The ridge along which Miss Mary and Collingsworth rode bore gradually to the left, inclosing for three miles or more a low range of Bermuda hills, and a series of sweeping valleys, fringed here and there with pine and black-jack thickets.
The chase led toward the point where this ridge intersected the woodland region, so that the young lady and Collingsworth not only had an almost uninterrupted view of the hunt from the moment the hounds got away, but were taking a short cut to the point whither the dogs seemed to be going. Both Preston and Colston were well up with the hounds, but Preston's roan filly was going at a much easier gait than Colston's sorrel.
Where the ridge and the hunt entered the woods there was what is known as a "clay gall," a barren spot, above two acres in extent. The surface soil had been washed away and the red clay lay bare and unproductive. At this point the fox seemed to have taken unto himself wings. The drag had vanished.
Who can solve the mystery of scent? Xenophon, who knew as much (and as little) about it as anybody knew before or has known since, puzzled himself and his readers
