Now old Granny Fox is very, very smart and very, very wise. She
knows all the tricks with which foxes fool those who try to catch
them. She knew that she could fool Bowser the Hound and puzzle
him so that he wouldn't be able to follow her track at all. But
she wasn't ready to do that yet. No, indeed! Old Granny Fox was
taking great care to see that her tracks were easy to follow. She
wanted Bowser the Hound to follow them, although it made her
tired and hot and cross. Why did she? Well, you see, she was
trying to lead him, and with him Farmer Brown's boy, far, far
away from the home where Reddy Fox was nursing the wounds that he
had received when Farmer Brown's boy had shot at him a few days
before.

"Bow, wow, wow!" roared Bowser the Hound, following every twist
and turn which Granny Fox made, just as she wanted him to. Back
and forth across the old pasture and way up among the rocks on
the edge of the mountain Granny Fox led Bowser the Hound. It was
a long, long, long way from the Green Meadows and the Green
Forest. Granny Fox had made it a long way purposely. She was
willing to be tired herself if she could also tire Bowser the
Hound and Farmer Brown's boy. She wanted to tire them so that
when she finally puzzled and fooled them and left them there,
they would be too tired to go back to the Green Meadows.

By and by Granny Fox came to a hole in the ground, an old house
that had once belonged to her grandfather. Now this old house had
a back door hidden close beside the hollow trunk of a fallen
tree. Old Granny Fox just ran through the house, out the back
door, through the hollow tree, and then jumped into a little