Chapter 2: A New Important Character

Scout, a red and lone fox that broke away from his family group, was sniffing for a meal. He broke away from the forest on the slope, that went up the mountain. The forest was huge, and a small part of it went three quarters of the way up it. For a long time, he had been chasing and stalking a goat, without her knowing. With a sly fox-like smile, he realized that the top of the mountain had the goat's smell strongly. Ears and soft, bushy tail pointed upwards, nose and snout almost in the grass, Scout pinpointed the direction the goat went in, which was down. Almost straight down.

Scout paced along the edge of the mountain. How would he get down? With a great big smile, tongue lolling out of his mouth from the mid-afternoon sun's heat, he trotted over to a rotten tree. With a simple push, the whole thing ripped apart from the roots, branches and all. Scout went back to the edge of the mountain and took a deep breath. He could smell that the goat jumped from ledge to ledge to get down, but Scout wasn't willing to take that chance. 

So he pushed the tree down, which was more than long enough to go to the ledge, and placed it so one end connected to the mountain, and another end to the mountain ledge. A bridge! He took down many more old trees and did the same until there was a full bridge all the way down. Scout was definitely the smartest of his old pack, the best smeller, and he had the best ears, even though he was the youngest. Now there was his 7 other family members living on the territory, not him. They used to bully him and only let him gnaw on the bones of the stuff they caught. Scout was very slim from only chewing bones and the thin layer of meat it had, and from running away for 1 hour straight, then he caught a rabbit.

He went down the bridge, and belly low to the ground, the reeds camouflaging and hiding him, he sniffed again. Straight ahead, the goat with a swan, a dangerous river to their right, from the sound of the water smashing the rocks. 2 meals in one! He started the low shuffle to his prey, creeping up on them silently. Or so he thought. Bela had heard him!

Bela bit down gently on the swan's neck and tried to drag him away from the fox, Scout jumped up and started racing after her! Bela went to Plan B. Putting herself between the swan and the fox, she started to charge the predator, head down, horns in view.

 Bela was hoping that that fox would cower and run away, but he was too smart to fall for that bluff. She had met this same fox a while back and started running away, hoping that he would give up. But he hadn't! He had been studying her and stalking her for days! The fox knew how caring, kind, and protective she was. Bela snorted angrily as the fox just stood his ground, and Bela, as it wasn't in her nature to hurt other living things, stopped half-way. Normally she would've ran, but she had to protect the swan. "Go away! I'll kill you if I have to!" Bela tried making her voice sound menacing, but that fox just laughed. 

"Ha! You? Kill me? It'll be the other way around. I don't like killing, but, its a necessity to survive." The fox said honestly. That stupid fox! Come on now, swan! Wake up! Bela thought desperately.