At two o’clock they were pottering about Tunbarton Wood, having had a disappointing morning. The second horsemen came up with sandwich-boxes, and, scattered in groups among the broad rides, people ate lunch, smoked, enjoyed the sunshine, and grumbled at the weather, which made sport impossible. And then the unexpected happened, as in fox-hunting it usually does. Hounds found in a far corner of the wood, and disappeared on a burning scent before any one could get to them. Instantly the world seemed to be filled with people galloping in all directions, inquiring where hounds had gone, and receiving no satisfactory answer. Experience had taught Mr. Carteret that under such conditions the most unfortunate thing to do is to follow others who know as little as one’s self. Accordingly he opened a hand gate, withdrew a few yards into a secluded lane, pulled up, and tried to think like a fox. This idea had been suggested by Mr. Kipling’s Gloucester fisherman who could think like a cod. While he was thinking, he saw a great many people gallop by in the highway in both directions. He noted Major Hammerslea, who was apt to be conspicuous when there was hard riding on the road, leading a detachment of people north. He noted Lady Martingale, who liked fences better than roads, leading a charge south. And following Lady Martingale he noted Captain Wynford. Apparently, then, the Abbey people were out, after all. “Perhaps Mrs. Ascott-Smith will turn up,” he said to himself, and he followed Wynford with his eyes until he was out of sight, but saw neither Mrs. Ascott-Smith nor any one else who might have been under his escort. After a while there were no more people going by in either direction. Something like a sigh escaped him; then he lit a cigarette. “If I were the hunted fox,” he said to himself, “I think I should have circled over Crumpelow Hill, and then bent south with the idea of getting to ground in Normanhurst Wood. I’ll take a try at it.” He rode off down the lane to the eastward, riding slowly, for there was no hurry. If he was right, he would be ahead of the fox. If he was wrong, he was so far behind that it made no difference what he did. So he jogged on up and down hill, and smoked. He rode thus for about two miles when his hope began to wither. On every side stretched the winter-green, rolling country fenced into a patchwork of great pastures. In the distance, to the south, lay the brown-gray mass of Normanhurst Wood. The landscape was innocent of any gleam of scarlet coat or black figure of horseman on hilltop against the sky. “I’m wrong,” he said half aloud. “I guess I could think better as a codfish than as a fox.”