COMMUTER'S WIFE 97 



a southern state who keeps quite a pack and does 

 cross-country hunting. Such fox hunting as we 

 have in the back country here is an annual combina- 

 tion of sport and dire necessity. When the red foxes 

 of the heavily brushed lowlands that divide the hills 

 grow aggressive with keen autumn appetite and 

 haunt the chicken yards, then the sporting farmers 

 and a few others who have energy and good legs and 

 lungs set out with dogs and guns, drive to the point 

 nearest the holes, tie up, then take to their feet ; and 

 when the dogs, a mixture of rabbit dogs, coon curs, 

 and a half dozen real hounds, have started the fox, 

 the men join the chase afoot, finally shooting the fox 

 when it is cornered. 



I'm afraid that it will be a long time before Evan 

 can be brought to this style of hunting ; for shooting 

 a fox is a crime in England, where it is considered 

 more sportsmanlike to let the dogs rend it. But in 

 this rough and tumble region of rock ledges and 

 gullies, cross-country riding is an impossibility, and 

 so we take the shortest cut to the end to. rid our- 

 selves, or at least keep down the prowlers. The 

 Humane Society once urged father to introduce the 

 custom of trapping instead, as it expressed it, of 

 " teaching one animal to chase another " ; but some- 

 how it was very unpopular, the foxes wouldn't be 



