Page:Redcoat (1927).djvu/57

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trail and followed it to the burrow they would have been lost, for it would have been an easy matter to dig them out.

But, instead, the hounds took the trail of Mother Fox and the two obedient ones and followed it hotly along the mountain. Then all the hounds were loosed and the pack took up the chase and the outcry was tremendous. The echoes rolled along the mountain side and far down into the valley. It was sweetest music to the ears of the hunters, but to the poor foxes it was a terrible sound.

As soon as the direction of the chase had been established, several of the hunters hurried to advantageous points where they would wait in ambush for the fleeing foxes. Such a position was the roadway which crossed the mountain two miles east of the fox burrow. Pour hunters were posted in this road at intervals of twenty rods, awaiting the oncoming pack.

The foxes were so obsessed by the din behind that they did not notice the danger ahead until they burst into the road.

Bang! Bang! went the man-creatures'