The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-01-11

How Hunt Begins.
Now that the scene is set, behold
the manner of chase. Squire Venable,
to whom the sky is an open book,
reads in it at sunset that the morning
will be mild and moist He goes to
bed early gets up at o'clock, finds
southerly wind and a cloudy sky,
and at once takes-down his long hunt
ing horn AS he steps outdoors he
blows three keen blasts, ending the
last in a rollicking tremolo. The ken
mel yard answers the blasts in a long
drawn bowling chorus, but he pays
no heed to it. Stock still he listens
intently until another horn sings high
and far across the dark. His next
neighbor, Beaton, is awake-and will
ing. So the hunt is no longer in
doubt
Before he is in saddle another horn,
far to the left, calls insistently. Short
quick blasts, thrice repeated, tell him
that Billy Try, who keeps bachelors
hall on big farm, has certain knowl-
edge of where to find a fox. But that
way, fox breaking will be likely to
go down wind, so the Coloners horn
sings again, this time a keen, master
full note, that says to Billy; NO;
come here." But the horn-bloYer
does not think of waiting; Billy at
ledSI hHoMS enough 10 IOlIOW the
dogs.
How they riot! The kennel gate is
a block of heads and legs. Not until
they are outside the lawn gate, leap
ing and capering about their master,
is it safe to let Brown BesS do more
than walk. She has answered the
bowls with low, merry whicker, and
champs the bit under tight rein.
Beaton, at his own gate, blows i'm
Nv
breath Brown Bess is galloping, her
hoofs striking fire from the pebbles
in the road.
Beaton is progressive. The two
couple, yelping in wistful smothered
yelps beside him, are white and yell
low fellows, gifts from a hunt-club
friend. Four generations of Venables
have hunted with these same black
and-tans. Naturally the colonel holds
newer blood in scorn.
In therei Hunt him up! Sweet
lips! Music! Damsel!' he says, wav-
ing his arm to the right. The dogs
leap the fence, and begin to circle
widely over a stretch of old grass.
Beaton shifts a little. There are
sheep on the old grass; he is sure if
it held twenty foxes no dogs nose is
keen enough to pick up the foiled
scent. But by the time he pops his
Bess' heels, Damsel is challenging
loud and fiercely, the whole pack an
swering her cry.
Hot trail! 1 thought so! Brer
Fox likes young lamb" the colonel
says, Stacking rein the least bit, and
gripping his mare lightly with the
knees.
The dogs are off like the wind. By
the first hint of dawn he can just see
- av111Oli
over a weather-b leached plank fence.
The fence is breast high and leans a
little down hill, a nasty jump even for
taking in hot blood, and much more
so right at the beginning. But since
Beaton goes at and over it like mad.
Brown Bess must do the same. She
sinks fetlock deep in the young wheat
beyond, but goes calamity, keeping
her nose at the quarter of Beaton's
long-striding black.
Riders Come i'm Continually.
Fate has a kindness for true sports
men. The fox ran straight down the
length of the wheat. but turned at a
right angle when he came to the fence
and made for the high road. And thus
Col. Venable and also Billy TRY, his
dogs already painting from lightning
run, come in on the line with never an
understandable Swerve. Other rid
ers also come in-the whole spread of
the farmlands, indeed, seems to have.
broken out in dogs and mounted men.
For a Whit they keep the road, then
into the fields again. Brer Fox
doubles and tries running maZes, but
the hounds are too close. Besides, he
is heavy-gorged with a meal too full.
He must have been sharp-set when he
began Foxes are generally too wise
to eat more than they can run away
with at ease.
This fox's career ends ingloriously.
He is run into. fairly in open pasture,
Just as the sun strikes a single long
red beam through a gap in the clouds.
1t has been less than three miles from
find to kill. and with no pace worth
mentioning in any part of the run. AS
the hounds rend and devour him the
hunters pass TASKS about, then blow
horns and wheel and troop down
cross-road that leads to the nearest
creek valley.
But they do not come to 1t. Half
way there Beatons dogs, circling
through a sedgy old field, give tongue
after a single ,whimper, and go away
with no barking on. Pack and riders
stream after. The route is down wind
and down hill. the going reasonably
firm. The horses, hardly breathed by
the short run, lay back their ears and
eye each other in fiery challenge. Neck
and neck, or heads Tapped on quarters,
they race over stubble, nostrils wide,
feet falling rythmically in ever-quick-
ening stroke. The wind sings in the
huntsmen's ears. The world goes back
ward, a gray and wan phantasm too
wan to be even ghoStly. But If it bit
and tore at the riders eyes they would
not heed. The madness of the chase
has laid hold on them. Ahead the full
cry calls, and they cannot choose but
follow. Far hills catch and echo it,
and woodsmen at work on them raise
tempestuous halloos. Horses at past
ure, riderless hunters, run neighing up
and down the fences, or leap them and
go Dell-mell with the rest.
Oh. the pity of it that it cannot last.
There is the initial burst, doubles,
weary beyond words; another run,
another check. Somehow the morning
glamor wanes. Instead of it there
comes the lust of conquest, the grim
determination not to be baked. This
fox is lean and sane; he has run well,
doubled cunningly, leading the hunt a
merry circling dance, but he shall not
win free. When at last he gets to
earth, hiding so securely that there is
no digging him out, they leave him
and go after another fox with a silent
determination TO settle the ore\with
him another day.
when Women Hunt.
When women ride to hounds in the
farm lands, the hunt becomes a frolic,
a sort of equestrian picnic. Moonlight
autumn nights are usually chosen,
when the dew lies without cTispipg in
to frost. The start is after an early
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