we suddenly hear the dog coming straight on to us. The woods are so
choked with snow that we do not hear him till he breaks up from
under the mountain within a hundred yards of us.

"We have turned the fox!" we both exclaim, much put out.

Sure enough, we have. The dog appears in sight, is puzzled a moment,
then turns sharply to the left, and is lost to eye and to ear as
quickly as if he had plunged into a cave. The woods are, indeed, a
kind of cave,--a cave of alabaster, with the sun shining upon it. We
take up positions and wait. These old hunters know exactly where to
stand.

"If the fox comes back," said my companion, "he will cross up there
or down here," indicating two points not twenty rods asunder.

We stood so that each commanded one of the runways indicated. How
light it was, though the sun was hidden! Every branch and twig
beamed in the sun like a lamp. A downy woodpecker below me kept up a
great fuss and clatter,--all for my benefit, I suspected. All about
me were great, soft mounds, where the rocks lay buried. It was a
cemetery of drift boulders. There! that is the hound. Does his voice
come across the valley from the spur off against us, or is it on our
side down under the mountain? After an interval, just as I am
thinking the dog is going away from us along the opposite range, his
voice comes up astonishingly near. A mass of snow falls from a
branch, and makes one start; but it is not the fox. Then through the
white vista below me I catch a glimpse of something red or yellow,
yellowish red or reddish yellow; it emerges from the lower ground,
and, with an easy, jaunty air, draws near. I am ready and just in