PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 185 



and scattered, each man doing his best to set on 

 his brute in chase, when the hounds struck a 

 trail, and off they went, yelping to the hills, fol- 

 lowed by the terrier and the poodle, and, last of 

 all by their masters. The curs stuck closer, and 

 it speedily appeared that, living upon farms 

 adjoining each other, they were no strangers to 

 those little jealousies and petty heart-burnings, 

 which, to say the truth, are so common among 

 country folks of a certain class. 



After considerable preliminary snarling and 

 wrangling, by a little judicious management the 

 feuds blazed out over the body of an innocent 

 opossum, which one of them had dragged out of 

 his hole, and to it, might and main, they went, 

 all except the shock-dog, who, belying his name, 

 stood barking, aloof. A dog fight in the country 

 when the combatants happen to be large, strong 

 animals, as was the case in this instance, is an 

 obstinately contested affair; in attempting to 

 separate the belligerents, their masters became 

 infected with the same pugnacious spirit; down 

 went guns and into the melee went the country 

 gentlemen to our great delight, each nourishing 

 a pair of fists a la Hyer; when, noticing the opos- 

 sum stealing quietly off, (his old trick,) we as 

 quietly followed his sage example, and making for 



