, for it's all clear going now between this and the
chalk cliffs which line the sea.' But he was wrong in that, as he
speedily discovered. In all the little hollows of the downs at that
part there are plantations of fir-woods, some of which have grown to a
good size. You do not see them until you come upon the edge of the
valleys in which they lie. Danbury was galloping hard over the short,
springy turf when he came over the lip of one of these depressions, and
there was the dark clump of wood lying in front of and beneath him.
There were only a dozen hounds still running, and they were just
disappearing among the trees. The sunlight was shining straight upon
the long olive-green slopes which curved down towards this wood, and
Danbury, who had the eyes of a hawk, swept them over this great expanse;
but there was nothing moving upon it. A few sheep were grazing far up
on the right, but there was no other sight of any living creature.
He was certain then that he was very near to the end, for either the fox
must have gone to ground in the wood or the hounds' noses must be at his
very brush. The mare seemed to know also what that great empty sweep of
countryside meant, for she quickened her stride, and a few minutes
afterwards Danbury was galloping into the fir-wood.

"He had come from bright sunshine, but the wood was very closely
planted, and so dim that he could hardly see to right or to left out of
the narrow path down which he was riding. You know what a solemn,
churchyardy sort of place a fir-wood is. I suppose it is the absence of
any undergrowth, and the fact that the trees never move at all. At any
rate a kind of chill suddenly struck Wat Danbury, and it flashed through
his mind that there had been some very singular points about this run--
its length and its straightness, and the fact that from the first find
no one had ever caught a glimpse of the creature. Some silly talk which
had been going round the country about the king of the foxes--a sort of
demon fox, so fast that it could outrun any pack, and so fierce that
they could do nothing with it if they overtook it--suddenly came back
into his mind, and it did not seem so laughable now in the dim fir-wood
as it had done when the story had been told over the wine and cigars.
The nervousness which had been on him in the morning, and which he had
hoped that he had shaken off, swept over him again in an overpowering
wave. He had been so proud of being alo