108 GREY FOX 



settled down with a feeling of real security until 

 day had fully declared itself and driven all his 

 persecutors to their retreats. Not a living 

 thing showed at first ; presently however his 

 gaze was arrested by some animal that issued 

 wraith-like from a patch of mist, and after cross- 

 ing a wide strip of moor entered the croft 

 bordering the ** linhay " field. There he could 

 see it as it threaded the stunted furze, though 

 not plainly enough to make quite sure that it 

 was a fox as he suspected. All doubt was 

 removed when the creature, after being hidden by 

 intervening bank and overgrown ditch, crossed 

 the boundary wall and began stealing up the hill 

 straight for the form. It was Grey Fox himself. 

 It looked now as if the hare's forebodings 

 were at last to be verified, but it was not so, 

 for the brute entered the clump of tall furze 

 midway up the slope and remained there. 



The hare concluded that the fox had ken- 

 nelled ; he even judged him to be already asleep, 

 so weary and exhausted did he look. But Grey 

 Fox never thought of curling himself up ; he 

 was far too anxious for that ; he was eagerly 

 surveying the plain for sight of the enemy who 

 had been pursuing him from farm to farm and 

 moor to moor since midnight. He looked long 

 without seeing aught, but he dared not compose 



