The greatest adventure of his infancy came when he was just twenty-eight days old.  The time was late afternoon on a warm day.  Having thrust his sister out from the coolest innermost corner of the cave, the black-and-gray pup had curled himself up there, and was sleeping soundly, while his sister lay somewhat nearer the opening of the cave.  Had the weather been less warm, the black-and-gray pup would have used his sister as a pillow, a blanket, or a mattress, and in that case the adventure might have ended differently.  As it was, his dream fancies were suddenly dispelled by the coming of a musky, acrid odor that swept across his small but sensitive nostrils with much the same effect that a sound box on the ear would have upon a sleeping child.

He awoke with a jerk, to see silhouetted against the irregular path of sky that was framed by the cave’s mouth the figure of a full-grown mother fox.  This vixen was closely related to the red fox to whom this cave had formerly belonged.  She had long since learned of Reynard’s end, of course, and, indeed, had seen his corpse within twenty-four hours of the execution.  Though frequently moved by curiosity, she had never before ventured so near to the cave and would hardly have been there now but for the fact that she had seen Desdemona hunting a mile away and more.  Now she peered in at the cave’s mouth, informing herself chiefly through her sharp nose regarding its condition and inhabitants.

The black-and-gray pup snarled furiously, and the vixen leaped backward on the instant.  Reflection made her scornfully ashamed of this movement, and she stepped delicately forward again.  The smaller pup whimpered fearfully, and that was the poor thing’s death-knell.  The vixen promptly broke its neck with one snap of her powerful jaws and dragged the little creature out into the sunshine.  All this time Master Black-and-Gray had been growling fiercely—­his entire small body quivering under the strain of producing this martial sound.  His fat back was pressed hard against the rear wall of the cave—­partly, perhaps, to give him courage, and partly, no doubt, by way of getting a better purchase, so to say, for the task of growling, which really required all his small stock of strength.

Outside the cave, in the sunshine, the vixen was sniffing and nosing at the body of the puppy she had killed.  She presented her flank to Black-and-Gray’s view, and, for herself, could see nothing inside the cave now.  Black-and-Gray had seen his sister slain.  The blood of great aristocrats and heroes was in his veins.  His wrath was tremendous, overwhelming, in fact, and, but for the support of the cave’s wall, would certainly have been too much for his still uncertain sense of balance.  Suddenly now his ancestry spoke in this undeveloped creature.  Determination took and shook him, and spurred him forward.  With a sort of miniature roar—­the merest little mixture of breathless growl, snarl, and embryonic bark—­he blundered forth from his dark corner, hurtling over the cave’s floor at a gait partaking of roll, crawl, and gallop, and flung himself straight at the well-furred throat of the unsuspecting vixen.