"We'll soon settle that," I replied, and turned back, but as soon as I
had taken one step from the road, up jumped Scarface, for it was
he, and ran. A fire had swept the middle of the pasture, leaving a
broad belt of black; over this he scurried till he came to the
unburnt yellow grass again, where he squatted down and was lost
to view. He had been watching us all the time, and would not have
moved had we kept to the road. The wonderful part of this is, not
that be resembled the round stones and dry grass, but that he knew
he did, and was ready to profit by it.

We soon found that it was Scarface and his wife Vixen that had
made our woods their home and our barnyard their base of
supplies.

Next morning a search in the pines showed a great bank of earth
that had been scratched up within a few months. It must have
come from a hole, and yet there was none to be seen. It is well
known that a really cute fox, on digging a new den, brings all the
earth out at the first hole made, but carries on a tunnel into some
distant thicket. Then closing up for good the first made and too
well-marked door, uses only the entrance hidden in the thicket.

So after a little search at the other side of a knoll, I found the real
entry and good proof that there was a nest of little foxes inside.

Rising above the brush on the hillside was a great hollow
basswood. It leaned a good deal and had a large hole at the bottom,
and a smaller one at top.