copses and cornfields,
its ponds and streams like jewelery of diamonds and silver glittering
in the sun. The North Downs were hidden, far away beyond the Wealden
Heights. Down below was the little village of Cocking, and half-way up
the hill, a mile perhaps to the right, hung a flock of sheep grazing
together. Overhead an anxious peewit circled against the blue, and every
now and then emitted its feeble cry. Up here the heat was tempered by
a pleasant breeze. Mr. Hoopdriver was possessed by unreasonable
contentment; he lit himself a cigarette and lounged more comfortably.
Surely the Sussex ale is made of the waters of Lethe, of poppies and
pleasant dreams. Drowsiness coiled insidiously about him.

He awoke with a guilty start, to find himself sprawling prone on the
turf with his cap over one eye. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and realised
that he had slept. His head was still a trifle heavy. And the chase? He
jumped to his feet and stooped to pick up his overturned machine. He
whipped out his watch and saw that it was past two o'clock. "Lord love
us, fancy that!--But the tracks'll be all right," said Mr. Hoopdriver,
wheeling his machine back to the chalky road. "I must scorch till I
overtake them."

He mounted and rode as rapidly as the heat and a lingering lassitude
permitted. Now and then he had to dismount to examine the surface where
the road forked. He enjoyed that rather. "Trackin'," he said aloud, and
decided in the privacy of his own mind that he had a wonderful instinct
for 'spoor.' So he came past Goodwood station and Lavant, and approached
Chichester towards four o'clock. And then came a terrible thing. In
places the road became hard, in places were the crowded indentations of
a recent flock of sheep, and at last in the throat of the town cobbles
and the stony streets branching east, west, north, and south, at a stone
cross under the shadow of the cathedral the tracks vanished. "O Cricky!"
said Mr. Hoopdriver, dismounting in dismay and standing agape. "Dropped
anything?" said an inhabitant at the kerb. "Yes," said Mr. Hoopdriver,
"I've lost the spoor," and walked upon his way, leaving the inhabitant
marvelling what part of a bicycle a spoor might be. Mr. Hoopdriver,
abandoning tracking, began asking people if they had seen a Young Lady
in Grey on a bicycle. Six casual people hadn't, and he began to feel the
inquiry was conspicuous, and desisted. But what was to be done?

Hoopdriver was hot, tired, and hungry,