border that my footfalls were inaudible, 
I was scanning the sun-bathed tops of 
trees above me for possible shots. The 
air was still and windless and I came 
suddenly out into a widening of the 
gully where the sun poured in warmly, 
a red fox that had been sunning him- 
self on a great boulder and taking a 
morning nap, with a yap of surprise 
leaped from his perch and the only im- 
pression I retained was a flying figure, 
a red streak and silence. I think his 
startled bark must have brought my 
eyes from the treetops just in time to 
note his leap and although I fired in his 
general direction, I was just as startled 
as he and my shot flew wide. 
FOX running ahead of a hound 
only toys with his pursuer, with 
perfect confidence in his speed he en- 
joys the sport and often will gain on 
his persistent trailer and wait for him 
to come up quite close before renewing: 
the race. Unless wounded, he is abso- 
lutely safe from a following hound and 
he knows it. He delights in covering 
his trail by making long sidewise leaps 
to the top of a rail fence and thread- 
ing its zigzag way for many rods be- 
fore taking to the ground again, he 
will gingerly wade up or down some 
little stream crossing the course of the 
chase, then take to a convenient high 
point and watch the maneuvers of his 
baffled pursuer as he searches for the 
lost trail; thus combining. rest and 
amusement, while he laughs to himself 
‘in his foxy way. 
When I was a boy out here in the 
Genesee Valley, now many years ago, 
there were a number of old-time fox 
hunters who took in the sport regu- 
larly, even as elderly men to-day turn to 
golf for health and recreation. I recall 
Robert Nicholson, Alanson Hall, ’Squire 
Dorr and Ezekiel Ogden as perfect sam- 
ples of their kind. All of them were 
staid business men past middle age and 
standing high in the community. My 
recollection is that they always went 
alone on their hunts, each one having 
his favorite territory that all the rest 
respected. 
“fea kept no yelping pack or stables 
filled with blooded ‘hunters,’ but 
each man had a wise old fox hound in 
a home-made kennel in the back yard 
whose deep mouthed exultant baying 
at early morning in the fall of the year 
would cause the fathers of the neighbor- 
hood to remark as they turned over for 
another nap, “Well wife, “Lance and 
old Brave are off-again after foxes” or 
“Bob and the hound will wake up 
Poags Hole to-day,” and who can say 
these men did not get a slice of the best 
of life? If they got a shot at Reynard 
dallying along before the hound and 
saw him cringe before the merciless 
rain of No. 6 shot from the medium 
choke barrels of their muzzle loading 
cap lock guns they were thrilled with a 
joy unspeakable; but if after tramping 
all day they only had the music of the 
hound to cheer them, they were not 
downhearted, rather were they happy 
and content and could answer to the 
query, “What luck?” with a serene and 
smiling face. 
Never a fox hunter myself, I was a 
lover of the fields and woods from my 
earliest recollection. At the mature age 
of twelve, father bought me a gun and 
one of the problems of my life has been 
to try to find out why such a sensible 
staid kind man as father should have 
done such a thing. Perhaps prevailing 
conditions had a bit to do with it for it 
happened this way. It was war time 
back in ’63. Billy Opp, a lad who had 
worked for father was home on sick 
leave. He came over to the shop one 
day with a rather shaky looking single 
barrelled shotgun on his shoulder; he 
was convalescing rapidly and evidently 
had dropped in to see the boys for old 
times’ sake. Billy’s malady had a pe- 
culiarity, he could not (or said he could 
not) speak aloud and carried on all his 
conversation in a husky whisper. 
lé was Saturday and happening to be 
in the shop, I noticed Billy sibilating 
in father’s ear close up as the machin- 
ery was buzzing with war-time ardor. 
Stealing up to the pair, I heard father 
say, “How much you want for the old 
fuzee?” Billy rather forgot himself 
in his anxiety to sell and I heard him 
distinctly say “Twenty shillin boss and 
mighty cheap at that. Just the thing 
for the boy.” Right here was where I 
came in with a fervent, “O please buy 
it pa. I'll be awfully careful,” so he 
counted out the money and handed me 
the gun, remarking as he turned back 
to his work, “I don’t know what your 
mother will say.” O the pride I took in 
this, my first gun with its potmetal 
barrel, thin maple stock and wabbly 
uncertain action; Uncle Will tightened 
it up, tested it, declared it safe and a 
good shooter and father detailed a man 
to take me to the woods and show me 
how to use it. I was an apt, albeit, a 
careful scholar; mother had coached 
me and three red squirrels fell to my 
prowess and so was I initiated in the 
noble art of woodcraft. 
Who has not heard of, or better, seen 
the Genesee Valley, that beauty spot of 
Western New York reaching fifty miles 
north and south from the bustling vil- 

lage of Dansville to the important com- 
mercial city of Rochester near Lake 
Ontario? At Mount Morris the Gene- 
see river breaks into the valley, having 
cut its way from the south through a 
wonderful gorge that holds in its em- 
brace the well-known Letchworth park 
and a series of falls and wonderful 
views that attract thousands of tour- 
ists in season. 
EACHING the valley level, it is 
joined by its main tributary, Ca- 
naseraga creek known in early days as 
the Little Genesee, and flows on quietly 
north, fed by the outlets of Noneoye, 
Hemlock and Conesuo lakes, when ar- 
riving at Rochester a considerable river, 
it takes its final plunge over two great 
cataracts and is swallowed up in the 
great lake. 
It has been my fortune to live in the 
village holding the south end of this 
delectable valley for more than sixty 
years. Our location is ideal; on every 
side, except the north, rise hills a thou- 
sand feet and more and the town lies 
in a cul de sac from whence there is no 
escape except by long heavy grades. A 
great trunk line railway has cut its 
rocky right of way along the mountain 
on the east, where, from an elevation of 
some five hundred feet, the passengers 
may look down on our happy isolation. 
These hills round about have been my 
joy and pride for all these years, fresh 
every morning and new every evening. 
I have explored them all and found 
them good. Debouching into the valley 
are numerous gullies and miniature 
gorges, each with its own little stream 
of mountain water. Some of these 
reach far back into the hills and re- 
veal many ledges of outcropping rock 
where the fox may make his den and 
dwell in safety; here is his refuge when 
tired of the chase and secure in these 
fastnesses, he holds his own against 
all comers. 
I HAVE always admired Reynard for 
his consummate skill in looking out 
for himself, but I never started afield 
with gun and dog with special designs 
on his undoing. One morning, I footed 
up to Shoehammer woods, ostensibly 
for squirrels and not having much luck, 
decided to try Geigers where there were 
many chestnut trees. Geigers was a 
big tract of woodland at the foot of 
the ridge in the Poags Hole Valley a 
half mile away. On a farm in this 
valley lived my friend Billy Opp from 
whom I hed had my first gun, but this 
was years after that episode and I car- 
ried a good breech loader now and 
mother’s admonitions were not a part 
of my day’s sport. Billy kept a hound 
that he told me used to amuse his lonely 
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