708 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. ii, 1911. 
there; finally dropping his head to the moss 
again, but only for a moment. One of them 
looked squarely into my glasses, and I trembled, 
thinking he must surely see me, but after look¬ 
ing hard for ten seconds or so, he resumed his 
breakfast. 
Slipping back out of sight, I took off my heavy 
shoes and leather hunting shirt, to be perfectly 
free for stalking and shooting, while Jack lay 
stretched out in the corner of the cliff, crouching 
back like a panther to see which direction they 
would take in coming up to lie down. For an 
hour I sat thus, with my feet wrapped up in the 
leather shirt, snow whirling about, hot and co d 
chills chasing each other up and down my spine, 
wondering if now after these weeks of toil and 
hunting I should really get my ram. 
“Do you know the long day’s patience in snowdrift be'ly 
downward, 
While the head of heads is feeding out of range?” 
Then Jack said “Come” and I knew they had 
started up. Jack as usual in slipping along 
through the rocks picked the sharp points which 
stick up and indicate firm country rock rather 
than choosing the flat p'aces which indicate loose 
stones, where one is liable to turn and slip and 
fall. All very well for Jack, with his horny feet 
and thick moccasins, but for the white man with 
his tender toes and woolen socks, a very different 
proposition. 
The wind swept up the valley, and fortunately 
toward us from the rams. The sun shone dimly 
through the snow from quartering back of us, 
very favorable for shooting. We reached a point 
toward which the rams were heading, and which 
we thought they would certainly pass, and finally 
Jack, peeking through the rocks, hissed to me a 
signal to shoot, and springing up on to the litt"e 
ledge ahead of us, went the pair, sixty or seventy 
yards away, the big fe’low in the rear. Firing 
once as I stood, I jumped ahead and sat down 
with the rifle o'n my knees, and fired again at 
the rams in full flight. Again, and the big ram 
stopped and half fell. Again, and he rolled over 
and over down the side of the mountain, his 
great horns rattling upon the stones. 
“The other one; there, there!” cried Jack, and 
I could just see his white rump flashing through 
the great rocks 250 yards away up the mountain 
side, half concealed by the flurries of fading 
snow. Filling my magazine, I emptied it at these 
chance shots until he reached the high ridge 
above us, coming out against the sky. “Five hun¬ 
dred yards,” said Jack, and then, as he appeared 
again, “Six hundred yards.” I could not at the 
time understand why he did not go down over 
the other side, but when we got up there two 
hours later, we understood, for down from the 
other side was a steep field of ice, so steep 
that even a sheep might not venture out 
upon it. 
Shooting well over my 300 meter sight, Jack 
watched with the glasses, without result. Finally 
I concluded that we must be deceiving ourselves 
at our distance, and when he appeared again I 
called it 400 yards, shooting the 300 meter sight 
just one-sixteenth coarse. “There.” said Jack, 
“right beside him.” Then I lay down, resting 
over a big rock with steady aim, and when he 
appeared again, broke his leg, and firing again 
quickly, shot him through the body. It was really 
a long shot. He looked scarcely bigger than a 
mouse away up there against the black sky, and 
I was elated to have hit him. He fell and got 
up, turning back among the rocks. 
“He’s our ram,” cried Jack, coming over to 
shake hands with me and pat me upon the back. 
“Good man, Judge,” said he, “you’re no give up; 
mos’ white man is give ’m up. Never I’m hunt 
so hard the ram; twelve years I’m hunt the ram, 
never so hard.” Then starting forward to hunt 
for our first ram nearby, I half fell, realizing for 
the first time that my feet were very much cut 
up and bleeding. Jack went back for my shoes 
and shirt, and after washing the blood from my 
feet with snow and getting on my shoes, we 
found our ram, a fine big fellow, not a record 
head by any means, but a good one, and in good 
condition. Time, 11 a.m. ;only three cartridges ’eft. 
After photographing the first ram we started 
up to find the second one, and after a stiff climb 
of forty-five minutes we found his track, with 
spots of blood, and soon jumped him, badly hurt, 
firing twice and wounding him again as he ran 
across the cliffs. Then as he stopped, mortally 
hurt, I sat down, shooting carefully, and killed 
him with a shot into the rump, my last cartridge, 
just at 12 o’clock. 
