a hair of a fox was in sight, but the burrow looked as if it could
be opened with spade and pick. Horace thought they ought to do that
first of all; in that way they could capture the cubs before there was
any possible danger of the old foxes' moving the den.

On their way back to camp, Mac stopped at a marshy pool and cut a great
armful of willow withes.

"It's lucky that I once used to watch an old willow worker making
baskets and chairs," he said. "I'll see if I've forgotten the trick of
it. We've got to make a cage, for we'll need one the instant we
capture one of those cubs."

He made a strong framework of birch, with bars as thick as his wrist,
which he notched together, and lashed with deer-hide. Then he had the
framework of a box about three feet long, two feet wide, and two feet
deep, through which he now began to weave the tough, pliable withes.

He did not altogether remember the trick of it, and he had to stop
frequently to plan it out. He worked all that afternoon, and continued
his labor by firelight. He did not finish the cage until the middle of
the next forenoon. It was rough-looking, but light, and nearly as
strong as an iron trunk, and had a door in the top.

All that remained for them to do now was to catch the game. They ate a
hasty luncheon, and carrying the cage, the trap, the axe, the spade and
pick, two blankets, and the guns, started back along Mac's blazed
trail. So great was their eager hurry that they stumbled over roots
and stones.

Clambering down the ravine, they cautiously approached the foxes' den.
The opening to the burrow was a triangular hole between two flat rocks.
From it came a faint odor of putrid flesh. The ground in front was
strewn with muskrat tails, small bones, and the beaks and feet of
partridges and ducks. From the rocks Fred picked off two or three
black hairs.

The boys looked into the dark hole and listened intently. They could
not hear a sound, but they knew that the cubs, at any rate, must be
within. Mac cut a sapling, trimmed it down and sharpened one end of
it; with that as a lever the boys loosened the rocks at the entrance of
the burrow, and rolled them aside. The burrow ran backward and
downward into the ground, but there seemed to be nothing in their way
now except earth, gravel, and roots. Horace picked up the spade and
began to dig; occasionally he had to stop to cut a tree root or pick
out a rock. Meanwhile, Peter and Fred stood close