Little White Fox and his Arctic Friends.

by Roy J. Snell.

CHAPTER I

LITTLE WHITE FOX MAKES A DISCOVERY

Little White Fox was very, very much worried, for something dreadful had happened, something he couldn't account for at all: Tdariuk, the reindeer, was dead!

Tdariuk was not related to Little White Fox. And he wasn't a bit in the world like him. He was many times bigger than Little White Fox would ever be, and he was quite different from him in every way. But all the same, Little White Fox loved him. If you had asked him why he loved the big reindeer, he would probably have told you that, for one thing, Tdariuk, in spite of his huge body, was very gentle and kind. None of the little animals of the tundra was afraid of him. Little Mrs.

Ptarmigan calmly hunted for dry blueberries and weed seed right beside him while he cropped his moss. And when he drew close to the sh.o.r.e by the sea, Little Brown Seal never thought of such a thing as slipping off his rock and hiding in the water. Even if there were no other reason, wouldn't Tdariuk's gentleness alone make Little White Fox love him?

Now when Little White Fox discovered that his big, kind friend was dead, he ran home as fast as his legs could carry him to tell his mother the sad news.

"Mother! Mother!" he called tumbling into his home under the great rock, "Tdariuk is dead!"

"Tdariuk dead!" cried Madam White Fox. "Who could have been mean enough to kill him?"

"I don't know who killed him, but he's dead, I know that," said Little White Fox, the tears running down his cheeks.

"It must have been Old Man Gray Wolf, or Omnok, the hunter," said Madam White Fox, wiping her eyes with her paw. "For my part, I could easily wish them both dead themselves. None of us is safe as long as they are about. But who told you Tdariuk was dead?"

"No one told me. I found it out for myself," boasted Little White Fox proudly, quite forgetting his sorrow in thinking what a wise young chap he was.

"_You_ found it out!" exclaimed his mother. "Pray, tell me how?"

"Why, you see," explained Little White Fox, with an air of deep mystery, "I was down on the tundra, at the foot of Saw Tooth Mountain, looking all around to see what I could see. And all of a sudden I came right on one of Tdariuk's great, fine antlers lying there in the snow. Now, what do you think of that? And when I went on a little farther, there was the other one! And then I knew, of course, that Tdariuk was dead."

When Madam White Fox heard that, she smiled a little and stopped wiping her eyes. But all she said was: "Keep your eyes wide open, my son, and one of these days you will see something very strange."

Little White Fox thought that a queer way to answer him. Why, she hadn't even told him he was smart to discover about Tdariuk.

"What do you mean, mother? What will I see? Tell me what I will see!

_Please_ tell me what I will see!" teased Little White Fox.

But not another word would Madam Fox tell him. Little White Fox wondered why she dried her tears for Tdariuk so quickly, but he couldn't find that out, either.

And so every day and all day, Little White Fox went peering curiously about everywhere, just as his mother had told him to do, trying to find the something that was "very strange." He looked all around among the sand dunes by the ocean, but there was nothing strange there. He went in and out among the big rocks at the foot of Saw Tooth Mountain and came near falling into one of Omnok's cruel traps, but there was nothing strange there. He went here and there, and back and forth, all over the tundra, but there was nothing strange there.

Hunt as he would, Little White Fox could find nothing strange anywhere.

He had grown quite discouraged, when one day, when he was searching down among the scrub willows by the river, his ear caught a familiar sound, "Ark! Ark! Ark!"

Little White Fox couldn't believe his ears.

"Why, that's queer!" he exclaimed. "It sounds just like Tdariuk, the reindeer. But it can't be Tdariuk. How could it be Tdariuk, when Tdariuk's dead?"

Then he heard it again, much louder this time and quite close: "Ark!

Ark! Ark!"

Little White Fox, for once in his life, was too astonished to say a word. He just held his breath and waited. And in just another moment out walked Tdariuk, as big and gentle as ever, and very much alive indeed.

And--on his head he wore a brand new pair of antlers, bigger than the others and all covered with velvet! My! how handsome those antlers were!

Little White Fox didn't stop to ask a single question. He just gave Tdariuk one long look and then whirled around and ran home as fast as he could travel.

He burst breathlessly into the cave and started to tell his mother that Tdariuk wasn't dead. But it wasn't news to her; she had known it all the time. Little White Fox, however, had found out the something very strange that she had hoped he would find, and had done it all by himself. Therefore Madam Fox was very happy as she curled down on the floor for her afternoon nap.

CHAPTER II

LITTLE MISS PTARMIGAN FOOLS HIM

When Little White Fox saw that he had really found out about Tdariuk, the reindeer, all by himself, he became very wise. The next time one of his friends disappeared from the tundra, he didn't say a word about it to his mother, but went searching, searching, everywhere, every day.

