48 THE LIFE OF A FOX.

where I started, was found to be twenty-seven
miles. One of the four or five men who came
in said that they must have changed their fox
when the hounds ran through these large coverts.
The reply was, that it was scarcely possible,
as they never once broke out of the road and

rides, within which the fox had kept during the
- whole time.

It was now dark, and the hounds had full forty
miles to return to their own kennel. I had rea-
son, however, to know that they stopped that night
half way, at the Drove Kennel; for during the
night I had returned back as far as I could to the
place whence I came, and intended to remain
there; but all the middle of the next day I heard
the sound of the horn which I had so often heard
during the severe run I had had the day before,
and which it appears was blown with the hope
of its being heard by two hounds that were
missed the night before, having come to the
earth and remained some time after the pack had
gone away. On hearing the horn, I soon left my

kennel, and, though very stiff, was obliged to