e before us.

We made good use of our five minutes' start, for by the time a distant
bugle note announced that the hounds were let loose on our track we had
covered a good piece of ground, and put several wide fields and ditches
and ugly hedges between us and our pursuers.

Now it was that Birch's experiences served us in good stead. I never
knew a fellow more thoroughly cunning; he might have been a fox instead
of a hare. Sometimes he made me run behind him and drop my scent on the
top of his, and sometimes keep a good distance off, and let the wind
scatter it as much as it could. When we came to a gap, instead of
starting straight across the next field he would turn suddenly at right
angles, and keep close up under the hedge half-way round before striking
off into the open. Among trees and bushes he zigzagged and doubled to
an alarming extent, so that it seemed as if we were losing ground every
moment. So we should have been if the chase had been by sight instead
of by _scent_; but that would have been against all rules.

If the hounds were to see the hares twenty yards in front of them, and
the scent lay half a mile round, they would be bound, according to our
rules, to go the half-mile, however tempting the short cut might seem.

It was after a very wide circuit, ending up on the top of a moderate
rise, that we first caught sight of our pursuers. As they were a full
six minutes behind us, we agreed to sit down under cover for a minute
and watch them.

At that moment they had evidently lost the scent, and were ferreting
about among some low trees and bushes in search of it. We saw the flag
of the whipper-in marking the spot where it was last visible, and round
this, on all sides, the hounds were exploring busily in search of the
"new departure." Then, presently, came a cry of "Forward!" and off they
all started in our direction; and as the scent after that seemed to lie
pretty clear we considered it high time for us to resume our flight.

So we made off again, and being refreshed by our brief halt, made over a
couple of ploughed fields, which Birch suggested "would make a few of
the hounds look foolish"; and so on till we reached the first water we
had encountered since the start. This was a trout-stream, well known to
some of us who were fond of fishing--nowhere more than half a foot deep,
and in some places easily passable, dry shod, on stepping-stones.
Birch, however, avoided these, and boldly splash