join her mate in his expedition for loot. And as he panted homeward before dawn with a broken-winged quail between his jaws, he found her lying in the burrow’s hollow, with five indeterminate-looking babies nuzzling close to her soft side. Then began days, or rather nights, of double foraging for Whitefoot. For it is no light thing to provide food 11for a den-ridden mate and, indirectly, for five hungry and husky cubs. 11 Nor was the season propitious for food-finding. The migratory birds, for the most part, had not shifted north. The rabbits for some silly reason of their own had changed their feeding grounds to the opposite valley. Farmers had suffered too many depredations from Whitefoot and Pitchdark during the past month to leave their henroosts as hospitably open as of yore. The first day’s hunting netted only a sick crow that had tumbled from a tree. Whitefoot turned with disgust from this find. For, though he would have been delighted to dine on the rankest of carrion, yet in common with all foxes, he could not be induced to touch any bird of prey. That night he foraged again; in spite of having outraged his regular custom by hunting in daylight. There was no fun in hunting, this night. For a wild torrent of rain had burst out of the black clouds which all day had been butting their way across the windy sky. Foxes detest rain, and this rain was a veritable deluge; a flood that started the spring freshets and turned miles of bottomland into soggy lakes. Yet Whitefoot kept on. Grey dawn found him midway between his lair and the farmstead at the foot of the hill. This farm he and Pitchdark had avoided. It was too near their den for safe plundering. Its human occupants might well be expected to seek the despoilers. And just then those despoilers were in no condition to elude the chase. Wherefore, fox-fashion, the two had ranged far afield and had reserved the nearby farm for later emergencies. Now the emergency appeared to call for such a visit from Whitefoot. A moment or so he hesitated, irresolute 12whether to return empty-mouthed to his mate or to go first to the farm for possible food. He decided on the farm. 12 Had he gone to the burrow he would have known there was no further need to forage for those five beautiful baby silvers, so different in aspect from the
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