But that was all that happened and I fell to studying the various types of human nature, from the beginner who rode very hard and very badly and made himself generally odious to the M. F. H., to the old seasoned hunter who talked of the old days of real foxes and how he used to know all the short cuts to the coverts.
It was a keen, crisp day. Already a man had been over the field pulling along the ground a little bag of aniseed, and now the hunt was about to start.
Noses down, sterns feathering zigzag over the ground, sniffing earth and leaves and grass, the hounds were brought up. One seemed to get a good whiff of the trail and lifted his head with a half yelp, half whine, high pitched, frenzied, never-to-be-forgotten. Others joined in the music. "Gone away!" sounded a huntsman as if there were a real fox. We were off after them. Drag hounds, however, for the most part run mute and very fast, so that that picturesque feature was missing. But the light soil and rail fences of Long Island were ideal for drag hunting. Nor was it so easy as it seemed to follow. Also there was the spice of danger, risk to the hunters, the horses and the dogs.
We went for four or five miles. Then there was a check for the stragglers to come up. Some had fresh mounts, and all of us were glad of the breathing space while the M. F. H. "held" the hounds.
While we waited we saw that Mrs. Brackett was riding about quickly, as if something were on her mind. A moment she stopped to speak to her husband, then galloped over to us.
Her face was almost white. "Gloria hasn't come up with the rest!" she exclaimed breathlessly.
Already Brackett had told those about him and all was confusion. It was only a moment when the members of the hunt were scouring the country over which we had passed, with something really definite to find.
Kennedy did not pause. "Come on, Walter," he shouted, striking out down the road, with me hard after him.
We pulled up before a road-house of remarkable quaintness and luxury of appointment, one of the hundreds about New York which the automobile has recreated. Before it swung the weathered sign: Cabaret Rouge.
To our hurried inquiries the manager admitted that Du Mond had been there, but alone, and had left, also alone. Gloria had not come there.