hin fifteen or twenty minutes
and the rabbit still remained where she was he would shoot.

Now be it known that the thump of a rabbit can be heard a long distance.
It was so unexpected and so loud that it fairly startled Sparrer, who
was wholly unfamiliar with this method of rabbit signaling. The ground
is an excellent transmitter of sound and the heavy snow crust was hardly
less effective. Other ears than Sparrer's heard, and for them that
signal was pregnant with meaning and possibilities. Not two minutes
later Sparrer caught sight of a black spot moving swiftly in his
direction. It was the fox.

As he drew nearer he moved more slowly and with characteristic cunning
and caution. Every few steps he paused to listen and to look sharply
under every tree and bush. He no longer tested the air as when Sparrer
had last seen him, for now he was working down wind and must trust to
eyes and ears rather than to his nose. But he was no less thorough in
the way in which he covered the ground. Back and forth across Sparrer's
field of vision he wove, investigating every likely hiding-place,
approaching each with infinite care, tense, alert, the picture of
eagerness, prepared to spring at the first move of his quarry.

As he approached Sparrer could read in every move and attitude of the
black hunter expectancy and confidence. That he knew to a reasonable
certainty the approximate location from which that signal thump had
sounded was clearly evident. That he also knew that the rabbit might
have, and very likely had, moved since thumping was also clear and he
was taking no chance of over-running his game. If he kept on as he was
coming he would be within shooting distance within a few minutes. Inch
by inch Sparrer raised the rifle and then, hardly daring to breathe,
tense, as motionless as the trees among which he stood, he waited.

The fox was now within thirty yards, and still coming. It was plain that
he was unsuspicious of danger and intent wholly on the hunt. At this
point he turned obliquely to the left to investigate an old log. Sparrer
was tempted to shoot, but a clump of alders was in the way and he well
knew that even a small twig would be almost sure to deflect the bullet.
He would wait. Finding nothing at the log the fox turned and quartered
to the right, which brought him into the open between the rabbit and
the hunter and but a few yards from the former. The angle at which he
was approaching was such as to offer the s