FIRST BLOOD 49 



Billy devoted a good deal of soliloquy as to what he 

 would have done had he been the fox, and why. 



^' Now that first beggar, if he had only gone on 

 past Huntly wood, he might have run us out of scent 

 with his twenty minutes' start, instead of trying to 

 push his brother up " (we had decided they were 

 brothers) '^ and then going and trying to hide. Silly 

 ass ! I'd rather have gone till I dropped than stuff my 

 head into a rabbit hole and be half dead with suffo- 

 cation first, before being dragged out like a con- 

 demned criminal. These two cubs showed all the 

 difference between how to die like a soldier, face to 

 the foe, and how to die like a convict." 



" Why convict. Bill ? " 



" Because, don't you see, in his last moments, all 

 his past evil life would come up before him, and he 

 felt so jolly mean-spirited that he didn't care, and 

 convicted himself and hid for very shame." 



" After all, I suppose that both the two of them did 

 what they thought to be their duty ; and anyhow, 

 they served a purpose. Well, at least, they only 

 obeyed the first instinct of all animals, which is that 

 of self-preservation ; and whether their actions were 

 directed by any other motive or not, we cannot tell." 



After a pause, the talk took a more serious turn. 



Our philosopher remarked : '* I suppose we run 

 a certain amount of risk ourselves in galloping over 

 these rough moors ; though I take it, and we all take 

 it, as only part of the fun, and we would not ask for 

 less of it." 



" Do you know that the Arabs have a proverb — 

 * The horseman's grave is always open ' ? " 



" No ; but I rather like it. I don't call myself a 



D 



