In this he was wise, because the ice afforded reliable foothold to his hairy pads and enabled him to plough his way through the snow at quite a good pace, much faster indeed than the foxes, though they kept along the furrow in his wake. The lead thus gained he kept on increasing as he ascended Bartinney, to the discomfiture of his pursuers, who would have abandoned the chase had not the big drift in the next hollow, which they believed impassable, encouraged them to keep going. On reaching it the hare’s courage failed him, and no wonder, for stretching from foothill to foothill, and completely filling the dip between, lay like a great white lake, a drift which threatened to overwhelm him. Face to face with this new danger he forgot the foxes for a moment, but the instant he looked back and caught sight of them bounding down the hill, he flung aside his hesitation, plunged into the drift, and put forth all the strength of his limbs in an effort to reach the other side. Nearer and nearer the foxes came to the drift; they leapt into it without flinching, and began to battle with the feathery mass, striving to overhaul the hare now some dozen yards ahead. It was a weird scene, that drift amidst the hills, marked now by the glowing eyes of three protruding heads, now by the tips of the ears, now only by a slight flurry of the surface, which showed where pursuers and pursued struggled beneath, till, where the snow lay deepest, there was no slightest sign of movement, and it seemed as if all three had found a grave. At last towards the farther side the points of two ears showed, then two eyes; they were the ears and eyes of the hare, who had tunnelled his way thus far, and was standing on his hind legs looking round to see where he was. Before you could count three the head was withdrawn and the hare again lost to sight, but presently out he came from the drift with a long leap, the snow on his back shooting forward between his ears as his fore feet struck the ground. He bounded up the slope, and had gone perhaps a score yards when the foxes emerged, pressing after him at their best pace. The struggle with the drift had told more on the hare than on them. Between the drift and Caer Bran, where he passed close to the spot on which months before he had sat dreaming of the life before him, he actually lost ground, yet, though seemingly doomed, on, on he sped; nay, more, he even began to gather his strength for a supreme effort to shake off his pursuers. The wood on the Beacon was the place he chose for it. The moment he felt the pine-needles under his pads he breasted the hill with the speed of the wind, and gained its granite crown several seconds ahead. [Illustration: _R. H. Preston & Sons, Penzance._, _To face p. 152._ THE REMAINS OF THE BEACON WOOD.]