uzzle and knows every trick of his cunning game. Running a few panels
down the fence, he rears up on it and snuffs the top rail, and then,
with a yell of triumph, dashes over it into the woods, with the whole
pack in full cry at his heels. A ringing cheer announces that the
fox has "jumped," and the field scatters in pursuit. Two only, the
subscriber being one, follow the dogs with a flying leap. Some dash
off in search of a low panel, others to head off the cry through the
distant gate, while others stop to pull the rails and make a gap.
For ten minutes we keep well behind the hounds, with a tight rein and
heads bent to avoid the hanging oak limbs. But the fox has turned and
plunged into a brake which no horse can go through, and we draw up
and listen to decide where we can head him off with the greatest
certainty; then turn in different directions and spur through the
young black-jacks. Ah! there he goes, with dragging brush and open
mouth, and the pack, running close enough together to be covered by
a table-cloth, not sixty yards behind him. I am in at the death this
time, for he cannot run a hundred yards farther, and the brush is
mine, for there's no one else in sight. With a savage burst the dogs
dash after him into the thicket and then--dead silence, not a yelp,
as they scatter and run backward and forward, nosing under every dead
leaf and up the trunk of every tree. The fault is complete, and the
young dogs give it up and lie down panting, while the older hounds try
every expedient to puzzle out the trail and take up the scent again.
He certainly has not treed, there is neither earth nor hollow to hide
him, and yet the scent has gone! And it never came back. If any reader
can tell what became of that fox, he is a wiser man than I. Certain
it is that we never heard of him again; and for aught I know to the
contrary, he may have been that identical Japanese animal which turns
into tea-kettles and vanishes in puffs of smoke. It does not take
long, however, to make another find, and we go home after a three
hours' chase with two fine brushes and appetites which would ruin any
hotel-keeper in a week.

After breakfast a walk to the cotton-houses would be in order, for the
successful planter is he who trusts nothing to the overseer which can
have his personal supervision, and he must excuse himself to such of
his guests as prefer a cigar by the library fire to an hour spent in
observing the details of plantation work.