Part III Chapter 5 Doctor Dolittle's Circus by Hugh Lofting
"THE DOLITTLE SAFETY PACKET"
Returning to the side of the brook within the shelter of the trees, the Doctor took the foxes out of his pocket and set them on the ground.
"Well," said the vixen, "I had often heard that you were a great man, John Dolittle, but I never realized till now what a truly marvelous person you were. I don't know how to thank you. I'm all overcome--Dandelion, get away from that water!"
"There is no need for thanks," said the Doctor. "To tell you the truth, I got quite a thrill myself out of diddling old Will Peabody --even if I did borrow money off him. I've been trying to get him to give up fox-hunting for years. He thinks that the hounds followed my scent down by mistake."
"Ah, they're not easily fooled, those dogs," said the vixen. "Galloway --that big beast who did all the talking--he's a terror. Nose as sharp as a needle. It's a poor lookout for any fox whose scent he crosses."
"But you've been hunted before and got away, haven't you?" asked the Doctor. "They don't always run the quarry down."
"That's quite true," said the vixen. "But we only escape by luck when weather conditions or some odd chance is in our favor. The wind, of course, is a terribly important thing. If the hounds pick up our scent to the windward and begin the hunt up-wind, as we call it, there's hardly any chance of our getting away--except when the country has plenty of cover and we've got start enough to come around and get behind them, where their scent blows toward us, instead of ours toward them. But the country is usually too open to give us a chance to do that without being seen."
"Humph!" said the Doctor. "I understand."
"Then sometimes," the vixen went on, "the wind will change when the hunt's in full cry. But such luck is a rare thing. Still, I remember one time when it saved my life. It was October, dampish weather-- the kind the huntsmen like. There was a gentle breeze blowing. I was crossing over some meadows close to Thorpe Farm, when I heard them. As soon as I got their direction I saw I was on the bad side of the wind, and, out in flat, uncovered country, I was going to have a fiend of a run for it if I was to get away. I knew the neighborhood real well, and I said to myself as I let out at full gallop, 'Topham Willows. It's my only chance.'
"Now, Topham Willows was a big, dense patch of old neglected preserves about fifteen miles away to the West. It was the nearest decent over there was. But a long, long stretch of bare fields and downs lay between me and it. However if I once reached it I knew I'd be all right. Because it was brambly, tangly* and thick, no men or horses could enter it and it was too big to be surrounded by the pack.
"Well, I went away for all I was worth, hoping to lengthen my start on them at the outset. The hounds sighted me at once. And a 'View, hullo-o-a!' went up for the riders. Then the whole hunt came after me like the Devil on horseback. After that it was one long, steady, pounding, cruel run for fifteen miles. The only screens that lay this side of Topham Willows were a few low stone walls. And no fox would be fool enough to try and take cover behind them. I just leapt them on the run, and each time my brush topped the walls another 'View, hullo-o-a!' broke from the hunt.
"About three miles this side of the Willows I got a sort of cramp in my heart. My eyes went queer and I couldn't see straight. Then I stumbled over a stone. I got up and staggered on. Topham Willows was in sight, but my speed was going. I had opened the run with a pace too fast."
Nightshade, the vixen, paused in her story a moment, her ears laid back, her dainty mouth slightly open, her eyes staring fixedly. She looked as though she saw that dreadful day all over again, that long terrible chase, at the end of which, with a safe refuge in sight, she felt her strength giving out as the dogs of Death drew close upon her heels.
Presently in a low voice, she went on:
"It looked like the finish of me. The hounds were gaining--and with lots of breath left. And then!--suddenly the wind changed!
"'Gosh!' I thought to myself, 'if I only had a ditch or hedge handy now! I'd give them the slip yet! But, of course, in the open, in full view like that, scent didn't matter so much. I stumbled on. Then suddenly I noticed a ridge over to my left. On top of it were a few bracken patches--small, but quite a number of them, dotted about here and there. I changed direction, left the bee line on the Willows and made for the ridge. I still had a short lead on the dogs. I shot into the bracken, and for the first time in fourteen miles I was out of view from my enemies. Then I ran from patch to patch, leaving my scent all over the place. Next I raced off down the other side of the ridge, found a ditch leading toward the Willows, popped into it and doubled back in my old direction.
