ling mane the only sign
that he had not been suddenly turned to stone. He did not stir as I
came up, and not wishing to quarrel, I stepped around past his nose and
walked on. Wully at once left his position and in the same eerie silence
trotted on some twenty feet and again stood across the pathway. Once
more I came up and, stepping into the grass, brushed past his nose.
Instantly, but without a sound, he seized my left heel. I kicked out
with the other foot, but he escaped. Not having a stick, I flung a large
stone at him. He leaped forward and the stone struck him in the ham,
bowling him over into a ditch. He gasped out a savage growl as he fell,
but scrambled out of the ditch and limped away in silence.

Yet sullen and ferocious as Wully was to the world, he was always gentle
with Dorley's sheep. Many were the tales of rescues told of him. Many
a poor lamb that had fallen into a pond or hole would have perished but
for his timely and sagacious aid, many a far-weltered ewe did he turn
right side up; while his keen eye discerned and his fierce courage
baffled every eagle that had appeared on the moor in his time.

III

The Monsaldale farmers were still paying their nightly tribute to the
Mad Fox, when the snow came, late in December. Poor Widow Cot lost her
entire flock of twenty sheep, and the fiery cross went forth early in
the morning. With guns unconcealed the burly farmers set out to follow
to the finish the tell-tale tracks in the snow, those of a very large
fox, undoubtedly the multo-murderous villain. For a while the trail was
clear enough, then it came to the river and the habitual cunning of the
animal was shown. He reached the water at a long angle pointing down
stream and jumped into the shallow, unfrozen current. But at the
other side there was no track leading out, and it was only after long
searching that, a quarter of a mile higher up the stream, they found
where he had come out. The track then ran to the top of Henley's high
stone wall, where there was no snow left to tell tales. But the patient
hunters persevered. When it crossed the smooth snow from the wall to the
high road there was a difference of opinion. Some claimed that the track
went up, others down the road. But Jo settled it, and after another long
search they found where apparently the same trail, though some said a
larger one, had left the road to enter a sheep-fold, and leaving this
without harming the occupants, the track-maker had st