Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1889-08-15
REWARDS RUSES.
A Cute Old Fox That Is Too Smart
to Be Caught.
''Limping Jim's" Bewildering Tactics In
Times of Danger-He Has Fun With His
Enemies While Giving Them
the Slip.

was quite hunter in my youth
and have seen actual strategy exhibit
ed by the fox and deer that would
have done credit to Caesar or Han
the shores of Saginaw Bay which
used to kill my chickens. I have
chased him with hounds dozen times
and have set traps for him year after
year without success. He is an old
settler and must be twenty-five or
thirty years old; he is still alive or
was last winter. He had his burrow
in sand hill on the shore of the bay.
One day on getting up in the morning
I found two game cocks killed in my
hennery and light of glass broken
out of the window in it. / inspected
the sash where the glass had been
broken and saw some red hair and /
knew who the culprit was at glance.
He had sucked the blood from both
birds and had left the flesh entire
This is the way that a weasel or a
mink kills chicken, and but for the
broken window and red hair 1 should
have acquitted the fox of these MUIR
ders from the manner of the death of
his victims. At first l was inclined to
acquit him, Notwithstanding these cir
cumstances, but my farmer. an ancient
Hibernian, insisted that it was the old
red fox. why" said /, ga fox kills
and eats the chickens. He does not
just make little hole in the neck and
suck the blood; a mink or weasel
does that way"
''Oh, that is nothing" said Pat; she
just killed the two birds that way so
you would lay it to a weasel"
Well, l thought that with the heavy
breakfast he had eaten he could not
run very fast. and soon l pursued him
with two hounds ON his track. I took
a double-barreled shotgun and put it
in buggy and drove along up the
road. The fox seemed DESTROYS of
being chased that morning, because
instead of running toward his hole he
had gone off in an opposite direction.
l was driving pair of colts and l dare
not fire the gun from the buggy, as
they would be frightened and become
unmanageable. The fox seemed to
know this; he even seemed to know
that 1 had to tie the colts before l
could shoot, because / had not driven
a mile before he came right along
down the ditch, in which there was a
little water, passing within ten feet of
me. His tail was on his back and he
looked muddy and badly drabbled with
mud and water; but as he passed on
moderate trot [ thought [ saw a
twinkle in his eye. as much as to say:
'.How is this for high?" or something
to that effect. 1 stopped the horses;
the road was narrow and l could not
turn around nor find any place to tie
my horses to. and 1 was looking ahead
for stump or bridge across the
bitches, which were quite deep on both
sides of the road. when the fox passed
was driving. He was still in the ditch
and we kept side by side for twenty or
thirty rods. when he ran up a leaning
tree; he went up on the tree aud
walked the whole length of it, gave
one tremendous jump and landed on
the top of brush pile. He then
ran completely around the brush pile
and sprang into the top of stump,
and from that to another one, and
jumped off and run around it; then
started and ran back to the ditch; then
up the road to the leaning tree again,
and this time he ran up the tree and
jumped off of it into ditch some fifty
feet from where he had left it. He
followed this up piece and jumped
into the road and ran up the ditch on
the other side and crawled into a Gull
vert 80 small that a dog could not get
into it; then he bolted out and retraced
his steps down the ditch to where he
came from and disappeared in the
woods. 1 drove along up piece and
got my horse hitched, took my gun
and went back to where I had last
seen him. For long time could see
nothing of him. By and by the hounds
came along on his track. They struck
the ditch and ran along up and down
it, barked awhile at the roots of the
leaning tree, snuffed around the brush
heap, smelled the hollow stump over,
dua w ucn tucy CdAS W tu0 CultcEG
they fairly howIed with delight, as if
they had him, till, finally taking a
wide circuit they found out that he had
been fooling with them
In an open country the greyhound
will catch fox easy enough, and many
other hounds can outrun him; in fact,
/ think that most hounds can outrun
the fox in an open country in a
straightaway race. But. in the woods.
if the race is long. it is simply ques-
ton of endurance. The fox has the
advantage in the woods. He is smaller
and more agile than the hounds. The
fox knows that it is a question of en-
durance, and consequently all these
capers of his which have related did
not occupy over five minutes of his
time, but they put the dogs at fault and
detained them from fifteen to twenty
minutes.