Fox-Hunting in New England. 



93 



ANOTHER STRATAGEM. 



sure this morning's work will go far toward making him as stanch 

 and true as his chase-worn leader. 



But think not thus early nor with such successful issue is every 

 chase to close. This was ended before the fox had used any other 

 trick for baffling the hounds, but his simplest one of running in circles. 

 An hour or two later, and old fox, finding the dogs still holding per- 

 sistently to all the windings of his trail, would have sped away to 

 another hill or wood a mile or so off, and would have crossed newly- 

 plowed fields, the fresh earth leaving no tell-tale scent; would have 

 taken to traveled highways, where dust and the hoofs of horses and 

 the footsteps of men combine to obliterate the traces of his passage ; 

 or have trod gingerly along many lengths of the top rails of a fence 

 and then have sprung off at right angles with it to the ground, ten 

 feet away ; and then, perhaps, have run through a flock of sheep, the 

 strong odor of whose feet blots out the scent of his. These artifices 

 quite bewilder and baffle the young dog, but only delay the elder, 

 who knows of old the tricks of foxes. Nothing can be more 

 admirable than the manner of his working, as he comes to the edge 

 of the plowed field. He wastes no time in useless pottering 



