210 FIFTEEN DAYS ON THE DANUBE. 
Homeyer also appeared at the trysting-place, so the exciting 
drive could now begin. 
We had got the forester to place the whole of our party 
along a narrow forest by-road, while all the other guns re- 
mained on the broad ride ; for we valued our lives far too 
much to stand in the same line with these excessively dan- 
gerous sportsmen. 
The disorderly way in which the final arrangements were 
made and the guns posted was most extraordinary, and there 
was such a chattering and shouting that I should have mar- 
velled at any wolf who came there to be shot at. 
My brother-in-law and I stood next each other at the corners 
of a little glade, and in front of us was a stretch of dense, 
almost impenetrable thickets of hawthorn diversified with a 
few tallish oaks, a sort of cover that seemed just made for all 
sorts of vermin; and I quite believed an old keeper (the only 
real sportsman in the whole district), who assured me that 
these thickets were the favourite retreats of numbers of Wolves, 
Wild Cats, and Foxes. 
Hardly were we posted when there was a shot from the 
other line of guns. It was the first and last during the entire 
beat, and turned out to have been ineftectually fired at a sly 
fox that crossed the broad ride. 
We must have been standing motionless for about half an 
hour, with our guns cocked and loaded with slugs, when the 
beaters came up with loud shouts and endless curses. Instead 
of working through the bushes, a dread of the thorns and an 
infinite respect for the wolves had kept them to the more 
open places, and they were following each other in gangs of 
ten to twenty ; nor did these individual bands even break 
cover at the same time, but appeared at irregular intervals, 
and then vanished into the woods beyond the beat, utterly 
ignoring our line of guns. One knot of beaters made them- 
selves particularly comfortable ; for half a dozen of these 
