And so on, and so on, and so on, for about four miles, when, if Pilate holds out well and doesn't come to any grief, the

in from various directions, singly and in twos and threes. Some were outrun; some got lost. The least delay in a draghunt is fatal, for after the hounds once

look! the pack after him, all together, scudding over that green knoll for dear life. That's a sight worth coming for! After them now, Pilate! No, not across that wheat field, but around it. Yonder scuds our friend the Batavia financier, galloping ahead to open a gate for his little girls. Let us go that way, Pilate, and -Jeminy! That was one of the little girls that went by!

Through a gate, across a railroad, over a board fence, through a wood (fence), up a hill (fence), across a field with the hounds in sight and a fox in expectation. Then (fence) down a steep gully, turn at the bottom of it, and up presently to a baffled pack sniffing at a hole in the ground. The fox has got to earth, and will do to chase another day. We are his debtors, for he has given us a pretty hunting picture and a run that was fun while it lasted. It has not been long in the telling, but the afternoon is gone, and there is only about time enough left to get back to the Homestead library, and discourse there a little while and swap experiences before separating.

To an observer who watched the byplay of a State convention last fall, with the desire to learn what induced men to go into politics, it seemed obvious that one very great attraction was the community of interest which political considerations establish between man and man. The intercourse of the delegates was lively and stirring; they had matters to talk about in which they were vitally concerned. Their talk was eager and spontaneous, and all their faculties kept constantly on the alert. It seemed worth a very considerable amount of trouble to have one's contemporaneous human interest so aroused.

No doubt it is something that way about fox-hunting. Merely to be brought into quick sympathy with certain interests and aspirations of a lot of other men is worth a considerable outlay of time and trouble. Such an endless amount of pleasant gossip about horses and hounds, fences, foxes, riders, and weather grows out of hunt ing! "I used to know Barney pretty well," said a recent convert, "and used to find great satisfaction in talking religion to him; but when he took to hunting, he took to it so confounded hard that for two years past there has been no such thing as protracted conversation with him on any subject except horse and sport. It

really got to be hard to have any fun with him. But after I had been out two or three times with the hounds I practically got him back, and now we can gossip by the hour about moving accidents of flood and field,' and never know a dull moment." To be one of a score or two of people who are violently interested in the same sport is a very considerable source of delight, and entirely, legitimate as far as it goes.

And of course another source of happiness that pertains to hunting is to ride a good horse across country. A man with a great horse in full performance under him is not necessarily a great man, but he feels as if he were, and the feeling is undeniably pleasant. A man may use a horse for ten years in the ordinary way, under saddle or between shafts, and never really have occasion to find out what there is in him. But in hunting, a horse's powers are constantly being tested. The fences he takes and the way he takes them, the company he keeps, his appearance, behavior, and miscellaneous abilities, are constantly under observation and the subjects of comment. The result is a vast stimulation of the natural human interest in horse and an inconceivably vast amount of horse-talk, which, if not so profitable intellectually as some conversation, is wholesome, sinless, and very agreeable to those concerned. It is a great accomplishment to be able to talk any kind of horse, and it seems to be considerably easier to learn to talk hunter than trotting-horse or racer.

But to the sincere fox hunter, horses are primarily a means of enabling a man to keep up with dogs. To be mounted and in the open air are pleasures of which he has a reasonable appreciation, but his joy is in the working of the hounds and the subtlety of the fox. Be it known that the fox is hunted because he is the only wild animal that can persist in the thick of civilization, who is swift enough and clever enough to be available for the chase. Wolves and deer fade away before the farmer; badgers are too slow; but the fox dotes on the farmer, and loves to loiter around a hay-stack or barnyard. Yet he is so intelligent and so fleet that, with a proper start, he can usually elude or run away from a pack of hounds.

To watch the quivering tails of the hounds as they suspect the footsteps of Reynard, to hear their vociferation as

suspicion deepens into certainty, and to follow them as they stream off across country in a bunch, is what the sincere hunter is out for. The hounds are his personal acquaintances, and he is able to estimate their various degrees of responsibility. He knows the country, too, and if every individual fox is not his long lost friend, at least he is versed in the general nature of the beast, and prepared to match wits with him. He is somewhat scornful of the tendency of the weaker members to be engrossed in horse and forget hunting in the excitement of mere riding. Drag-hunts he barely tolerates, and he differs from his horsy coadjutors in regarding fences not as opportunities, but as obstacles. The sarcastic attitude of the sincere fox-chaser towards drag-hunts is set forth in a manner too edifying to be ignored in this blank form lately used by the M. F. H. of the Genesee Valley Hunt:

GENESEE VALLEY HUNT.

