A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN. 103 



hounds gone stralglit away due soutli from the gorse. 

 Had they kept on six fiekls farther as they were going 

 they wouki have crossed the line of these skirters, and 

 so placed them on an equality with the eight or ten 

 men who had ridden from the beginning side by side 

 with the pack. They had not, however, gone above 

 half way across the good sound pasture-field, in which 

 they were now running, before the leading bitch threw 

 up her head for a second, cast herself beautifully to 

 the right, and without checking carried the scent right 

 off on an opposite tangent to the eastward, right across 

 the head of the Virginian's horse. He pulled up on 

 the instant, and though it was but for half a minute, 

 no one but he who has ridden long to fox-hounds 

 knows how vast is the relief given to a horse, which 

 has been going twenty minutes at three-quarters speed, 

 by a dead stop even for ten seconds. 



Away they went, as hard as they could lay legs to 

 the ground, now in a direct line for the Coplow, run- 

 ning so fast that they literally were unable to give 

 tongue, and that only a solitary yelp or whimper from 

 time to time showed that they would have spoken to 

 the trail if they had had the breath to do so. 



This turn, of course, favored Fairfax, who had been 

 riding from the start to the right of the pack, and who 

 was now, of course, riding the inner circle, while all 

 the old Meltonians, who had been previously a horse's 

 length or two behind him, were now thrown a length 

 or two farther behind, and left with the option of rid- 

 ing the outer circumference, or checking their horse's 

 stride and crossing behind the Virginian, so as to get 

 the inside of him. This was a point of judgment, 

 and one did one thing, one another ; but there was one 

 person to whom that sudden turn was victory, or 

 the chance of it — that person was Jardinier, the 

 last of the whole squad since his fall, and far the 

 outermost to the right, now made the innermost, and 



