among the bushes and trees of the
woods, for they did not want the hunter to see them.

“There, I guess we are far enough away now,” said Don, after a bit. “Do
you know your way home, Sharp Eyes?”

“Oh, yes, thank you! Now that I am out of the trap I can easily find
it. Won’t you come home with me?”

“No, I guess not. I’m looking for adventures. Besides, if I went home
with you, I might scare your folks. They don’t like dogs. But I’m not
the hunting kind.”

“Then I’m sure they’d like you,” said Sharp Eyes.

“Well, maybe some other time I’ll come to see you. Trot along home now
and look out for traps,” barked Don.

“I will,” promised Sharp Eyes, as he limped along on three legs. The
one he had pulled from the trap hurt him very much, and was bleeding a
little.

“But I’m glad I’m loose, anyhow,” thought Sharp Eyes. “No more traps
for me!”

But you just wait and see what happened to him next.

The hunter, with his dogs and gun, came to the place where he had set
the trap and baited it with a chicken.

“Something has been here!” said the man. “The trap is sprung, but there
is nothing here now. I wonder what it was and how it got away.”

His dog smelled around the trap, and then ran off through the woods,
barking. The dog had smelled the path taken by Don and Sharp Eyes, and
was after them――on the “trail” as the hunters say.

The hunter looked at the trap more closely. He saw some bits of hair on
the jaws.

“It must have been a fox,” said the hunter. “But the hairs are of
silver color, and not red like most foxes! A silver fox! If I could
capture him it would be great! Silver fox skins are rare! I must set
another kind of trap for this fox. I wonder how he got away.”

The hunter could not guess that Don, the kind dog, had helped the
fox to get free, and was now running with him through the woods. The
hunter’s own particular hunting dog was also on the trail of the fox,
but pretty soon he came to a brook. There the fox smell stopped.

The dog barked and howled, and ran up and down the stream, but he
could not smell the fox any more, and that is the only way he had of
following――by the smell, or “scent.”

“Come on back,” said the hunter, as he followed on and saw where his
dog had stopped. “The fox has crossed running water, and the trail is
lost. I’ll set a better trap for him next time――one that will capture
him alive. It would be a pity to spoil that fine silver pelt in a
spring trap, or by shooting. Come on!”

The hunter whistled to his dog, and they went back through the woods,
giving up the chase for that day. When running away, Sharp Eyes and Don
had been cute enough to go into the running water and wade part way up
the brook.

The brook left no smell of the paws of Don or of Sharp Eyes, and the
hunter’s hound could not follow. When they can, wild animals will
always cross a stream, or wade up or down it, to lose their scent so
hunting dogs can not follow.

“Well, I’ll leave you here,” said Don to Sharp Eyes, when they had run
on through the woods for some distance, after crossing and wading in
the brook. “I’ll go and see if I can have any more adventures.”

“Wasn’t helping me one?” asked Sharp Eyes.

“Yes, it was,” answered Don. “And if ever a book is written about you,
I hope that part is put in.”

“Oh, there’ll never be a book written about _me_!” said Sharp Eyes.

But that shows how little he knew about it, doesn’t it?

“Do you think you’ll be all right?” asked Don.

“Oh, yes, thank you. I can get home all right now,” said Sharp Eyes.
“I’ll have to limp on three legs for a while, but that’s nothing.”

“It’s better than being held fast in the trap,” said the dog.

“Indeed it is!” agreed the fox.

Then Sharp Eyes hurried on until he reached his home in the hollow log.
By this time his father and mother, with Twinkle and Winkle, had come
back from the hunt. They had some partridges and wood mice, and there
was plenty for all to eat.

“Oh, my poor little Sharp Eyes!” said Mrs. Fox, when she saw him. “What
hurt you?”

“I got caught in a trap,” he answered, and he told all that had
happened, and how Don had helped him get loose.

“That dog was very kind to you,” remarked Twinkle.

“Yes, indeed he was. But you must be more careful,” said Mr. Fox
gravely. “The next time you get caught, Sharp Eyes, you may not get out
so easily. A scraped paw is nothing. You were very lucky.”

Sharp Eyes thought so himself, and the next few days, as he limped
around through the woods, he kept a careful watch for traps or other
signs of danger. But he saw none.

In about a week his foot was well enough for him to use again in
walking or running, but he still limped a little. It was not quite all
healed.

One morning, very early, Sharp Eyes got up before any of the others,
and started out of the hollow log house.

“I’m going through the woods and down by that farmhouse,” said the fox
to himself. “Maybe I can find a fat duck for breakfast.”

Sharp Eyes did not go near the place where he had been caught in the
trap. He did not like to remember it, and he thought perhaps there
might be another set there to catch him. So he went about a mile out of
his way, and then circled around toward the farm.

Before he reached it, and while still in the woods, the fox heard a
noise which sounded like:

“Cock-a-doodle-do!”

“Ha! I know what that is!” said Sharp Eyes. “That’s a rooster! The same
sort of bird I once thought was a wild turkey. Well, I am pretty good
at catching things now, and maybe I can catch that rooster. I’m going
to try!”

Carefully, Sharp Eyes crept through the woods. The sound of the
rooster’s crowing sounded louder now, and it seemed to stay in the same
place.

“He doesn’t hear me coming, or see me or smell me,” thought Sharp Eyes.
“Maybe I can get close enough up to him to grab him. But I must be
careful of traps!”

On and on through the woods crept Sharp Eyes softly. He came to a
little place where the trees had been cut down, and in the center of
this clearing was what seemed to be a box. The crowing of the rooster
came from inside this box.

“Oh, ho!” thought Sharp Eyes. “This is a henhouse――the same kind I went
into down at that farm, and brought out a fat duck. There is a rooster
in this little henhouse, and I’ll go in and get him. Then I’ll have a
fine dinner!”

“Cock-a-doodle-do!” crowed the rooster.

“I’m coming to get you!” laughed Sharp Eyes to himself.

Nearer and nearer he went. He could look right in the box, now, and see
the rooster. The crowing fowl did not come out.

“But I’ll soon fetch you out!” said Sharp Eyes. He looked all about on
the ground. He could see no traps in sight. The fox thought it was all
right.

Softly he went up to the box. He went inside. At the far end he could
see the rooster, which was tied fast by one leg. That was the reason it
could not get out.

“Ah, ha! Now I have you!” thought Sharp Eyes.

He made a spring, inside the box, after the fowl. And just then
something happened. There was a clicking noise behind the fox, and, all
of a sudden, it got dark.

“This is queer!” thought Sharp Eyes. “That click sounded just like a
trap, but I am not caught fast, as I was by my paw the other time. I
feel no pain. Still maybe this is a trick. I guess I’d better go out
again, and look around some more.”

He turned to go out, but found he could not. Behind him a door had
sprung shut. Sharp Eyes was caught in the dark box with the rooster.
The little fox was captured! He was in another kind of trap!




CHAPTER VII

SHARP EYES IS SOLD


If you have ever been shut up in a dark closet, and could not open the
door to get out, you can imagine how bad Sharp Eyes felt. Just as you
may have done, he banged against the walls, and pushed against the
door, but it would not open.

“Oh dear!” whimpered the fox. “This is terrible! Here I am caught in a
trap again, and I said I’d be careful! I wonder how I can get out of
here!”

Sharp Eyes looked about him. He saw that, surely enough, he was in a
trap, though a different kind from the one that had hurt his foot, and
had made him walk lame. This one did not pinch him. Then the fox looked
at the rooster, whose crowing had brought him to the trap.

The rooster was not crowing now. I suppose he was too badly frightened
at having the fox so near him. But when Sharp Eyes looked again he saw
that he could not get the rooster, even though they were both in the
trap.

For the rooster was in the back part, behind a screen of wire netting,
and though Sharp Eyes had very keen teeth, they could not gnaw through
wire.

“Anyhow, I don’t feel like eating a rooster now,” said the fox to
himself. “I want to get out of here.”

