Red Ben, the Fox of Oak Ridge

In the state of New Jersey there are still thousands of acres of low-lying woodlands, called pine barrens, where man has done little except chop down a few trees. Slowly but sur...

When the fox was making her wild rush to the woods, with the white hen held high in her strong jaws, she was thinking more about the four hungry pups in the home burrow than abo...

The pup went to sleep beside his mother in a bed of leaves under a fallen tree. With her there, he did not feel cold nor miss the other pups so much. He wondered where they were...

The mother led the way towards the nest under the fallen tree, but was stopped in the old path by the sound of a man's footsteps. Quickly she slipped into the bushes. The pup wa...

At first Red Ben saw no other foxes, and rarely came across the tracks of any, for Ben Slown's traps did their work well. There was, however, one cunning old fellow who paid a v...

Well the mother knew what that baying meant. Months before she had left her own hills beyond the big river, to escape the keen scented hounds and to raise her family here in the...

Nervously Red Ben wandered out of the laurel and up the Ridge. Something seemed to lead him in that direction. Ahead rang the clear notes of the eager hound and another sound, t...

The moon was shedding its silvery light in checkerboard patches under the high oaks on the Ridge. In the fields below hung a heavy mist, and everywhere was the glitter of wet le...

When Red Ben was trotting back to the Swamp, he heard Farmer Slown's hound baying. He stopped at once to listen. It was not the joy cry that comes with the scent of a fresh trai...

Instead of sleeping under the fallen tree in Cranberry Swamp, where the fleas had become too lively for comfort, Red Ben had made it a practice to pick out a new place nearly ev...

With the first signs of darkness, Red Ben uncurled himself and took a long stretch. Then he gaped until nearly every tooth in his head was bared. After that he realized how rave...

Ben Slown had a good many days of corn husking ahead of him that Autumn. Every morning he carried his gun out to the field, turned loose the eager black and white hound with ins...

On the first very chilly night of the season, Red Ben, trotting briskly along the woods path towards Cranberry Swamp, came face to face with Gray Fox. According to the law of th...

In the afternoon, soft snow, the first that Red Ben had ever seen, fell for several hours. He did not fear it, but wondered at its whiteness, which soon wiped out the green and...

Red Ben's doom seemed sealed. Even if he scorned the box trap set for him by the dutiful boy, he was still in the rancher's power. He knew all about box traps. Instead of gettin...

Towards evening clouds began to gather; then a gentle wind from the South brought the first signs of thawing weather. Later a warm rain drenched the woods, washing away the snow...

On the second night the snow stopped falling, but the icy northwest wind came in shrieking blasts, whirling the flakes in every direction. It was a terrible time for any creatur...

The great snow stayed in the woods for weeks. All that time and longer Red Ben and his new found comrade kept near the stream where they had met. She knew no other home land, an...