rned.

In the morning we found Vix had not failed her young one. Again next
night found my uncle on guards for another hen had been taken. Soon
after dark a single shot was heard, but Vix dropped the game she was
bringing and escaped. Another attempt made that night called forth
another gunshot. Yet next day it was seen by the brightness of the chain
that she had come again and vainly tried for hours to cut that hateful
bond.

Such courage and stanch fidelity were bound to win respect, if not
toleration. At any rate, there was no gunner in wait next night, when
all was still. Could it be of any use? Driven off thrice with gunshots,
would she make another try to feed or free her captive young one? Would
she? Hers was a mother's love. There was but one to watch them this
time, the fourth night, when the quavering whine of the little one was
followed by that shadowy form above the wood pile.

But carrying no fowl or food that could be seen. Had the keen huntress
failed at last? Had she no head of game for this her only charge, or had
she learned to trust his captors for his food?

No, far from all this. The wild-wood mother's heart and hate were true.
Her only thought had been to set him free. All means she knew she tried,
and every danger braved to tend him well and help him to be free. But
all had failed.

Like a shadow she came and in a moment was gone, and Tip seized on
something dropped, and crunched and chewed with relish what she brought.
But even as he ate, a knife-like pang shot through and a scream of pain
escaped him. Then there was a momentary struggle and the little fox was
dead.

The mother's love was strong in Vix, but a higher thought was stronger.
She knew right well the poison's power; she knew the poison bait, and
would have taught him had he lived to know and shun it too. But now at
last when she must choose for him a wretched prisoner's life or sudden
death, she quenched the mother in her breast and freed him by the one
remaining door.

It is when the snow is on the ground that we take the census of the
woods, and when the winter came it told me that Vix no longer roamed the
woods of Erindale. Where she went it never told, but only this, that she
was gone.

Gone, perhaps, to some other far-off haunt to leave behind the sad
remembrance of her murdered little ones and mate. Or gone, may be,
deliberately, from the scene of a sorrowful life, as many a wild-wood
mother has gone, by the means that