CHAPTER II 
THE HUNTERS 
So this was the coming of Redpad to Knockdane. 
A whole book might be written about his early 
adventures, but as this is to be his history, I must 
pass them by to speak of those things which befell 
him as he grew older. It is sufficient to say that 
he entered on his career in the woods with two 
important assets a good nose and a good mother ; 
and these two will carry one of the Fur Folk far. 
Vix kept her cub in an old rabbit burrow until 
he was old enough to hunt for himself. The first 
blood which Redpad ever drew was, strange to 
say, his own. One May evening he was playing by 
the mouth of the hole, when all at once a rustle in 
a bluebell bed attracted him. His instinct, which 
until now had lain dormant, awoke. He bunched 
his woolly legs together and bared his little milk 
teeth. The flower bells waved to and fro again 
and Redpad cleared the intervening space with one 
bound, to land, pads extended, upon a sulky hedge- 
hog. He crept whimpering back to his mother to 
lick his sore toes and meditate on one of the oldest' 1 
saws of the Fox Folk, which runs : ' Never spring I 
until your nose confirms your eyes and ears.' J 
The woods are at their loveliest in May, whefi 