Once more he looked around the trap in which he was caught. The fox did
not know much about traps, but he could easily see that this one was
not going to be easy to get out from. It was like a big box, open at
one end, and it was through this open end that Sharp Eyes had walked in.

As soon as he was inside, the open end of the box closed with a wooden
door, which snapped shut, just as might the door of a closet in which
you had gone to play hide-and-go-seek.

Sharp Eyes pushed hard against this end door. He pushed against the
sides of the box, and he pushed against the wire screen behind which
the rooster stood. But the fox could not get out. Neither could the
rooster, and the fowl fluttered about every time the fox moved,
thinking, I suppose, that something dreadful was going to happen.

But nothing did happen, at least for a while. The fox was shut up in
the trap, and all his trying could not get him out.

“Maybe if I call for my father and mother, or for Don, the nice dog
who helped me before, they will come and save me,” thought Sharp Eyes.

So he howled softly, and barked a little, almost like a dog, for a fox
is really a sort of wild dog.

No one answered his calls for help, however, and then the fox, feeling
very sad, curled himself up in one corner of the box-trap and tried to
think what was best to do. For foxes and other wild animals do think,
in a way, and foxes, especially, are very smart at keeping out of
traps, or getting loose once they are caught. But there seemed to be no
way out for Sharp Eyes this time.

“It was silly of me to come in here after this rooster,” thought the
fox boy. “I thought this box was a little chicken coop, but it was
nothing but a trap. Oh dear!”

All of a sudden Sharp Eyes sat up. He heard some one coming through the
woods. He could hear the rustle of dried leaves and the cracking of
little sticks as they were stepped on and broken. At first Sharp Eyes
thought perhaps his father or mother, or some of the other foxes, might
be coming to help him. But as the noise grew louder, the fox said:

“That can’t be any of my friends. They would never make as much noise
as that”; for, you know, wild animals go through the woods very softly
indeed.

“Maybe it’s Don, come to help me again,” thought Sharp Eyes. “I’ll call
to him.”

So, in animal talk, Sharp Eyes called:

“Don! Don! Is that you? I’m in another trap! Please help me out!”

Sharp Eyes listened, but he did not hear Don’s voice in answer. Instead
he heard man-talk, or, as afterward it turned out to be, boy-talk.

“Hark!” cried one boy. “Did you hear that?”

“Yes, I did,” answered another. “It sounded like a dog barking.”

“It’s in my trap, whatever it is,” said the first boy. “But I don’t
believe it’s a dog.”

Of course Sharp Eyes did not understand what the boys were talking
about, for he could not talk to them nor could they speak to him. But,
very shortly, Sharp Eyes saw four eyes looking down in at him from the
top of the cage.

“Oh, something’s in your trap!” cried a boy, whose name was Jack.

“Yes, and it’s a fox――a silver fox!” shouted a boy, whose name was Tom.
“Say, this is a fine catch! I can get some money for his fur!”

“You can?” asked Jack.

“I surely can! Silver foxes are worth a lot of money. I never thought
I’d get one when I set my trap here, but I have. I’ve caught a dandy
silver fox with our old rooster for bait.”

“Didn’t the fox eat the rooster?” asked Jack.

“No, he couldn’t,” replied Tom. “I put the rooster behind a wire screen
in one part of my box trap, and left the other end open for a fox to
come in. As soon as he did, he knocked down a stick that held the
spring door open, and the door shut down and caught the fox.”

“What are you going to do with him?” asked Jack.

“Well, I’ll take him home, and then I’ll have my father take off his
skin and sell it. Come on, help me carry the fox home.”

“But won’t he bite?” asked Jack.

“We won’t let him out of the trap,” said Tom. “He can’t get out. We’ll
carry him home, trap and all.”

“And the rooster, too?”

“Yes, the rooster too. He was good bait. I thought a fox would come to
my trap if he heard a rooster crow.”

And that is just what happened, you know, though Sharp Eyes did not
understand all that the boys were talking about.

Through the woods, for mile after mile, Tom and Jack carried Sharp Eyes
in the trap. At last they came to some fields and, crossing these, they
reached the house where Tom lived. His father was chopping wood and
another man was standing near. This man had a gun, and beside him lay a
hunting dog.

“Hello, Tom, what have you there?” asked his father.

“I caught a fox in my trap,” answered the boy. “It’s a silver fox, too!”

“A silver fox!” cried the man with the gun. “Did you say a fox with
silver-colored fur?”

“That’s what he is!” answered Tom, a bit proudly. At the same time the
dog jumped up, and, sniffing at the box-trap, began to bark. Poor Sharp
Eyes was much frightened, and scrambled around in his cage, trying hard
to get out. But he could not.

“Be quiet, Skip!” called the hunter to his dog. “You won’t have to
chase this fox. He is safely caught. What are you going to do with
him?” the hunter asked Tom.

“Sell his fur. I’ve heard that silver fox skins bring a big price down
in the city.”

“That’s right, they do,” said the hunter. “Let me take a look at this
one.”

Tom opened a little slide in the top of the trap. It was not large
enough for Sharp Eyes to jump out of, but it gave a good view of him.
The hunter looked down at the fox. He saw that one paw had been hurt
and was only just healed.

“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed the hunter. “I believe that is the
same silver fox that got out of my trap, Tom. You are very lucky. A
silver fox skin is valuable. But you will not get much for this one.”

“Why not?” asked Tom.

“Because it is too small. You will have to wait for the fox to grow.
Then his skin will be worth twice as much. But if you don’t want to
wait, Tom, I’ll buy this fox from you alive, and I’ll keep him until he
is big. Then I can sell the skin.”

Tom thought about it. He wanted money now, and did not like to have to
wait, perhaps a year, for Sharp Eyes to grow.

“Yes,” said Tom to the man, “I’ll sell you this silver fox.”

So Sharp Eyes was sold to the very hunter from whose trap Don had
helped him to escape, though the fox did not know this was the same
man and the dog who had chased him. The dog was sniffing and snuffing
around the trap.

“Come away from there, Skip!” ordered his master. “You can’t chase that
fox. I’ve got him safe now.”

So the hunter paid Tom a goodly sum of money for the silver fox, and
took him away in a box, into which he was turned from the trap. The
rooster was let out of his side of the trap, being no longer needed for
bait. And my! how gladly that rooster crowed! He must have felt, all
the while, that he was going to be eaten by the fox.

As for Sharp Eyes, the hunter carried him away through the woods, to
his own log cabin, putting him in a strong box, on a wagon drawn by a
horse.

“Well, I wonder what will happen to me next,” thought the silver fox.
“I seem to have gone from one trap to another. But this one is larger
than the one where the rooster was.”

This was not really a trap, it was a box, and it had some soft straw
in it on which Sharp Eyes could lie down. And he was so tired, and
lonesome for his own folks, that he stretched out and tried to sleep.
But it was hard work, for the wagon jolted over the rough roads of
the forest. Sharp Eyes had been sold, and was going to have some new
adventures, but just what kind he did not know.




CHAPTER VIII

SHARP EYES GOES TRAVELING


For many days, weeks and months Sharp Eyes was kept shut up in a box at
the cabin of the hunter who had bought him from Tom. The silver fox was
not kept in the same small cage in which he had traveled through the
woods. The hunter knew better than to do that, for he wanted the fox to
be well and strong, so his fur would grow thicker and longer and more
fluffy as Sharp Eyes grew.

“We must make a nice cage for you, and tame you a bit, so you will eat
well and be happy,” said the hunter, when he got Sharp Eyes safely to
his cabin. “I think I can soon make you so tame you will not fret, and
always want to get out.”

So the hunter made, near his cabin in the woods, a nice large cage for
Sharp Eyes, the silver fox. There were two parts to the cage, one a
dark one, with cool earth for the floor, but with tin underneath the
earth, so Sharp Eyes could not dig his way out, for foxes are almost as
good diggers as are dogs, when dogs bury bones.

