Deadlock clambered up the dry bank, ran a few yards among the grasses, threw up his head, sniffed, and turned away. Tarka held his breath. Other hounds followed, to sniff and run down the bank again. Tarka listened to them working among the roots under the island bank, and across the river. He heard the chaunting voices of huntsman and whippers-in; the noises of motor-cars moving slowly along the hard-rutted trackway, the old canal-bed, above the right bank of the river; the voices of men and women getting out of the motor-cars; and soon afterwards, the scrape of boots on the steep rubble path down to the dry, stony bed. Tarka had been lying among the cool and stinking garlic plants of Elm Island for nearly five minutes when he heard gasping and wheezing noises at the top of the island. The two terriers, Bite'm and Biff, were pulling at their chains, held by the kennel-boy. Their tongues hung long and limp, after the two-mile tug from the mills over sun-baked turf, dusty trackway, and hot stones, to Elm Island. Just before, while tugging down the path, Bite'm had fainted with the heat. A lapping sprawl in the river had refreshed the couple, and now they strove against the collars pressing into their windpipes. Tarka started up when they were a yard from where he lay. The kennel-boy dropped the chain when he saw him. Tarka ran towards the river, but at the sheer edge of the island he saw men on the stones six feet below. He ran along the edge, quickening at the shout of the kennel-boy, and had almost reached the island's tail when Bite'm pinned him in the shoulder. Tissing through his open mouth, Tarka rolled and fought with the terriers. Their teeth clashed. Tarka's moves were low and smooth; he bit Bite'm again and again, but the terrier hung on. Biff tried to bite him across the neck, but Tarka writhed away. The three rolled and snarled, scratching and snapping, falling apart and returning with instant swiftness. Ears were torn and hair ripped out. Hounds heard them, and ran baying under the island cliff to find a way up. The kennel-boy tried to stamp on and recover the end of the chain, for he knew that in a worry all three might be killed. White terriers and brown otter rolled nearer the edge, and fell over. The fall shook off Bite'm. Tarka ran under the legs of Dabster, and although Bluemaid snapped at his flank he got into the water and sank away. _Tally Ho! Tally Ho! Yaa-aa-ee on to'm!_