Chapter IV: The Capture of Old Silver

Johnny felt his pulse quicken as he sped along over the ice. The silver fox had come out of the hole. There could be no doubt of that. Would he dodge back in again or would he start across the ice?

“If he starts!” the boy breathed.

He must not be too fast nor too sure. Last time he had muffed a glorious chance. Slowing up, he slid in behind a clump of elders and came to a standstill. There, gripping a shrub, he stood trembling like a butterfly ready for flight.

As for Lawrence, he was coming on more slowly. Naturally more cautious than his cousin, he had an eye out for trouble. That fat old mother bear might still be lurking among the ridges. He had not forgotten how she had come charging down upon them.

“Can’t take unnecessary chances,” he told himself. “Life is wonderful. I am sure that taking unnecessary chances is wrong. It is making light of God’s great gift to us—life.”

Ah, yes, it was good to live just now. For the first time in their lives his little family felt sure of having a home of their own. As he glided slowly along he thought of the summer’s struggle. At first it had been damp and bitterly cold. Then the sun had been hot and the mosquitoes had come in swarms.

Through all this they had labored on; father, mother, and these two stout boys. It was said that gangs of men would be along to clear patches of land and build cabins. To this they had not listened. “We came to make our own way,” they insisted. “We are pioneers. Pioneers must work.”

When garden and potato patches were planted they had started the cabin. Selecting, from near and far, trees that were dead but not decayed, they had built a cabin whose walls would not warp and shrink as would those built of green timber.

Later, in the autumn when sharp winds told of a long winter ahead, they had cut squares of tough sod and piled them about the cabin until it seemed a sod house. When the question of a heating stove had arisen, they had discovered an abandoned gasoline barrel, had cut one hole for a door, another for the stove-pipe, had done a little drilling and riveting, and thus had made a stove that, fed on crackling fir logs, laughed at the Arctic cold.

“Pioneers!” he whispered. “We are pioneers.” How he loved that thought.

Of a sudden his attention was drawn from past to present by Johnny’s beckoning hand. With a quick twisting glide, he moved silently forward until he was at his companion’s side.

“Look,” Johnny gripped his arm. “There is the fox. He hasn’t started across yet and—”

“And there are the otters!” Lawrence broke in with a shrill whisper.

“Yes,” Johnny agreed. “That’s the queer part of it. They came just so close to the fox, then seemed to shout something at him.”

“Like one boy daring another to come out and fight,” Lawrence laughed low.

“Yes, or inviting him to a game of tag,” whispered Johnny. “And look! There he goes! There goes the fox! Good old otters! They are helping—helping a lot.”

He had spoken the truth, the fox was after one of the otters.

“Little good it will do him,” Lawrence chuckled. “Those otters are more at home on ice and in water than on land.”

“Listen!” Johnny’s voice was tense now. His figure stiffened. “In a minute I’m going after him. I’ve got the bag. If I get him I’ll pop him inside. I won’t miss now. You just follow along slowly. I might need you.”

“Al-all right,” the younger boy agreed.

There might have been boys who would have said, “This is my turn. You muffed last time.” Not so Lawrence. All too well he knew the skill and natural daring of his cousin. And, after all, in their little family the rule had ever been, “Each for all and all for each.” So he watched his cousin glide silently out for one more adventure.

Ten seconds later in watching the little drama of wild life being played there on the ice, he had all but forgotten Johnny. Never before had he seen the tame otters put on such a clever show. Just as the larger one had so far escaped the onrush of the fox that he was becoming discouraged, the small otter, with cunning and extreme daring, slipped up and all but shouted in the fox’s ear. At once, the now thoroughly angered fox turned to dash after this second intruder.

No sooner had the first otter been abandoned than he turned about to begin slipping up on the fox to dare him for one more race.

“For all the world like a game of tag!” Lawrence murmured.

All this was aiding Johnny, though it is to be doubted whether the otters knew the value of their antics. The fox was being led farther and farther out on the ice. At the same time his attention was so held by this strange game that he was almost certain to miss catching sight of the boy who now glided closer, ever closer to him.

“Good old otters!” Johnny repeated in a whisper as, drawing his moose-hide mittens tight, he prepared for the final dash.

