made one of the party on the instant.

"Before daylight we started, a dozen mounted men leading the way, with
the intent to get quite round the ridge, and cut off the retreat of
these most wily beasts of prey, before the coming of the rear-guard
should alarm them--and the remainder of the party, sleighing it merrily
along, with all the hounds attached to them. The dawn was yet in its
first gray dimness when we got into line along the little ridge which
bounds that small dense brake on the northeastern side--upon the
southern side the hill rose almost inaccessibly in a succession of short
limestone ledges--westward the open woods, through which the hounds and
footmen were approaching, sloped down in a long easy fall, into the deep
secluded basin, filled with the densest and most thorny coverts, and in
the summer time waist deep in water, and almost inaccessible, though now
floored with a sheet of solid ice, firm as the rocks around it--due
northward was an open field, dividing the wolf-dingle from the mountain
road by which we always travel.

"Our plot had been well laid, and thus far had succeeded. I, with eleven
horsemen, drawn up in easy pistol shot one of the other, had taken our
ground in perfect silence; and, as we readily discovered, by the
untrodden surface of the snow, our enemies were as yet undisturbed. My
station was the extreme left of our line, as we faced westward, close to
the first ridge of the southern hill; and there I sat in mute
expectancy, my holsters thrown wide open, my Kuchenreuters loaded and
cocked, and my good ounce-ball rifle lying prepared within the hollow of
my arm.

"Within a short half hour I saw the second party, captained by our
friend Garry, coming up one by one, and forming silently and promptly
upon the hill side--and directly after I heard the crash and shout of
our beaters, as they plunged into the thicket at its westward end. So
far as I could perceive, all had gone well. Two sides, my own eyes told
me, were surrounded, and the continuous line in which the shouts ran all
along the farther end, would have assured me, if assurance had been
needful, for Tom himself commanded in that quarter, that all was
perfectly secure on that side. A Jerseyman, a hunter of no small repute,
had been detached with a fourth band to guard the open fields upon the
north; due time had been allotted to him, and, as we judged, he was upon
his ground. Scarce had the first yell echoed through the forest