Mrs. Fox began to cry. She gathered her four children close to her and held them tight.

Suddenly there was an especially loud crunch above their heads and the sharp end of a shovel came right through the ceiling. The sight of this awful thing seemed to have an electric effect upon Mr. Fox. He jumped up and shouted, "I've got it! Come on! There's not a moment to lose! Why didn't I think of it before!" "Think of what, Dad?"

"A fox can dig quicker than a man!" shouted Mr. Fox, beginning to dig. "Nobody in the world can dig as quick as a fox!"

The soil began to fly out furiously behind Mr. Fox as he started to dig for dear life with his front feet. Mrs. Fox ran forward to help him. So did the four children.

"Go downwards!" ordered Mr. Fox. "We've got to go deep! As deep as we possibly can!»

The tunnel began to grow longer and longer. It sloped steeply downward. Deeper and deeper below the surface of the ground it went. The mother and the father and all four of the children were digging together. Their front legs were moving so fast you couldn't see them. And gradually the scrunching and scraping of the shovels became fainter and fainter.

After about an hour, Mr. Fox stopped digging. "Hold it!" he said. They all stopped. They turned and looked back up the long tunnel they had just dug. All was quiet. "Phew!" said Mr. Fox. "I think we've done it! They'll never get as deep as this. Well done, everyone!"

They all sat down, panting for breath. And Mrs. Fox said to her children, "I should like you to know that if it wasn't for your father we should all be dead by now. Your father is a fantastic fox."

Mr. Fox looked at his wife and she smiled. He loved her more than ever when she said things like that.

5

The Terrible Tractors

As the sun rose the next morning, Boggis and Bunce and Bean were still digging. They had dug a hole so deep you could have put a house into it. But they had not yet come to the end of the fox's tunnel. They were all very tired and cross.