“He’s going after him,” Lawrence thought as, with a thrill shooting up his spine, he glided from his sheltered spot, ready, if need be, to come in on the finish.

With a suddenness that must have been startling to the keenest eyes, Johnny swept down upon the fox and the otters. Did the otters see him? Beyond doubt. They saw everything. But the fox? For once he was caught quite unawares. One startled look, a quick squatting down on the ground, and Johnny was at his side. Before the fox could relax from this stiff pose, Johnny’s hands, like a brass collar, were about his neck.

“You got him!” Lawrence shouted, springing into action. “You got him! Hurray!”

Then a terrible thing happened. Overjoyed at their great good fortune, Lawrence for the moment lost his bearing. Of a sudden his skate struck ice that crunched ominously. He tripped to go plunging forward into the black waters of the racing river. He had fallen into an open pool.

“I’ll drown,” he thought, as, in an involuntary manner, he struck out with his hands in a swimming motion. All too late he saw ice ahead. Next instant he was beneath the river’s ice.

Johnny saw all this. With a gasp of terror he all but dropped the fox. Then, scarcely knowing what he did, he thrust the fox as if he were his mother’s fur scarf, into the moose-hide bag, drew the strings tight, then shot away toward the spot from which his cousin had vanished.

As Lawrence shot beneath the ice, life seemed near its end. Yet there had never been a time when life had seemed so real and so joyous as now. For a second panic gripped him. Holding his breath, he tried to think.

In an instant his mind was clear. He knew what he should do. There were two open pools farther on. How far? He did not know exactly. Could he hold his breath till then? He must hope. And he must try to move over closer to the shelving bank. If he reached the pool he might then touch bottom.

Desperately he struggled to draw himself over to the left. His head hummed. His lungs were bursting, his heart pounding.

“It—it’s the end,” he thought.

And then, up he popped. Just in time, as his feet touched, he gripped the edge of the ice and held there. Ten agonizing seconds he clung there, then a voice shouted, “Hold on, I’m coming.”

Ten seconds more and Johnny, who had leaped to the bank and raced along it, reached out to grip his mackinaw.

“Now!” he shouted. “Out you come.” And out he came.

Weak from excitement and exhaustion, he lay there for a time motionless.

“This won’t do,” Johnny exclaimed at last. “We’ve got to get going. Here,” he dragged the sodden mackinaw from his cousin’s shoulders, then put his own sheep-lined coat in its place. After putting his own dry mittens on Lawrence’s hands, he pulled him to his feet.

“It’s you for skates and the ice, then home as fast as ever you can.” He pushed him on before him.

As his skates touched the ice Lawrence felt new warm blood racing through his veins. He was off with the speed of the wind. And after him, with a moose-hide sack dangling at his side and filled with one very angry silver fox, came his loyal, anxious yet joyous friend and cousin, Johnny.

The day, for this part of the world, was not extremely cold. Lawrence’s trousers froze into pipe-like forms, but his sturdy, youthful body resisted the cold and sent him speeding on his way.

Dropping down on the river bank at last, they dragged off their skates to take the usual short cut through the timber.

As he passed the carefully built shelter beside that narrow stream, Johnny recalled the note tacked to a post and wondered afresh whether the mysterious Bill would arrive, just as the note said he would, on July 1st.

“Who do you suppose he left that note for?” he exclaimed suddenly.

“Haven’t—the—slightest-notion,” Lawrence panted, still racing along. “One—thing—is—sure. I’m—going—to—be—there—when that day comes.”

“We’ll both be there,” Johnny agreed. Somehow, as he thought of it, in a strange way it seemed that Bill and the silver fox must in some way be associated with each other. “Pure moonbeams,” he assured himself, yet the thought remained in the back of his mind.

There is something in the north that is called “Grapevine telegraph.” This name is given to the mysterious means by which, in a land devoid of telephone and telegraph, news travels fast and far. Was it this unreal telegraph that, six hours later, as Lawrence, none the worse for his experience, lay before the roaring fire, brought a stranger to their door? Who can say? Be that as it may, there he was.

“Excuse me for intruding,” said the tall, smiling stranger as he brushed the snow from his moccasins. “I heard you’d got a silver fox and I just had to have a look at him. It’s been three years since I saw one. I’m Jim Clem. Got a claim over on the other side of the settlement.”

