108 CHASING AND RACING 



During my hunting of the whole O.B.H. country 

 an incident occurred which was eloquent of a sad 

 tragedy. I had found a fox in the great straggling 

 coverts which lie between Gerrard's Cross and Beacons- 

 field. After a long, slow, and intricate run on a 

 " catchy " scent and over very rough going, we 

 marked him to ground on the steep " hanging " below 

 Cleveden. It was late in the day and the shadows were 

 lengthening every minute. It was no good leaving 

 " Joshua " in his retreat, so I gave some local rustics 

 orders to unearth him, gently transfer him to a sack 

 if and when possible, and report to me in due course, 

 when shekels would be handed out as a reward for their 

 enterprise. Now it seems that after a couple of hours' 

 strenuous labour, carried on by lantern-light, the 

 diggers came upon a hollow cavity wherein was found 

 a heap of bones and skulls. At first it was thought 

 that these grim relics were the result of the larceny and 

 raiding of a super-fox among the sheep folds ; but 

 honest John Westrup, who had stayed to superintend 

 operations, was seized with a brain wave. He remem- 

 bered that some twenty years previously, the hounds 

 then hunting the country had run riot and had gone 

 clean away from master and hunt servants, with a fox 

 heading for the heights that overhang Father Thames 

 between Taplow and Cookham. When the pack was 

 eventually held up late at night it was discovered that 

 five and a half couples were missing. Expecting these 

 to find their way back to kennel, or that they would 



