"But a fox would bite you," I objected.

"Let him bite," said Tom. "I'll resk him when once I get these two
bread-hooks on him. And he can't smell me through the mouse-nests
either."

That night we set ourselves to put the stratagem in operation. With
the dusk we stole out into the field where the stone-heaps were,
and where we had oftenest heard foxes bark. Selecting a nook in the
edge of a clump of raspberry briars which grew about a great
pine-stump, Tom lay down, and I covered him up completely with the
contents of the big basket. He then practiced squeaking and
rustling several times to be sure that all was in good trim. His
squeaks were perfect successes--made by sucking the air sharply
betwixt his teeth.

"Now be off," said Tom, "and don't come poking around, nor get in
sight, till you hear me holler."

Thus exhorted, I went into the barn and established myself at a
crack on the back side, which looked out upon the field where Tom
was ambushed.

Tom, meanwhile, as he afterward told me, waited till it had grown
dark, then began squeaking and rustling at intervals, to draw the
attention of the fox when first he should come out into the
clearing, for foxes have ears so wonderfully acute, that they are
able to hear a mouse squeak twenty rods away, it is said.