Whitefoot the brown-eyed, intent on his business, was taking his usual route to Ladykirk. It was a dark night, but he could see more and farther than any man. He knew that Patsy would be waiting for him in the kitchen of Miss Aline's house, that she would have something extremely toothsome for him to eat while she was preparing the collar which in a few minutes would be slipped about his neck. Then he would be free to return to his master in the secret den which he had chosen to sleep in that night. Whitefoot moved like a lank and ghostly wolf through the tall grass and crops, skirting the barer places and keeping close in to the dusky verges of the hedges. All went well with him till he took the ha-ha ditch at his usual racing pace, and was instantly wrapped up by a net into a kicking ball exactly like a rabbit at the mouth of a hole. A bag was somehow slipped over his head, and inside it he could neither bite nor bark. His nose was tightly held and his collar removed. It seemed ages to Whitefoot before he found himself free again. Then he wasted no time, but made one bolt for the kitchen door of Ladykirk. It was open, and he entered all dazed and shaking. He had felt the hands of men about him, yet they had done him no harm. He shook himself joint by joint to make sure. All was right. Perhaps they were only out hunting and he had deranged them. Whitefoot knew quite well what it was to chase rabbits and hares into just such nets. At any rate he could not explain, but took the piece of beef which Patsy had waiting for him with satisfaction. On his return Whitefoot tried the garden-hedge farther down, but here again he found himself in a bag. Evidently they were netting the whole of the garden. He lay still, certain now that they meant him no harm, and, indeed, in a far shorter time than before he was loose and scouring away into the shadows of the woods. This time the man into whose nets he had blundered, merely stood behind a tree, and at sight of his shadowy figure Whitefoot got himself out of the neighbourhood. Men with nets, guns that went off with a bang, and dead things that kicked and bled were connected in Whitefoot's mind with such night expeditions. So no wonder he betook himself away as quickly and as unobtrusively as possible. But the message that Patsy received was this: _"Important see you to-morrow night, smaller avenue gate, ten o'clock._ "JEAN." To this Patsy had replied, moistening the stub of her "killevine" in her mouth as she had been wont to do at school: _"Dear Jean,--of course I shall be there!"_ * * * * *