In this dark part of his cage Sharp Eyes could sleep and rest at night,
away from all danger. The other part of his cage was made of strong
wire, and was open on all sides and the top, so plenty of fresh air and
sunshine and even rain could come in.

Foxes and other animals must have fresh air and sunshine, and they do
not mind being wet in the rain, for it all helps them to grow big and
strong. And the hunter wanted Sharp Eyes to become a big fox, with a
fine, shiny coat of fur.

“I’ll make his cage as near like the woods as I can,” the hunter said,
so he put bits of stumps, rocks and branches of trees in the open part,
so that it looked a little like the woods. There was also clean, cool
water to drink.

“But it isn’t the woods at all,” thought the unhappy Sharp Eyes, as
he roved about in the wire part of his new cage. “In the woods I can
run as far as I like, but here, when I go a little way, I bump my nose
against the wooden or the wire walls. I can not get out. I am as much
in a trap as ever, even if it is a larger one. Oh dear! I wish I could
get loose!”

Sharp Eyes tried all the ways he knew of getting out of his cage near
the cabin in the woods, but the cage was made too strong for him. The
hunter well knew how to do such things.

For a time Sharp Eyes felt so bad about being caught that he would not
eat. Even when the hunter put bits of wild turkey in the cage, Sharp
Eyes would not look at them.

But wild animals can not very long stand being hungry, any more than
can boys and girls. Sharp Eyes sniffed the good things the hunter put
in to make him eat, and at last, after he had taken a drink of cool
water, he felt that he must chew something with his sharp teeth. He
went over, nibbled at a bit of partridge the hunter had tossed in, and
it tasted so good, that Sharp Eyes said to himself:

“Oh, I might as well eat! I don’t believe that I’ll ever get out of
here. I may as well make the best of it.”

So he ate and felt better. The hunter came and looked at Sharp Eyes.

“Ah, ha!” exclaimed the man, “you are eating, I see. I am glad of it.
Now you will grow big, and your silver coat of fur will grow big on you
and I can take it off and sell it. Get big and fat, little fox.”

Of course Sharp Eyes did not know what this meant, but he ate just the
same, and felt better. Then he ran around his cage looking for some way
of getting out, but there seemed none. The wooden and wire walls were
as strong as ever.

So the days and nights passed. Often in the night, when the hunter was
fast asleep, Sharp Eyes would call, in animal language, for some of the
dwellers of the woods to come to him and help him get out.

“Help me to get loose!” the fox boy would softly whine. But none came
near him who could help him. Not many wild animals, and no foxes, would
come close to the clearing in which the hunter’s cabin stood.

Now and then a night bird, flying in the trees overhead, heard the call
of Sharp Eyes, and asked him:

“What is the matter?”

“Oh, I want to get out of here!” would answer the fox. “Can’t you fly
and tell my father or mother to get me out of this cage?”

“I’ll try,” the bird would promise, just as some of the friends of
Chunky, the happy hippo, had promised to go to get Tum Tum, the
elephant, to help him out of the pit trap. But Tum Tum could not be
found then, nor could the birds find Mr. or Mrs. Fox. The father and
mother of Sharp Eyes were deep in the North Woods.

Sometimes at night Sharp Eyes would cry for Don, the dog, to come to
help him get out of the cage, as Don had helped the fox pull loose from
the spring trap. And one night Don, who was roving in the woods far
away from his master’s house, as he had done once before, passed near
the hunter’s cabin.

“What! are you here, Sharp Eyes?” asked the dog, in surprise.

“Yes,” answered the wild creature. “Can’t you help me get out?”

“I’ll try,” answered Don.

But Sharp Eyes’ cage was made strong to keep animals from getting
in, as well as to keep Sharp Eyes from getting out, and Don could do
nothing.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Sharp Eyes. “It needs some one stronger than
I am to break open your cage. If I could only get Chunky, the happy
hippo, here, he could open your cage with one shove of his big head.”

“Can’t you get him here?” asked Sharp Eyes, eagerly.

“I’m afraid not,” answered the dog. “He is in the park menagerie far
away. You’ll never see Chunky.”

But just you wait and see what happens.

So Sharp Eyes was kept in the hunter’s cage for nearly a year. And in
that time the silver fox grew quite tame. He saw that the hunter was
not going to hurt him――at least for a while, and the man brought good
things for the fox to eat and nice water to drink.

After a while Sharp Eyes let the man put his hand through a hole in the
wire, and the fox did not try to bite as he had done at first. Then, a
little later, Sharp Eyes let the man pat him on the head, and the fox
rather liked it.

“Hunters are not so bad as I thought,” said Sharp Eyes to himself.
“This one doesn’t shoot me, anyhow.”

And even the hunter’s dog did not bark or growl at the fox as much as
it had at first. The two never were very good friends, but they did not
snap at one another as they had done during the first days after Sharp
Eyes was brought to the cabin in the woods.

“I chased after you once,” said the hunter’s dog to Sharp Eyes.

“Yes, I know you did, Skip,” replied the fox, in animal language. “But
Red Tail and I waded in a brook of water, and then you could not smell
us to come after us.”

“Yes, you fooled me,” said the dog, with a sort of barking laugh. “I
was mad at the time, but I’ve gotten over it now.”

“Would you chase me again if you had the chance?” asked Sharp Eyes.

“Yes, I guess I would,” answered the dog. “You see, I am used to
hunting, and I can’t get over it so soon, even if you are a tamer fox
than you were at first. If you get out of the cage I’ll have to bring
you back, but I’ll try not to hurt you.”

“Then I guess I’d better be careful how I get out of this cage,”
thought Sharp Eyes to himself. “I must not do it when Skip, the dog, is
near. But I would like to get away.”

More days passed. Sharp Eyes kept on getting big and strong until he
was nearly as large as Skip.

Then one day a strange man came to the cabin in the woods where the
hunter lived. This man looked like a hunter, but he carried no gun.
Instead, over his back, slung on a strap, was a black box.

“I suppose that is some other kind of trap,” thought Sharp Eyes as he
saw it. “These men seem never to let us animals alone.”

But Sharp Eyes was mistaken. What the new man had on his back was not
a trap, but a camera for taking pictures of wild animals and birds. He
had come to the woods to do this. He was hunting animals in a new way,
but Sharp Eyes did not know that.

“What have you in this cage?” asked the camera man of the hunter.

“That is a silver fox,” was the answer. “I am letting him grow big so
his fur will be larger. It will make a nice muff and neck piece for
some woman.”

[Illustration: “‘These men seem never to let us animals alone.’”]

“Oh, it would be a shame to kill that fox just for his fur!” said the
camera man. “Why not keep him alive?”

“I paid money for him,” said the hunter, “and I need to get back more
money for him.”

“Then I will buy him of you alive,” said the camera man. “I’ll pay you.”

“What will you do with him?” asked the hunter.

“I’ll not kill him,” answered the other. “That would be too bad. I
think I will put him in a place where many people can come to look at
him. He is a handsome fox, and I’d like to have the boys and girls, as
well as grown-ups, see him. Sell him to me alive.”

“I will,” said the hunter, and he did.

By this time Sharp Eyes was quite tame, but he could not be allowed to
run around loose. He was let out of his cage, sometimes, but there was
a collar around his neck, such as some dogs wear, and a chain was fast
to the collar. So Sharp Eyes could go only as far as the chain let him.
But this was better than being shut in the wire cage. Sharp Eyes liked
it outside.

The camera man bought Sharp Eyes and put him in a large box. Then the
box was put on a wagon and once more the silver fox was traveling. Only
this time he went a long way.

From the wagon the box, with the silver fox in it, was put on a train
(though Sharp Eyes did not know what that was) and taken farther and
farther away from the woods.

Sharp Eyes rode on the train in his wooden cage. He was a little
frightened, but not very much, for he was used to having men around him
now, and some of the trainmen gave him bits of meat to eat and water to
drink.

