the man who sees these things is Jim Ritchie, who drives with 

 his head out the window, all year long, looking for fox runs. 



These fox runs are nothing you can see, like a deer trail. You 

 learn where a fox run is by seeing him use it. 



The hunters are up at dawn, making plans over coffee and 

 doughnuts at Ruth's on Lake Street. Men will be posted at 

 likely spots over a two- or three-mile area. 



Their strategy laid out, they separate to their cars and head 

 north, with Barney and Mike in the trunk of Doc's car. 



At the creek culvert on Kent Lake Road, Doc and Harry 

 Bulmon open the trunk and the two dogs leap out, Mike getting 

 at the job at once, circling and sniffing, and Barney taking it 

 easy. Barney is purely a clock puncher. He doesn't start until the 

 whistle blows. 



So Doc whistles and motions them into the tamarack swamp 

 to the east of the road, and the two men follow. For maybe a half 

 hour, the dogs nose around, now and then giving a half-hearted 

 yelp as they pick up a cold trail. Then suddenly Mike breaks out 

 in full-throated song and Barney joins in, telling everybody 

 within two miles that they've jumped a fox. 



It's no use to follow the dogs now, so Doc and Harry hustle to 

 their favorite spots near the road. 



Now follows a period of tense waiting and listening on the 

 part of all hunters spread out over more than two miles of east- 

 west territory. Each hunter crouches motionless at his spot, lis- 

 tening to the music. 



This hunt doesn't go so well. The music travels east, falters 

 uncertainly, and heads back west. Holding the eastern outposts, 

 Merv Shankland and Bob Eckert decide that the chase has gone 

 the other way. They hop into their cars, hurry west to see what's 

 up. Doc and Harry also realize that the chase has gone to the 

 west and is now in the region of swamps and stone quarries, 

 where Morgan Muir and Russ Calkins are keeping vigil. So they, 

 too, get into their cars. 



A caucus follows, in which the men listen and plan. From the 

 high ground they look down on Blood's Creek, and the swampy 

 ground spreading out from its north bank. 



