the church bell had summoned from outlying homesteads.
They crossed the water below the pool, the squire examined the tracks, the hounds were laid on, and the rocky gorge with all the wood about it immediately resounded with their wild music, while the squire and every man behind him thrilled at the prospect of at last coming up with the creature whose movements had so long baffled them. The ground was very rough, and in parts swampy, yet not a man turned back. That active, hard-conditioned followers made light of the obstacles and the pace was, of course, not surprising; but that the landlord, the clerk, and the chef—short-legged, eleven-score men every one of them—should scramble over rocks and fallen timber, flounder through thickets and boggy places, and still hold on, bedraggled and breathless though they were, testified to the fascination the pursuit of the giant otter had for them.
Some two miles above Longen Pool the squire caught sight of spraints on a boulder in the middle of the river, and knew at once from their position at its upper end that the otter which had dropped them was travelling down-water. At once he recalled the hounds and began draw-
