A piece of bog in process of reclamation—there the fox had taken refuge. He might be lying in some clump of grass. He might have slipped into one of the many drains the strong farmer had made in his attempt to make arable land of what was morass. Here and there were green patches, still dangerous, where a whole hunt might be engulfed. Neither the master nor the huntsman cared to chance their mounts in that treacherous sward. They halloed the hounds to and fro.  
"Leu in, lads, leu in! Ranger, Rambler, Tinker, Tim! On to him, beauties, on to him!"
 
But the hounds were at fault, utterly. They howled with baffled desire. They went to and fro, sterns twitching, noses aground. Two or three beaten hunters turned up, their horses gone, their fire quenched, sitting dully in the saddle, thankful for the respite of check.
 
"We 've overrun," the huntsman grumbled.
 
"I 'm afraid so, Willie John," the master nodded. But some secondary sense told Morgan the fox was there. He had gone to ground and the hounds had failed to mark him.
 
"Try a short up-wind cast," the master directed.
 
The hounds were halloed out, and as they swung to the left, Morgan noticed the red shadow flit along a ditch, slip through a hedge. He spurred his horse in excitement.
 
"Yoi doit!" Morgan called. "View halloo!" But some trick of wind muffled his voice. Behind him three hundred yards away the hounds were following the huntsman about, heads up.
 
The fox was tired, his brush heavy with mud and dragging as he ran. Behind him Morgan thundered alone. He damned the huntsman. He damned the hounds.
 
"They 're going to miss, blast their stupid heads!" But he kept on. His hope was that the fox would turn, and the huntsman and hounds see him, and coming up, finish the day's work.
 
But the fox kept onward. Now across a plowed field, now across fallow land. Here a fence, here a ditch, here a hedge. What was the use of ............