h-riding was harder work. We have
only had one or two leaps over fallen logs altogether."

"There ain't much leaping, that's a fact. I suppose you have been
fox-hunting?"

"My father was a master of hounds," replied Halbert. "On the first day
of the season, when the hounds met at home, there would be two hundred
horsemen on our terrace, fifty of them, at least, in pink. It was a
regular holiday for all the country round. Such horses, too. My
father's horse, the Elk, was worth three hundred pounds, and there were
better horses than him to be seen in the field, I promise you."

"And all after a poor little fox!"

"You don't know Charley I can see," said Halbert. "Poor little fox,
indeed! Why, it's as fair a match between the best-tried pack of hounds
in England, and an old dog-fox, as one would wish to see. And as hard
work as it is to ride up to them, even without a stiff fence at every
two hundred yards, to roll you over on your head, if your horse is
blown or clumsy. Just consider how many are run, and how few are
killed. I consider a fox to be the noblest quarry in the world. His
speed, courage, and cunning are wonderful. I have seen a fox run
fifteen miles as the crow flies, and only three of us in at the death.
That's what I call sport."

"So do I, by Jove!" said Jim. "You have some good sport in India, too?"

"Yes. Pig-sticking is pretty--very pretty, I may say, if you have two
or three of the right sort with you. All the Griffins ought to hunt
together though. There was a young fellow, a King's-officer, and a
nobleman too, came out with us the other day, and rode well forward,
but as the pig turned he contrived to spear my horse through the
pastern. He was full of apologies, and I was outwardly highly polite
and indifferent, but internally cursing him up hill and down dale. I
went home and had the horse shot; but when I got up next morning, there
was a Syce leading up and down a magnificent Australian, a far finer
beast than the one which I had lost, which my Lord had sent up to
replace my unfortunate nag. I went down to his quarters and refused to
accept it; but he forced me in the end, and it gave me a good lesson
about keeping my temper over an unavoidable accident, which I don't
mean to forget. Don't you think it was prettily done?"

"Yes, I do," said Jim; "but you see these noblemen are so rich that
they can afford to do that sort of thing, where you or I couldn't. But
I expect they are very good fell