"I've been a fool."
"Why?" she asked.
"To be caught without a gun. I could have killed him."
"Would you?"
"It's he or us."
Her answer surprised him. There was no fear in her face, but sympathy filled it; and a little colour came.
"Then you will kill him," she said with assurance. "I'll do whatever you say, and we'll beat him."
Dick nodded. "See those hazels?" he said. "We'll scrounge behind 'em to start with."
By the time they were settled in the new cover they could hear heavy feet in the distance, crashing through the low tangle of undergrowth. And Amaryllis, fear cast out by trust, and her physical prostration for the moment counteracted by the intensity of her interest in him, and by her curiosity to see how next his versatility of resource would show itself, watched Dick's face as he listened to the feet of his enemy. Each step, she thought, had a different shade of meaning for him. His left ear seemed to follow, and his eyes seemed to see each stride of the hunter, and at last he spoke:
"He's working along this side of the embankment. Now he's in the track that cuts through this copse. We're close to it here—see, through there, between the beech and the young oak. Hear his feet: stones, puddle, soft rut," he said rhythmically. "Caught his foot. He's following the path—going slower—walking, and trying to look both sides at once in the undergrowth."