"Would you like Bob and Ann to come over?"
"You could take me home, couldn't you?" she wavered. "They thought I was going to stay here for dinner, and it's no use frightening them with such a telephone message."
Turning, they went slowly, silently, toward the house, but near the porch he hesitated, listening; then turned her about—for coming toward them across the lawn, limping, panting, with his nose to the ground but his stumpy tail belligerently up, was Mac.
She gave a low cry and knelt upon the grass, her arms out to receive him, and he dashed into them with a yelp of joy. The things she whispered then were exactly those which Brent would have given the riches of the earth to have heard her say to him; and Mac replied with all his doggy eloquence, furiously wiggling his body and making futile attempts to lick her face. Brent stood silently by, and for the first time in his life—at least the first time in his remembrance—something mysteriously hot and wet slipped down his cheek.
An hour later they drove into Flat Rock, leading her horse which was found grazing by the roadside. Back at Arden the Colonel and Dale, each with a high powered rifle, were mounting horses; and in town the sheriff was lifting a bloodhound to his buggy.
With a silent hand-clasp Jane passed into the house, but Brent waited for a word with Bob.
"The fellow must be quite crazy," he told this young planter, "so you ought to stay here with the girls. I'll meet the others, and tell you about it later."
Reaching the pike he drove hurriedly and was the first to arrive at their prearranged meeting-place. This was a hollow, where a little stream crossed—the place Tusk usually turned off after leaving Tom's house, and the scene of an earlier struggle. He got out of the buggy and carefully scanned the ground, flashing the same electric torch which had played a part here once before; smiling, despite his soberness, when he came to a patch of violently torn up sod ten feet from the spot where, evidently, Jane's horse had fallen. Here, he knew, Mac had made his gallant stand, desisting only after his instinct told him Jane had fled to safety.
There was little talking when the others came. The sheriff lifted his bloodhound to the ground, and the mild eyes of this heavy dewlapped creature looked confidently up at them, waiting to be told what human atom of the millions over the earth he must bring to justice. This was all he asked to know; so when Jess held out the handle of Tusk's discarded club, he sniffed it carefully and was satisfied. A low whine assured them that the man-hunter had now an imperishable record of the scent; that he was ready to follow it across the State, around the world—providing the pursued one used no pepper or other mean artifice, and traveled by foot on land.
The men tied their horses, for this chase must be followed warily—nor could horses go where a hunted man might venture. Jess led, holding the leash strained by the hound's impatience. Silently the others followed into the black wood, and all was quiet save for the occasional snapping of a dead branch;—this hound having been too well taught to allow himself the joy of baying, except in rare situations. He knew the chase, and he knew the value of keeping his quarry unwarned.