422 
A FOX CHASE AT MIDNIGHT. 
In my younger day I had followed the fox and hounds 
many a mile with the keenest enjoyment. But what with 
ten or more years of school lii'e, vacations ecrupulously 
utilized in earning a few dollars to help through the next 
term, and withal a busy pastorate of twenty years in town, 
my scent for the fox had become almost lost. If at any 
time I had given the old hunting days a thought, it was 
to recall for the moment only some adventxire that had 
impressed itself a little more on the mind than others, 
without thinking that any rudiment of the fox hunter was 
lingering in me. In this, however, I was mistaken. 
After twenty years in town, I began to long for the 
coimtry again. My dreams of the green fields, the running 
brooks, and the deep woods, grew more and more vivid, 
until I decided to close my pastorate and return to them. 
I had no fortune, so took a small church in a northern 
town in Maine. Here the hills were high, the mountains 
steep, the brooks full of trout, the lakes of bass and pick- 
erel, and, better than all, the woods of partridge and 
woodcock. Foxes were quite numerous also, a fact which, 
although I would not admit it to myself, must have had a 
kind of "back stairs influence" on my choice of this par- 
ticular town. 
We moved in the summer so as to get settled before 
cold weather came down upon us. The parsonage was a 
farmhouse, with sixty acres of land, a good part of which 
had been cultivated, so that I could easily keep a cow and 
horse, pigs and hens if I wished, and any other creature I 
cared to have around. My fancy was turkeys. There 
was a yard bordering on the house lot and reaching back 
some ten rods to the wood lot, especially adapted, I 
thoiight, to the raising of fowls- Near the house were 
some maple trees, and between two of them a long pole 
had been, fastened 10ft. from the ground, which my prede- 
cessor had put there for a hen roost. It was the timely 
suggestion. I must have a flock of turkeys occupying that 
roost next jear at least. What a recreation it would be to 
take care of them. And my wife, what a good time she 
would have with her chickens. 
Well, early in the following April, as the snow silently 
disappeared from the hills, I got my turkeys hatching. I 
used hens for incubators, which in due time brought forth, 
three of them, a dozen or more little turkeys apiece. 
Turkeys are very tender in their childhood and youth, and 
my neighbors said I. was lucky, when, on Sept, 1, out of a 
total of thirty-nine hatched, I had thirty strong, healthy 
hirds. Some of the little ones went to feed the hawks, 
others the skunks, others still the way of all the earth, but 
none had gone to the fox. Yet I was expecting master 
reynard now most any night, for I had caught a glimpse of 
one or two about sunset for several days, and had stationed, 
in a warm kennel, under the lee of the porch, an old 
hound given me by a friend. It had been a good hunter 
and preserved its instincts wonderfully, but it had become 
deaf in one ear. Thus setting a guard over my turkeys 
which roosted 10ft. from the ground, I could go to bed and 
sleep. 
Near the end of September the annual cattle show was 
held in our town, a great event, from which all the town 
affairs dated, and of course wife and I must go. I also 
entered my flock of turkeys for exhibition. I spent most 
of my time studying the fowls, but on the second day 
wandered into the great hall where the merchants were 
exhibiting. My wandering was somewhat aimless, ab- 
sently looking at one thing after another — stoves, shovels, 
hoes, churns, washing-machines — until my eye fell upon 
a gun. Then I woke up. It was a beauty; the latest 
patent double-barreled shotgun. My hand was instantly 
caressing that polished stock, and my eye stealing along 
that barrel. How bright and smooth it was inside! What 
virile hammers! What strong locks! How it brought 
hack the old days! I was again following the fox with 
my father's old muzzleloader, speeding through the tangled 
thickets, leaping the fences, climbing the cliffs, cutting 
across lots. The old love for the chase was uppermost 
once more, and far away days of supreme joy, and distant 
lands where the fox abounded, came thronging back in 
that one glance along the barrel of this new gun. What a 
necromancer it was, this light and bright shotgun to 
whom even the best and busiest years of my life seemed 
as naught, while the old heydays of youth returned. 
"Elder, you ought to have that gun to protect your tur- 
keys with." It was the exhibitor's voice, repeating my 
own thought, word for word. 
"I'll give you a neat little figure on it if you want to 
buy." Yes, I wanted to buy. It was a foregone conclu- 
sion from the instant my eye rested on it. I forgot about 
my turkeys, and almost went home without my wife, so 
elated was I with this new treasure. 
My wife was not so taken with the gun as T was. She 
said: "Are you sure you can afford to have ii? You know 
there are some books you planned to have this winter." 
