“Ah! but they had the best of it,” said Happy, her eyes sparkling; “they stayed out two whole days, and when they had tired out the stray dogs that followed and the young dogs that only wanted to play, they settled down to work. They knew their ground well for they’d just been on a spring run with the squire and Mr. Hugh to locate the dens for fall work. Late the next night, Flo says, the squire’s Harkaway and Meadow-Lark gave tongue so loudly that the squire and Mr. Hugh went out, and following the cry two miles found them just as they had killed an old gray fox, the biggest hen-roost robber of all the Pine Ridge pack, one they had tried to shoot and trap for years, as his scars quickly told them. [Illustration] “Wasn’t the squire proud! He gave Miss Jule the brush, though it wasn’t good for much,--pelts are poor in summer,--and he made a meat feast for all the hounds, for after they had heard Meadow-Lark’s death bay they came limping back one by one. Next day when I went up to talk to Silver-Tongue he was standing as usual by the sluiceway of the swimming-pool catching frogs, but when I asked him to come over by the fence and lie down, and tell me about the great hunt, he said he’d rather stand up for he didn’t bend well. That is one of the hardest things about not running free, you don’t get your exercise every day when _you_ want it, but when somebody else does, and then it comes all together in bunches, and between times you get rusty.” “What happened about Mr. Hugh’s pups, did he get them back, and the turkeys and ducks?” asked Waddles, who was beginning to grow sleepy. “Bills happened and lots of talking, Hamlet told me about that and Mr. Wolf. The farmer and the miller wouldn’t give back the dogs until they got their money either, and Hamlet says if Mr. Hugh teases Miss Letty she only has to sing ‘Over the hills and far away!’ and he stops, but I don’t see what that has got to do with it, do you?” “Hush!” signalled Waddles, knocking on the floor with his tail to attract Happy’s attention, “Missy is coming!” Yes, Anne was coming downstairs, not barefoot this time, but dressed in a warm, red bath gown, her feet in moccasins, and looking in the dim light very like the Indian maidens she loved to call her kin. She had been planning what picture she would take first on the morrow, and she thought her camera might be safer in her room; at any rate if she put it on the chair beside her bed she would see it the moment she opened her eyes, for this camera was not merely a picture machine to her, but a magical live thing to help her keep the images of those she loved. She was just deciding that Waddles should have the honour of being the first to be photographed, as he would probably be ready sooner than her mother, when the burned-out log fell apart, and its parting glow showed her Happy, lying on the hearth-rug.