"This will do, then," said Floyd, with a visible flush, taking a ribbon from his pocket. "I stole this from her neck last night when we parted, and have carried it since. What do you propose to make out of that?"
"I'll show yew."
He raised his hand to his mouth and emitted a long, sharp peculiar whistle. It had scarcely ceased to vibrate on the morning air when a rushing sound was heard and a huge wolf-dog, with a cross of the hound in him, came breaking through the bushes at a rolling gallop after the fashion of the beast from whom a part of his blood was derived. This creature fawned upon the scout, who laughed and patted him.
"Wolf is a good dorg," he muttered. "Yew wouldn't think it, but the pesky brute hez been on our trail ever sence I cum deown the river last night, and he wouldn't come to me unlest I called him, no matter how long I was a dewing of it. Here, Wolf; smell tew that ribbin."
The dog put his nose to the ribbon a moment and then ran up to Floyd and rubbed his cold muzzle against his leg.
"'Twon't dew," said the scout, with a puzzled look. "The ribbin ain't rite, 'cause yew hev carried it tew long. Must hev something else."
They searched carefully everywhere, until with a cry of delight, Floyd stooped and picked up a broken bracelet which lay upon the earth, half-trodden into the soil.
"Here is the very thing, Seth. This bracelet—I gave it to her myself in happier days—must be the thing to lead me to my darling."
"Let's have it," said the Yankee. "Here, Wolf."
The dog smelled the bracelet over and over, and then threw up his head, giving utterance to a low howl.