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 he frequently continued his fishing long after dark, and on moonlight nights was often as active as in the day, he now abandoned night fishing altogether and invariably returned to the hummock before evening. There were dangers of the dark which he did not care to face crippled as he was, and always the going down of the sun was his signal for retirement to his safe perch in the top of the cassena thicket.

To the gray fox, on the other hand, the darkness which followed swiftly upon the gorgeous autumn sunsets frequently brought a revival of activity and energy, perhaps a renewal of hope. Always the night had been her friend and ally. It was then that she had tasted the keenest joys of living; it was then that the world in which she had lived became her world, hers to be enjoyed to the utmost in freedom and easy security from the dangers which abounded by day but vanished with the shutting down of the dark.

That freedom was hers no longer. Her useless hind limbs chained her to the hummock and she now sought food by day as well as by night, since the problem of getting enough to eat was so desperately difficult that it required all her time except brief intervals spent in sleeping. Yet when the darkness spread across the marshes and enveloped Half-Acre like a cloud, new strength seemed to come to her,