And in her quiet way she smiled a whole system of econ- 
omics at me. But I was glad I had made the purchase 
without consulting her. The turkeys must be protected, I 
thought, and foxes, run fast. 
"I expect nothing," my wife said later, to a neighbor, 
"but that that gun will get him into some kind of a scrape." 
All hints and criticisms of that nature slipped from my 
mind and the autumn days came down upon the hills, and 
the woods turned scarlet and yellow and crimson, varying 
each . of these into a hundred shades, and the sound of the 
quail and partridge was heard in the land. Gunning a 
little days, I took particular pains at night to see my 
turkeys safe on their roost, that the hound was in his box, 
and went to bed. I had been told that turkeys did better 
if kept in the open air summer and winter. I did not feel 
quite sure of the winter business, but planned to let them 
stay out until Thanksgiving at least. 
The night of adventure was light with a full moon, near 
the end of October. I had seen my turkeys safe to bed, 
the hound in his sentry box with his good ear open, and 
my gun in the corner of the kitchen, loaded. So, as usual, 
1 went to bed and to sleep. Had I known as much about 
turkeys as Master Reynard, I should not have felt quite so 
secure,- for the fox has only to go under their roost and 
the foolish things go wild with fright, each flying— it 
knows not where — its own way, some higher up into the 
trees, some to miss their aim and flutter to the ground 
FOREST AND. STREAM. 
and be instantly seized by the fox. Those that are ao 
hapless as to come to the ground one after another, in 
wonderful quick succession, are killed, and if no one dis- 
turbs it the fox will carry them all Off and hide them. 
It was ahout midnight, I guessed, when I was awakened 
from a deep sleep by tlie flying and crying of my turkej^s. 
As soon as I came to my sense I sprang from the bed, in- 
stinctively put on my slippers, seized my gun, and rushed 
out. I reached the gate into my turkey yard just in time 
to,see a big fox making ofl" as fast as it could "with one of 
my fowls. It was a long shot, and I could not see very 
■well; but I fired both barrels, for the old instinct, of the 
hunter was on me at the sight, and my hand recalled its 
cunning. The fox dropped the turkey and took to his 
heels, while the hound, aroused by the report of the gun, 
with a deep bay that always carries terror to the fox's 
heart, was instantly off. I hurried into the kitchen and 
reloaded my gun, and returned to note developments. 
The old hound had struck the trail, I knew by its deep 
voice, so I hastened the faster into another field that I 
might take in the sweep of their circle. The old skill was 
back that night, and quickly computing their route, I in- 
stantly made my plans, which were to run the diameter of 
their circle and get another shot at the fox as it crossed 
the road, a half mile or more up the river. I ran across 
the field, scaled the stone walls, cut through the pasture, 
dodged hurriedly round a grove of spruces to come into 
the road just about a minute behind the fox. But I had 
the measure of its circuit now correct, and a clear road be- 
fore me which I reckoned the fox would cross again some- 
where near my turkey roost. I had only to get the length 
of this road, or within 80yds. of the house, to be within 
range of it again. 
I am something past sixty years, hut I was twenty again 
that night, and although it had been many years since I 
had done much running, especially in felt shoes, I experi- 
enced no inconvenience from them. 
My pace along that road must have been astonishing 
So lost was I in the chase that a team just ahead escaped 
notice until I was up with it, and then I turned aside as 
by instinct and whisked past. As I did so the horse shied 
and became almost unmanageable with fright, while from 
one of the occupants came the startled cry: "Great Scott, 
Tom! What was that?" Tom was too busy preventing a 
runaway to answer, and before I had it clear what fright- 
ened the horse, I was up with another- team. This one 
was a three-seated wagon drawn by two horses and loaded 
with girls. A faint dawning of the situation now stealing 
into my mind led me to accelerate my pace and dash on, 
hoping thereby to so bewilder them that the actual state of 
aflairs might not appear. Scarcely had I passed, however, 
when, amid cries of alarm and astonishment, there rose a 
great clapping of hands and cries of "Eun, grandpa, run!" 
"Heed your white skirts, sir!" and more I did not stop to 
listen to. Then it came to me like a flash of light that I 
was in my night shirt, without hat, and a pair of soft felt 
slippers on my feet. And these girls, up to the game now, 
were hurrying their horses into a fast trot to be in at the 
end. - 
In my selfconsciousness I had lost run of the fox, and 
was now racing with the teams, looking only for a place 
of escape. Consequently I ran direct for the house, and 
turned the corner into my yard just as the first team came 
up, when, to my astonishment and the great delectation 
of the passers, right in the middle of the front yard 
stood my wife in her night apparel. We ran for the house 
together, but not without receiving a parting salute from 
those girls. 
