58 
Beagles and Beagling 
betokened a change of weather. However, when 
we arrived at our destination, several miles out of 
the city, the sun arose in a bank of crimson clouds 
and a good day, such as those drowsy, droning 
Indian Summer days are in mid-October, was before 
us in the making. The old farm where we went 
was full of cotton tails and Charlie, the new owner 
of the over-sized beagles, determined to give his 
dogs a thorough trial “under judgment” as he 
laughingly explained. Old man Smith, the owner 
of the farm, came out to meet us as we drove into 
the barn yard. “Put your horse right there in one 
of the empty stalls and then go down to the berry 
patch back by the creek and kill as many as you 
can. There are millions o' rabbits around here and 
I want to get shed of them, ’cause they're eatin' up 
all my young fruit trees.” 
We assured him that we would try to account 
for at least a small fraction of the million, and as 
we were assembling our guns he added : “And when 
you hear the dinner bell, be sure to come up to the 
house and get some warm victuals ; you'll both need 
a good hot dinner after your morning’s work.” 
We thanked him for the invitation and assured 
him that we would not overlook the bell. Down the 
lane we trudged and all this while Charlie kept his 
two dogs at heel, for they were really well broken 
beagles with all the accomplishments in the way of 
training that most bird dogs possess. The berry 
patch was several acres in extent, rising over a 
series of little hills and winding down through nar¬ 
row hollows until the patch came to an abrupt end 
along the edge of a little rock-bound creek. Just 
