The last “O” was long-drawn. Across it came the ill-dashed “yamf” of a fox.
“Something wrong with his crying pipes. That’s no barkin’ an’ fleeing sound,” said Andrew, flashing a glance over his shoulder at the girls behind. “Zooks! What a mad yammer he’s makin’ the morn!”
A sad yammer it was, with a note in it of supplication that in turn became a jabber, as of cackling laughter.
“Dear sakes! he’s cacklin’ like a hen—a hen, at a hen-wile.” The chauffeur leaned forward over his steering wheel. “Ah! there he is—the puir beastie. Dog out!” proclaimed the voice which had said the same of the falling aviator. “Ha! Trapped he is! Trapped, by that worming snake-fence! Trapped—an’ by the open roadside!”
Trapped! The girls shrank together, shuddering—young shoulder to shoulder.
“Deil tak’ it now! if this isn’t a sight to comb ’em against the hair—make the whole day seem ill-hued,” ground out Andrew. “Taken in a skunk trap, the bit beastie! This is no season for trappin’ foxes. Taken in a trap that some farmer has set for a skunk that’s been bothering his chickens! Weary fa’ the loon that set it here by the roadside!”
He shot another glance over his shoulder, the fatherly chauffeur, at the two lassies in his charge. Una had covered her ears with her hands. Pemrose was sitting tragically upright. Her face was pale. In her blue eyes was the glint half-baffled, but not routed, which lit her father’s when, driven to the last ditch of inventive ingenuity, he fought Nature for some discovery.
“Noo, what had I better do?” panted the chauffeur to himself. “Knock the puir thing on the head here now, afore the lassies? To drive on and leave him to die by slow inches in that ill-teethed trap—that’s na possible.... Ods! but he looks hangit-like—shamed—shamed o’ being caught—like—this.”
There was moisture in Andrew’s eye now. Automatically, almost—and looking round for a club—he had slowed down.
And from the ditch at the roadside, the wild mountain byroad, the red fox eyed him, groveling in his last ditch.