Finally, after he had been traveling on the train for a long, long
while, Sharp Eyes looked out of an open door, and through the bars of
his cage. The train had stopped and, not far away, Sharp Eyes could see
what looked like a big, white house, with gaily-colored flags, floating
from poles and ropes, on it.

“Oh, what is that?” asked Sharp Eyes aloud, in animal talk, before he
remembered there was no one in the railroad car to answer.

But, just then, the silver fox saw, standing on the ground outside his
car, a great big animal that seemed to have two tails.

“Ha! So you want to know what that white house is, do you?” asked the
big animal of Sharp Eyes. “Well, that is a circus tent, and I belong to
the circus!”




CHAPTER IX

SHARP EYES IN THE ZOO


The train in which Sharp Eyes, the silver fox, was riding had stopped
so the engine could get a drink of water, and it happened to stop near
the circus tent, which was the white thing Sharp Eyes had thought was
the large house. So the fox had time to talk to the big animal who had
spoken in such a friendly way.

“Oh, so that is a circus, is it?” asked Sharp Eyes. “Seems to me I have
heard that name before. I wonder where it was? But who are you, may I
ask, and why have you two tails?”

“There it goes again!” cried the big creature. “Every one who sees me
for the first time thinks I have two tails. Even Chunky, the happy
hippo, thought that.”

“Oh, Chunky! That’s where I heard the word circus before. Don, the dog,
told me that Chunky was once in a circus before he was put in a park
menagerie.”

“Oh, ho! So you know Don, the dog, do you?” asked the big animal who
belonged to the circus.

“Yes,” answered Sharp Eyes, “I do. Don once helped me to get out of a
pinching trap. But no one helped me out of the trap where the rooster
was. That’s why I’m here now.”

“What is your name?” asked the big animal. The fox told and then
inquired:

“And what is your name, if you please, and why have you two tails?”

“I haven’t,” was the answer. “That’s a mistake. I am Tum Tum, the jolly
elephant, and one of the dingle-dangle-down things is my trunk, in
which I pick up peanuts. The other is my tail.”

“Oh, I see!” exclaimed Sharp Eyes. “So you are Tum Tum! I think I heard
Slicko, the squirrel, speak of you.”

“Yes, we are good friends.”

“And Don often mentioned you,” went on the silver fox. “But it seems to
me he said you had left the circus, and had gone back to the jungle to
help catch and train wild elephants.”

“I did,” answered Tum Tum. “I was there for a while. But now I am back
in the circus again. It was while I was on a sort of visit to the
jungle that I met Chunky, the happy hippo, and pulled him out of a mud
hole.”

“And where is Chunky now?” asked Sharp Eyes. “I would like to see him.”

“He was with this circus,” answered Tum Tum, the elephant, “but now he
is in the park zoo, or menagerie, as they call it to be stylish. Did
Don tell you how Chunky saved a little girl who fell into his tank?”

“Yes,” answered Sharp Eyes, “he did. Chunky must be real smart.”

“Well, not as smart as a fox, for I have heard that they are very smart
and cunning,” returned the elephant. “But still Chunky does very well.
He can do tricks, and he has had a book written about him.”

“There it goes again!” cried Sharp Eyes. “Every one seems to be in a
book; but I’m not.”

“Maybe you will be some day,” said Tum Tum. “You are young yet. But
tell me――why did they catch you and put you in a box on a train? Can
you do circus tricks?”

“No,” replied the fox. “But they think my silver fur is worth much
money. That’s why they caught me. I wish I was red or brown, and then
they wouldn’t bother me so. But silver foxes are rare, they say.”

“I believe they are,” went on the elephant. “I have been in a circus a
long while and I never saw a silver fox before, nor are there any in
the zoological park, where Chunky lives.

“But I must be going,” went on Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. “I have to
push some of the heavy wagons around the circus lot. They always call
on me for that, as I am so strong. I hope you’ll have a nice time where
you are going.”

“I don’t expect to have,” answered Sharp Eyes. “It is no fun to be shut
up in a cage. I wish I could walk around loose, like you.”

“I guess I’m too big to be in a cage,” said Tum Tum, “though they have
sort of cages for elephants in the parks. Well, good-bye! Maybe I’ll
see you again.”

“I hope so,” replied Sharp Eyes, who liked the big, jolly chap.

So the elephant went to push the circus wagons, and the train puffed
away with the silver fox.

All the while, as the train rumbled on, Sharp Eyes wondered where he
was being taken.

“If my silver fur is worth so much,” thought Sharp Eyes, “I suppose
they are carrying me to some place where they can take it off. I shall
not like that. I want my fur left on. I’ll be cold in the winter
without my nice fur coat.”

Sometimes hunting dogs were brought into the same car with Sharp Eyes.
The dogs became very much excited when they saw the fox in his cage,
and barked at him. But they could not get at him, for the cage was made
of heavy wire. Still, Sharp Eyes did not like to be barked at.

“Why don’t you be quiet and let me alone?” he asked the dogs, in animal
talk.

“Oh, we are hunting dogs and we always bark at a fox,” said one of the
dogs.

“Well, I have a dog friend named Don, and he doesn’t bark at me,” went
on the silver fox.

“We don’t know Don,” said the hunting dogs, and they barked louder than
ever.

Once a monkey in a cage was brought into the same car with Sharp Eyes.
The monkey did not seem happy, but crouched in a corner.

“Who are you, where are you going and what’s the matter?” asked Sharp
Eyes.

“My name is Chacko,” answered the monkey, “and I am being taken to a
zoological park.”

“Well, don’t feel sad about that,” advised Sharp Eyes. “I have heard of
a hippo named Chunky who is in a zoo, and he is very happy.”

“Has he the toothache?” asked Chacko.

“I don’t believe he has,” answered Sharp Eyes.

“No wonder he is happy then,” went on the monkey. “I have the toothache
very bad.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sharp Eyes. “I wish I could help you, but I can’t get
out of my cage. Did you ever hear of Mappo, a merry monkey?”

“Has he the toothache?” asked Chacko.

“I hardly think he has,” the fox answered.

“Well, then I don’t know him,” said the other, holding his paw up to
his jaw. “I never heard of Mappo.”

“Tum Tum, or some of the animal friends I have met, spoke of him,” said
Sharp Eyes. “He likes cocoanuts I believe.”

“Oh, we monkeys all do,” said Chacko. “But I couldn’t eat any now, on
account of my tooth. However, I don’t know Mappo.”

Sharp Eyes talked a little while longer to Chacko, to try to make the
little furry chap forget his troubles, and the monkey did for a time.
Then Sharp Eyes went to sleep.

Sharp Eyes was suddenly awakened by feeling his cage lifted up and set
down again. The fox could feel the wind blowing on him, and he knew he
must be outside the train. But he liked the fresh air.

“I wonder where I am?” he inquired, partly aloud.

“We are on a wagon, being ridden through the streets of a big city,”
answered Chacko, the monkey, who was on the same wagon as Sharp Eyes,
but in a different cage. The monkey’s toothache was better now.

“What’s a city?” asked Sharp Eyes.

“Oh,” answered the monkey, “it’s a place where they have more houses
than there are trees in the woods, but I don’t like it. Once I was in a
city park menagerie, and I never got half enough peanuts. I don’t like
the noise, either.”

There was a great deal of noise as the wagon, with the cages of Sharp
Eyes and Chacko on it, rattled through the streets.

At last the wagon turned into a quieter place, where there was much
green grass and many trees.

“Oh! are they taking me back home again?” asked Sharp Eyes aloud, as he
saw the trees. “This looks a little like my home,” and he looked down
from the wagon, hoping to see a hollow tree.

“No, this is not the forest,” said Chacko, the monkey. “This is a
menagerie, or zoo. I remember the place. I lived here a number of years
ago. I am glad to be back, for here the children give you many peanuts.
They don’t feed them all to the squirrels.”

“And so this is a zoo, is it?” asked Sharp Eyes.

“Yes, that’s what it is,” answered the monkey. “We’ll soon be put in
larger cages, where the boys and girls can see us. You’ll like it in
the zoo, Sharp Eyes.”

