"Well, come up there and shoot him, you and Bugle, why don't you? Save the rest of my hens by knocking that there feller over, and I'll give you as good a dinner as you ever eat in a farmhouse."
"I'll try him on Monday, if nothing happens to keep me at home; but if he can get away from such hunters as I know your boys to be, no doubt he will get away from me, too. Do you know anything about his runways?"
"What's them?" asked Mr. Bacon.
"Why, a fox has regular courses which he always follows when he is started by a hound, and they are just as plain to him, and to a hunter who knows the country and understands the habits of the animal, as this road is to you. Those courses are called runways. You can't keep up with a fox when he is running before the dogs, and so you must get ahead of him and shoot him as he passes along one of these runways."
"Mebbe there's sunthin' in that there idee of your'n," said Mr. Bacon, after reflecting a moment. "I have always noticed that fox, when he crosses from one side of the holler to the other, takes to my medder and jumps the brook about thirty yards below that bridge in my lane. The dogs always start him on that sugar-loaf hill east of my house—I reckin he's got a den up there—and when he gets tired of foolin' around that hill, he crosses over to the west side of the holler, jumpin' the brook where I told you, and that's the end of the hunt, for them wuthless dogs of our'n can't never find that fox agin that day."
"I thank you for the information," replied Oscar. "You have given me a start, and I can find out the rest for myself."
"All right. Don't you forget to come up to my house and get sunthin' to eat."
Mr. Bacon cracked his whip and drove off, and Oscar went into the house. He put the string out of his window before he went to bed, and at an early hour Sam awoke him by upsetting the chair.
Everything was ready for the start, and as soon as Oscar had made a cup of coffee, and a hasty breakfast had been disposed of, the boys set out for the river.
As before, they took the wheelbarrow with them, and this time it contained, in addition to the decoys, sail, and oars, an iron drag, with four long curved teeth, which Oscar had ordered made at the blacksmith's.