"By that time my pace was little better than a crawl, but, as I'd expected, as soon as I was out of sight the changing wind had got the dogs all confused. Peeping out of my ditch as I staggered along it toward the Willows, I saw them rushing from patch to patch among the bracken on top of the ridge. If the wind had been still blowing off me toward them, some of them would certainly have hit my trail down to the ditch, where the scent was hottest, and cut me off from the cover I was making for.
"But that short halt, while they fooled around among the bracken, trying to re-find the scent, gave me time to reach the cover I had come so far to find. And as I crept, blown and dead beaten, into the tangle of Topham Willows, I flung myself down to rest and thanked my lucky stars for the wind that changed--just in time to save my life."
"Well, well," said the Doctor, as the vixen ended her story, "that's very interesting. From what you say, I suppose that if one could only deal with the hounds' sense of smell it would always be easy for you to get away from them, eh?"
"Oh, of course," said the vixen. "In nearly all hunting country a fox could find enough cover to keep out of the reach of the dogs if it wasn't for their horribly keen noses. We nearly always hear them, or see them, a good way off--long before they see us. If you could only put the hounds on the wrong scent, the fox could get away every time."
"I see," said the Doctor. "Well, now I have an idea. Supposing a fox was made to smell like something else, instead of a fox--some strong smell which dogs didn't like--no pack of hounds would follow such a trail, would it?"
"No, I shouldn't think so--so long as they didn't know it was a fox that was carrying it. And, even then, maybe they wouldn't follow it if it was a smell they hated enough."
"That's just what I mean. Such a thing would be a scent-blind. It would--if we could only get it sufficiently powerful--entirely cover up your natural scent. Now, look here," said the Doctor, pulling a thick, black wallet out of his pocket, full of neat little bottles: "this is a pocket medicine case. Some of these medicines have a strong pungent smell. I'll let you sniff one or two . . . . Try this."
The Doctor pulled the stopper from one of the tiny bottles and held it to the vixen's nose. She started back after one sniff.
"My gracious!" she barked. "What a powerful odor. What's the name of it?"
"That's spirits of camphor," said the Doctor. "Now, try another. This is eucalyptus. Smell."
The vixen put her nose to the second bottle. And this time she sprang back three feet with a yelp.
"Great heavens! It gets in your eyes! That's worse--and stronger yet. Cork it up, Doctor, quick!" she cried, rubbing her nose with her front paws. "It makes me weep tears."
"All right," said the Doctor. "But, listen: both these medicines, although they are so strong, are quite harmless--so long as you don't drink them. People use them for colds in the head and other things. That shows you. Now, do you suppose a dog would keep away from a smell like that?"
"I should say he would," Nightshade snorted. "He'd run a mile from it. Any dog who got a whiff of that wouldn't be able to smell straight for the rest of the day. Dogs have to be more particular about their noses--especially hunting dogs."
"Fine!" said the Doctor. "Now, look: when this little bottle is corked tightly and rolled in a handkerchief, so, no odor remains about it at all. See, you can take it in your mouth and carry it. Try--just to be sure that it's all right."
Gingerly the vixen took the rolled handkerchief, with the little bottle inside, in her mouth.
"You see?" said the Doctor, taking it back from her, "it's quite harmless and you can smell nothing while it is like that. But supposing you were to place the handkerchief on the ground and drop a heavy stone on top of it: the glass bottle inside would be broken, the medicine would run out and soak into the handkerchief and the smell would be very strong. You understand me so far?"
"Quite," said the vixen; "quite--Dandelion, stop playing with my tail. How can I attend to what the Doctor's saying? Go over to that tree and do your exercises."
"And then," John Dolittle went on, "if you were to lie down on the wet handkerchief and roll in it, you too would smell very strong-- of the medicine. After that, I think, we could safely say that no hounds would follow you. For one thing, they wouldn't know what it was when they crossed your trail; and, for another, as you say, it is so strong that they'd run a mile to get away from it."
"They certainly would," said the vixen.
"Very well. Now, I'll give you one of these bottles. Which will you have? Would you prefer to smell of camphor or eucalyptus?"
"They're both pretty bad," said Nightshade. "Could you spare the two of them?"
"Certainly," said the Doctor.
"Thank you. Have you got two handkerchiefs, as well?"
