hed the barn, a dark
little figure was close at his heels.

"Can I go, too?" Chad asked, eagerly.

"Think you can stick on?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right. Get my bay horse. That old mare of yours is too slow."

The Major's big bay horse! Chad was dizzy with pride.

When they galloped out into the dark woods, there were the General and
Harry and Dan and half a dozen neighbors, sitting silently on their
horses and listening to the music of the hounds.

The General laughed.

"I thought you'd come," he said, and the Major laughed too, and cocked
his ear. "Old Rock's ahead," he said, for he knew, as did everyone
there, the old hound's tongue.

"He's been ahead for an hour," said the General with quiet
satisfaction, "and I think he'll stay there."

Just then a dark object swept past them, and the Major with a low cry
hied on his favorite hound.

"Not now, I reckon," he said, and the General laughed again.

Dan and Harry pressed their horses close to Chad, and all talked in low
voices.

"Ain't it fun?" whispered Dan. Chad answered with a shiver of pure joy.

"He's making for the creek," said the Major, sharply, and he touched
spurs to his horse. How they raced through the woods, cracking brush
and whisking around trees, and how they thundered over the turf and
clattered across the road and on! For a few moments the Major kept
close to Chad, watching him anxiously, but the boy stuck to the big bay
like a jockey, and he left Dan and Harry on their ponies far behind.
All night they rode under the starlit sky, and ten miles away they
caught poor Reynard. Chad was in at the kill, with the Major and the
General, and the General gave Chad the brush with his own hand.

"Where did you learn to ride, boy?"

"I never learned," said Chad, simply, whereat the Major winked at his
friends and patted Chad on the shoulder.

"I've got to let my boys ride better horses, I suppose," said the
General; "I can't have a boy who does not know how to ride beating them
this way."

Day was breaking when the Major and Chad rode into the stable-yard. The
boy's face was pale, his arms and legs ached, and he was so sleepy that
he could hardly keep his eyes open.

"How'd you like it, Chad?"

"I never knowed nothing like it in my life," said Chad.

"I'm going to teach you to shoot."

"Yes, sir," said Chad.

As they approached the house, a squirrel barked from the woods.

"Hear that, Chad?" said the Major. "We'll get him."

The fol