The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-05-04

lay to windward and was hardly 2 stones throw distant; but he would not 1 fire at 1t with a duck charge, knowing ] that the shot holes would spoil the skin. He crept away and returned an
 hour later with a carbine, but the fox
 had gone.
 Two nights later he saw again at distance, and feeling sure now that he
 was in the foxs home hunting grounds, ] he set traps and stalked it evenings while there was moon. Nothing came of these efforts; but he saw it again
 and again, and could not bring himself to return home to the coast nilsson and
 give up his hopes of capturing the
 beautiful creature. For a month or
 more he hunted it daily stalking CO., vertly from one bare, stony hill or
 messy ridge to another, always working
 to windward.
 Hundreds of small lakes and tarns
 are scattered over these barrens, all abounding with waterfowl; but by Sep-
 tember the birds had mostly migrated southward. Joe began to despair of getting the fox; he has not seen it for
 ten or twelve days, and now snow and sleet had begun to come.
 At last, one windy, cold day about the 10th of October, he crawled up the slope of a low, barren ridge bordering the valley of large tributary of he George and peeped over, lying low amonk weathered stones.' Again he caught sight of the fox-his fox-con- sorting with another on the river bany half a mile away.
 Immediately quarrel and scuffie ensued between the two animals, and the silver fox, breaking away, came trot- ting directly down the wind toward where Joe lay. The other fox, a red one, ran off along the river bank; but the silver gray came almost in a. straight line toward Joe, as if sent by fate as a reward for his perseverance He lay very still among the stones which his gray hunting frock closely resembled, and the fox approached un- suspectingly within fifty yards, to where there was little circular depres- sion or hole in the moss. Here 1t stop ped and glanced back in the direction from which it had come, as if to make sure that the other fox was not follow ing Then, after turning round twice, it lay down in the little hole, which its body rather more than filled when curl ed in circle, so that it's silvery fur showed over the fringe of dry moss around the depression, as did also one ear and a little of its head.
 A moment later it rose to its feet, fac ing about cautiously on all sides-as a fox nearly always will do before trust ing itself to take nap outside of its den. This maneuver it repeated twice before finally smuggling down in the hole for short snooze. But Joe knew the way of foxes, and lay perfectly quiet, hardly breathing lest some whiff of tainted air might reach it's keen nos- trils.
 It was not till the fox had lain down for the third time and remained quiet for several minutes that he slowly | brought his carbine into position to l shoot. The fox's ear and just the fringe on the ridge over his left eye were in sight across the dry brown moss. Set ting the sight slide at the lowest notch, | Joe took careful aim and f1red-with | the result that the beautiful creature never realized what had happened to it. | The bullet, entering the left orbit, left | the splendid silver pelt undamaged.- c. A. Stephens in Youths Companion.