198 The Hunting Field With Horse and Hound 



first check. The deer, true to her instinct, has taken to water 

 to elude her pursuers. The stream is about ten to twelve 

 feet wide and four to six inches deep. 



Now comes Anthony's opportunity to display his wood- 

 craft. Which way has the deer gone? Up stream or down? 

 Noting the direction of the wind, he instantly decides on going 

 down stream; and keeping in the stream we follow along. 

 Both banks are eagerly watched for foot-prints. 



The hounds, meanwhile, are splashing listlessly along beside 

 Anthony's horse. On they go for a few hundred yards, when 

 suddenly one of the hounds stops, and rushes to the left bank. 

 His hackles are on end and he begins to "feather." Others 

 join him. Anthony halts; no tracks; can it be possible that 

 the deer could have gone out there? The hounds seem to 

 think so, but the bank is perpendicular and a good five feet 

 high, with a thick thorn hedge as much higher growing on the 

 very edge of it. Do the hounds mean to say that even a deer 

 can from a standing jump clear that bank and hedge? Still 

 Anthony waits. Then come a few faint whimpers as if the 

 hounds could almost make it out. Still they are not quite 

 sure. Then Anthony decides that they are right and cheers 

 them on. One hound, in attempting to jump up the bank and 

 crawl through the bottom of the hedge, gets a whiff of the 

 scent from the field on the other side and gives tongue to it, 

 even as he falls backward into the water. This settles the 

 question ; and Anthony, with cap in hand, leans over his horse's 

 withers, cheering on the hounds with "Speak to it, Sampson! 

 On to it, Bluver! Up, Sleepless, up, good hound!" 



Sleepless is the first to make the bank, which is by this time 

 so broken away that she is able to make good her footing, and 

 away she goes, racing across the field, giving tongue at every 

 stride. The other hounds become desperate at this. Again 

 Anthony cheers them on with "Hark to Sleepless! Hark to 

 Sleepless! On Challenger! Up Vixen!" until with charging 



