Mystery has passed.

I told you that we were keeping Mystery in the pen because she quit hunting and the weight poured off of her. We knew that it was a matter of weeks.

It's a shame, but this is the best picture I have of Mystery. The rest are group photos

It's from the hunt when Plunker and Brag became obsessed with a rabbit that ran into a hollow tree.

Mystery first turned up on a hunt in Chambers County at Plunker’s place. The title of that post was “Will hunt for food”.
I was soaking up the sun with my hat over my face when some of the teats with us informed me that the dogs were back.
“How many?” I asked to comfortable to look.
“All five”
Five? We didn’t turn out but four.
I lifted my hat to see what looked like a poor starved beagle puppy. A closer look showed that she was a full grown 11 incher with no hair on a bleeding tail and no collar around the neck.
The mysterious stranger tagged along with us to the trucks and gladly partook of some lunch.
Brag and I agreed that we didn’t need trouble and wouldn’t be taking her home.

Later a rabbit ran in front of me followed by the pack…..with the stranger in the lead. Her voice sounded like a three pack a day smoker, but she was burning up that rabbit. Later I compared her voice to “the cry of the strangled chicken. One of us killed the rabbit later and before we could get to it, she had eaten a good bit of it.
When we packed up to leave, the girls lined up behind the pathfinder waiting to be put into the box. Mystery joined the queue. She had hunted so hard, we didn’t have the heart to leave her.
Doc Caldwell, the Rabbit Journal’s veterinarian, gave her the annual shots and a routine exam that turned up no obvious problems

We never knew her to run anything but a rabbit.
On our Jeffersonville hunt, we hunted with some good ol boys out of Atlanta with a pack of 15 inch male dogs. They ran the Rabbit Journal pack into the ground. Kate and Lucy quit. Julie and Dixie ran but mostly on the tail end. Not Mystery. She didn't quit and was often in the lead after straightening out the trail for the other dogs. Later, all those boys could talk about was that little dog that sounded so funny, but ran with the big dogs.

We gave her a good life while she graced us with her presence. Good food, petted and seldom a harsh word. In return, she gave us a dependable performance while she could.

She was a good’un.
Rest in peace, Mystery.