To please those who are unable to ride until they have been lunched, a drag-hunt will take place from o'clock.

at

This drag will be laid over several dangerously high fences close to the road, so that those who have "lunched" sufficiently will be able to compete with the grooms of gentlemen having horses for sale, before the eyes of the people in carriages.

Every precaution will be taken to keep clear of woods, gullies, ditches, swamps, or any obstruction whatsoever which might possibly call for intelligence or education in horse or rider.

Some very swift hounds have been secured, and the drag will be laid as strong as possible, so that it is sincerely hoped that gentlemen racing with each other will not be annoyed by these stupid animals. Should they prove a nuisance, however, the brutes will be dispensed with altogether and the line flagged.

It is very evident from this severe document that there is an influential opinion in the Genesee Valley that fox-hunting and steeple-chasing are distinct sports, and that the tendency to confuse them needs to be restrained. Nevertheless, drag-hunts, opprobriously termed "gallery-drags," have their uses even in the valley. Cross-country riding is not wholly to be despised even if there is no fox at the forward end of it.

October is a delightful month in the country; the weather is apt to be good and the riding pleasant. It is the gayest month of the year in the valley, and the one when more strangers come there than at other times. But it is a little early for fox-hunting. Moreover, it is

apt to be a dry month, and when the ground is dry, scent does not lie well, and a trail is difficult and often impossible to follow. Consequently, October sees many blank days. As a concession, therefore, to hard working men who come from a distance for a single day's sport, and like to be sure of a run when they come, drag-hunts are arranged for the Saturdays in October. The meets on these Saturdays are set for two o'clock or thereabouts, and the lunch that precedes them helps to make the whole spectacle a valuable social function. But throughout October, besides the draghunts, there is wild-fox hunting twice a week-on Tuesday and Thursday. The Tuesday hunts are early morning performances, the meets being at six o'clock the first half of the month, and later, as the days shorten, at half past seven. The Thursday meets are at noon, as are all the meets in November. On good days fields of from twenty to forty riders, usually with one or two ladies among them, meet the M. F. H. and his hounds at the advertised farm or corners or schoolhouse, and proceed to ride over the neighboring country, drawing one cover after another, traversing woods, going up and down gullies, and jumping any fences or brooks or other unavoidable obstacles that happen to come in the way. It is a profitable way to spend an autumn day even if nothing comes of it but the exhilaration of being on a horse's back, in a charming country, in excellent company, with working hounds to watch and follow. But when something does come of it, when there is a find and a good run, then there is sport enough, and sometimes to spare. To keep the hounds in sight and be in first at the death is what every man and every horse is after. Then the man who thinks he knows foxhunting rides according to his knowledge and the ability of his horse, and the man who doesn't know it tries to follow the man who he thinks knows best.

It is always a case where, however many are called, comparatively few are chosen. Before the fox has crossed his second field the crowd has begun to straggle out, and if the run is of any length only two or three see the end of it. Competition is the life of all sport, and of course there is plenty of it in foxhunting. Besides the very stirring competition of speed and sagacity between

altogether, in which case, if it isn't too late, proceedings are resumed, and the next cover is drawn. From four to eight hours spent in this way two or three times a week in October and November make an admirable preparation for a la borious winter. At all meets any reputable citizen who has a horse to ride is welcome. In a certain sense whoever follow the hounds are guests of Mr. Wadsworth, who owns and keeps the pack, and has met all the serious expenses of the Hunt ever since it began. In another sense all are guests of the owners of the land they ride over. The membership fee of the Hunt Club is

damage done to growing crops. The fact that the Hunt has been in so great a measure Mr. Wadsworth's personal enterprise is what differentiates it from almost all other hunts. Its government is republican in form, but in fact it is a despotism-the best of all possible forms of government, as everybody knows, provided you can get precisely the right sort of despot. It takes lots of persistence. force, discretion, judgment, time, money. temper, and various other attributes of manhood, besides an ardent fondness for sport, to establish a hunt. If you don't think so, try it. Mr. Wadsworth might have had all these indispensable things