Amos shouted: "Hello, Dave and Ben! Where have you been? I'd about g-g-given you up." Amos stammered a little, except when he was stirred up, and then he stammered a good deal.
"Now, don't you get excited, sonny. We've got the whole day before us. Do you own all these dogs?"
"Oh, d-darn it, Davy, I can't help it. The whole pack of them keep following me all the time, and if I've got a gun, they stick to me like g-g-glue."
"Well! They're beauties. Regular full-blooded foxhounds, every one of them."
"Oh, get out, Dave. They may not be p-p-pretty, but they hunt almost as g-good as Zabdiel. Come here, Zab, old boy. I've been trying to get rid of them for the last two hours. But they seem to g-g-get out about as fast as I p-put them in."
"Well, come on over to Bear's Hill. That's the best place. Call your beauties in."
We kept on past Corner Hedge and Pine Grove till we came to Listening Hill. There the hounds struck a scent, lifted up their heads, bayed, and started off on the trail.
At first they went along the foot of Listening Hill, then up it, and over the top. We had to take our rackets off, for it was so rocky and uneven that we could not use them. The rocks stuck up through the snow. Holding our rackets under our left arms and our guns in our right hands, we followed over the crest of the hill, along the high land, and then down the slope. Here we put on our rackets again. The dogs were far ahead of us. We came to low land with a brook running through it, and in the distance could see the dogs.
BEAVER HOLES
"Hold on, boys," said Davy; "this won't do. That fox is too many for us." And putting his fingers to his mouth, he gave three shrill whistles. "That will call Zab back. It won't do for us to go fooling round on that swamp. It's full of holes, six to eight feet deep, that they call beaver holes. I don't know why; perhaps the beaver made them when they were here. If you get into one of them, it's all up with you, and the snow covers everything up so smooth that we can't tell where they are. That fox don't live here anyway, and is making straight for home, and he may live ten miles off.