37 2 The Wilderness Hunter. 



However, the horses, thoroughly trained to timber jump- 

 ing and to rough and hard scrambling in awkward places, 

 and by this time well quieted, took the bars without 

 mistake, each one in turn trotting or cantering up to 

 within a few yards, then making a couple of springs and 

 bucking over with a great twist of the powerful haunches. 

 I may explain that there was not a horse of the four that 

 had not a record of five feet six inches in the ring. We 

 now got into a perfect tangle of ravines, and the fox went 

 to earth ; and though we started one or two more in the 

 course of the afternoon, we did not get another really 

 first-class run. 



At Geneseo the conditions for the enjoyment of this 

 sport are exceptionally favorable. In the Northeast gener- 

 ally, although there are now a number of well-established 

 hunts, at least nine out of ten runs are after a drag. Most 

 of the hunts are in the neighborhood of great cities, and 

 are mainly kept up by young men who come from them. 

 A few of these are men of leisure, who can afford to 

 devote their whole time to pleasure ; but much the 

 larger number are men in business, who work hard and 

 are obliged to make their sports accommodate themselves 

 to their more serious occupations. Once or twice a week 

 they can get off for an afternoon's ride across country, 

 and they then wish to be absolutely certain of having 

 their run, and of having it at the appointed time ; and the 

 only way to insure this is to have a drag-hunt. It is not 

 the lack of foxes that has made the sport so commonly 

 take the form of riding to drag-hounds, but rather the 

 fact that the majority of those who keep it up are hard- 



