e her to the earth and his
massive jaw closed about her ruff as a vise grips wood.

And in the moment of the vixen's death, just as Master Black-and-Gray so
far recovered his breath and his senses as to sit up and take stock of
himself; a pony's nose appeared in the gap alongside him and introduced
another new experience into this adventurous puppy's life. The pony must
have appeared to his gaze very much as an elephant would appear to a
child upon first view. But Black-and-Gray growled threateningly, though
he did take two or three backward steps. On the pony's back sat Betty
Murdoch, who now slid to the ground and knelt down beside the pup.

Then Desdemona came shuffling down the slope with reassuring little
whines of response to her son's growling. And to these there came Finn,
a trifle winded, and bearing traces of blood and fur about his bearded
gray muzzle. So Master Black-and-Gray, whose knowledge of his
fellow-inhabitants of the earth had hitherto been confined to Finn and
Desdemona and his own brothers and sisters--now defunct--found himself,
at the close of this most adventurous afternoon, the center of an
admiring, wondering circle formed by his mother and her wolfhound mate,
and the pony and Betty Murdoch. Having regarded each one among his
audience in turn questioningly, he finally waddled out to his mother and
thrust his somewhat bruised little nose greedily into her hanging dugs,
so that Desdemona, forgetful for the moment of other matters, was
impelled to lower herself to the turf and yield sustenance to her only
surviving offspring.

XI

JAN GOES TO NUTHILL

The idea came to me quite suddenly when I saw Finn walk off with the
best of his dinner bones to the Downs. I'd just come in from the
village, and Punch was hitched to the gate-post, so I got into the
saddle again and set out on Master Finn's trail.

Thus Betty Murdoch, later on in the evening, explaining the position to
the Master and to the Mistress of the Kennels.

"I felt sure he must be going to Desdemona," continued Betty. "And--"

"It really is a wonder we none of us thought of that before," said her
aunt.

They were all assembled now in a roomy loose box in the Nuthill stables.
Comfortably ensconced in a bed of clean straw, Desdemona was nursing her
puppy under the approving gaze of Finn, who sat on his haunches beside
the Master, gravely reviewing his mate's changed situation.

"I think the cave must be quite four miles