We crept back to bed in silence. My wife never said; 
"I told you so," but she went about her work the next 
morning with a very sweet and knowing smile on her 
face, and a sly twinkle in her eye. 
Two turkeys had been killed in the attack, but the hound 
ran the fox down, and I found upon examination that I 
had wounded it at my first shot. S. W. Stkotjt. 
THE TIME OF FALLING LEAVES. 
I LOOK from the windows of my den upon a rain-drencbed 
landscape. Through the open door across the passage 
comes a sound of pattering on the garret roof. 
To many, the weather conditions this gray November 
morning will doubtless prove dismal in the extreme. I 
wonder if my make-up is so materially difterent from that 
of others — to me this steady drive of rain upon the shingles 
is nothing, — a comfortable, sound, restful suggestive. 'Tis 
true I am under cover, but that in no wise atfecta my keen 
enjoyment of the varying weather conditions in these days 
of'falling leaves. 
I delight in heavy storms, and when they rage about the 
cottage I listen to their tumult and think. Think of all 
sorts of outdoor life and experience in storm and sunshine, 
at home, on the dun marsh where the true "hurricane note" 
of Clark Russell's sea-tales comes booming in from the 
ocean, or abroad on the heaving waters themselves, where 
it has been my fortune to live through the wild frenzy of 
cyclonic gales. 
Do not imagine from this that my career has been alto- 
gether tempestuous, my experience is the common one of 
the wanderer afloat and ashore, but it seems to me that I 
enjoy to a fuller extent than many of my associates the wild 
exiiilaration of a heavy storm. At times I don my rough 
togs and sally forth, enjoying the tumult to the full. 
There is equal delight in calmer scenes, though in differ- 
ing.measure. I do not go a hunting after storms (never lost 
one in my life), bat I am ready to make the most of them 
when they come my way, and heretofore the discomfort 
caused has b^en more than compensated for. 
One of my most pleasing memories is that of a day of 
sunshine closing with a storm, in this wise. The sole occu- 
pant of a houseboat, moored some two miles from the shore, 
on Lake Champlain, I arose before the sun one morning, as is 
the custom, to look at the wealhtr 
Abroad on the sleeping lake all seemed calm and peaceful. 
I could hear the occasional honk! honk ! of a goose, A flock 
had come in just at sunset, and from the direction of that 
lonely voice out in the inky blackness that brooded on the 
waters, I surmised they were feeding on the flats. 
The stars had a misty look, their crispness all gone, while 
the solitary planet swinging low in the sky, had lost its 
frank, clear glance. Soon the sun rose and kindled the 
fragments of cirrus in the zenith until they glowed like a 
deep ruby red. These little cottony clouds, the advance 
guard of a host that later tilled the neaveng, were hurrying 
toward the northeast, sure precurscrs of a change. Of that 
[Not. 27 1897. 
glorious day I will not speak, save to say that Indian sum- 
mer held the earth in its dreamy calm. 
Through the glass T watched the geese out on the flat?, 
where they lingered, often losing them entirely from view 
in the purple haze that at times veiled the surface of the 
lake. Again they would appear, strangely distorted in the 
glimmering mist. Toward night they grew restless, and 
finally, with a chorus of wild cries that set the echoes going, 
they took wing and sailed away into the sunset. 
Shadows crept down the mountain sides, out over the 
lake they stole, while a strange chill seemed to touch me as 
I fed my live decoys in their little coops, and made them 
snug. 
A light supper. My pipe — . Hark! there comes the storm, 
'Twas a little mite of a structure, that houseboat;. 
Through a crack in the door the first note of the approach- 
ing gale was wailing. Now dying away, now rising in a 
single high pitched note, like the singing of an jBolian harp- 
string. Insensibly the wind rose until it seemed to be sitting 
there cosy and snug in the midst of a huge roar, so to speak, 
I thought of an old saying of my deep sea friends who fare 
the ocean : 
Wind before the rain. 
Set your topsails aecain." 
No rain yet, Pjresently it came — at first a scattering 
volley of drops on the low roof, then a terrific downpour. 
Between the lulls I hear the lap, lap, lap of the water at the 
sides of the houseboat, again its voice is lost in the .swirling 
gusts of rain. As I listen, I fancy there is a sting in the 
sound of the dashing water, a viciousness I have not noticed 
before. 
At intervals my big gray gander in the coop rouses, and 
cr-onks to me; on my answering, he replies in monosylla- 
bles. After a few moments of this desultory conversation 
we lapse into silence, and are again lost in the uproar of the 
raging storm. 
