Fiona nodded and called the setters to heel; the shepherd waved his hand, and the black collie came racing to him. Some collies will work a ground like a spaniel, and some will even do a little pointing, but the black collie troubled himself neither with one nor the other. When the shepherd spoke to him, he just cantered straight forward to a small patch of heather on the sunless side of a rock, where the frost still lingered, and there sat down quite unconcerned, as though the matter in hand were altogether beneath the scope of his talents. "I think he has a bird," said the shepherd. "I tried that place," said Apollo. "There's nothing there." But the shepherd had gone up to his dog and was peering carefully into the heather. Then he beckoned Fiona. "Does Miss Fiona see the bird?" he asked, pointing. Fiona looked long before she saw. The woodcock had squeezed himself right into the roots of a frost-covered clump of heather, and even when the heather was parted nothing showed but his little orange tail, with its white and black points. "Shall I catch him for Miss Fiona?" asked the shepherd; and Fiona said, "Oh yes, please, if you will." The shepherd knelt down and brought his two great hands slowly to either side of the tuft of heather; then he closed them with a snap, and drew out the largest woodcock Fiona had ever seen. It struggled and thrashed at his wrists with its powerful wings. "Will Miss Fiona take the bird now?" he said. "Just behind the wings, with her thumbs on its back." So Fiona took her bird, and as she did so its back-seeing eye caught the glint of her copper bangle. It stopped thrashing with its wings and lay quite still in her hands. "Oh, I say," he said, "why didn't you say before, instead of employing these people and frightening an honest bird out of his senses?" "My dogs couldn't find you," said Fiona. "And I think it was so good of the shepherd to find you for me." "Shepherd!" said the woodcock. "That wasn't a shepherd. And it wasn't a collie either." Fiona suddenly recollected that she had not yet thanked the shepherd, and turned to do so. But the shepherd and collie were gone. They must have walked very quickly to have turned the corner of the hill already. "Where did he go?" she asked Artemis. Artemis shivered. "To his own place, I hope," said Artemis severely. "Well brought up dogs should not be asked to associate with things like that." "But it was only the new shepherd," said Fiona. "There's the new shepherd," said Artemis, nodding toward a distant slope, where a figure with a brown collie could be seen gathering sheep. "What were they, then?" asked Fiona. "Two of the Little People, of course," said Apollo. "Oh dear, oh dear, I'm afraid you'll have trouble." "One generally dies," said Artemis, with cheerful consolation. "But they were very nice to me indeed," said Fiona.