It was not long before a high picket-fence confronted the riders. Mr. Ferris, with a look of dismay, dismounted. Fortune, Barton, and Gilbert Potter each threw off a heavy “rider,” and leaped their horses over the rails. The others followed through the gaps thus made, and all swept across the field at full speed, guided by the ringing cry of the hounds. When they reached the Wilmington road, the cry swerved again to the left, and most of the hunters, with Barton at their head, took the highway in order to reach the crossroad to New-Garden more conveniently. Gilbert and Fortune alone sprang into the opposite field, and kept a straight southwestern course for the other branch of Redley Creek. The field was divided by a stout thorn-hedge from the one beyond it, and the two horsemen, careering neck and neck, glanced at each other curiously as they approached this barrier. Their respective animals were transformed; the unkempt manes were curried by the wind, as they flew; their sleepy eyes were full of fire, and the splendid muscles, aroused to complete action, marked their hides with lines of beauty. There was no wavering in either; side by side they hung in flight above the hedge, and side by side struck the clean turf beyond. Then Fortune turned his head, nodded approvingly to Gilbert, and muttered to himself: “He's a gallant fellow,--I'll not rob him of the brush.” But he laughed a short, shrill, wicked laugh the next moment. Before they reached the creek, the cry of the hounds ceased. They halted a moment on the bank, irresolute. “He must have gone down towards the snuff-mill,” said Gilbert, and was about to change his course. “Stop,” said the stranger; “if he has, we've lost him any way. Hark! hurrah!” A deep bay rang from the westward, through the forest. Gilbert shouted: “The lime-quarry!” and dashed across the stream. A lane was soon reached, and as the valley opened, they saw the whole pack heading around the yellow mounds of earth which marked the locality of the quarry. At the same instant some one shouted in the rear, and they saw Mr. Alfred Barton, thundering after, and apparently bent on diminishing the distance between them.