s without
the hounds trim 'em hard on a straight, burning scent." "Well, we'll
give 'em a good start, whatever happens," replied the huntsman; "here's
two more bunnies for the larder. If the old girl shifts her quarters,
find out her new "earth," and feed her well. I shouldn't like to be near
the guv'nor if the young uns turn out mangy when we hustle 'em about a
bit in the autumn."

The voices ceased, the furze-bushes were removed from the tunnel
entrances, a cold, steady current of air filled the chamber and the
passages, and the vixen knew that a way had been made for her escape.
She was not, however, so foolhardy as to venture forth while the scent
of her foes remained strong in the thicket; she lingered, in spite of
extreme thirst, till the shadows of evening deepened perceptibly in her
underground abode.

When the vixen stole out into the grass, the pale moon was brightening
in the southern sky, and a solitary star glimmered faintly above the
tree-tops. A thrush sang his vesper from the bare branch of an oak near
by, and a blackbird, startled by the sight of a strange form squatting
beside the brambles, sounded his shrill alarm and dipped across the
clearing towards a clump of blackthorn bushes. As soon as she heard the
blackbird's warning, the vixen vanished; but, presently reappearing, she
trotted across the open space and sat beneath the thorns. For some
minutes she remained motionless in the dark patch of shadow, listening
intently; then, passing slowly down a narrow path, she reached a
trickling streamlet that fell with constant music from stone to stone
between luxuriant masses of moss and lichen; and there, at a gravelly
pool among the boulders, she cautiously stooped to drink. With exceeding
care, she now proceeded to make a thorough inspection of the covert. The
night was so calm and bright that the rabbits were feeding everywhere on
the margin of the thickets, but the vixen passed them by with nothing
but a casual glance; her mind, for the present, was not concerned with
hunting. After skirting the covert, she turned homewards by a pathway
through the trees.

At the end of the path she paused, with head bent low and hackles
ruffled along the spine--the scent of another vixen lay fresh on the
ground. The peculiar taint told her a complete story. The strange vixen
was soon to become a mother, and probably, in anticipation of the event,
inhabited an "earth" close by. Casting about like an experienced houn