THE FOX HUNT. Uncle Hambright used to pride himself upon his ability to invent amusing games for the children. Sometimes he found it hard to think of anything new, but the demands of the children were so insistent and his desire to please them always was so intense that it often happened that Uncle Hambright could almost make a way out of no way. Dinner-time was fast approaching. All the morning, the half-dozen little children, who were spending the day with Uncle Hambright at the Sunday-school picnic, had been playing every conceivable sort of game and had been enjoying every imaginable kind of story told in Uncle Ham’s inimitable way,--but still the children were not satisfied. “Just one more story,” or “Just one more game,” or “Give us your best game now for the last before dinner,”--the children clamored one after another. “Very well,” said Uncle Ham. “You all wait until I come back, and then we’ll play fox-hunting.” Uncle Ham went and told his sister and her husband, the parents of the little children, to take the dinner-baskets far into the woods to the place which they had already agreed upon as the spot where the dinner-table should be spread. Coming back to the children, Uncle Ham said,---- “Now, we are ready. Come close and listen while I explain.” [Illustration: UNCLE HAMBRIGHT.] With anxious hearts and eager faces, and clapping their glad hands, the children gathered around Uncle Ham. “Now,” said he, “I have a piece of chalk here in my hand. I am going to make something like this wherever I go along.” While he was speaking he made a round ring on the fence close by. He put marks for the ears and feet and a mark for the tail. Then he continued: “This is the fox. I’m going to make foxes along the path that I take into the woods--sometimes these foxes may be on fences, sometimes on trees, sometimes on rocks, or anywhere I wish to place them. Whenever you find a fox you will know that you are on the right road, and you must be sure each time to follow in the direction that the head of the fox points. Then you won’t lose your way. You must give me a little start, because I must be out of sight before you all begin the hunt. At the end of the hunt, if you follow carefully, you will find a large present waiting for each one of you. You may help yourself to whatever you like, and then we shall all come back together, because, you know, I will be at the end myself waiting for you when you come.” It seemed that the ten minutes start that the children had agreed to give Uncle Hambright would never come to an end, so eager were they to begin the hunt. By-and-by the time came, and they were off. The first few foxes had been drawn on the board-walk, so the hunters had easy sailing for a little while. Pretty soon, however, one of the girls discovered a fox on a tree, and the head of the fox pointed right into the woods. At first the children halted. The eldest girl said finally, after studying a few minutes,----