270 THE WILDERNESS HUNTER. 



which most of the Dogs were worsted." 

 Sometimes he caught his fox in thirty-five 

 minutes, and again he might run it nearly the 

 whole day in vain ; the average run seems to 

 have been from an hour and a half to three 

 hours. Sometimes the entry records merely 

 the barren fact of the run ; at others a few 

 particulars are given, with homespun, telling 

 directness, as : " Went a hunting with Jacky 

 Custis and catched a Bitch Fox after three 

 hours chase founded it on ye. ck. by I. 

 Soals " ; or went a Fox hunting with Lund 

 Washington took the drag of a fox by Isaac 

 Gates & carrd. it tolerably well to the old 

 Glebe then touched now and then upon a cold 

 scent till we came into Col. Fairfaxes Neck 

 where we found about half after three upon 

 the Hills just above Accotinck Creek after 

 running till quite Dark took off the Dogs and 

 came home." 



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 tree- 

 ing 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 



