462 The Wilderness Hunter. 



The foxes were doubtless mostly of the gray kind, and 

 besides going to holes they treed readily. In January, 

 1770, he was out seven days, killing four foxes ; and two 

 of the entries in the journal relate to foxes which treed ; 

 one, on the loth, being, " I went a hunting in the Neck 

 and visited the plantn. there found and killed a bitch fox 

 after treeing it 3 t. chasg. it abt. 3 hrs.," and the other, on 

 the 23d : " Went a hunting after breakfast & found a Fox 

 at muddy hole & killed her (it being a bitch) after a 

 chase of better than two hours and after treeing her twice 

 the last of which times she fell dead out of the Tree after 

 being therein sevl. minutes apparently." In April, 1769, 

 he hunted four days, and on every occasion the fox treed. 

 April 7th, " Dog fox killed, ran an hour & treed twice." 

 April i ith, " Went a fox hunting and took a fox alive after 

 running him to a Tree brot him home." April i2th, 

 "Chased the above fox an hour& 45 minutes when he 

 treed again after which we lost him." April i3th, 

 "Killed a dog fox after treeing him in 35 minutes." 



Washington continued his fox-hunting until, in the 

 spring of 1 775, the guns of the minute-men in Massachusetts 

 called him to the command of the Revolutionary soldiery. 

 When the eight weary years of campaigning were over, 

 he said good-by to the war-worn veterans whom he had 

 led through defeat and disaster to ultimate triumph, and 

 became once more a Virginia country gentleman. Then 

 he took up his fox-hunting with as much zest as ever. 

 The entries in his journal are now rather longer, and go 

 more into detail than formerly. Thus, on December i2th, 

 1785, he writes that after an early breakfast he went on a 



