‘Lie still, Walnut,’ I ordered uneasily, for this was something new to me. I had never before heard men moving in the wood so late at night, and I was at first inclined to think that there might be some new plot of Tompkins or his satellites a-foot. Very cautiously I peered out. There was a young moon somewhere behind the soft veil of cloud, which covered the sky so that it was not too dark to see the figures of three men moving cautiously across the glade in which the pheasants fed. One carried a dark lantern, the tiny beam of light from which was what had roused us the moment before. ‘They’ll be in them young beeches,’ said one in a hoarse whisper. ‘There ain’t any in the oak.’ I saw them all three move cautiously across into a clump of young beeches which stood just across the glade. There they stopped, and the lantern was flashed upwards into the low branches, its light gleaming golden upon the yellowing leaves. A slight rustle followed, and a voice muttered: ‘I sees ’em. Shut the lantern an’ help me fix the smudge.’ The three now stooped together on the ground and appeared to be gathering dry leaves and heaping them together in a little pile. Presently I heard the faint scratching of a match, and a small blue flame illuminated three eager faces. Two of them were men whom I had never seen before; the third I recognized as a labourer whom I had more than once watched shake his fist fiercely as he passed the locked gate of the coppice. The man who held the match touched it to the leaves, but before they could burst into bright flame the two others penned the little fire by holding a couple of sacks round it. One of the men threw a handful of powder over the fire which at once choked it down, making it burn with a sickly blue flame. Then they all three stood perfectly still, hiding the fire with their sacks, but keeping their heads turned as far as possible away from the smoke which went wreathing up in thick columns into the foliage above them. Before many moments had passed there came a slight whirr, the sound of wings beating on leaves, and with a flop, down fell a great pheasant almost on the heads of the watchers. Quick as a cat, one of the men reached out one arm, seized the bird, and wrung its neck. He had hardly done so when there was another rustle and thud, and a second of our oppressor’s pets shared the fate of the first. It was evident that from the stuff they put in the flame there arose poisonous fumes that stupefied the roosting birds. Very soon even we could smell the noisome stuff, and Walnut wrinkled up his nose in disgust. Even a human being, let alone a squirrel, whose sense of smell is fifty times more acute, could easily have perceived it. [Illustration: A SMALL BLUE FLAME ILLUMINATED THREE EAGER FACES.]