The Fox and the Hound by Daniel P. Mannix Page A

without the cattle paying any particular attention to him. He also found that even though the creatures were dangerous, they charged in a straight line and could be easily avoided. From then on, Tod frequently turned aside from his regular route to torment the cattle, dodging around them, snapping at their legs, and making them chase him. Then, merely to show his mastery of the dull brutes, he would stop, let them quiet down, and deliberately slink through the herd, pausing to lie down in the middle of them, and finally trotting off, his mouth open in his distinctive foxy grin of triumph.
    That spring Tod also encountered dogs. They were farm dogs, mongrels without especially good noses, who liked to go hunting in the fields and woods, The first time Tod heard one of them on his trail he stopped, puzzled, and even waited for the animal; but one look at the oncoming dog speedily convinced him this baying creature meant him no good. He ran, mad with panic; and the dog, scenting the odor of fear when he came to the place in the trail where Tod had turned, burst into excited cries.
    Tod followed his standard route automatically, even running along a fence rail at a spot where he usually jumped on top of the fence to look out across the valley. He did not stop to look today, racing along two sections of fence before dropping down to continue his wild flight. He started to pant and unconsciously slowed his gait. Then he realized the dog was no longer giving tongue. Tod stopped and, making a circle, cautiously swung around to study his back trail. He found the bewildered dog running up and clown the fence line, trying to pick up the broken trail. Tod lay silently watching him for a long time. The dog's behavior was sufficiently similar to his own actions when trying to find a lost line so that he realized what the dog was doing, just as he had been able to recognize gestures of friendship or play on the part of the terrier because they were basically the gestures a fox would use under the same circumstances. When the dog finally gave up, Tod trotted off thoughtfully. He knew now that the dog had been following him by his scent, as he followed the scent of a rabbit, and that by fence-running, he could throw the animal off. From then on, whenever he was chased by a dog he would follow his usual route to the fence, run along the top rails, and drop off. It did not immediately occur to him that any fence would do as well - he always went to the same spot - but slowly he picked up a repertoire of tricks to throw off dogs. Most of these tricks he learned by sheer chance, like the fence-running. Whenever the dog was at a loss, Tod memorized that particular spot and what he had done. He was not analytical. Once he threw off two dogs by running across a newly plowed field, and from then on he always cut across that field when chased. He could not understand why when wheat started to come up in the field the trick no longer worked and the dogs could follow him easily. However, he still continued to run the field because of the original success.
    Tod was not entirely incapable of associating ideas. Once when a dog was after him Tod saw the cattle in the field and had an idea. He knew that the dog was comparatively clumsy, as the little terrier had been, and that the cattle would attack any large animal running carelessly among them. Tod turned off his usual route and ran across the field toward the cattle. When he drew close to them, he dropped and slunk forward among the grazing cons, worming his way into the middle of the herd. Then he turned so as to be able to watch his back track, and waited. In a few minutes the dog came racing along in full cry. Intent on the trail, he never lifted his head, and charged blindly toward the cattle. The cows bawled and turned toward him with lowered horns; nevertheless the dog kept on, A cow charged him, The startled dog was barely able to avoid her horns, and as he sprang aside another cow caught him and