CHAPTER V 
THE SHEEP SLAYER 
THE temptation came late in February, for that 
is famine time in the country-side. The rabbits 
were alert, and it was difficult to stalk birds success- 
fully when the leaves were off the trees. In three 
days Redpad had only picked up a starved rat 
and a sick pigeon, all skin and bone, and on the 
fourth day he caught nothing at all. His sides had 
fallen in, and his haunch bones stood out. At last 
he went to the moor ; but although he hunted there 
for a long while, he did not even see a field-mouse. 
The sun had set when he returned to Knockdane, 
and the stars came out, one by one, in the steely 
sky. It was going to freeze. Redpad jumped 
a wall into a little field, where withered fern grew 
more plentifully than grass, and across which 
the sheep stampeded. These were the ewes with 
young lambs, and they wheeled into a jostling 
flock at his approach. Redpad never looked at 
them as he skirted the field. He was well used 
to sheep, but so far, in his opinion, their only 
use was to foul his line for the hounds. Also, 
even had he been so minded, he could scarcely pull 
down a lamb under the hoofs of the dams, for col- 
lectively the old ewes were formidable. Therefore 
