partly because Tric-Trac might see us, partly because the Lizard
wished any prowling passer-by to observe that he was occupied with his
illegitimate profession. For my part, I very much preferred a brush
with a garde-champetre or a summons to explain why no shots were found
in the Lizard's pheasants, rather than have anybody ask us why we were
walking so fast towards Sainte-Ysole woods.

Therefore we promptly selected a hedge for operations, choosing a
high, thick one, which separated two fields of wheat stubble.

Kneeling under the hedge, he broke a hole in it just large enough for
a partridge to worry through. Then he bent his twig, fastened the
hair-wire into a running noose, adjusted it, and stood up. This
manoeuvre he repeated at various hedges or in thickets where he
"lined" his trail with peeled twigs on every bush.

Once he paused to reset a hare-trap with a turnip, picked up in a
neighboring field; once he limed a young sapling and fixed a bit of a
mirror in the branches, but not a bird alighted, although the
blackthorns were full of fluttering wings. And all the while we had
been twisting and doubling and edging nearer and nearer to the
Sainte-Ysole woods, until we were already within their cool shadow,
and I heard the tinkle of a stream among leafy depths.

Now we had no fear; we were hidden from the eyes of the dry, staring
plain, and the Lizard laughed to himself as he fastened a grasshopper
to his hook and flung it into the broad, dark water of the pool at his
feet.

Slowly he fished up stream, but, although he seemed to be intent on
his sport, there was something in the bend of his head that suggested
he might be listening for other sounds than the complex melodies of
mossy waterfalls.

His poacher's eyes began to glisten and shimmer in the forest dusk
like the eyes of wild things that hunt at night. As he noiselessly
turned, his nostrils spread with a tremor, as a good dog's nose
quivers at the point.

Presently he beckoned me, stepped into the moss, and crawled without a
sound straight through the holly thicket.

"Watch here," he whispered. "Count a hundred when I disappear, then
creep on your stomach to the edge of that bank. In the bed of the
stream, close under you, you will see and hear your friend
Tric-Trac."

Before I had counted fifty I heard the Lizard cry out, "Bonjour,
Tric-Trac!" but I counted on, obeying the Lizard's orders as I should
wish mine to be obeyed. I heard a startled