But she feared to follow, and he returned to her.

Thinking they would attempt to cross again presently, I waited quietly.
A lark came over from the wheat, and, alighting, dusted herself in the road, hardly five yards from the mouth of the drain, and was there some minutes.

A robin went still closer--almost opposite the hole; both birds apparently quite unconscious of the bloodthirsty creatures concealed within it.

Some time passed, but the two stoats did not come out, and I saw no more of them: they probably retreated to the wheat as I left the gateway, and would remain there till the noise and jar of my footsteps had ceased in the distance.

Examining the road, there was a trail where the first three had crossed in quick succession.