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She leaves no chips, and apparently makes clean work of every twig she cuts off. The hare is nocturnal in its habits, and though a very lively creature at night, with regular courses and run-ways through the wood, is entirely quiet by day.

Wandering through the run-ways, the monster chanced to discover the opening from the bank to Brighteye's chamber, and, thinking that here was a place admirably suited for a summer resort, proceeded to investigate. The vole scented him immediately, and, though the weaker animal, climbed quickly out and with tooth and nail fell upon the intruder.

It was only a short distance, though it had taken me, what of my wandering, all of a week to arrive. Had I come directly, I could have covered the trip in an hour. But to return. From the edge of the forest I saw the caves in the bluff, the open space, and the run-ways to the drinking-places. And in the open space I saw many of the Folk. I had been straying, alone and a child, for a week.

The green grass was growing rapidly under the withered blades that arched the run-ways between the river's brink and the woodland path; and, as the voles desired to keep these run-ways clear, they assiduously cut off all encroaching stems and brushed them aside. The stems dried, and in several places formed a screen beneath which the movements of the voles were not easily discernible.

My vision of the scene came abruptly, as I emerged from the forest. I found myself on the edge of a large clear space. On one side of this space rose up high bluffs. On the other side was the river. The earth bank ran steeply down to the water, but here and there, in several places, where at some time slides of earth had occurred, there were run-ways.

His strength had been taxed to the utmost, and, since his rage was expended and his tiny wounds were beginning to smart, he feared a second encounter and the possible loss of his lady-love. So, with simulated anger, he drove her before him along the up-stream path and into the network of deserted run-ways by the trout-reach.

But the concentrated and silent hatred of the entire populace was none the less a thing to chill the heart even of a giant Irish Wolfhound. The silence of the ghostly bush, in that brief half-light which preceded darkness, spoke loudly and eloquently of this hatred and resentment. The empty run-ways of the little grass-eating animals were full of it.

The snow-walkers are mostly night-walkers also, and the record they leave upon the snow is the main clew one has to their life and doings. The hare is nocturnal in its habits, and though a very lively creature at night, with regular courses and run-ways through the wood, is entirely quiet by day.

The flags in the reed-bed were not so succulent as they had been in early summer; the branches that sometimes guided him as he swam from place to place seemed strangely bare and grey; the clump of may-weed that, growing near his burrow, had served as a beacon in the gloom, was faded to a few short brown tufts; and nightly in his wanderings he was startled by the withered leaves that, like fluttering birds, descended near him on the littered run-ways or on the glassy surface of the river-reach.

There were the women and children, the water carriers, a number of them, filling their gourds. At sight of us they stampeded madly up the run-ways, leaving behind them a trail of gourds they had dropped. We landed, and of course we neglected to tie up the catamaran, which floated off down the river. Right cautiously we crept up a run-way.