here you paddle in hot weather,'
Una replied, watching a yellow-and-violet-banded snail-shell close to
her eye.

'Brooks flood. Then you must shift your sheep--let alone foot-rot
afterward. I put more dependence on a dew-pond any day.'

'How's a dew-pond made?' said Dan, and tilted his hat over his eyes. Mr.
Dudeney explained.

The air trembled a little as though it could not make up its mind
whether to slide into the Pit or move across the open. But it seemed
easiest to go down-hill, and the children felt one soft puff after
another slip and sidle down the slope in fragrant breaths that baffed on
their eyelids. The little whisper of the sea by the cliffs joined with
the whisper of the wind over the grass, the hum of insects in the thyme,
the ruffle and rustle of the flock below, and a thickish mutter deep in
the very chalk beneath them. Mr. Dudeney stopped explaining, and went on
with his knitting.

They were roused by voices. The shadow had crept half-way down the steep
side of Norton's Pit, and on the edge of it, his back to them, Puck sat
beside a half-naked man who seemed busy at some work. The wind had
dropped, and in that funnel of ground every least noise and movement
reached them like whispers up a water-pipe.

'That is clever,' said Puck, leaning over. 'How truly you shape it!'

'Yes, but what does The Beast care for a brittle flint tip? Bah!' The
man flicked something contemptuously over his shoulder. It fell between
Dan and Una--a beautiful dark-blue flint arrow-head still hot from the
maker's hand.

The man reached for another stone, and worked away like a thrush with a
snail-shell.

'Flint work is fool's work,' he said at last. 'One does it because one
always did it, but when it comes to dealing with The Beast--no good!' He
shook his shaggy head.

'The Beast was dealt with long ago. He has gone,' said Puck.

'He'll be back at lambing-time. _I_ know him.' He chipped very
carefully, and the flints squeaked.

'Not he. Children can lie out on the Chalk now all day through and go
home safe.'

'Can they? Well, call The Beast by his True Name, and I'll believe it,'
the man replied.

'Surely!' Puck leaped to his feet, curved his hands round his mouth and
shouted: "Wolf! Wolf!"

Norton's Pit threw back the echo from its dry sides--'Wuff! Wuff!' like
Young Jim's bark.

'You see? You hear?' said Puck. 'Nobody answers. Grey Shepherd is gone.
Feet-in-the-Night has run off. There are no more wolves.