Fox hole

Snowfang continued to train me for several quarter-moons. While I did progress some in battle training, I got really good in hunting. Just a quarter-moon after my apprenticeship, I caught a sparrow and a cardinal. I felt so proud when I put my small prey on top of the fresh kill pile. I saw Dawnpaw gaping at me in the apprentices den, and gloated in her amazement for a while

Today, we are going out on a hunting patrol, Dawnpaw and I. She's not looking forward to it much. But I am.

"Birchpaw! Dawnpaw!" Seedheart called. Dawnpaw scampered out of the apprentices' den, and jumped down from end of the branch that stretched out from under the entrance, with me on her heels. We followed the other warriors out of the camp.

After a while of crawling, jumping, and chasing, Dawnpaw meowed triumphantly, "Take that!", and soon came through the trees, dragging a small blackbird. She sat down and looked expectantly at the three warriors who we had gone with.

"Great job," Twotail congratulated her, in his short, shy way.

"You did great, Dawnpaw!" Ripplefur exclaimed, coming from the woods. "I was watching."

"Yeah, really, great Dawnpaw! But I'll get three tomorrow!" I said.

She mrrowed at me and pounced, swiping at my ear. I ducked and we tumbled around in the leaf-fall leaves. The other warriors sat and watched us for a little while, then we continued on with the hunt.

I was moving silently through the field of gold and fire colored leaves, a little later, near the end of our patrol, when I caught scent of a mouse. I had never hunted a mouse, I had only been trained so far to catch birds, TreeClan's main scorce of fresh kill. I tried to blend in to the background, and hid myself in the undergrowth, like they taught me to do with birds, circling the spot where the mouse was.

All at once, I darted toward where the prey was hiding. But the mouse was already on the run. How did it know I was coming? I started to chase after it, but the little thing was too small, to quick, and changed directions too often, that I lost it quickly. When I eventually stopped, I glanced around, trying to find out where I was. I had never been to this part of the forest before. There wasn't anything remarkable about it though. Except...

"Birchpaw!" Dawnpaw chimed with enthusiasm, "Did you catch it?!"

"No," I said absently, sniffing the air at the peculiar smell.

"What is it?" Seedheart asked, then stopped dead in her tracks. "Fox," She whispered to the others. They stopped all of a sudden, a few a foxlength ahead of her. They all sniffed the air, and eventually all spun their heads around to look in one direction intently. Birchpaw and Dawnpaw followed their gaze. About three foxlengths away, was a hole in the ground.

"We need to get out of here," Twotail said earnestly. The others mearly nodded. We all bolted out of the woods.

"That was a fox hole?" I asked, once we were in the Treeclan entrance.

"Yes," Twotail answered.

"We should have stayed! We could have given that fox something to remember us by!" Dawnpaw and I said at almost the same time. They shewed us off to see of we could help Smoakears with collecting herbs. Then we went to go spin a tale of a fight with a fox to the kits.

Leap far and fight hard,
Birchpaw