“But hold on, don’t everybody butt in, and keep me waiting so long,” Bumpus interrupted again. “I asked Thad a question.”
“Well, we’ll have to turn to Tom Smith here for an answer,” said the scout-master; “though of course it goes without saying that dogs would be worth mighty little in case the fugitives were in canoes.”
“Dogs can swim, all right, but water leaves no trail, they say,” Step Hen ventured to remark, wanting to be counted as having also placed his opinion on record.
“How about this, Mr. Smith?” asked Davy.
“Wall, it mout be thisaway,” the swamp hunter told them; “yuh kin see thet thar be a heap o’ land in ridges ’round heah, an’ the dorgs is a runnin’ o’ ’em out. Mebbe they be men in boats along wid the rest; so day arter day they kin kiver a new section, an’ jest clean up ther hull swamp in ther end.”
“But why d’ye reckon, suh, they’d want to be doing this same right now?” came from Bob White, in his soft Southern tones.
“Yuh gits me thar, younker,” replied the guide. “I dunno as how this heah sheriff he done been set on tuh ’tempt this big job by the way people kept anaggin’ o’ him. Yuh see, ever sense I kin remember they been agwine tuh do this same thing, an’ clean up Alligator Swamp; but as ther yeahs slipped by it hain’t neveh been ’tempted up tuh now. I shore jest clean ’spected ole Tom Smith’d neveh live tuh see thet day. It looks like a miracle war agwine tuh be kerried out, thet’s what it does tuh me. But we’ll soon know all ’bout thet same.”
“Yes, because the dogs are certainly heading this way,” Thad added.
“I knows every foot o’ ther ground, suh,” continued Tom; “an’ guv yuh my word them hounds air jest a follerin’ thet ridge yuh see right heah. Thar’s a brace o’ ther critters too, ’case I heard ther second un jest now.”
“Then the chances are that if we just lie on our oars as we’re doing now, we’ll see the dogs, and of course the sheriff’s posse too, before long?” Allan observed.