134 HACKS AND HUNTERS 



hallos on viewing a fox, or " tally-hos," to the hunt 

 servants or old-time members of the hunt, who are 

 more apt to know what hounds are about than you. 



If you are riding a kicker, have a red bow put on 

 his tail, and endeavor to keep away from hounds and 

 other horses as much as possible; don't, however, in- 

 dulge in the selfish trick of putting the badge of danger 

 on a horse who doesn't require it for the sake of getting 

 more room in a crowd. 



As a general rule, it is annoying to the huntsman to 

 have the field trail after him into covert, but our 

 American coverts are so large that in order to follow 

 the excellent and simple advice that "if one wants to 

 be near hounds you must keep as close to them as ever 

 you can," one is perforce bound to go into covert. 

 Some people, wishing to avoid the unpleasantness of 

 pushing through the underbrush, rely on their knowl- 

 edge of the country and their fund of hunting lore to 

 find hounds again should they happen to start a fox 

 out of the far side of the covert. Some men are able to 

 tell so accurately which way the fox will break that they 

 never fail to get a good start. But not all of us are 

 so gifted, and, as a rule, I have found that cautious 

 riding through the coverts at a discreet distance from 

 hounds and huntsman often saves one many miles of 

 futile and excited galloping around the outsides of 

 them after false alarms. One thing must, however, 

 be remembered, that although there may be many 

 things more annoying to the field at large, nothing is 

 so calculated to rouse the just and righteous anger 

 of the Master as the person who rides all over his 

 hounds, or, worse yet, jumps on them. It is often, I 

 grant, difficult to "hold hard" when the rest of the 

 field keeps surging on past one, and possibly the best 



