hundred yards the deer were very fast; but in a run of any duration the
antelope showed much greater speed, and gave the dogs far more trouble,
although always overtaken in the end, if a good start had been obtained.
Col. Williams is a firm believer in the power of the thoroughbred
horse to outturn any animal that breathes, in a long chase; he has not
infrequently run down deer, when they were jumped some miles from cover;
and on two or three occasions he ran down uninjured antelope, but in
each case only after a desperate ride of miles, which in one instance
resulted in the death of his gallant horse.

This coursing on the prairie, especially after big game, is an
exceedingly manly and attractive sport; the furious galloping, often
over rough ground with an occasional deep washout or gully, the sight
of the gallant hounds running and tackling, and the exhilaration of the
pure air and wild surrounding, all combine to give it a peculiar zest.
But there is really less need of bold and skilful horsemanship than in
the otherwise less attractive and more artificial sport of fox-hunting,
or riding to hounds, in a closed and long-settled country.

Those of us who are in part of southern blood have a hereditary right
to be fond of cross-country riding; for our forefathers in Virginia,
Georgia, or the Carolinas, have for six generations followed the fox
with horse, horn, and hound. In the long-settled Northern States the
sport has been less popular, though much more so now than formerly; yet
it has always existed, here and there, and in certain places has been
followed quite steadily.

In no place in the Northeast is hunting the wild red fox put on a more
genuine and healthy basis than in the Geneseo Valley, in central New
York. There has always been fox-hunting in this valley, the farmers
having good horses and being fond of sport; but it was conducted in a
very irregular, primitive manner, until some twenty years ago Mr. Austin
Wadsworth turned his attention to it. He has been master of fox-hounds
ever since, and no pack in the country has yielded better sport than
his, or has brought out harder riders among the men and stronger jumpers
among the horses. Mr. Wadsworth began his hunting by picking up some of
the various trencher-fed hounds of the neighborhood, the hunting of that
period being managed on the principle of each farmer bringing to the
meet the hound or hounds he happened to possess, and appearing on foot
or hors