: A red-brown fox is born in red foxes. Growing up, he finds a girlfriend and steals chickens from the surrounding farms. Farmers raid the fox, but he is saved and defeats his enemy - the ferocious dog.

Part one. Native home

In northern Canada, in a secluded aspen grove, a family of red foxes dug a hole. The fox mother looked after the babies, the fox father hunted, and the furry foxes frolic in the hole. The quickest in the brood was a fox with a black stripe across the muzzle, resembling a domino mask.

The foxes were watched by the lanky, freckled boy Abner Djuks. He did not want to interfere with the kids' fun, since he hunted foxes only in winter, but the boy was found by his puppy, who had an unusually booming voice and wild disposition. The barking of the puppy frightened the foxes, Domino remembered this sound especially well.

The fox father got his livelihood on the Benton farm and fired a lot of thoroughbred chickens from there. Benton was angry with the foxes, so when he heard the booming puppy barking at the fox’s trail, his sons became interested and soon found the entrance to the fox hole.

The mother fox was alarmed and at night began to transfer the foxes to a new shelter. She managed to transfer three of the strongest. At dawn, the Bentons returned, blew up the entrance to the hole, and the remaining foxes died.

A new hole was by the river. There Domino grew up and turned into a magnificent black-brown fox. In the summer, a dog that suddenly appeared at a hole killed his younger brother Domino, and another dog bit his fox father when he stole chickens on a farm. By autumn, the remnants of the fox family broke up, and Domino began an independent life.

The black-brown fox quickly realized that the river was his friend. Water quickly washed away its smell, and the dogs lost track, and on the dense sandy shallows there were no tracks at all. But the best place to break away from the chase was a rocky cliff above the river with a path along which the fox could run, but the dog could not walk. In addition, even in times of famine, food could be found by the river.

Soon, all hunters learned that a luxurious black-brown fox appeared in the area.

To get the skin of a black-brown fox is the greatest happiness that a hunter can only dream of. But this treasure is carefully guarded by the cunning and speed of the beast itself.

Some believed that the dog of Djuks, Haeckle, who during the summer turned into a large and gloomy monster with a booming, mechanical bark, could get it.

Domino led the life of a lone fox, he did not have a hole, he slept in the afternoon in the open, covered with a magnificent tail, and hunted at night. He often visited the surrounding farms and masterfully avoided any pursuit.

Once Domino sensed a trail of an unfamiliar fox in his hunting area, caught up with it and managed to repel it from a red rival. So Domino had a girlfriend Belogrudok.

Part two. Together

In the spring, foxes dug a hole in the same aspen grove where Domino was born. Soon Belogrudka was born foxes. Now Domino, like his father once, brought prey to the hole, and Belogrudka looked after the foxes.

Once, when Domino was returning home with prey, the fierce Hekla chased after him. The dog became an experienced hound, and now it was not easy to deceive her. When all the tricks of the fox failed, he remembered the cliff by the river and a narrow path on it.

Domino lured Hekla to this path, the dog broke into a fast river and a stream dragged her along sharp stones. Wounded Hekla hardly got to the house, and that summer she no longer hunted.

In the middle of summer, Domino stumbled upon a cub doe. Fallow deer were rare in those places, and foxes came closer to view a strange animal. Then mother doe attacked him and chased him for a long time, trying to trample with sharp hooves.After that, Domino forever remembered, "that a stranger is always an enemy."

The Benton brothers set traps on foxes all year round, but did it wrong - their traps showed the smells of iron and man. Once, one of the brothers got a liquid, the smell of which is very attractive to foxes, and sprayed it with its traps.

Domino sensed this smell, could not resist the temptation, began to roll on the ground and fell into a trap. Fortunately, the trap slammed on the wide back of the fox, slipped over its long hair, and Domino freed himself. Since then, this smell has awakened in him memories of terrible iron jaws.

The foxes continued to visit the Benton coop. Finally, old Benton got angry and got down to business himself - set traps, fumigated them with smoke and sprayed with fresh chicken blood. Domino fell into one of such skillfully set traps, although he was alerted by the smell of smoke.

This time the trap slammed shut and the fox could not escape. A day later, Mama Doe came across Domino. She again tried to kill the fox, but accidentally hit the trap with her hoof in the spring. The steel jaws opened and Domino freed. This lesson taught the fox to beware of all unusual odors.

A fool needs to get caught many times in order to learn something, but for a smart one, it’s enough once to become smarter.

In early summer, Domino wandered into the garden of an old house, where he found a turkey sitting on a nest. The little girl living in the house prevented him from dragging the bird.

By early fall, Domino's paw had healed, and he again became the fastest-legged fox in the area. The grown children of Domino parted, only Belogrudka remained next to him.

Part three. Test and triumph

In autumn, foxes learned to hunt wild geese - Belogrudka drove a goose flock to the bushes, from where Domino jumped out and grabbed the most slow bird. The first joint hunt brought the fox pair even closer.

Winter went well. Thanks to the habit of storing food, neither Domino nor Belogrudok were starving. At the end of winter, Domino stumbled upon a paddock in which the fierce Hekla killed the sheep one after another. The farmer who arrived in time did not see the dog, but he noticed a black-brown fox near the corral.

In early spring, several more sheep were killed. The farmers decided that Domino was to blame, and raided the fox.

The foxes, meanwhile, settled in their old hole, and Belogrudka was already waiting for posterity. A pack of hunting dogs attacked her trail and almost overtook. Domino diverted the attention of the dogs to himself and saved his girlfriend.

One of the farmers fired and wounded a fox, but Domino managed to trick the dogs and leave. However, near the burrow on the trail of the fox attacked a fresh pack. A long chase began.

The weather was warm, streams ran everywhere, Domino's tail soon got wet, became heavy and slowed down greatly. The fox had almost no strength left when at the farm gate he saw a familiar girl and rushed to her, hoping for protection. The girl wanted to protect Domino, but her father gave the fox to the hunters when they promised to give the driven animal a small head start.

This they called "to act honestly" - to release three dozen strong dogs on one tormented fox!

The chase continued. The fierce Haeckel joined her. The only way out of the dominoes was the path on the cliff, which once had already saved him from Hekla. He rushed there, but the dog cut him off a cliff and drove him onto a sand spit, from where there was no way out. And then Domino jumped onto the ice, and Hekla followed him.

Two ice floes with a fox and a dog swam adrift towards the waterfall, where animals were expected to die. A whirlpool formed in front of the waterfall itself, moving the ice from the middle of the river closer to the shore. Domino gathered his remaining strength and, when his ice floe fell into a whirlpool, jumped to the shore.

Hekle was not lucky - her ice floe remained in the middle of the river, and the dog died in a waterfall. So Domino defeated his old enemy.

The retelling is based on the translation of N. Chukovsky.