REDPAD THE FOX 15 
and their flanks heaved, but they pressed on as 
keenly as ever, as first one and then the other picked 
up the failing scent. 
Several times the hare had doubled back a short 
way and then leaped aside to baffle her pursuers ; 
but Vix was cunning, and by casting to right or 
left, never failed to nose out the line. 
At last they came to a field not very far from 
their starting point, and here they checked at fault. 
Redpad turned to the right, but Vix snuffled her way 
down the loosely built stone wall which bounded 
the field. Suddenly a hare leaped up almost under 
her feet, and hurled itself at the wall. It clung to 
the top for an instant and then, slowly stiffening, 
dropped back into Vix's jaws. The chase was over. 
Redpad galloped back across the field, his coal 
wet with dew and his tongue flopping out. Vix 
was already crouched over her kill. At his approach 
she glanced at him suspiciously, and for the first 
time in his life she growled at him not the low 
lazy growl of an old vixen to her riotous cub, but the 
deep menacing rumble of one grown fox to another. 
For this, Redpad's first long chase and kill, was, 
so to speak, the day of his coming of age. Vix's 
instinct told her that the change had come. He 
was no longer the red, woolly cub who had tugged 
at her side, but a full-grown fox able to fend for 
