Coyote takes refuge after nine-and-a-half miles across country  /  Pam Gamble photo

The Longreen Foxhounds met at Eastover Plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi on Saturday, January 5, 2012 under a light rain and gentle wind in thirty-eight degree temperatures. While most riders opted for raincoats, whipper-In Chip Carruthers boldly rode out in his scarlet.

Hounds moved off at 10:00 am just as the rain was stopping. Blue skies opened over the first covert—the Cigar Woods. Hounds trotted the mile across the turn row from trailers to woods, with the field branching off to the west. Staff was already in position. Hounds have been known to erupt in full cry on coyote once inside woods and always in full cry by the southern end of this covert.

Not so this day. Cigar Woods, blank. Swamp Woods, blank. Hounds were picked up and hacked down Reinhart Rd to the Twin Woods. Blank. Now overcast with temperature rising slowly.