In the morning they were just starting out on an exploring tour when they were alarmed by the baying of a hound.
Now Lop Ear had always had an important duty at the Valley Farm. It had been his part to round up the cows when night came, or when any of them went astray in the woods. And all day yesterday he had missed Fleet Foot from her stall in the hay-barn.
True, she had always seemed different from the regular cows. Until she came there with her broken leg, he had always supposed she belonged in the woods. But surely, surely the Farmer would not have kept her there unless she belonged there, reasoned the, faithful dog. And now she was gone!
There was but one thing to do: he must go in search of her and bring her home.
All that day he tried in vain to find her trail. The next morning he was up with the sun. This time he would search farther afield. “Wow! Bow-wow! Wow-wow-wow!” Here was a footprint, unless his nose deceived him! What’s more, they had passed that way not ten minutes since! It was but a matter of following the trail, and he would be nipping at their heels and driving them back to the Farm.
“Wow-wow-wow!” he bayed; and Frisky, the Red Fox Pup, heard and came trotting to peek at him and see what it was all about.
The sound filled the fawns with uneasiness. They had always been afraid of Lop Ear, with his nipping and yapping around the cattle.
“Children,” bade Fleet Foot sternly, “hurry to that clump of bracken and lie down. Stretch your heads and fore legs out straight in front of you and lie there as flat as you can make yourselves,—while I lead this hound off somewhere where he’ll lose your scent.”
The fawns obeyed instantly.
Fleet Foot then doubled back on her trail, and with a stamp and a snort to call the hound’s attention, she soon had him following her great bounds in quite the opposite direction. She kept just far enough ahead of him to make sure he wouldn’t give up the chase—though she could easily have out-distanced him.