with Horse and Hound

MacKinlay Kantor

voice of bugle ann

The Voice of Bugle Ann: An Excerpt

voice of bugle annThis 1935 foxhound classic, reprinted by
The Derrydale Press in 2001, is cloth bound,
128 pages, $18.95, in the Foxhunting Life Shop.
Although we can't hunt in the summer, we can read about hunting! Here's an excerpt from a foxhunting classic, the first of two slim novels, the second of which,
Daughter of Bugle Ann, we featured six months ago.

Her voice was something to dream about, on any night when she was running through the hills. The first moment she was old enough to boast an individual voice, Springfield Davis swore that she would be a great dog, and within another month he had give her the name she carried so proudly.

One of her great-grandfathers, many generations removed, had followed Spring Davis away from home when he went off to join General Claiborne Jackson and his homespun army among the prickly-orange hedges, so there was logic in the inheritance which put that trumpet in her throat.

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daughter of bugle ann

The Daughter of Bugle Ann: An Excerpt

daughter of bugle annThis foxhound classic by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, reprinted in 2003 by The Derrydale Press, is cloth bound, 153 pages, $18.95, in the Foxhunting Life Shop.Our dogs rustled out a fox, south and east beyond all hearing, running like they were tied to him. It was eleven o’clock at night, middling damp and black-dark, for the young moon had already gone to hide.

We squatted on the west slope of the Divide above Heaven Creek—the usual four of us, armed with boiled eggs and onion sandwiches, and we carried along a water jug, and my father had a half-a-pint of whiskey. Our trucks were under the oaks, just far enough back for firelight to pretend that radiator caps were precious gems. The spooky places among big trees were full of betty-millers and numerous other moths, and beetles were a-buzzing.

But it seemed as if the timberland considered itself incomplete, without voices of hounds splitting themselves upon the shagbarks; and so all life was waiting and summoning—acorn and peeking coon and noxious flytrap weeds beside the creek—urging that the pack return and make dutiful music in the background.

Benjy Davis pulled his thin brown face away from the fire: the blaze was good to watch but hard to sit by. He said to all and sundry, “She’s just about coming in.”

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