
4657, one of the greatest stud dogs living. 

Owned by 
J. L. Kanatzar, Richmond, Ky, 
reliable hounds who will open on no- 
thing but a fox. The rest may be good, 
bad, or indifferently trained, fast or 
slow, it matters little, just so they are 
game to run when the chase is going 
and are true hounds. But you want 
nothing in the pack but hounds. The 
smartest cur or terrier will spoil the 
chase, and the smarter he is the sooner 
he’ll do it; and that’s about the right 
equipment for a fox chase in the South, 
with which, if you once get your trail 
straight and fairly going, you will 
rarely fail to get your brush at the 
end, the length of the race depending 
on the speed of the hounds. 
But to return to “the Stranger.” We 
_ had said that he was always on 
hand. We had all somehow come to 
recognize his right to be along, a sort 
of “skeleton in the closet” appendage 
to the pack, but his object in going was 
hardly so clear, for he seemed not to 
have the slightest notion of the object 
of the expedition, and nobody had ever 
heard him give tongue, except when 
stepped on or kicked by a 
horse. However, we paid 
little attention to him usu- 
ally; indeed, none more 
than to know that he was 
always there. But several 
had remarked that when 
the chase was once fairly 
up “the Stranger” was 
seldom seen about the 
horses, but his dingy color 
easily escaped notice in 
the dark. And another 
thing that we happened to 
remember afterwards, was 
the fact that whether the 
chase turned out to be short or long, 
two hours or six, whenever the fox was 
caught, whoever was first to reach the 
spot was sure to find “the Stranger” 
there. 
A S the season progressed it was noted 
that “the Stranger” was improv- 
ing, i.e., from some mysterious source 
he had taken on a little flesh and a 
little courage, and had begun to round 
up and to fill out, that his little frame- 
work was fine, his ears long, pendulous, 
and beautifully hung, his muzzle ex- 
cellent, and his eyes big, brown, and 
honest, and his color clearing up into 
fine shades of indigo blue and chocolate 
tan; but that cowed, whipped-out 
humble look still marked him as a sneak 
and a skulker, the impress of a multi- 
tude of snaps, snarls, and thrashings, 
and he still slunk along in the rear or 
hung on the flank of the pack, or, like 
a shame-faced shadow, stole stealthily 
through the outskirts of the hunt. 
Well, one fine night in November, 
when the moon rode high, we had as- 

Hub Dawson 5600. 
Glen Springs, Ky. 

sembled at the haunt of an old dog fox, 
about nine miles distant in the foot- 
hills. 
WE had ridden rapidly, deeming it 
well to wear the wiry edge off the 
young hounds and steady the old ones 
down with a good gallop before turn- 
ing in for the night’s work. We ex- 
pected nothing less than a “night’s 
work,” for this old fox in question had 
never failed to show up in gallant style, 
and for several seasons he had tan- 
talized the best packs in the country 
with this unfailing certainty to chal- 
lenge all comers with a good race and 
the equal certainty and facility with 
which he never failed to shed his pur- 
suers, send them to a cold trail, and 
then to a dead loss whenever he grew 
wearied with the entertainment. He 
was called the “beater,” in later years 
“the old beater,” and he had earned 
the title. Some of the Negroes of the 
neighborhood had grown superstitious 
of him. They said that he was not a 
fox at all, that they had seen him and 
that he was a kind of cross between a 
big bat and a wildcat, that he was wing- 
ed and web-footed, and that he would 
run till he got tired and then rise and fly 
to the mountains and rest, and then 
come down and run again, and so on. 
But we knew better, for he had been 
seen too often. 
HE was just simply an old, seasoned 
“beater,” and a good one, too, and 
had given more horses the thumps, 
more dogs hard fits, and more men the 
headache, and had inspired more scold-_ 
ings and sermons upon the subject of 
breaking the Sababth day by running a 
fox chase past the meridian of Satur- 
day night into Sunday morning than 
all the other foxes in our Congressional 
district. But here we were, all dis- 
mounted, waiting to breathe the horses 
and give the hounds a little time to 
shake their ears and lap some water 
from the mountain branch that brawled 
near by. Some of us were eating a 
light lunch or chewing an apple, or 
tightening a girth, or chatting over the 
plans of the night, or 
looking at a new dog, when 
one of the party, who 
stood away some paces, 
said: “Hush, I hear a 
horn,” pointing his finger 
out toward the shadowy 
mountain slope to the 
west. 
E all listened; then 
another remarked: 
“That’s not a horn, it’s a 
hound; and he has a 
mighty mouth on him.” 
“Whose could it be?” said 
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