A FOX IN THE MERAMEC VALLEY 



But what a disappointed, mournful cry wells 

 up when the scent stops, and the baffled hound 

 comes to a pause. How complainingly he 

 starts again, the reproachful tone of his 

 music drifting along the hills. And when he 

 is running free, with the trail neither hot nor 

 cold, there is a businesslike twang to his bay- 

 ing, as if he were keeping the finer points 

 of his music for the more exciting phases of 

 the chase. Then there are the shorter barks 

 of the puppies, sanguine, saucy notes, with a 

 tenor ring in them. At times there is a 

 mingled uplifting of many hayings, as if 

 there were a canine council of ways and 

 means, with no moderator present. Then 

 will come the dying away of most of the 

 clamor and the grumbling bass of some old 

 hound as he takes up the puzzling trail once 

 more. 



The trail leads over the top of the bluffs, 

 and presently all noise of the chase is gone. 

 A pair of gossiping red-headed woodpeck- 

 ers swing up to a dead sycamore's trunk and 

 quarrel petulantly, with short flights to other 

 trees and back again. A solitary nuthatch 

 dips, ducks, bobs, and hops about the green 

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