“I am not prepared to deny it, incredible as it may sound. A bloodhound has been known to trot twenty feet to one side of a trail along a broad highway, and not lose it for miles. Zip is so familiar with my scent that he may have detected it from the first. Be that as it may, he lost no time in nosing about the road, but detected the very spot where my foot again touched ground, and was after me like a thunderbolt. I had a second ride—not quite so long as the first—which brought me to the rough unbroken track over which your supply wagon brings your provisions. It was a long tramp to this place, and, as you know, the afternoon was gone when I arrived.”
“Did you make any attempts to throw him off your track?”
“No, for it was useless. Had a canoe been at hand I might have crossed the lake in it, but that would have been unfair, for of course no trail can be followed through water, since in the nature of things none can be made.
“Since I have been specially interested in this breed of dogs,” young Burton modestly added, “I may have picked up a few points that are not familiar to all of you.”
“There is no question as to that,” replied Scout Master Hall, “you have already proved it; you are telling us facts that are not only new to us but of special interest. All the boys feel as I do.”
A general murmur of assent followed.
“You are more complimentary than I deserve. While the bloodhound is not the most common breed of dogs in this country, I suppose most of you are familiar with his looks and history. They were once used in Cuba to track escaping prisoners and runaway slaves, and probably served the same purpose in some parts of the South before the Civil War, but in our country they were employed simply to track the negroes and were trained not to harm them, for, aside from the cruelty of the act, it was against the interests of the slave owner to injure his own property. In Cuba, the bloodhounds were like ravening tigers. The poor wretch in threshing through the thickets and swamps heard the horrible baying fast drawing nearer. His only escape was to leap among the limbs of a tree, and climb beyond reach of the brutes. If he was tardy in doing so, the black terror that burst through the undergrowth buried his fangs in his throat the next instant and never let go, no matter how desperately the man fought.”
“How was it when the poor fellow reached a perch?”
“The dogs sat down and waited until the pursuers came up and claimed the prisoner.”
“Suppose the slave took to water?”