A BRUSH WITH FATE. 208 
that he might have been caught in a trap. 
But he was not. 
The ‘earth’ had been stopped up in the 
night by some man fool, and a hasty search 
revealed the only other ‘earth’ in like con- 
dition, and foxy had to seek a bed of bracken 
for the day. He could not risk moving across 
the open to the next covert before night 
came. 
He awoke to find himself staring straight 
at the heavy jaw and the deep eyes of a fox- 
hound one yard away. Then the fox wasn’t 
there. He had just rolled over and gone off 
like smoke, and by the time the hounds got 
to the open on his trail, rending the silent 
morning with the crash of their maddening 
‘music, the fox was fairly kicking the miles 
behind him two fields away. 
A hunted fox does not have to let the 
ground grow mouldy under him or forget to 
use his brains—if he wants to save his ‘ brush’ 
—when a pack of modern foxhounds are 
wanting him. 
He raced for seven miles at the speed of 
some trains; he rolled in a road where scent 
might not cling; he ran along a wall for the 
same reason; he wound his trail round village 
gardens, went through a flock of sheep, galloped 
back on his trail, and took three clean leaps to 
