Upon one hunting trip the Major took Robert up near Cherokee’s old home—the woods and fields where her childhood passed. It was well worth the day’s ride. What various charm lies in this region. The wood is alive with squirrels too. They stole upon two of these shy wood rangers, who were busy in their frolic, chasing one another around a huge hickory nut tree.
“Ssh!” whispered Robert, as he motioned the Major to lay down his gun. He wished to watch their antics. They were young ones who, as yet, knew not the burden of existence whose pressure sends so many hurrying, scurrying, all the day long, laying up store of nuts against the coming cold. To these two, life, so far, meant a summer of berries, and milky corn, and green, tender buds, with sleep in a leaf-cradle, rocked by soft summer winds; with morning scampers through seas of dew-fresh boughs. Only glimmering instinct tells them of imminent, deadly change, and, all unknowing, they make ready against it, in such light-hearted, hap-hazard fashion. Now they cease their scampering and drop down to earth, burrowing daintily in its deep leaf-carpet. One rises upon his haunches with a nut in his paws, the other darts to seize it, and for a few minutes they roll over and over—a furry ball, with two waving, plumy tails. It flies swiftly apart, the finder hops upon a rotting tree trunk to chatter in malicious triumph. His mate sits, dejected, a yard away, as his sharp teeth cut the hull; she has given up the contest and is sore over it, though nuts are plentiful, and the yield this year, abundant. Presently, she creeps past to the log’s other end; the other looks sharply at her out of the corner of his eye, then, darts to her side, pats her lightly between the ears, and, as she turns to face him, drops the nut of contention safe within her little paws. At once she falls to ravenous gnawing. He looks on, rubs his head caressingly against her, then darts away to find a new treasure that has just dropped from above; for well they know none were more rightful heirs to nature’s bounty.
The men looked on in silent interest; this was a pretty sight indeed, and few manage to steal upon it for more than a moment. Their luck was due to the youth of the pair, who thought they risked nothing by such delicious idling—nor, indeed, did they; for when the watching was over, the intruders shouldered their guns and left them to life. The Major’s next turn was toward the big south wood, whose edge they saw fringing the top of the bluff. This bluff faces north, a sheer wall of grey-blue limestone, seamed and broken into huge ledges. All manner of wild vines grow in the clefts, grape-vines, wild ivy, poison-oak, trail down into the water. The crown and glory of it, though, was its ferns. The trailing rock-fern runs all over the face of it, each seam and cleft is a thick fringe of maiden-hair ferns, wherever it gets good root. Foxes live in the caves along the bluffs, but the men looked with keenest search and they could not catch a glimpse of one.
Thinking of this, the Major recalled to mind a memorable and exciting chase in which they had run the fox into this very place. He had distanced them by one second, and they lost the game.
While they stood there, letting their horses drink, the Major recounted the things of interest about the hunt.
“It is such royal sport,” declared Robert, “there is nothing so invigorating as a lively chase, though as a sport its palmiest days are in the past. To be a ‘master of fox-hounds’ was once a country gentleman’s crowning distinction. The chase, when spoken of now, has a reminiscent tone, an old ‘time flavor.’”
“Notwithstanding our neighboring young men keep up this pastime of old days, I go but rarely, now,” said the Major. “Various modern innovations, from wire fences to democratic ideas, have conspired to ruin the country—for fox hunting. Unsportsmanlike farmers will not tolerate broken fences and trampled crops.”
“I should so enjoy just one stirring chase. I wonder if we could get up a ‘swagger’ affair, including the girls?” asked Robert.
“Most assuredly.”
And on the way home, they planned the hunt.