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 steadily upon him. When they reached the ditch at the middle of the meadows as suddenly as though the ground had opened and swallowed him the fox disappeared.

"Ah, ha," cried Bud. "He has gone into the ditch. Now they will get him surely. That was certainly a mistake." But when the two madly racing dogs came to the ditch they overran a couple of hundred feet before they discovered that their quarry had disappeared. Then they came back and ran up and down the ditch, for twenty rods in each direction.

Bud still watched from his window, for he expected each moment to see them rout out the fox, but no fox appeared.

Finally after ten or fifteen minutes the dogs came back to the house just as Bud came down stairs.

"Come on," cried Bud to the dogs. "I will help you find him."

They searched the ditch for a quarter of a mile, nearly its entire length, but no fox was to be discovered.

When Bud told Mr. Holcome how the fox