Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 13, 1920 — page 112: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

390 The thoroughbreds made a wonderful chorus. The melody of many voices _ swelled, echoed, and gradually faded away. Each second took the singing hounds far- ther onward. They swept over the Silver Knob Mountain, then, swinging out to the Barrens, from there to the Burnt Ridges and beyond White Cove, miles away from where the fox had been started. The hun- ters stood as if enthralled while the blend- ing music of the hounds gradually drew out of ‘hearing. ‘“‘ W-whe-u!” exclaimed Duane. “‘ Wasn’t that great?” “A lot of noise,’ was S. Ferdinand’s erouchy rejoinder. : “That guy is the next thing to an in- sect,” said Jim Rowland to himself. Nearly all the hunters knew 5S. Ferdi- nand’s trouble. His dog had not found the fox’s trail and therefore he was sore. He had made sport of Reuben, and his dog had shown him up at the very start of the chase. The whole pack was now returning in a full cry. Patches was leading. His “ Au- u-us!”’ sounded echoingly above the other voices. “Get to the lookout!” cried Duane en- thusiastically. The hunters scattered out like a net. Each sought a place where the view through the underbrush would be clear so that they could see the fox as he was running to elude the hounds. Duane scaled a high stone at the far end of the north. ravine. Jim Rowland sought a windfall on Zeigler’s Point, while the other hunters found van- tage places in the different runaways that Reuben pointed out to them. S. Ferdinand would have none of his advice and he stalked off alone. He retained his surly and grouchy attitude. Following the fox came Patches, baying their joy of the hot trail, but the fox had the advantage of the start, the handicap in the race. Sly Reynard was slipping over the white frost-rimmed snow for his life. He knew Patches’s voice. It wasn’t the first time that they had matched «speed and endurance. The contest was to the death. The fox took to the ravines and the blackberry briers. Running with the elu- sive ease of the wild things of the woods, ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. the fox gained on Patches and the dogs whose ears were cut terribly by the sharp briers and stinging thorns of the under- brush, yet the chorus on the fox’s trail never ceased. Like leeches the pack struck always the “ Au-u-ua!” of Patches leading unceasingly. The ravine reverberated with their barking. Over the Silver Knob Moun- tains the fox glided through the cordon of hunters and, reaching the Barrens, he crawled up the bare trunk of a fallen tree and from it he managed to jump into the zigzageging Abe Lincoln fence, and to the top rail the fox clung and crawled like a red squirrel. In this manner he succeeded in going about one hundred yards, and by the maneuver he had ‘hidden his tracks and entirely disappeared to the pursuing dogs. It was an old, foxy trick that he had executed that completely fooled all the dogs excepting Patches. When the tracks dis- appeared by the windfall, Patches simply took a long, detouring circle of a possible half-mile and there he found the trail lead- ing out of the Barrens that the fox had . made in his escape. His triumphant note called the other dogs, who were trying to find the trail by the fence and by short cuts, the whole pack succeeded in joining the chase that led back to the Golden Arrow Clubhouse. The hunters heard the returning hounds in the gentle stir of the woods. Faintly at first, and then stronger and firmer came the chorus. Out upon the billowing air broke the sharp boom of a shotgun. An- other charge came almost instantly. The chase continued. The hunter had missed his shot and the fox was leading out toward the Little Oak Flats. : Gradually the singing voices of the dogs died into a faint echo in the far distance. The familiar sighing of the trees as the play- ful wind soughed over the big wilderness took the place of the musical voices of the chase. The dogs were gone with their elusive quarry into the faint distance, marked by the blue-gray skyline of the Little Oak Flats. The bright, warm sun of the late winter day had. lost its warmth beyond the hori- zon when all of the hunters returned to camp. Reuben was the last of the party to - Gomichooks (@) (Eo)