skin of his chest. As he slashed, the fox,
after the manner of his kind, leaped clear. But he had no time to
run before Finn was upon him, with a roar of awakened fury. The fox
dodged and slashed again, drawing blood from the fleshy part of
Finn's fore-arm. Reynard fought like a wolf, or a light-weight
boxer; and after this last slash, he wheeled like lightning and
flew for cover. But the Wolfhound's fighting blood was boiling in
him now, and Finn swept down upon the fox, exactly as a greyhound
sweeps upon a hare. When his great jaws closed upon the fox's neck
this time, it was to kill. Reynard squirmed valiantly; but Finn
flung him on his back, and took new hold upon his throat. The fox's
two hind-feet, drawn well up, scored down Finn's belly like the
feet of a lynx; but it was Reynard's last movement, for, as he made
it, Finn's long fangs met in his jugular, and his warm blood
streamed upon the ground.

That was Finn's first big kill, and it marked an epoch in his
development, leaving active in him a newly-wakened instinct of
fierceness which had been foreign to his family for several
generations. If the big fox could have kept clear of Finn for but
two more days he would have saved his life; and, in any case, such
killings as Finn's had been during the past month or so could
hardly have continued much longer in that country-side without
attracting human attention, the result of which might have been
awkward for the Wolfhound. As it was, the superficial wounds the
fox had inflicted upon him were never noticed by the Master or the
Mistress of the Kennels, by reason of other happenings in which
Finn also was concerned. His wounds were not deep, his coat was
dense, and Finn doctored himself effectively with his own tongue.

Early on the morning after his successful hunting of the fox, Finn
found several strange men about the house and grounds. The Master
had arrived home late on the previous evening, unconscious, not
alone of Finn's fox-hunting, but of his foraging habits generally;
ignorant even of the fact that his one remaining Wolfhound ever
left the premises, unless with the Mistress of the Kennels. It was
a very large slice of Finn's life during the last few months that
was unknown to his human friends. All through this day Finn
pottered about the house and garden and the outside den, observing
with curiosity the behaviour of the strange men who wore green
aprons. It seemed to Finn that these men were bent upon