340 SYSTEM OF KENNEL AND 



their heads up to a view over a large pasture field, 

 and they ran into their fox before he could reach 

 the fence. Jem's " Whoo-hoop ! " was heard for 

 miles down wind, and glad enough were the few 

 select still struggling on to hear it. 



" He's got him in hand now," cried Will Head- 

 man; "but how his mare could have lived with 'em, 

 that's the wonder." 



Some half-a-dozen men staggered into the field 

 with beaten horses, where stood Jem under an old 

 oak tree, the fox suspended on one of its lower 

 branches, and the hounds baying around him. 



" Holloa, Jem," said Headman, " what have you 

 been doing ? Your chestnut mare is turned into a 

 grey horse, and there's no coat on your back." 



" The story's soon told, master. Finding the mare 

 could not do it in time, I spied doctor's old grey, 

 which I knowed to be a good one, tied up to a green 

 door at the end of the village ; so I thinks exchange 

 ain't no robbery, and I slips off the mare, and into 

 doctor's saddle, leaving her in the grey's place." 



"Hah! hah! hah!" laughed John Staveley, "a 

 capital trick, by Jove ! but where's your coat Jem?" 



" Well, sir, 'twere a very near thing. I got to the 

 mouth of the earth just about a second before the 

 old fox, having hitched up doctor's horse to a thorn 

 bush, and were standing there, when down he 

 rushes at me like a lion, and, you wouldn't believe 

 it, tried to run between my legs ; so I were obliged 

 to knock him off his by shying my cap at him, 

 and then it was, sir, I first holloa'd him, as he turned 

 away ; but thinking he might try it again, and 



