\ 
\ POREST 
Vol. XCV No.1 


The Stranger 
STREAM 
January - 1925 
How a Pitiful Pup Became the Pride of the Pack 
one knew; and whither he 
went, no one cared. He 
was simply a little shivering, 
wandering waif, upon the vast 
world of doggy possibilities, 
without a home, without a 
master, without a friend, and 
as forlorn a beast, as dismal of 
countenance, and so desolate to 
look upon as ever stood up in 
so much tattered dog skin. He 
was a big-eared, loose-jointed, 
shamble-gaited hound puppy; 
neither more nor less, and lean, 
lank and lubberly, with a back- 
bone upstanding, sharp as the 
teeth of a cross-cut saw, every 
rib of his slab sides countable 
with absolute accuracy, and 
every joint of his slouching tail 
as clearly marked as the knots 
in a rope. His color was of a dingy 
soot variety, with a mottled ring around 
his neck, and here and there along his 
sides it seemed as though a dash of 
dirty buttermilk had adhered to his 
rough-haired hide to break the monot- 
ony of the gloomy hue. 
He was probably ten months or a 
year old, not more, and he looked as 
one who had battled with every ad- 
verse element of life, from puppyhood 
to doghood. When we first saw him, 
a stout string dangled from his 
tail and told a tale of where 
once rattled a festive tin can, 
the frightful, jangle whereof, 
no doubt, first drove him to 
desperation, thence to distrac- 
tion and exile. 
] Beers where he hailed no 
bi 
E was “nobody’s darling,” 
and he seemed to know it 
and express it by his concilia- 
tary manner, and modest mien, 
so exaggerated as to make him. 
appear as an emaciated apol- 
ogy for being alive at all, with 
a. solemn promise never again 
to be guilty of a like offense, 
and with a plea for pity as 
Page 3 
Part of the pack of 
By MARCELLUS DAVIS 
The Runt 
By G. H. DIRKES 
7 
Only a throwback, just fit for the pond— 
They said on the day he was born; 
But a look in his eyes, a surety bond 
And my judgment and “rep” were in pawn. 
He was only a runt, not much class that’s a fact— 
But his heart proved as stout as an oak; 
He made up in courage the points that he lacked 
And proved himself far from a joke. 
I trained him in private, to duck the big laugh— 
And found he was born to the gun; 
His nose was a marvel—now don’t think I’m daft, 
I can show you the trophies he’s won. 
Not much on the bench, but Oh Boy! in the field— 
He can give cards and spades to the pack; 
To the scoring of “Runt” they all have to yield, 
It’s a new silver cup for the rack. 
plainly written upon his meek face as 
the tawny spots above his eyes. Never- 
theless, the horses kicked him, the old 
hounds snubbed him, and the young ones 
snapped him and made his life miser- 
able. But somehow he rustled a living, 
such as it was; at any rate, he lived, 
and more than that, never a horn tooted 
for a start for a fox chase without 
“the Stranger” (that’s what we had 
got to calling him) would materialize 
and be on hand with military punctu- 

J. M. Kimbrough, Lexington, Ky. 


Walker foxhounds owned by 
ality. Sometimes he would seem 
almost to rise out of the earth on 
the spot; at others he would flit 
into the pack, like a shadow out 
of the moonlit woods on the 
roadside, and then again we 
might not note his presence 
until the meet had been reached 
and we were ranging the hills 
for a strike. 
But let us pause just here to 
remark that there is small simi- 
larity between the fox chase of 
the South and that of the old 
countries where the red fox 
furnishes the sport and runs by 
daylight, with the pack close fol- 
lowed by the hunters. Here the 
chase is invariably by night, and 
the gray fox is the game. He is 
equally as cunning and as full of 
tricks, but neither as swift nor 
as wide of range as his red brother of 
the older States. 
HENCE it is that the far-roving, pa- 
tient, true-trailing “strike” dog is 
of more value, though perhaps slower, 
than the hot-nosed pacemaker, the red 
fox hound, that must perforce run from 
the jump or not at all; for if you give 
a red fox a 30-minute trail start you 
have a race on hand that will last you 
till long after the “cows come home” 
and lose you a brush in the bar- 
gain; and the ranging grounds 
here are not like the old coun- 
tries either; and you have no 
need of the thoroughbred, 
cross-country flyer, to clear 
five barred fences and brooks 
and ditches, etc. 
That would not work in a 
wire fence country anyhow, 
even though the ground would 
otherwise permit. What you 
want is a steady steed, free- 
going and _ sure-footed, and, 
above all, a good hill climber 
—many a mule answers the 
purpose—and then you want in 
your pack a few absolutely 
Contents Copyrighted by Forest and Stream Pub, Co, 
