202 The Hunting Field With Horse and Hound 



of the spring season and this was deer number one hundred and 

 one taken since the previous autumn. 



The time occupied by the run after laying on the pack was 

 two hours and forty minutes. It was four-thirty when we 

 started for Mr. Skinner's, twenty miles away. We arrived 

 there at nine o'clock. We had been in the saddle eleven and 

 one-half hours (less the time spent while Anthony was taking 

 the hind from the water) and had covered fully fifty miles 

 without a mouthful to eat for man or mount. The grey could 

 only walk for the last three miles. The rider was able to get 

 into the house, but there was not enough left in him to pull 

 off his own boots. But a bucket of hot oat-meal gruel for 

 the horse, a hot bath and Mrs. Skinner's softest feather bed 

 for the rider, brought both out the next morning none the 

 worse, I believe, for as glorious a day's sport as ever was 

 enjoyed in the hunting field. 



