d skurried across the glade nearer than
before.

Still as death lay Vix, "surely she was dead." And the little foxes
began to wonder if their mother wasn't asleep.

But the squirrel was working himself into a little craze of foolhardy
curiosity. He had dropped a piece of bark on Vix's head; he had used up
his list of bad words, and he had done it all over again, without
getting a sign of life. So after a couple more dashes across the glade
he ventured within a few feet of the really watchful Vix, who sprang to
her feet and pinned him in a twinkling.

"And the little ones picked the bones e-oh." Thus the rudiments of their
education were laid, and afterward, as they grew stronger, they were
taken farther afield to begin the higher branches of trailing and
scenting.

For each kind of prey they were taught a way to hunt, for every animal
has some great strength or it could not live, and some great weakness or
the others could not live. The squirrel's weakness was foolish
curiosity; the fox's that he can't climb a tree. And the training of the
little foxes was all shaped to take advantage of the weakness of the
other creatures and to make up for their own by defter play where they
are strong.

From their parents they learned the chief axioms of the fox world. How,
is not easy to say. But that they learned this in company with their
parents was clear. Here are some that foxes taught me, without saying a
word:--

Never sleep on your straight track.

Your nose is before your eyes, then trust it first.

A fool runs down the wind.

Running rills cure many ills.

Never take the open if you can keep the cover.

Never leave a straight trail if a crooked one will do.

If it's strange, it's hostile.

Dust and water burn the scent.

Never hunt mice in a rabbit-woods, or rabbits in a henyard.

Keep off the grass.

Inklings of the meanings of these were already entering the little ones'
minds--thus, 'Never follow what you can't smell,' was wise, they could
see, because if you can't smell it, then the wind is so that it must
smell you.

One by one they learned the birds and beasts of their home woods, and
then as they were able to go abroad with their parents they learned new
animals. They were beginning to think they knew the scent of everything
that moved. But one night the mother took them to a field where was a
strange black flat thing on the ground. She brought them on purpose to
smell it, but at the first wh