156 ESCAPE 



ring with his death squeal. Frantic with fear, 

 maddened by dread of his fate, he made 

 a frenzied effort and just managed to pull his 

 loner hind leo^s throuo^h before Grev Fox could 

 seize them. 



Yet to that very opening which had all but 

 proved his destruction, he was now to owe his 

 life. For Grey Fox, desperately anxious to reach 

 him, forced his great head through the hole with 

 the hope of seizing him. and got it so firmly 

 wedged that some minutes elapsed before he 

 succeeded in withdrawino^ it. Bv that time the 

 hare was once more well on his way up the hill. 

 He had passed over the brow before the foxes dis- 

 covered the line of his retreat. But it was soon 

 evident, from their half-hearted manner, that they 

 were on the point of abandoning the pursuit, which 

 they did a bow-shot beyond the lighted cottage. 



What a change had come over them ! They 

 hardly looked the same creatures as when, alive 

 in every fibre, they had stood on the Beacon, 

 the embodiment of eaorerness and enero^v. Now 

 their heads drooped, their brushes that had waved 

 like feathers, dragged and seemed to weigh them 

 down. They looked dispirited, as indeed they 

 were, and humbled too : the grass-feeder had 

 proved more than a match for both of them, 

 though, as they had seen, he was hampered by 