“I hope I shall,” returned the silver fox. “Oh, there is my friend Tum
Tum!” he cried, as he caught sight of an elephant.




CHAPTER X

SHARP EYES MEETS CHUNKY


Sharp Eyes’ cage was being lifted down from the wagon, on which it had
been brought to the park from the train, when the silver fox called out
about the elephant. His cage was set down on the ground, near where
some of the big animals, with trunks and tails, were swaying to and fro
behind big, strong bars.

“Who did you say it was?” asked Chacko, as his cage was placed beside
that of Sharp Eyes.

“Tum Tum, the jolly elephant,” answered the silver fox. “I see him over
there.”

“My name is not Tum Tum,” said the elephant, for he had heard what
Sharp Eyes said.

“Not Tum Tum!” exclaimed the fox. “Then what is it?”

“My name is Bunga,” was the answer. “But I have heard of your friend
Tum Tum. He is in a circus, is he not?”

“Yes,” answered Sharp Eyes. “I met him not long ago. He had been on a
sort of vacation in the jungle, but now he is back in the circus. I
thought, at first, that you were he.”

“No, but all we elephants look pretty much alike,” said Bunga, “so I
don’t wonder you made a mistake. How is Tum Tum?”

“Very well and jolly,” answered Sharp Eyes.

“Oh, he always was that,” said another elephant. “Tum Tum never was
cross or unhappy.”

“I was unhappy when my paw was caught in a pinching trap,” said Sharp
Eyes. “I hope I shall be happy here.”

“We’ll try to make you so,” put in a long-necked giraffe, looking over
the tops of the walls of his cage, in which he was kept next to the
elephants. “We are always glad to see new animals come in,” went on the
giraffe. “We get sort of lonesome just among ourselves. Tell us, have
you had any adventures?”

“No, not any, I’m sorry to say.”

“Oh, yes you have!” chattered Chacko, the monkey, to whom the fox had
talked in the train. “You’ve had lots of adventures! You found a wild
turkey, and you got out of one trap and into another, and you were
chased by a dog.”

“Are those adventures?” asked Sharp Eyes, in surprise.

“Of course,” answered Bunga, the elephant. “Please tell us about them.”

So Sharp Eyes told the zoo animals all that had happened to him.

“And now you are here,” said Bunga, when the fox had finished.

“Yes, I am here,” agreed the fox. “And I expect the next thing they’ll
do will be to take off my silver skin and sell it,” he added sadly.

“Take off your skin and sell it? Well, I guess not!” growled a tiger in
the next cage. “They would no more skin you than they would me! They
keep us for people to look at. Make your mind easy. You will not be
hurt while you are in the zoo. You can not get away, it is true, but
you will have a good place to stay, and all you want to eat.

“I used to think, when I first came here, that I would like to go back
to the jungle, but there I had to sneak out at night to get something
to eat, or water to drink. Here they bring it to me. Of course I am
shut up in a cage, but it is not so bad.”

“Really won’t they take off my fur?”

“No indeed!” said the elephant.

“Then I’m glad,” went on the fox. “I’ll try to like it here in the
zoo, though I’ll miss the North Woods and my father, mother, my sister
Winkle and my brother Twinkle.”

“Oh, you’ll like it here after you get used to being stared at by the
crowd of boys and girls and the men and women who come in,” said a
lion, in a cage next the tiger.

So the animals talked among themselves, trying to make Sharp Eyes
feel at home, for an animal gets almost as lonesome and homesick in a
strange place as you boys and girls might do.

After a while some men came and lifted up the cage of the silver fox,
from where it had been placed when taken off the wagon, and carried it
to a large building. Along the walls were many other cages, and in one
end was a very large one.

The bars of the big cage were set very far apart, and when the fox saw
them he said to himself:

“Ha! if they put me in that cage, with such wide-apart bars in front,
I can easily slip out between them and go back to where my father and
mother live in the hollow log. I must try to run away.”

Sharp Eyes looked a little closer, and noticed that there was a big
pool of water――about a hundred bath tubs full I guess――at one end of
the big cage.

“Ha! I’d like to get a drink there,” thought the silver fox. “I am very
thirsty!”

Just then, all of a sudden, one of the men carrying the cage in which
the fox was still locked, let his end of the box fall. Then the other
man dropped his end, and down the fox cage crashed to the stone floor
in the animal house.

“Look out!” cried one of the men. “The cage will break and that silver
fox will get out!”

And that is just what happened. The cage crashed to the floor, one end
burst open, and the next minute Sharp Eyes found himself free.

“Oh, at last I can run away!” he thought to himself. “But first I’ll go
and get a drink of water in that pool inside the big-barred cage. Then
I’ll run away.”

Before any of the men could grab him, Sharp Eyes made a dash toward the
big pool. Down into it ran a sloping walk, or little hill of stone.
Down this Sharp Eyes walked until he could put his nose in the water.

Sharp Eyes was just going to take a drink when, all at once, he noticed
that the water in the pool was moving. Then, suddenly, something big
and dark brown rose up, as if from the bottom. Sharp Eyes saw a big
mouth open right in front of him. It was a mouth so big that it looked
like the front door of a real house, and inside it was lined with
something that seemed to be red flannel. And then, out of the mouth,
came a puffing sound, and the big animal who belonged to the big mouth,
made a grunting noise, as though gaping and stretching after a sleep.

“Oh, my!” cried Sharp Eyes, as he saw the big mouth. “Who are you, if
you please?”

“I might ask the same thing of you,” went on the big animal, as he
walked up the stone hill, water dripping off him.

“I am called Sharp Eyes, the silver fox,” was the answer, “and I have
had many adventures, but they have not been put into a book as yet.”

You see Sharp Eyes didn’t know about this book just then.

“I’ve had adventures also, and they _have_ been put into a book,” went
on the big creature.

“What is your name?” asked Sharp Eyes.

“I am Chunky, the happy hippo, and――”

“Oh, I’ve heard about you!” interrupted Sharp Eyes.

“You have?” asked Chunky. “Perhaps you read a copy of the book in which
I am spoken of?”

“No, I can’t read,” said Sharp Eyes. “But I heard Don, the dog, telling
about you. I liked to hear about you.”

“That’s very nice of you,” said Chunky. “Yes, Don and I were great
friends. Did Don tell you how I saved the little girl who fell into my
pool?”

“Yes,” answered Sharp Eyes, “he did. It was very nice of you to save
her.”

“Pooh! that was nothing,” said Chunky. “When I saw you standing on the
edge of my pool, I thought it was some one else who had fallen in, and
I came up to see about it. But I am glad to meet you.”

“And I’m glad to meet you,” said Sharp Eyes. “Very glad indeed to meet
you, Chunky. Now I wonder what I had better do――run away now that I am
out of my cage, or stay and let them put me in another? What would you
do, Chunky?”

“I’d stay here in the zoo,” said the happy hippo. “They will give you
nice things to eat and clean water to drink. It is better than the
jungle or the woods. Stay here and be happy.”

“I guess I will,” said Sharp Eyes.

By this time the menagerie men had run toward the hippo’s cage. They
saw Sharp Eyes standing by the big, squatty creature.

“Don’t let him get away!” cried a tall man with a long, sharp hook in
his hand. “Catch the silver fox! Don’t let him escape!”

So the men, with ropes and long poles, ran to catch Sharp Eyes before
he could get out of the hippo’s cage. But Sharp Eyes was not going to
run away.

“Get him! Get him!” cried the men, one to the other. “Get the silver
fox!”




CHAPTER XI

SHARP EYES GETS AWAY


For a time there was much excitement in the animal house of the park,
where Sharp Eyes had gotten out of his cage. At first the men did not
see where he had run to――inside the hippo’s cage. But when they found
him they were very anxious to get Sharp Eyes back.

People who had come into the park to look at the animals, heard the
shouts and saw men running about.

“What is the matter?” asked several.

“Oh, one of the animals is loose,” answered a policeman.

