F ox-Hunting 303 



no dogs came back to the horn, neither did 

 he find any trace of them in the morning. As 

 he rode homeward he overtook two dogs, the 

 leaders of the pack. A big bitch was still miss- 

 ing. The pack master gave her up for lost. 

 But six months later, chancing to go still fur- 

 ther toward the west, he found his blue-mottle 

 Lady, safe and much cherished in the hands 

 of another pack master, who told him how, 

 about such a date, his dogs had broken out in 

 chase of a spent and draggled red fox, that 

 could barely keep in front of a bitch as spent 

 and draggled, which had yet no notion of 

 quitting. This was about daylight. Evi- 

 dently the fox had run all night after running 

 all day. It was sixty odd miles, as the crow 

 flies, from find to kill, with doubles to make 

 it easily more than half as far again. At the 

 end Lady's feet were raw and bleeding — for 

 a week she could do no more than crawl. She 

 came to herself as to looks, and bred many 

 fine whelps, but was never thereafter up to a 

 hard run. 



Joe loved that story best of all his father 

 told. His great-grandfather, you see, had 

 been Lady's master. Naturally, Joe was him- 

 self an ardent fox-hunter, ready to ride and 

 jump with the best of them. He loved, too, 

 to read in his books all the niceties of the 

 sport — though he was wise enough to keep 



