A warm Saturday in December just isn't a good day for smelling, unless you're a fox. The scent lingers only for a few minutes in the dry leaves as dogs, their noses to the ground, plunge through tall grass and thickets of briars, straining for the slightest whiff of the wily animal.

Red-coated huntsmen drive and cast the dogs into promising spots with whoops and short blasts from a small fox horn. The riders of the Red Mountain Hounds fox hunting club are repeating a scene that is centuries old, brought over from England by early colonists.

After the hounds have searched for hours, their voices change pitch deep into a patch of low woods. Excitement builds with the baying of the dogs. The hunt is on.

Whoops echo across the fields and hooves thunder, first in one direction, then another. Dust rises in the dry fields. Horses lather in the heat. Then, after only several minutes of hard pursuit, the scent is lost to the dry breeze and drier leaves.

The reality of fox hunting today is that both good land and foxes are harder to find. Strip malls and subdivisions have taken the place of many farms. No land and no foxes mean no fox hunting, so clubs such as the Red Mountain Hounds take great pride in their stewardship of the land on which they hunt, and in the preservation and health of the very animals they chase. A fast-paced ride with a fox escaping up a tree, down a hole or deep into a briar patch is still a good hunt.

This hunt was one of those days, with the fox jogging across a pasture, under a fence and into the freedom of a patch of woods. Hot riders and horses follow the dogs back to Magnolia Manor, a stately 1800s plantation house-turned-B&B.

Horses are unsaddled and brushed down. Dogs are counted and recounted as stragglers make their way back. Riders celebrate the adventure of the chase. A wily fox catches his breath and makes his way back to his den, no doubt with his own story to tell.