nconsciously seen him, and put him down as a bundle of dead
twigs and leaves caught up in a branch. This is not very
complimentary, perhaps, to a gentleman attired in a gorgeous uniform as
heretofore set out, but true; and lucky for him, too, to have at once a
uniform of unquestioned splendor and one which would melt into its
surroundings.

They, the men, did not see him; but he, the old cock-pheasant, saw them
right enough. He opened one eye, and stared at them through that.
Then he opened the other eye, and stared at them through that. Neither
stare seemed to please him.

It was not Gaiters's way to march through the wood at that hour in the
morning. What meant this unseemly disturbance of _Phasianus's_ domain?
His suspicions, never long at rest, woke up. Moreover, somewhere at
the back of his brain rose a memory, a little, tiny speck of a memory,
which grew.

Then he stood right up.

Everywhere, here and there, in the gray cloak of the dawn-mist, he
could hear the sharp "Chawk-chawk!" and the quick, flustered whir as
pheasant after pheasant came down from its roosting-perch to clean and
breakfast. But his suspicions held him for a few minutes longer,
stretching his neck and peering about at the still-shrouded mystery of
the ground below; and it was as well, perhaps.

Suddenly his head was still; a spray of a brier-bush was swaying
gently. There was nothing in that, of course, if there had been any
breath of wind to move it; but there wasn't. Wherefore our gallant
friend did not come down to preen and breakfast like the rest, but sat
motionless as a statue, while the sun rose and touched him to a winking
golden and bronze wonder, and the mists began to be torn asunder. He
wanted to know what moved that brier-branch, and he wasn't taking
chances till he did.

Day came on apace, and all the night hunters who had remained so late
had already hurried off to bed save one. _He_ appeared, evidently
empty, certainly very angry indeed at having waited for a cock-pheasant
who refused to do what he was supposed to do and come down to
breakfast. Out of the brier-bush he came, a lean dog-fox, snarling
horribly up at the pheasant, who calmly returned the gaze, conscious of
his safety, of course, and said "Chuck it!" in a loud, harsh voice, and
quite distinctly, twice.

The fox, knowing it was no good to wait any longer in the daylight,
went, like a floating red shadow. The pheasant watched him go, but did
not