“Maybe it’s a lion or a tiger!” cried a woman with a baby in her arms.
“Come on, children!” and she caught the hand of her little boy, who, in
turn held the hand of his sister, and they all ran out.

Some of the other men, women and children also ran out when they heard
that a lion was loose. But this was not so. It was only Sharp Eyes, and
he was so tame now that he would have bitten no one.

“Get him! There he is! There’s the fox!” cried the head animal man, as
he pointed to Sharp Eyes inside the hippo’s cage. “Bring up one of the
small dens, on wheels, and we’ll drive the fox into that.”

The men stood in front of Chunky’s cage with sticks and ropes, to drive
Sharp Eyes back if he should try to run out. But the fox was not going
to do anything like that.

“I said I’d stay here, and I will,” he explained to Chunky, in animal
talk, of course. “They needn’t make so much fuss about me going to run
away. I’m not!”

And Sharp Eyes did not. He stayed quietly in Chunky’s cage, talking to
the hippo in animal language, until the park men brought up a sort of
traveling cage, and opened it. Then Sharp Eyes said to the hippo:

“Well, I’ll go in there, as they seem to want me to. Anyhow, it’s a
nicer cage than the one I was in. I’ll see you again, Chunky, my boy.”

“I hope so,” said the happy hippo, who always seemed to be smiling.
“Next time I see you, Sharp Eyes, remind me to tell you a funny story
about Tum Tum.”

“I will,” said Sharp Eyes.

Then the animal men wheeled the cage with the fox in it away.

“Say,” said one of the men to the others, “that silver fox didn’t give
us any trouble.”

“No,” was the answer. “I thought sure we’d have to chase him all over
the grounds, but he was as quiet as could be. I guess he isn’t as wild
as we imagined.”

And Sharp Eyes was not. The kindness of the hunter who bought him from
the boy was beginning to tell. The silver fox knew that not all men
were unkind. Some, such as those in the zoo, and the camera man, were
good to wild animals.

For the first few days Sharp Eyes was kept by himself in the small cage
into which he had been put when the first one broke. Nor was he allowed
to stay near the other animals. He was put by himself in a dark corner
of an animal house.

“You’ll be quieter there, and will get to feeling at home,” said one of
the park animal keepers. “When you quiet down a bit we’ll put you in
with the other foxes, for we have a lot of red and black ones in the
park.”

Of course Sharp Eyes did not know just what the man was saying, but it
sounded kind, and kind and gentle tones to wild animals mean more than
just what the words themselves express.

Sharp Eyes did not like to be left alone, but he could not help
himself. He was given plenty to eat and to drink, but he did not think
the zoo a nice place. He was too lonesome in it.

Then came a day when he was taken from the traveling cage and placed
in a den with other foxes. Here he thought he would have a good time,
but when the red, brown and black foxes saw him in his fine silver coat
they sort of turned up their noses, and one said:

“Oh, ho! A silver fox! Well, I suppose he’ll be too proud to speak to
us common chaps!”

“Oh, no, I won’t,” said Sharp Eyes quickly. “I’m a fox, just like you;
and I’ll tell you some of my adventures if you’d like to hear them.”

“There he goes! Proud of his adventures!” sniffed a red fox.

Sharp Eyes wasn’t proud at all, as we know. He only wanted to be
friendly, but the other foxes would not be, and kept to themselves,
leaving Sharp Eyes on one side of the cage.

One yellow fox tried to bite Sharp Eyes when our friend was eating some
meat in the den, but Sharp Eyes soon showed that he had as keen teeth
as any of them, and then they were glad to let him alone.

But Sharp Eyes did not have a happy time.

In the first place he was lonesome. He wanted to make friends with the
other foxes, but they would not. Many, many times he wished he was
back in the woods with Winkle and Twinkle, playing in the bushes, or
running in and out of the hollow log.

After a while Sharp Eyes grew so lonesome and unhappy that he did not
eat as much as he ought. Instead of keeping fat, and growing nicely, he
became thin.

“This will never do,” said one of the park animal men one day, when he
stopped to look in the fox den. “That silver chap isn’t doing well at
all. What’s the matter with him?”

“I guess he and the other foxes don’t get along well together,”
answered the keeper who had charge of feeding the foxes. “The silver
one keeps to himself all the while.”

“That isn’t good,” said the animal man, who was a person like the one
with the camera, who had first taken a liking to Sharp Eyes. “We must
put this silver fox where he will be happier, and will make friends
with other animals.”

“I think he’d like to be near Chunky, the happy hippo,” said the keeper.

“What makes you think that?”

“Because when Sharp Eyes first came to our park, and his cage broke, he
went in the hippo’s cage and they seemed to like each other.”

“Ha! Well, maybe it would be a good thing to move this silver fox back
near the hippo,” said the animal man. “Sharp Eyes is not the same
sort as these red or black foxes. His coat of fur is much better. He
is a different kind of fox, and if we put him in a cage by himself the
people will look at him more. Sharp Eyes ought to like that. It will
keep him from getting lonesome and homesick for the woods from which he
came.”

So, a few days later, they took Sharp Eyes out of the main fox den,
and put him in a cage by himself not far from where Chunky, the happy
hippo, lived.

“Ah! I am glad to see you again!” cried the animal with the big mouth
which looked like a piano lined with red flannel. “So you have come to
see me?”

“Yes. And I didn’t like it with the other foxes,” answered Sharp Eyes.
“I am glad they brought me here.”

Soon he and the hippo were talking away to one another at a great rate,
though if you had stood in front of their cages you would not have
thought that they were doing anything more than grunting or barking.
But that was their way of talking.

“You said you were going to tell me a funny story of Tum Tum, the jolly
elephant,” said Sharp Eyes to Chunky one day.

“Oh, yes, so I did. Well, it was Mappo, the monkey, who told me. It
seems, that, once upon a time, Tum Tum was in the jungle looking for
something to eat. He was very hungry, and he was looking for what they
call apples in this country though we call them something else in
Africa, where the jungle is. Tum Tum was in our jungle once, you know.”

“Yes,” said Sharp Eyes, “I remember. He told me when I met him near the
circus grounds.”

“Well, Tum Tum went all over our jungle looking for an apple, but he
could not find any. Finally, however, he saw a little monkey pick
something that looked like an apple from a tree.

“‘Here, give me that!’ cried Tum Tum. ‘I haven’t had an apple in ever
so long. Give me that apple, little monkey, and I’ll give you a ride on
my back.’

“‘All right,’ said the monkey. ‘But give me the ride first.’ So Tum Tum
gave the monkey a ride all over the jungle, and then he asked for the
apple.

“‘Here it is!’ cried the monkey, and he handed something to Tum Tum.
Our elephant friend quickly took it in his trunk, and, not stopping to
look at it, popped it into his mouth and gave it a big, hard bite. But
what do you s’pose it was?” asked Chunky, as he told Sharp Eyes the
story.

“I can’t guess,” said the fox.

“It was a hard cocoanut!” laughed the hippo. “And Tum Tum nearly broke
his teeth on it. After that he always looked at what he ate before
putting it in his mouth.”

“That was a funny story,” said Sharp Eyes. Then he and the hippo talked
for a long time, and the fox watched the big animal go into his tank
and sink away down under the water.

Days and weeks went by, and many people came to the park to look at the
animals. Many of them stopped in front of the cage where the silver fox
was. Sharp Eyes was bigger than ever and very beautiful.

But still Sharp Eyes was not happy. He missed the long runs he used to
have in the woods, and he missed the fun with his brother and sister,
Twinkle and Winkle.

“Sharp Eyes, you are not happy,” said Chunky one day.

“No, I am not,” answered the fox.

“What is the matter?” asked the happy hippo.

“Well, I don’t like it here,” the silver fox replied. “I want to go
back to my woods and live in the hollow log.”

“Well, perhaps you are right,” said the hippo, after thinking about it
and opening his mouth to catch a loaf of bread his keeper threw in.
“Some animals like it here in the zoo, and others do not. For them
there is one of two things to do――die or get out. I don’t want to see
you die, Sharp Eyes, so I will help you get out.”

