It was pleasant in the fields. Rambling along, they almost lost their sense of danger and forgot they were escaping. Everything living seemed so friendly. Crickets in the grass chirped cheerily. Birds jumped out of their houses, leaving their doors wide open, Teddy said, to see them pass. He invented stories about the things they saw to prevent the little legs from thinking of their tiredness. Only the cows suspected them of escaping; they whisked their tails and blinked their eyes disapprovingly, like grandmothers who had had too many calves to be deceived by a pair of children. Lunch time came and they grew hungry, but to buy food at a farmhouse was too risky.. They quenched their thirst at a stream and pictured to themselves the enormous meal they would eat when they got to London. “Tired?” “No. I’m not tired.” “Let’s pretend I’m your war-horse,” he suggested. The finger went up to her mouth. “That’ll be just playing; it won’t be the same as saying that I’m tired.” He assured her that it wouldn’t; so she consented to straddle his neck, clasping his forehead with her sticky little hands while he held her legs to help her keep her balance. Bones ran ahead with his ridiculous red tongue flapping, barking at whatever interested him and paying no attention when he was told to stop. Towards evening, as the sun’s rays were shortening and trees were lengthening their shadows, he made the great discovery of his puppyhood. It was in a field of long grass, the other side of a gate, well ahead of the children. With quick excited yelps and pawings, springing back in fear and jumping forward with clumsy boldness, he commenced to advertise his adventure. Desire, riding shoulder-high, could see further than Teddy. “Oh, hurry. Be quick. He’s killing something. Let me down.” When they had climbed the gate, they found themselves in a narrow pasture, hedge-surrounded, at the far end of which the road ran. Bones was rolling a cage over and over, in which a bird fluttered. It was a decoy placed there by bird-catchers, for in a net near by wild birds struggled. They dragged the puppy off and cuffed him. He slunk into the background and squatted, blinking reproachfully with his red-rimmed eyes. His noblest intentions perpetually ended in misunderstandings. “Oh, the poor darlings! How cruel! Teddy, you do it; they peck my fingers.” Teddy looked across the field growing vague with shadows. No one was in sight. Going down on his knees, with Desire bending eagerly across his shoulder, he set to work to free the prisoners. They were so engrossed that they did not notice a rough-looking man who crept towards them. The first thing they knew was the howl of Bones as he shot up, lifted by a heavy boot; the next, when Desire was grabbed from behind and her mouth was silenced against a dirty coat. Teddy sprang to his feet, clenching his fists. “You put her down.” His voice was low and unsteady.