This time it was Little Miss Ptarmigan who had disappeared. Probably you don't know Miss Ptarmigan, for she lives only in cold lands where there is plenty of snow. But she is a very interesting young person. She is a bit larger than Madam Partridge and not quite so large as Madam Prairie Hen. And a very dainty little lady she is, too, for all winter--and that's just the time Little White Fox had known her--she had worn a perfectly white gown, quite as white as the coat he wore himself. And if she hadn't worn pink shoes and stockings, he probably would never have been able to find her in the snow at all.

Now, if Little White Fox had been as old as his mother, he would have been trying all the time to catch Little Miss Ptarmigan and carry her off to his home for mincemeat. That is what grown-up foxes do to the Ptarmigan folks when they get a chance. But Little White Fox was a very small chap, and didn't give much thought to mincemeat. All he thought about was having a good time, so almost every day he hunted up Miss Ptarmigan, and they had a grand game of hide and seek. It was always an exciting game, too, on account of Miss Ptarmigan's white dress, and the only way Little White Fox could find her was by watching for her pink shoes and stockings as she hid away in a snow bank. And when she sat on her feet, he could almost never find her at all.

"You just wait, Miss," cried Little White Fox one day. "When summer comes, I'll get you!"

"You will, will you!" replied Miss Ptarmigan. "How will you do it?"

"Why, in the summer the snow will be gone, and the ground will be all brown. Then I will be able to find you anywhere!" Little White Fox gave a hop, skip and jump that ended in a somersault, so tickled was he with his own smartness.

"Oh, indeed!" said Miss Ptarmigan, looking very wise and mysterious.

That was all she said, but Little White Fox wasn't fussed. He hadn't lain curled up on the gra.s.s mat in his home thinking about it night after night for nothing.

One day when the snow was nearly all gone, Little Miss Ptarmigan suddenly disappeared. Little White Fox didn't believe she was dead. He remembered how he had been fooled by Tdariuk, and he remembered, too, how she had looked when he talked about catching her. Also, he remembered how he had found out the truth about Tdariuk. Therefore, being a wise youngster, as I have said, he didn't say a word about it to his mother. He just went quietly about, looking, looking everywhere for Miss Ptarmigan.

In the meantime, Miss Ptarmigan had been making trouble for herself.

Silly old Mrs. White Owl had been telling her all winter how very well white suited her complexion. And now summer had come, and Mother Ptarmigan had forbidden her to go outdoors at all till her new brown summer suit was finished. Miss Ptarmigan hated indoors, and she couldn't understand what difference her dress made, anyway. But she never thought of disobeying till one fine, warm day when her mother was away from home, Little Miss Ptarmigan grew very lonesome.

"I want to go out in the sunshine," she kept saying to herself. "There can't be a bit of harm in it. I am sure I would see Old Mrs. White Owl, and she would say something nice about my white dress."

Down at the foot of the mountain was some one else, a some one who didn't think much about the sunshine and the flowers. It was Master Black Fox. He was thinking of his sausage grinder. It hadn't been used much of late, and he was afraid it might get lazy. "A plump chub of a Ptarmigan would grind nicely," he said to himself, smacking his lips, "but they all wear brown dresses these days, and one cannot tell them from the weeds and gra.s.s."

Just then his eyes opened wide. "Can I believe it?" he whispered. "Is that one of them going down the mountain this minute--and with a white dress on? Yes, sir, it is!"

Then Mr. Fox looked all about him very sharply, this way and that, for his own coat was black as coal, and could be seen quite well against the brown gra.s.s when he moved. But when he lay quite still, you couldn't tell him from a stone. He was not afraid that Little Miss Ptarmigan would see him. He knew where she was, and could hide behind rocks until he came close to her.

After Mr. Fox had looked all about him very sharply, this way and that, he began to creep around this rock and that one, all the time drawing closer to innocent, foolish Little Miss Ptarmigan, whose white dress showed plain as day against the brown earth. And presently he was right behind a big rock she must pa.s.s in just another minute. And then he was so close that it seemed almost as if she could hear him breathe.

But she didn't. She just walked along, thinking about the fine things Madam White Owl had said to her, till zing! something sprang at her. She gave a frightened scream and flew to one side, but she was too late.

Something sharp and cruel closed down on the toe of her pink shoes. It was the teeth of Mr. Black Fox's sausage grinder. But he closed them down a little too hard, for it cut the toe right off the pink shoe, and the tips of Little Miss Ptarmigan's pink toes besides, and away she flew, screaming with pain, toward a white snow bank in the valley.