“You—you’ve seen silver foxes.” Johnny was on his feet.

“Hundreds of ’em.” The stranger smiled.

“Hun-hundreds,” Johnny stammered. “I thought they were rare.”

“Used to be,” admitted Jim Clem. “Still are, fairly so. Did you get a good one?”

“Yes, I—well,” Johnny whirled about. “I’ll show you.” Opening the back door, he dragged in a small wire cage. “We just put him in this for a little while,” he half apologized.

“Oh! He’s alive. Hurt much?” Jim asked.

“Not hurt at all.”

“Not hurt?” Jim stared. “How’d you catch him?”

“With my hands,” Johnny chuckled. Then, seeing that this would not stand as a bare statement, he explained briefly their method of capture.

“Say-ee,” Jim exclaimed, dropping into a chair, “you’re regular natives. And that’s a fine specimen. Time was when you’d get two thousand dollars for him.”

“Yes, we—”

“But not now,” Jim broke in. “Never again. Know much about foxes?”

“No, we—”

“Then, I’ll tell you.” Jim settled back in his chair. “I worked on a silver fox farm for three years. ‘Million Dollar Farm,’ they called it. And that’s what it was. Raised only silver foxes.

“But you don’t get that way all at once,” he laughed. “Not by a great deal. Take that fellow you got there. Suppose you find him a mate and decide to start raising silver foxes. Pretty soon you’d have a lovely lot of cute little fox cubs. But would they be silver foxes? Not one. That’s almost certain.”

“Not one?” Lawrence sat up.

“That’s it,” Jim agreed. “You’d get two or three little red foxes and, with great luck, a cross fox, that’s all.”

“You see,” he leaned forward, “a silver fox is a freak, just as a half-white robin is. If a half-white robin hatches his eggs his young ones are likely to be jolly little robin redbreasts, nothing more.

“Only by keeping foxes for years and years can you at last hope to raise pure silver foxes. That takes thousands and thousands of dollars. Four brothers went in for that in a big way years ago. Last year they sold 13,000 pelts for more than $1,000,000. And that,” he added, “figures up to something like $77.00 apiece.”

“That’s what our fox is worth,” Lawrence groaned. “And we’d have to kill him to get that?”

“Oh, sure,” Jim grinned. “But truly,” his face sobered, “that’s the tough part about fox farming. In the end you’ve got to kill ’em, so some fine lady can drape their skins about her neck.”

“I’d never sell ours to a fox farm,” Lawrence said with conviction.

“How about selling him alive to some zoo?” Johnny asked hopefully.

“Don’t know very much about that,” Jim replied slowly. “I wouldn’t hope too much. There are 5,000 fox farms these days. And they raise some beauties.

“But if you mean to keep this fellow alive,” he added, “you want to get a wooden barrel and make it into a den for him. Pack it all ’round with chaff and moss to make it warm. Then build him a wire pen all about it. He’ll get along fine if you do that.

“I’ll have to trot along.” He rose to go. “Come and see me. I’ll tell you more about ’em. They’re interesting no end, foxes are.” He bade them goodnight.

“Well,” Johnny drawled slowly, “Old Silver won’t buy us a tractor, that’s sure.”

“No,” said Lawrence. “But we can learn a lot about him and we can at least keep him from eating our chickens. Don’t give up the ship. We’ll happen onto something yet.”

There are other rewards than money in this life of ours. Remarkable achievement of any sort usually brings us kind words of deserved praise from our fellowmen. It was so with Johnny and Lawrence. More than one settler had suffered from the night raids of Old Silver. Now that he was in prison his captors were highly praised.

Still the problem remained; should they give up their dream of complete independence and go in debt for a tractor?

“I think you’d better,” said Johnny. “There are only a few left and they are going fast.”

“There’ll always be the Titan,” Lawrence laughed.

“Yes, the Titan,” Johnny agreed. “But who could ever pay for that tractor?”

The Titan was a powerful new type of tractor. Only one had been brought on and that one was priced at a cool thousand dollars.

“We’ll wait a little longer,” was Mr. Lawson’s decision. “The tide of fortune may turn our way.”