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Chapter VIII
The Red Flower Goes Mad

THE Red Flower had always had a strange fascination for Redcoat. It drew him with an irresistible force. It was as a magnet to his being. He had first seen it in the summer time when he was a pup. He had been standing with his sire and the rest of the young foxes on the ledge that served as a fox lookout. It was to this ledge that the old fox always went when he wanted to discover what was going on in the valley below.

Bud Holcome had been burning some brush-heaps down in the pasture and it was that which afforded the young foxes their first sight of the Red Flower. How it leaped and danced in the gloom of the summer evening. It seemed to Redcoat that it must be alive. It would flare up with sudden brilliancy when the night wind fanned