you’d have thought every wing and paw in the woods and fields (except the bad little owls,
of course) would have been glad to know that silvertip the fox was caught. ’specially
nibble rabbit, who started the hunt, and wise old doctor muskrat, who planned it, and tommy
peele’s good dog, watch, and trailer the hound, who were still barking on his trail way
out in the middle of the deep woods. for silvertip was just as clever as he was wicked; the
very last thing he’d done was to fool those two dogs again.
i s’pose old grandpop snapping turtle, who did the catching was—glad, i mean. but doctor
muskrat just looked very, very sober, and nibble felt the shivers run from the puff on his
tufty tail to the tips of his tickly whiskers whenever he thought about it. they didn’t
have a word to say while they waited for the two hunters to come back to the meeting-place
by the flat stone at the edge of the pond.
but they thought of course the dogs would bark the good news so loud that tommy could hear
it way down the road at the schoolhouse. instead, trailer just gasped, “how awful!” in a
very awed voice. and watch looked as if somebody’d rubbed him the wrong way.
“awful!” repeated trailer. “poor silvertip! think of his being caught by a stupid old
mud-grubber like that!” he drooped his tail and ears.
“why, that’s just the way i felt about it!” nibble exclaimed. “but i never dreamed you
would. i thought you hated him.”
“hate him!” said both dogs at once. “why, he was the smartest beast we ever chased. we
hadn’t any reason to hate him.”
that certainly made nibble open his eyes pretty wide. “then why did you try to kill him?”
he demanded. “was it because you’re hungry?” he was glad to know that the pickery things
were close behind him when he asked that.
trailer laughed. “i’m always hungry.” but his tail went up when he said it, so nibble
didn’t run. “but that isn’t why i hunt. you have to know a beast to hate him. i’ve
killed plenty of beasts i never saw before i found their trail. lots that i don’t eat,
either.”
“i couldn’t do that!” nibble gasped and doctor muskrat nodded.
“of course not,” said trailer, quite proudly, too. “but that’s what i was made for. my
mother taught me to use my nose before my eyes were open and to sing the trailing song as
soon as i could talk above a whimper.”
“sing it,” begged the woodsfolk. “please.”
trailer raised his head and bayed with an open throat:
“drop your nose on the odorous trail,
for the warmest footprint soon grows stale.
tow-row-row!
leap the fences, plough through the mire,
at a steady gallop that’s slow to tire,
follow the game of the hounds’ desire.
raise your eyes—there he flies!
hail!
mark the flick of his fleeting tail!
tow-row-row!”
“you see,” he explained, “one dog doesn’t do all the singing. he sings one line and
someone else answers with the next one, round and round again.”
the sound sent a queer, scary thrill through nibble rabbit. but now he wasn’t really
afraid of the smiling hound any more than he was of watch.
watch sat with his ears pricked and his nostrils twitching while he listened to the hound’
s hunting song. “eh, but that’s grand!” he barked. “it puts the tickle into your feet
to be up and running.”
nibble rabbit squirmed closer to the pickery things. he wasn’t afraid of the dogs, but he
felt very queer. “it starts my feet tickling, too,” he sniffed. “and my fur’s all
fluffed out like a moulting bird.”
trailer laughed. “that’s partly what we sing it for,” he explained. “it rouses up you
game beasts and gets you running, and when your coat stands up on end your scent is easier
to follow.”
“you don’t say?” nibble’s eyes were sparkling. “then that’s why the quail say ‘hold
your scent!’ when they mean ‘sleek down your feathers.’”
“exactly,” nodded trailer. “and they’re so clever that it takes a special dog, who
makes a business of birds, to find them. he has a special song, too, but i never learned
it. i only follow furry things.”
“that was splendid!” put in doctor muskrat, who had been listening thoughtfully to the
talk. he wasn’t at all sorry because the dogs had politely left him a clear path to the
water. he could have dived in a flash if he had wanted to. “you’ve made the frogs very
jealous, mr. trailer.” sure enough, the frogs were tuning up all over the pond. “there’s
something very queer about this,” he went on. “your song doesn’t do anything to me—
because i’ve never been chased that way. but there was one dog, a noisy little one, who
used to drive me nearly out of my wits when i was younger.”
“that might have been spice the terrier, who was here when i was a pup,” said watch. “i
know his song well enough. he was always shouting it at something.
“a cat hunt!
a rat hunt!
a bird, beast, or bat hunt!
fur or feather, hide or skin,
shake him out and claw him in.
grip your teeth beneath his chin
and there’s the end of that hunt.”
watch had fairly snapped out spice’s song.
“that’s it!” squealed the doctor. “that’s the very song—and look at my fur! it will
take a dip in cold water to smooth it again.” he was as fluffy as tad coon’s tail. “now,
watch, what’s your song?”
“oh, i’m no regular kind of a dog, so i really haven’t any,” said watch, looking a bit
regretful. “i just do—whatever i’m told the best i can and”—here his ears pricked and
his tail began to wag—“i look after tommy peele.”
“but why must you always do things?” said nibble.
“why, everyone has to have a job of some kind,” said trailer. “or else he’s a worthless
old scrump not worth feeding. and, if it’s really your own special job, you enjoy doing
it. i love to hunt, but i wouldn’t care much about driving cows.”
“sure you would if you learned how,” said watch. “i really do.”
“there, you see?” laughed trailer. and nibble nodded.
“speaking of driving cows,” smiled trailer, “who do you think drove up to tommy peele’s
this morning?” he said it to tease watch. he and watch had gone out before daybreak to
hunt silvertip and now it was way past milking time.
but watch wasn’t teased a bit.
“the cows slept in the barn,” he grinned. “nobody had to drive them—so there! the only
job i have waiting for me right now is to clean up my breakfast plate before chirp sparrow
gets his scratchy little feet into it.”
trailer forgot all about how tired he was. “fine,” said he. “i’m ready to help you.”
and off they trotted with their tails waving.
