200 CUB-HUNTING 



horribly blind, can test the mettle of horse 

 and rider, and make any man feel very 

 comfortably satisfied with his performance, 

 if, by luck or good management, he negoti- 

 ates the hidden dangers that lurk on one 

 side or the other of most October fences. 

 In a run at this time of the year, gates are 

 as yet fastened up, the gaps of a past season 

 are undiscoverable, the weak places and the 

 strong blackthorn branches are covered with 

 the leaf and bramble. The fastest twenty- 

 five minutes I ever saw was run on a 

 certain i4th October, hounds getting away 

 together in a bunch from Seamer Whin, 

 and killing their fox in ground now covered 

 by the suburbs of smoky Middlesborough. 

 It was not cub-hunting, yet one of those 

 delightful "things" that is the well-earned 



