‘Yes, I can smell him,’ said Stargrief. The old dog fox raised his muzzle.

‘And the lurcher,’ Wulfgar said.

They came out of the trees to drink at Lansworthy Brook. Wulfgar led the way, stepping gingerly through the reeds. His paws crunched into frail ice where it silvered the hoofprints of cattle. He was a large, dark fox with a brush almost as black as the peaty Dartmoor soil, and even his underfur and lower limbs were black. The wind and rain of three summers had lent his coat a pale sheen and the tip of his brush was whiter than wild parsley. His eyes gleamed against the grey December afternoon and pointed ears deciphered the faintest sounds which the wind could not mask.

‘They were here last night,’ said Stargrief. Two inches of tongue moistened his nose and he read the air long and carefully. His head moved a little from side to side and he seemed to lean on the wind, each quiver of his nostrils bringing him a detailed account of what lay in the field and far beyond. Presiding over everything was the smell of gin-metal spiced with the scent of passing birds. The earth smelt of ice and moss and nibbled grass, cattle, men and dogs, then the rank odour of the trapper alerted all his senses.

Stargrief was slight and inconspicuous. His coat was the colour of winter woodland. He placed his paws carefully in Wulfgar’s tracks, for gin traps had been tilled amongst the reeds to catch wild duck.

‘That mad dog isn’t far off,’ Wulfgar said. The smell of fieldmice lofted in a white plume as he yawned.

‘This is a bad place in broad daylight,’ said Stargrief. ‘There’s a disused sett in the wood up ahead. I don’t know about you but I’m on my last legs. I could really do with a sleep.’

Running beside the stream they came to the ford. Stargrief’s heart no longer raced but he found it difficult to match his young friend’s speed through the wooded valley of the River Sig.

The sett was warm and dry. The badger boar and sow had been dug out and clubbed to death by the man who owned the lurcher. Wulfgar licked a paw and rubbed it over his face.

‘The bottoms of my pads are freezing,’ said Stargrief. ‘Winter seems to last for ever. What a penance age can be!’

He groaned and laid his tail across his nose.

‘Maybe the lurcher could do you a favour,’ Wulfgar said cheerfully.

‘I won’t make it easy for him,’ said the old dog fox. His thin angular body was shaking.

‘Winter has sharp teeth,’ Wulfgar said. ‘Curl up against me, old mouse. There’s more flesh on a seagull. After all these seasons are you afraid of death?’

‘No. Dying doesn’t trouble me — but you’re so damned stiff the next day.’

Wulfgar chuckled in the darkness.