The Hunter’s Horn October, 1957 Page Forty-three Writer “Discovers” Fox Hunting The following is a story written by my good friend Pat Reagan, the local columnist, who gives a good version of his impression of a “Forks of the River” fox race.  Pat, no doubt, will be owning some foxhounds in the near future. The night was a beautiful, moonlit night, the air crisp and cool, the dogs very eager for a chase as well as the fox. This article was published on the front page of our county paper, The Morgan County News. Ross H. Williams By Pat Reagan, Wartburg, Tenn. If you should go on a fox hunt for the first time as this writer did this last week you would see the only type of hunt in which the hunters neither expect nor wish to bag the game. Ross Williams Sr. and Fred Jones of Coalfield were the two owners of the dogs.  Jack Jones and Horatio Shaver, two other experienced fox hunters, were in the group.  Bill Davis, of Martinsville, Va., and this writer were on our first hunt. You have read of the hounds being in “full cry” after the game.  In my opinion the hounds at times are not only in full cry; there are in full bawl.  In this pack there was Lazy Bones, whose voice sounded as if he were being held by the collar while the bejabers were being thrashed out of him with a hickory limb.   There was Dusty, who sounds off, and you’re sure he has not only run through a yellow jacket nest, but has actually sat down in it.  And then there was Queen, who Fred Jones said has a “soft mouth.”  A soft mouth I would possibly admit, but a set of vocal chords that could have been borrowed from a locomotive whistle. To go on a fox hunt you take along a week’s supply of victuals, cooking utensils, cots, sleeping bags, the idea of course being to spend one night hunting the fox, and the following two weeks hunting your dogs.  You drive out at dark to the spot selected for listening to the chase, turn the dogs loose, and then sit down to await results, straining your ears to hear a dog “open” somewhere out there in the dark of the woods. I was told your genuine foxhound will not sound until he strikes a scent.  When he does cross a trail he lets out for a moment as if someone were giving him a good tanning.  Then he falls silent.  These alternate intervals of sound and silence continue until he raises the fox, when a continuous torrent of howls, yaps and barks turns loose, intended either to abuse the fox or to scare the daylights out of him. The other dogs now recognizing the sound as a chase, come in as fast as possible, put in their two cents worth of noise, and take up the chase.  Now you hear the long drawn out howls of some, the chopping voices of others, and the sound of the “soft mouths.”  To add to the interest the owners of the dogs begin the night-long argument about whose dog is in front, whose dog has kept on the trail, whose dog will soon quit and come in, whose dog will push the fox the closest. You listen one moment to the dogs, the next moment to the argument of the owners.  Some of the crowd try to get an hour’s sleep; no doubt the farmers living in the neighborhood would like to do the same. Presently the chase becomes silent for a moment, then old Dusty sits down in another yellow jacket nest, or old Queen’s “soft mouth” splits the night air, and again the chorus joins in.  There they go out there somewhere in the blackness of night, up Buck Ridge, down Log Chute Hollow, telling the world for miles around a fox is up ahead somewhere, and this is their silent way of slipping up on him unheard and unnoticed. All the while the argument at the campfire goes on and on.  One owner claims his dog—we’ll call him Trail, because that’s not his name—is at the head of the pack.  The other owner pooh poohs.  This argument continues until old Trail himself suddenly appears in camp—through for the night—even while his owner is still insisting he is leading the pack. That, brother, is a fox hunt.  We tenderfeet leave long before daylight, but the argument at the campfire continues, and so does the howling bedlam of the pack. I hope Ross and Fred find their dogs before cold weather, and, believe it or not, I’d like to hear Dusty run through that yellow jacket nest again.