REDPAD THE FOX 19 
them, and ran straight to his mother's lair. It 
was still warm, but empty. Redpad made up his 
mind quickly. To his right the wood was less 
thick. Here and there grew an isolated oak or pine, 
and the hillside was covered with rocks and fern. 
A little way off there was a crag some forty feet high 
at whose foot rose a little stream. Redpad pattered 
up this to its source ; and about six feet from the 
ground, half hidden by polypody ferns, found a 
cleft in the limestone. A rush and a scramble carried 
him into this retreat, which was just large enough 
to contain him ; and the ferns had scarcely ceased 
to wave before the hounds broke out of the covert. 
Redpad watched the huntsman put them into the 
patch of bracken. One worked one way, and one 
another, but they had no leader, for the old hounds 
were mostly down in the valley. And the longer 
they lingered, the staler grew the scent. 
Suddenly a lemon-and-white hound on the bank 
of the stream lifted up his voice and announced 
that a fox had passed that way, and the rest rushed 
after him. Two men rode behind the 
hounds, and one said to the other, pointing 
out the pale one who had picked up the 
scent : 
' That 's a grand houn' 
in the makinV 