I remember a feeling of cosiness that grew as the time 
passed. A sense of comfort possessed me as 1 realized that 
I was pretty close to old mother nature this stormy night, as 
I held familiar converse with her wild creatures. 
My pipe drops from my hand — a few drowsy fumbles 
recover it, and then, fearing really to awaken and disturb 
the delicious sleepy spell that held me, I roll into my hunk. 
There, with the spat of the driving rain, the heavy booming 
of the gale, came such perfect, dreamless rest as is not often 
found, 
I am still in my den, the rain is quietly pattering on the 
shingles of the garret roof, Au retoir. 
WlLMOT TOWNSEND. 
Bay Ridge, N. Y. 
IN THE COUNTRY OF THE SILENCE. 
We could not make coffee from the water of the crater 
lake, it was so filled with arsenic and copper washed from 
the mineral ledges that seamed the whole mountain, and that 
is why Billy took the coffee pot and the prospecting pick up 
to the glacier to "cut some ice." 
Bluie was spreading the blankets out over the bones of an 
old balsam fir so they would get the benefit of the sun. I 
tinkered with the fire and watched ihe thin wisp of blue 
smoke rise straight up until it lost itself in the gray of the 
early morning. 
The crimson of the coming sun emblazoned the east and 
tinged the scorched rocks that piled wildly up into brown 
pinnacles a thousand feet above, and pictured themselves in 
reverse on the glassy surface of the little black lake in the 
old crater. A faint and far-off murmur came up from the 
roaring river in the canon of shadows far below, and lent its 
voice in contrast to the eternal stillness of the peaks — a still- 
ness that can almost be felt when you are 10,000ft. above the 
busy world, 
"Tink, tink, tink," said the hammer, as Billy broke the 
ice from the front of the glacier. We could even hear the 
musical tinkle of the slivers that rattled down into the crev- 
ices. "All coons look alike to me," sung Billy, and then the 
echoes joined in a boisterous chorus and you woidd havfe to 
guess the rest. 
Faint sounds, indefinite, indefinable, came up from the 
lower country and made a part of the upper silence. A few 
fleecy clouds rode by on the gentle breeze, but we saw the 
top, not the underside of them, as we usually do; for they 
could not climb to us, and were content to drag their skirts 
across the fir tops of the 6,000ft. level. 
The tire burned down to a red-hot bed of coals, the coffee 
welled up in furious bubbles, that wilted before a dash of 
cold water as Billy set the pot to one side. The bacon sput- 
tered and curled up, and I had to reason with it while Billy 
attended to the rest of the meal. 
The sun was just peeping over the blue wall of the Cas- 
cades when we sat down on the moss to eat breakfast — and 
such a breakfast ! It takes mountain air to properly season 
common bacon, and ozone is the proper flavor to properly 
mix with a pot of black coffee, I wonder why some enter- 
prising city man don't get a stock of these two culinary 
helps; he would soon have a monopoly. 
After breakfast the odor of tobacco went up — a pipe is 
better than a tine wine away up there — and we three partners 
gave ourselves up to a half hour of solid comfort and of 
watching the world from the same point of view that the 
bald eagle does every day, 
"Let's go to the very top of the highest pinnacle and look 
at the world from there, fellows." No sooner said than 
acted on. 1 took the 60ft. coil of rope and threw it over my 
shoulder, for I have a- certain feeling of friendship and a 
sense of respect, begot among just such peaks, for a good, 
strong, light rope ; it's might^y apt to be a friend in need up 
there in the silent country. 
The prospecting pick, too, is a handy little tool, both for 
getting secrets from the rocks and for furnishing a grip 
where its sharp point will chng in a crevice, 
A half mile above camp the pinnacles petered out and 
reached up in a last sharp needle, in vain effort to pierce the 
blue dome above. Up and acioss the little kindergarten 
glacier, on up the smooth reach of mossy cliff and to the 
reach that was the divide, we went. Turning to the right, 
we followed along the top of this ridge, winding about 
among the broken rocks that age and weather had shattered 
from the ribs of the world, weavine and twisting, climbing, 
slipping, always a little higher. "Look out ! ' shouted Billy, 
and Bluie and I had only time to flatten ourselves against the 
face of a huge boulder as a rnck of several tons' weight 
thundered by, crashed down and flew into fragments like 
an exploded bombshell hundreds of feet below. Loose rock 
and fragments followed it down and flowed over our feet, 
up to our knees and — slopped, as we stood against the 