[Illustration: “There was a crash, and Sharp Eyes sprang out.”]

“How?” asked Sharp Eyes eagerly.

“This way,” said the hippo. “They often let me out in the yard to walk
around, for I am quite tame now. The next time I am out I will bump
into your cage as if by accident. I am so big and strong, and your cage
is so weak, that it will not take a very hard bump to break it. When I
break it, and I’ll do it without hurting you, you can run out and go
back to your woods.”

“Oh, thank you!” barked Sharp Eyes. “I’ll do that! Please break open my
cage and let me out as soon as you can.”

And Chunky did. A few days later, when he was in the yard back of his
cage, wandering about and eating hay, he strolled over to the cage of
the fox.

“Watch out now, Sharp Eyes,” said the hippo. “I am going to bump
against you. Good-bye, when you get out. Think of me sometimes and give
my love to Tum Tum, Don or any of my friends you see.”

“I will,” said the fox.

The next minute the big hippo bumped sharply against the fox cage.
There was a crash, a splintering of wood, and Sharp Eyes sprang out.
The silver fox was running away.




CHAPTER XII

SHARP EYES GETS HOME


“How good it is to be free!” thought Sharp Eyes, the silver fox, as
he bounded out of the broken cage and ran quickly to hide under some
bushes that grew near the place in the zoölogical park where Chunky,
the happy hippo, lived. “How good it is to be free! Good-bye, Chunky!”
he called softly to his friend, from where he was hidden under the
bush. “Good-bye! I wish you were coming with me.”

“No, thank you,” said the hippo. “I am better off in the park. I need
to be warm, for I come from Jungle Land. As for you, with your warm
coat of silver fur, you do not mind winter and snow. Good-bye and good
luck to you!”

Then the hippo went to take a swim in the pool of his cage, and Sharp
Eyes, remembering the hiding tricks his father and mother had taught
him when he lived in the woods, made ready to get as far away as he
could.

The silver fox kept very quiet under the bush, waiting to see what
would happen. Soon, he knew, the animal keepers would find out he was
gone, and they would hunt for him. Sharp Eyes did not want them to find
him.

“I must creep away as carefully as if I was hunting a chicken at the
farm near the North Woods where I used to live,” said Sharp Eyes to
himself. “But no more chickens for me, unless I can be sure there is no
trap near by! I must be very careful!”

Carefully and slyly he looked around. He saw no one, and he thought it
would be a good thing to run a little farther away from the park. He
was too close to his broken cage.

Trailing his big, bushy tail along behind him, Sharp Eyes crept out
from under the bush and ran across the path. A little distance farther
on were some trees, and the silver fox hoped they would prove to be a
wood in which he might hide.

But just as he was going in among these trees (which were not a wood,
but only a part of the park) one of the keepers saw him.

“Oh, the silver fox is out of his cage!” cried this man. “We must get
the silver fox!”

He ran toward Sharp Eyes, and so did some other men who heard the cry.
If they had had some dogs to help them they might have caught the fox.
But Sharp Eyes could run faster than the fastest man, and he was in
among the farthest trees before the keepers had reached the first ones.

“Now I must hide,” said Sharp Eyes to himself. “If I can find a hollow
log I’ll crawl in that.”

But the woods of the park were not like those of the north, where the
fox had lived. There were no fallen trees or hollow logs.

Sharp Eyes heard the men running after him and shouting. They were
getting nearer and nearer. He must find some place to hide. He looked
all about him, and, at last, saw a little hollow place, filled with
dried leaves, beneath the roots of a tree.

Quickly scraping the ground away with his fore paws, the silver fox
made the hole a little larger. Then he crawled down into it, and
managed to scatter some leaves about on top of the hole, so that it did
not show very plainly.

Sharp Eyes was hidden in this hole when the men from the park rushed
into the patch of woods.

“Do you see that fox?” asked one man.

“No, he must have run right on,” answered another.

Even while they said this the men stood near the hole in which Sharp
Eyes was hidden. But they could not see him on account of the leaves
he had brushed over himself. Dogs could have smelled the fox, but the
noses of the men were not keen enough for this. Nor were they hunters
or trappers, who might have seen the marks left by Sharp Eyes’ feet in
the soft dirt.

So the animal keepers passed right on, leaving the silver fox in the
hole. And then his heart stopped beating so fast, for he felt that he
was safe, at least for a time, and might, at last, get far, far away.

“I’ll wait a bit, until the men get out of the woods,” thought the
silver fox. “Then I’ll run as far as I can. But I guess I’ll wait until
after dark. Then they can’t see me so plainly.”

Sharp Eyes was not hungry, for he had been well fed in the zoo. But
he was thirsty, and he dared not go out for a drink. How he wished he
could lap up some water from the pool in which Chunky, the happy hippo,
swam. But that could not be done.

So Sharp Eyes remained hidden under the roots of the tree. The animal
keepers hunted all over the woods, but could not find the silver fox.
They came back to his broken cage, and the head keeper said:

“Well, it is too bad that silver fox got away, for he was a beautiful
animal, and the boys and the girls, and their fathers and mothers,
liked to look at him. But maybe he will be happier if he gets back to
his own woods. I wonder how he could break out of his cage?”

The man did not know the trick Chunky had played, and you may be sure
the happy hippo did not tell. He missed Sharp Eyes, Chunky did, but
there were other animals in the zoo for the hippo to talk to.

“Though I liked to talk to that fox about Tum Tum and our other
friends,” said Chunky to himself. “However, maybe Sharp Eyes is better
off out of his cage. I hope so.”

The silver fox waited until night before coming out of his hiding
place. Even then he looked around very carefully to make sure there was
no danger. Foxes can see in the dark almost as well as cats, and our
friend had eyes that were brighter and better than those of most foxes.

“I guess no one is around now to catch me,” thought the silver fox to
himself, as he came out of the hole. “I don’t smell any dogs to chase
me. Oh, how good it is to be free, and not shut up in a cage! Now I am
going back to the North Woods――to my father and mother, and to Twinkle
and Winkle!”

Sharp Eyes did not know how far it was to the North Woods where he used
to live. Perhaps it was just as well he did not, or he might never
have tried to go there. As it was, he set off in the dark.

No one visited the zoo after dark, and even the watchmen and animal
keepers went to bed. So did the animals, except maybe the elephants,
and they sleep standing up. Thus no one saw Sharp Eyes as he ran
through the park in the darkness of the night. From tree to bush and
from bush to tree he ran until he came to a stone wall. This was one
end of the park, and, to get out, the fox had to jump over this wall.

But that was easy for him. Often had he jumped over high bushes, fallen
trees in the woods, or fences around a farm, when he wanted to get a
fat chicken.

So, with a bound and a leap, Sharp Eyes went over the wall, and, to his
surprise, he found himself in a queer place. It was a very light place
and noisy. Big yellow things, like railroad cars were running up and
down. They were the trolleys, though the fox did not know that. Then
too, he saw black things, like big bugs, making no noise with their
wheels, but puffing white smoke out of the back, also running up and
down, in and out among the yellow things. These were automobiles.

And Sharp Eyes also saw many people in the street, for it was into a
city street he had leaped after jumping over the park wall.

For a few seconds Sharp Eyes stood very still, after landing in the
street. He crouched back against the stone wall, and then he heard a
sudden shout.

“Oh, look what a beautiful silver dog!” cried a lady. Of course Sharp
Eyes did not know just what she said, but that was it.

“A dog? That isn’t a dog!” said a man with the lady. “That’s a silver
fox, and it must have gotten away from the zoo. I wonder if it’s tame
enough for me to catch.”

“Oh, don’t! He might bite you!” said the lady. But the man ran toward
the fox. However, Sharp Eyes did not wait for the man to come very
close. With a little bark, the silver fox bounded to one side and ran
along the street.

