I had two horses with me, and Tim Matlock; so I
made up my mind at once, got a light one-horse sleigh up in the village,
rigged it with all my bear-skins, good store of whiskey, eatables, and
so forth, saddled the gray with my best Somerset, holsters and surcingle
attached, and made one of the party on the instant.
"Before daylight we started, a dozen mounted men leading the way, with
the intent to get quite round the ridge, and cut off the retreat of
these most wily beasts of prey, before the coming of the rear-guard
should alarm them--and the remainder of the party, sleighing it merrily
along, with all the hounds attached to them. The dawn was yet in its
first gray dimness when we got into line along the little ridge which
bounds that small dense brake on the northeastern side--upon the
southern side the hill rose almost inaccessibly in a succession of short
limestone ledges--westward the open woods, through which the hounds and
footmen were approaching, sloped down in a long easy fall, into the deep
secluded basin, filled with the densest and most thorny coverts, and in
the summer time waist deep in water, and almost inaccessible, though now
floored with a sheet of solid ice, firm as the rocks around it--due
northward was an open field, dividing the wolf-dingle from the mountain
road by which we always travel.
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