_Puff_! quite a wave of heated air, fragrant with the young growth of the plants, all looking richly green and healthy, and with the golden, starry blossoms peeping here and there. Quite at home, Christie Bayle thrust in his arm and took out a little block of wood cut like an old-fashioned gun-carriage or a set of steps, and with this he propped up one light, so that the heat might escape and the temperature fall. This done he moved to the next, and thrust down the light, for he had seen from the other side a glistening, irregular, iridescent streak, which told of the track of an enemy, and this enemy had to be found. That light uttered a loud plaintive squeak as it was thrust down, a sound peculiar to the lights of cucumber-frames; and, leaning over the edge, Bayle began to peer about among the broad prickly leaves. Yes, there was the enemy's trail, and he must be found, for it would have been cruel to the doctor to have left such a devouring creature there. In and out among the trailing stems, and over the soft black earth, through which the delicate roots were peeping, were the dry glistening marks, just as if someone had dipped a brush in a paint formed of pearl shells dissolved in oil, and tried to imitate the veins in a block of marble. Yes; in and out--there it went, showing how busy the creature had been during the night, and the task was to find where it had gone to rest and sleep for the day, ready to come forth refreshed for another mischievous nocturnal prowl. "Now where can that fellow have hidden himself?" said the follower of the trail, peering about and taking off his hat and standing it on the next light. "One of those great grey fellows, I'll be bound. Ah, to be sure! Come out, sir." The tale-telling trail ended where a seed-pan stood containing some young Brussels sprouts which had attained a goodly size, and upon these the enemy had supped heartily, crawling down afterwards to sleep off the effects beneath the pan. It was rather difficult to reach that pan, for the edge of the frame was waist-high; but it had to be done, and the slug raked out with a bit of stick. That was it! No, it was not; the hunter could not quite reach, and had to wriggle himself a little more over and then try. The search was earnest and successful, the depredator dying an ignominious death, crushed with a piece of potsherd against the seed-pan, and then being buried at once beneath the soil, but to a looker-on the effect was grotesque. There was a looker-on here, advancing slowly along the path with a bunch of flowers in one hand, a pair of scissors in the other. In fact, that peculiar squeak given by the frame had attracted Millicent's attention, at a time when she believed every one to be away.