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knew they were going to come back because I had run this fox before,” Jack said.
“And he did. He crossed the highway and went to Turkey Mountain and when we got there, the hounds were pulling Red Oak Mountain, singing like a bunch of guineas cackling. I felt sure the fox was going to come back so we sat on the hill for two hours, maybe longer, waiting. We’d started to get tired and were thinking 'bout heading home and directly, Bee said, ‘I hear hounds!’ They were coming round the Woodville end of Red Oak and they were still sounding like they were real close to the fox.
“They went on to Rock Mills and crossed the river. Bee and I were right with them, in sight. We came up on what is the Shade Farm now and headed back toward Pickle Mountain. We’d been after that fox for at least six hours. Then just like that,” Jack recalled, slapping his hands together sharply, “every hound hushed tongue. I knew he’d gone to ground.”
Jimmy Starks had joined Bee and Jack by that time. The three had ridden some up the hillside a little way when a couple of the hounds started barking again. “They were the tree dogs, the ones that give tongue when the fox has gone into a den or up a tree,” Jack explained.
The riders came upon the foundation of an old house with basement and rock walls still standing. There was a groundhog hole under the rock wall that they guessed the fox had used for a bolt hole. They cut a trench across the four-foot deep tunnel.
“I knew there was a fox in there. But it was close quarters so Bee handed me Bugle, my little black and tan bitch, and I put her in the hole to make sure. Boy, she just shot! I grabbed her hind legs and pulled her back out.”
Jack fashioned a twitch out of a tree branch, stuck that in the hole, managed to work it around the fox’s neck and pulled him out, head first. “1 got a foot on his head and reached down for his hind legs. When I stood up with the fox, I could barely get my elbows to the top of the trench. There was no way I could climb out. So Bee took hold of one side and Jimmy on the other and they lifted me out of that hole with the red fox in my hands.”
News spread around the county that Jack Bruce’s hounds caught foxes and he was often invited to bring the pack for a visit and two or three days of hunting.
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