condition which occurs when one has lost one's first wind and has not
yet got one's second. I was hotter than I had ever been in my life.

Whether Aunt Elizabeth, too, was beginning to feel the effects of her
run, or whether she did it out of the pure effrontery of her warped
and unpleasant nature, I do not know; but she now slowed down to walk,
and even began to peck in a tentative manner at the grass. Her
behaviour infuriated me. I felt that I was being treated as a cipher.
I vowed that this bird should realise yet, even if, as seemed
probable, I burst in the process, that it was no light matter to be
pursued by J. Garnet, author of "The Manoeuvres of Arthur," etc., a
man of whose work so capable a judge as the Peebles /Advertiser/ had
said "Shows promise."

A judicious increase of pace brought me within a yard or two of my
quarry. But Aunt Elizabeth, apparently distrait, had the situation
well in hand. She darted from me with an amused chuckle, and moved off
rapidly again up the hill.

I followed, but there was that within me that told me I had shot my
bolt. The sun blazed down, concentrating its rays on my back to the
exclusion of the surrounding scenery. It seemed to follow me about
like a limelight.

We had reached level ground. Aunt Elizabeth had again slowed to a
walk, and I was capable of no better pace. Very gradually I closed in.
There was a high boxwood hedge in front of us; and, just as I came
close enough once more to stake my all on a single grab, Aunt
Elizabeth, with another of her sardonic chuckles, dived in head-
foremost and struggled through in the mysterious way in which birds do