"Yes. Here they are--a red one and a blue one."
"That's splendid," said the vixen. "Then I can make the cubs smell of camphor and myself of eucal--euca--"
"Eucalyptus," said the Doctor.
"It's a pretty name," said the vixen. "I'll call my other son that. I never could think of a nice name for him--Dandelion, Garlic and Eucalyptus."
"The three sons of Nightshade," added the Doctor, watching the round cubs gamboling over the roots of an oak. "Very pretty-- has almost a Roman, a classic sound. But, listen: you must be very careful how you wrap the handkerchiefs around the bottles. If you don't do it properly you might get yourself cut by the broken glass inside. Make sure that the wrapping is thick and paddy. I've got a piece of string in my pocket. Perhaps I'd better wrap the bottles myself and tie them up for you."
Then John Dolittle fixed up the bottles in the proper manner and handed over his new invention, the fox's safety packets, to Nightshade, the vixen.
"Now, remember," he said, "to carry them always with you, and as soon as you hear the hounds smash them with a stone and get the medicine well soaked into your back. Then I think you'll be safe from any dogs--even from Galloway."
Well, John Dolittle, after the vixen and her family had thanked him many times for his kind services, left them with their new scent-destroyers and continued on his journey toward Ashby.
But he little guessed, as he made his way out of the hollow--and Nightshade, with her family, trotted off to their lair--what an important effect this new idea of his was to have.
That very evening, on their way homeward, the vixen and her cubs were scented by the hounds who were returning to that part of the country, after a fruitless afternoon's search for foxes.
As soon as she realized that the dogs were on her trail, Nightshade put her packages on the ground and kicked stones against them. Instantly the air was filled with powerful medicinal odors.
In spite of the fact that the smell made her eyes run tears, the vixen rolled in one, while she made the cubs soak themselves in the other.
Then, reeking like a chemist's shop, choking and gasping to get away from their own smell, the four of them raced off across a wide pasture toward home. The hounds, to the leeward, seeing them in the open, cut across from a field the other side of a hedge, hoping to head them off before they reached the bushes at the foot of the pasture.
For the hounds this was easy, because Nightshade, with the flat-footed Dandelion to look after, couldn't put out her full speed.
On came the dogs, the famous Galloway, as usual, in the lead. The huntsmen, seeing the chances of a kill after a dull day's sport, cheered and put spurs to their horses.
But in spite of the wind's being the wrong way, the leading dogs suddenly stopped within about five paces of their quarry.
"What's the matter with Galloway, Jones?" Sir William shouted to the man on the gray mare. "Look, he's sitting down, watching the foxes run away!"
Then suddenly the fitful evening wind swung to the eastward and blew a gust back toward the hunt. The pack, like one dog, turned tail and scattered, terrified, out of the pasture. Even the horses pricked up their ears and snorted through their noses.
"My heavens, what a stench!" cried Sir William. "Some chemical or other. What is it, Jones?"
But the man on the gray mare was galloping across country, trying to get his pack together, cursing and cracking his long whip.
Peacefully and undisturbed, Nightshade reached her lair that night and put her cubs to bed. As she did so she kept murmuring to herself: "He's a great man--a very great man."
But the next day, when she went out to get food for her family, she met another fox. This neighbor, as soon as he smelt her, didn't even say good morning, but also ran, as if she were the plague.
Then she found her new odor something of an inconvenience as well as a blessing. None of her relatives would come near her, and she and her camphory-eucalyptus cubs were not allowed in any other foxes' lairs. But after a while it got around in fox society that Nightshade the vixen could go where she liked without ever being hunted by dogs. Then John Dolittle began to get requests by mysterious animal messengers for more eucalyptus. And he sent hundreds of little bottles, rolled in handkerchiefs, to that part of the world. Before long every single fox in the neighborhood was supplied with, and always carried, his "Dolittle Safety Packet" when he went abroad in the hunting season.
Well, in the end the result was that the famous Ditcham pack went out of existence.
"It's no use," Sir William said, "we can't hunt foxes in this district unless we can breed and train a pack of eucalyptus hounds. And I'll bet my last penny, it's Dolittle's doing. He always said he'd like to stop the sport altogether. And, by George! so far as this county is concerned, he's done it!"