ODDS AND ENDS 291 



forget where at any rate, she had to change at a 

 station where it seems she was tied up on the plat- 

 form by a chain, her collar being as usual. She 

 became frightened, slipped her collar, and away she 

 went. Three months afterwards, knowing nothing 

 about the spaniel, I was passing along a hedge with 

 a spirited retriever, that was just getting useful. 

 Suddenly there was a commotion in the hedge, out 

 of which on the other side rushed a black spaniel. 

 I caught sight of a trap on its near fore-paw, and 

 gave chase. How, in the circumstances, that spaniel 

 managed to run as she did I do not know, but she 

 soon got a field ahead of me. So I set my retriever 

 after her. Finally, after a run of about a mile with- 

 out a check, we ran her to ground in a farmyard. 

 She was very hostile ; but I held her with a two- 

 tined prong, fastened a cord round her neck, and 

 removed the trap from her paw. From that 

 moment she was as quiet as possible, and seemed 

 pleased to allow me to carry her home, where I 

 bathed her foot, and gave her milk and a soft bed. 

 I never found out where she got into the trap, which 

 evidently had been on her paw for some days. I 

 felt certain she was the same dog I had seen un- 

 attended in a field about six weeks before, as I was 

 cycling. 



I went to the police-station to make inquiries. 

 The superintendent looked down the list of lost 

 dogs, and said there was none answering to the 



19 2 



