The Fox Cub Bold Read Free Page B

The man held no sway over his kind. These were small fry – weaker creatures unable to look out for themselves. But a fox such as he was a different matter. No human was capable of meddling in his affairs.
    Shortly afterwards he caught his prey. He did not carry it under cover to devour in safety. He took it to the gamekeeper’s ‘gibbet’ and slowly, brazenly, he consumed it, underneath those quivering trophies. Only a handful of feathers and bones were left behind as evidence of his defiance.

—— 4 ——
The True Wild Life
    The next night Bold entered the wood with extreme caution. For, unimpressed by the gibbet, he was still realistic enough to expect the gamekeeper to react in some way to his gesture of contempt. As he crept along, not far from the badgers’ home, a sharp cry of pain rent the air, followed by grunts and snorts of a most distressing kind. Bold hastened towards the sound and, along one of his regular paths, he found the sow badger caught fast in a horrible metal trap. The more she struggled, the more its vice-like grip seemed to increase. A strong, noose-like wire bore down upon her back, making her gasp for breath and almost threatening to cripple her.
    Bold sniffed gingerly at the snare, preparing to leap away on the instant if it threatened him too. The poor she-badger, panting painfully, looked at him with dull, hopeless eyes. The cub was convinced this trap had been sprung for him, and that the luckless badger had blundered into it instead. Quite unknowingly, she had saved him from almost certain death. He stood heavily in her debt. He looked more closely at the man-made device.
    ‘I’m going to try to help you,’ he told the badger coolly. ‘Keep quite still.’
    The trapped animal had already ceased to struggle. The pain was too severe. She heard Bold’s words in amazement. What could he mean? Why didn’t he run away while he was still safe? The strongest of all instincts for any wild creature on its own was self-preservation. She had been caught, not he. She continued to cower where she was, unable to answer him.
    Bold had discovered that the strong wire that was pinning her body so cruelly to the ground was the only obstacle to her freedom. Once inside, it was impossible for the ensnared beast to free itself, for the wire could not be reached over its own back. But, from outside the trap, the wire could be sprung or snapped. Bold’s only tool was the strength of his jaws.
    ‘I’ll bite this wire,’ he muttered to the badger, but half to himself. He tried to get a grip on it, but it pressed too deep into her flesh and it was impossible for him to get his teeth round it without wounding her. A harsh gasp of pain escaped her lips at his first attempt. He tried again at another point. Again she winced in agony, closing her eyes. Frustrated, Bold withdrew temporarily.
    He sniffed the air, while his ears constantly strained for a sound of the trap-setter. All seemed quiet. He moved forward again with increased determination. Now he noticed that at one end of the wire there was a short piece that did not pass over the sow badger’s back. He fastened his side teeth on it and bit hard. Absolutely nothing happened.
    ‘This may take a long time,’ he said. ‘But we have the entire night ahead of us.’
    The sow badger lay fatalistically at the gamekeeper’s mercy. She listened, in a quite uncomprehending manner, to the rasping of Bold’s fangs on the wire. What was he doing it for, when in all probability the result would only be injury to himself as well? The night hours slowly crept by.
    As Bold made one of his several pauses to rest his aching jaws, he thought he heard a steady tramp . . . tramp in the distance. He froze, his every nerve and muscle quivering with tension. Yes, there was no doubt of it. Something was approaching, and that regular tread could only be the sound of human footsteps. The gamekeeper was coming to assess his handiwork!
    Bold attacked the wire with renewed