1 9 o WOLF-HUNTING. 



declared in the strongest terms that, if he died from the injury, 

 he hoped the law would send the drunken ruffian to the galleys 

 for life. 



When the excitement had somewhat subsided in front of the 

 Cheval Blanc, and our little party had gathered round a blazing 

 wood fire in the salle-a-manger, the fate of the missing hounds 

 became the subject of earnest conversation, ere the programme 

 was settled for the next day's hunting at Kilvern. 



" Out of the eight couple," said St. Prix, " taken to the forest, 

 two hounds only have been recovered by Louis Trefarreg. The 

 rest, he thinks, had found an old wolf, and gone away for Locrist 

 or Dualt. He followed them through Conveau, so far as the 

 Botderu Monument, and then they broke away over the mountain 

 waste, and he heard no more of them." 



" Small chance have I, then, of ever seeing a hound of them 

 again," said Kergoorlas, in a tone of sheer despair. 



" Never fear," cried Shafto. " Most of them, I'll undertake 

 to say, will be secured by the peasants, and brought either to 

 St. Prix's or my kennels ; and probably some may find their way 

 home to your own kennels on the Loire." 



" I wish I could think so," said the disconsolate owner, 

 determined not to be comforted " but fifty leagues of country, 

 bristling with furze, broom, and forest, are not likely to be 

 traversed by hounds already wearied by a hard day's work. 

 Besides, if the pack breaks up, and they straggle singly over 

 the wilderness, the wolves will eat every hound of them, to a 

 certainty." 



Shafto was on the point of relating a story about a pack of 

 hounds which their owner, wishing to be rid of them, had taken 

 into a far country, found a fox, and then left them running, a 

 legacy to the land, when St. Prix, remarking the lateness of the 

 hour, entreated the attention of the chasseurs to the necessity of 

 at once settling the plan with respect to Kilvern, the meet at 



