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 while the keeper rushed forward yet his efforts were futile, for Redcoat led the way towards a nearby woods at a pace that would have even left the hounds behind, and Blue Lady had just enough confidence in his leading to follow.

Bud and Kitty had climbed into the Ford coupe and started for the fox farm at five o'clock that morning. The trip had been a rather solemn one. All of Bud's plans for the immediate future had been given up and, as he had said, just for an old red fox.

"I might of had him, Kitty, months ago," the boy confided as the car hummed along the country road. "I got him once fair and square in a steel trap and he outwitted me."

"Why, you never told me, Bud. How did it happen?"

"Well," said Bud, "I was such a fool and he was so clever I didn't want to tell anybody. I got him in the brook and when I found him he was floating on the water, apparently drowned, I picked him up in my arms and laid him on the bank in the sun to dry, and a minute later when I looked for