After taking pictures we lunched and smoked, 
snuggled back into a sheltering corner of the 
cliffs, looking out across the wide valley full of 
whirling snow, across a world of ice and glaciers. 
Then we butchered the ram, and piiing big stones 
over the meat to protect it from the eagles, re¬ 
turned with the head to the first ram for a simi¬ 
lar last service over his remains. Taking the 
camera and other small articles upon my own 
K NOWING that many of the readers of 
Forest and Stream are fox hunters, I 
am going to tell the story of one of the 
finest chases that I have participated in, in many 
a day. 
Here at Brentwood, Ark., in the Ozark Moun¬ 
tains, I keep a pack of foxhounds, seven in all, 
and A. W. Brown, a relative, the same number. 
On a night early in October in company with 
Arther Reed, another relative and a lover of 
the chase, we kept an appointment with Brown 
and two friends, Steve Jett and Bane Hutchins. 
We were to meet J. R. Stockburger, also with 
his pack, but when he started to meet us, his 
dogs started a red fox and were soon gone out 
of hearing and we heard no more of them that 
night. 
Brown’s dogs soon had a fox going, and for 
about two hours they kept him going at a point 
where we could not get to them, but finally in 
going around on the road which we had fol¬ 
lowed, we met those dogs coming across an open 
piece of ground and got our dogs in with them. 
They crossed an apple orchard with a wire fence 
around it which threw one of my dogs. But 
this did not last long. Two young hounds were 
in the race and then began one of the finest 
runs I ever heard. Around and around for more 
than two hours they went, first on one side of 
the railway and then on the other until about 
back, Jack took both the heads upon his shoul¬ 
ders, and with this awkward and heavy burden 
he toiled ahead of me up through the steep pass, 
I helping from behind to lift over the worst 
places. 
Back through the pass to the horses at 4 p. m. 
to find that “Roany’s” patience, usually inex¬ 
haustible, had given out before the cold blasts of 
snow which swept through the pass, and he had 
managed to break his tie rope. Loading every¬ 
thing, therefore, on patient “Sally,” Jack’s 
favorite saddle mare, who stood like a white 
specter all covered with snow waiting for us, we 
plodded down through the pass, finding “Roany” 
just in the low scrub a mile below. Jack lashed 
the two heads on to his saddle and rode behind 
it himself, whistling cheerfully for the first time 
in three weeks. 
As we rode into camp Napo’eon, accustomed 
to our empty-handed returns, hardly looked up 
from his wood chopping, but when he did look 
up he let out a yell which brought Doctor on the 
run from under the kitchen fly, where he had 
been rolling pie crust with a quart bottle. A 
quart bottle also figured in the subsequent pro¬ 
ceedings, and an hour later we had mutton and 
currant jelly for supper; good, but tough of 
course, so newly killed. 
We had been at some pains to weigh the heads 
and viscera of the rams when butchering them, 
and next day Jack weighed up the meat, making 
a total of 255 pounds for the first ram and 234 
pounds for the second. 
[to be continued.] 
ii o’clock, when Turk, a fine young dog of 
mine, crossed the mountain and struck the fox 
as he came across a small field, and I had the 
pleasure of hearing Turk’s fine clear notes as he 
topped the hill in advance of the pack. They 
crossed a ravine and passed over on to a moun¬ 
tain, and when almost out of hearing the fox 
turned and came directly back to where Arthur 
and I were waiting, and we turned .him against 
a wire fence. Blackbird, the little black female 
hound, saw him, all but caught him as he made 
the turn, and then for about an hour and a half 
she led the most exciting chase I ever heard. 
Time and time again they would a’most get him, 
but he dodged in and out around and around, 
and we all threw discretion to the winds. 
The entire pack of hounds—and they are as fine 
a pack as I ever saw—just raced along, and all 
they had to do was to keep in sight of Blackbird. 
How she did run and how she did sing! We 
could hear her catch her breath as she gave 
tongue at every jump and the fox lost all fear 
of the men who were all around him, yelling 
and screaming like mad. In an old brush-grown 
field the fox put in the last half hour, then 
started down the hill across a small creek and 
up the side of the mountain, and when almostj 
on top, Blackbird was too swift for him, and 
caught her first fox after a race, in all lasting 
six hours and twenty minutes. 
A Memorable Fox Hunt 
By J. E. LONDON 