By this time several other men and boys had seen him, and they ran
after him, some thinking he was a dog. The heart of Sharp Eyes beat
very fast, and he hardly knew what to do. At last he saw a dark place,
which he thought was a cave in which he might hide――it was really
underneath the high front steps of a house on the street――and the
silver fox crawled back into the darkest corner.

He was delighted when the men and boys ran past his new hiding place,
for that told him he had not been seen.

“I hope they don’t get me,” thought the silver fox.

And the men and boys did not. They knew nothing about hunting foxes,
even in the streets of a big city and they soon gave up the chase.
Sharp Eyes stayed under the steps in the darkness until the streets
grew quiet. Late at night, or, rather, very early in the morning, the
trolley cars and automobiles stopped running. The streets had no one in
them. And then it was that the fox came quietly out and ran along. He
did not know just where he was going. He wanted to get to the country
and to the woods. He wanted to get back home.

On and on he ran, and if any one in the city saw him in those early
hours of the morning, they must have thought him a stray dog, for they
did not chase him.

The silver fox was tired and hungry. He managed to find a bit of
meat in an ash box, and once he came to a fountain where horses were
watered, and he got a drink. Then he felt better.

It would take another book, almost as large as this, to tell all the
adventures of Sharp Eyes as he ran through the city and at last got to
the country where there were some woods.

At times boys and men saw him and chased him, and, more than once, dogs
ran after him, barking. But Sharp Eyes was a smart fox. He had the
smartness of a wild animal and the cunning of a partly tamed one. So he
knew how to hide and how to get away.

On and on he traveled. It was quite different from being carried in a
cage by the hunter or riding in the railroad train. It was hard work.
The feet of Sharp Eyes became sore, especially the one which had been
hurt in the trap.

Often the silver fox was hungry and thirsty, but he kept on and on. He
did not go near cities but kept to the country and the woods. Often he
would take a chicken or a duck from a farm at night. He did not know
it was wrong, for he had to live, and this was the only way he had of
getting food.

On and on he went. Sometimes he had to wade across brooks, and more
than once he swam rivers. All the while he was looking for his old home
in the North Woods, not knowing how far away it was. When he met any
animals who seemed kind――horses, dogs or cats――Sharp Eyes would ask
them:

“Do you know where my hollow-log home is? Or do you know my father or
mother, or my brother Twinkle or my sister Winkle?”

“No,” would be the answer. “We don’t know.”

“Then I must go on farther,” said Sharp Eyes.

By this time his silver coat was tattered and tangled. In it were burrs
and briars. The feet of the silver fox were cut and sore. But still he
kept on.

Once a hunter shot at him, hoping to get the silver fur, but the bullet
whistled over Sharp Eyes’ back. Once a savage dog chased him, and he
had to run very fast, turning many ways, and finally waded a long
distance in a brook before the dog lost the scent and gave up.

“Oh dear!” thought Sharp Eyes. “I wonder if I shall ever get home
again!”

He was very tired, but he would not give up. One evening, after a day
of hard travel, the silver fox felt that he could go no farther. He saw
a stream of water just ahead of him, and slowly he limped to it to get
a drink.

As he was lapping up the cool drops he heard behind him a voice he
seemed to know. It was animal talk, and some one said:

“Oh, Mother! Look! There is a strange fox!”

“Yes, so it is,” another voice answered. “Well, don’t bother him. He
looks tired and weary. Let him drink, and, when he is rested, we can
give him some of the chicken you and Twinkle caught to-day.”

“What’s that――Twinkle?” cried Sharp Eyes, stopping his drinking and
turning quickly around. “Who is Twinkle?” he asked in fox talk.

“That is the name of my brother,” said the smaller of the two foxes,
who were near a hole in the bank of the stream. “I am Winkle.”

“Then you must be my sister!” cried Sharp Eyes.

“Your sister!” exclaimed the other fox. “Why――why――”

But suddenly the larger fox sprang forward. With eager eyes she looked
at the silver animal.

“Sharp Eyes! Sharp Eyes!” she cried, “don’t you know me? I am your
mother! Oh, how glad I am to have you back!” and she rubbed her cold
nose against his and kissed him with her tongue.

“Sharp Eyes! Who is talking of Sharp Eyes?” asked another fox, coming
to the opening of the hole in the side of the stream-bank. “Sharp Eyes
has been gone a long time.”

“But he is back now!” cried the mother fox. “See, here he is! He has
grown to be a big fox, and his silver coat is all ragged and torn, but
he is our Sharp Eyes just the same.”

[Illustration: “‘Sharp Eyes!’ she cried, ‘don’t you know me?’”]

The other big fox came down to the edge of the stream. He looked
carefully at the silver fox. So did a smaller animal, and to him Sharp
Eyes said:

“Don’t you know me, brother Twinkle?”

“Why, it is Sharp Eyes!” cried the other. “I can tell him by the scar
on his foot where he was caught in the trap.”

“Yes, I am Sharp Eyes,” said the silver fox. “And, oh, how glad I am to
get back home again! I am so glad to see you――Father and Mother――and
you, Twinkle and Winkle! I thought I should never get to the North
Woods again.”

“These are not the North Woods,” said the father fox. “Those woods are
far, far away. We left them long ago――soon after you were missing. We
came to these woods to live. How did you find us and where have you
been?”

“I have been in many places,” answered the silver fox, “and I have had
many adventures. I don’t know how I happened to find you. I guess it
was just an accident, such as Chunky, the happy hippo, said he would
make believe happened to my cage when he leaned against it and set me
free. But at last I am home again!”

“Yes,” said his mother, “in our new home. Are you hungry, Sharp Eyes?”

“Am I hungry?” he cried. “Well, I should say I _am_!”

“I’ll bring you some of the chicken that Brother Twinkle and I caught
to-day,” said Winkle. “We are good hunters now, Sharp Eyes.”

“Yes, indeed they are good hunters,” said Mr. Fox. “Well, Sharp Eyes, I
guess you have had enough of adventures, haven’t you?”

“Indeed I have!” answered the silver fox, as he ate some chicken in the
new cave-house. “I am never going away again.”

“Tell us your adventures,” said Twinkle, when his brother had rested in
the cave.

“They were so many it will take me quite a while,” answered the silver
fox. “I met many animal friends, and they had their adventures put into
books. Maybe that will happen to me.”

And it did, and here’s the very book, as you can see for yourself. And
now, as we have brought these adventures of Sharp Eyes to an end, we
will say good-bye to him.


THE END




STORIES FOR CHILDREN

(From four to nine years old)


THE KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES

BY RICHARD BARNUM

[Illustration]

In all nursery literature animals have played a conspicuous part; and
the reason is obvious for nothing entertains a child more than the
antics of an animal. These stories abound in amusing incidents such as
children adore and the characters are so full of life, so appealing to
a child’s imagination, that none will be satisfied until they have met
all of their favorites――Squinty, Slicko, Mappo, Tum Tum, etc.

   1 SQUINTY, THE COMICAL PIG.
   2 SLICKO, THE JUMPING SQUIRREL.
   3 MAPPO, THE MERRY MONKEY.
   4 TUM TUM, THE JOLLY ELEPHANT.
   5 DON, A RUNAWAY DOG.
   6 DIDO, THE DANCING BEAR.
   7 BLACKIE, A LOST CAT.
   8 FLOP EAR, THE FUNNY RABBIT.
   9 TINKLE, THE TRICK PONY.
  10 LIGHTFOOT, THE LEAPING GOAT.
  11 CHUNKY, THE HAPPY HIPPO.
  12 SHARP EYES, THE SILVER FOX.

_Cloth, Large 12mo., Illustrated, Per vol. 50 cents_

For sale at all bookstores or sent (postage paid) on receipt of price
by the publishers.


 BARSE & HOPKINS
 Publishers      28 West 23rd Street      New York




 Transcriber’s Notes:

 ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

 ――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

 ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.






End of Project Gutenberg's Sharp Eyes, the Silver Fox, by Richard Barnum