CHAPTER X 



THE FIENDS OF THE WILD 



Unrelenting as the frost seemed on Christmas 

 Day, it yielded the next night but one to a 

 warm westerly wind, the thaw setting in before 

 dawn. When Andrew crossed to the bullock- 

 house, water was dripping from the barn, by 

 noon bush and boulder were beginning to 

 show on the hill, at nightfall runnel and stream 

 were chattering along their courses. The sound 

 of running water cheered the birds at roost 

 on branch and spray ; it cheered the hare 

 too, who kept snuffing the warm breeze that 

 relaxed the icy fetters on the stream and melted 

 the snow clogging his fur. Within forty-eight 

 hours the balls of snow had completely dis- 

 appeared, leaving him as light as a feather for 

 his gallop over the moorland, where his path 

 was marked by the spray which he spurned 

 from the shallow pools. The splashes seemed 

 to be caused by some ricochetting missile, so 



IGO 



