he wheeled his mare, with a degree of active skill, which
I should certainly have looked for any where rather than in so vast a
mass of flesh as that which was exhibited by our worthy host.

Two other sportsmen, grave, sober-looking farmers, whom Harry greeted
cheerily by name, and to whom in all due form I was next introduced,
well-mounted, and armed with long single-barreled guns, completed our
party; and away we went at a rattling trot, the hounds following at
Archer's heels, as steadily as though he hunted them three times a week.

"Now arn't it a strange thing," said Tom, "arn't it a strange thing, Mr.
Forester, that every critter under Heaven takes somehow nat'rally to
that are Archer--the very hounds--old Whino there! that I have had these
eight years, and fed with my own hands, and hunted steady every winter,
quits me the very moment he claps sight on him; by the eternal, I
believe he is half dog himself."

"You hunted them indeed," interrupted Harry, "you old rhinoceros, why
hang your hide, you never so much as heard a good view-holloa till I
came up here--you hunted them--a man talk of hunting, that carries a
cannon about with him on horseback; but come, where are we to try first,
on Rocky Hill, or in the Spring Swamps?"

"Why now I reckon, Archer, we'd best stop down to Sam Blain's--by the
blacksmith's--he was telling t'other morning of an eternal sight of them
he'd seen down hereaway--and we'll be there to rights!--Jem, cus you,
out of my way, you dumb nigger--out of my way, or I'll ride over you"--
for, traveling along at a strange shambling run, that worthy had
contrived to keep up with us, though we were going fully at the rate of
eight or nine miles in the hour.

"Hurrah!" cried Tom, suddenly pulling up at the door of a neat
farm-house on the brow of a hill, with a clear streamlet sweeping round
its base, and a fine piece of woodland at the farther side. "Hurrah! Sam
Blain, we've come to make them foxes, you were telling of a Sunday,
smell h-ll right straight away. Here's Archer, and another Yorker with
him--leastwise an Englisher I should say--and Squire Conklin, and Bill
Speers, and that white nigger Jem! Look sharp, I say! Look sharp, cuss
you, else we'll pull off the ruff of the old humstead."

In a few minutes Sam made his appearance, armed, like the rest, with a
Queen Ann's tower-musket.

"Well! well!" he said, "I'm ready. Quit making such a clatter! Lend me a
load of powder, one of you; my