28 The Hunting Field With Horse and Hound 



this one came a cropper over a stone wall at Edgemont and 

 how some other one got the brush after a four hour run with 

 snow on the gromid, and a hundred and one reminiscences 

 which they love dearly to relate of days gone by. ]Mr. Saulnier 

 is unable to ride any longer or to take any part in club affairs, 

 but ISIr. Lewis still retains a lot of his old time vigour and now 

 in liis ninety-first year he can be seen almost every day riding 

 his favourite saddle horse in Media or going to and from the 

 club. 



Emanuel Hey, one of the directors of the Rose Tree Hunt, 

 is a true sportsman of the real sort and did much to make 

 the writer's visit to that club something to recall with pleasure. 



"Only a few years ago," said Mr. Hey, "I jokingly said 

 to Mr. Lewis, then in his eighty-sixth year, 'I would hke to 

 gallop my horse against one of yours.' 'All right,' replied 

 Mr. Lewis, 'you can do it any day you please. How would 

 the afternoon of our next monthly dinner suit you?' " 'That 

 would suit me all right,' replied Mr. Hey, thinking that would 

 be the last he would hear of the matter. Not so Mr. Lewis; 

 he was there on the hour and demanded the race. Mr. Hey 

 suggested that some one of the younger men ride Mr. Lewis' 

 horse as he did not want to take the chances of the old gen- 

 tleman being hurt or fatigued. To this INIr. Lewis, full of 

 his old time sporting fire, rather tartly rephed, 'You challenged 

 me to ride you a race and I'll ride tliis horse myself or he 

 don't start. Xow then, are you going to ride tliis race with 

 me or back down?' " 



It was a race over the club's course, a mile and a quarter. 

 Mr. Lewis won in a punishing finish by half a length, amid 

 the shouts and throAving of hats by the lookers on. 



The Rose Tree Hunt Club claims the honourable dis- 

 tinction of being the oldest organised hunt club in America, 

 dating from 1859. The characteristic feature of the club is 

 that they hunt with the old style American hounds with long 



