“He lets out a peculiar cry when he takes the scent; I’ll know it the minute I hear it.”
“But what makes him yelp now, when there isn’t any game?” asked Jim.
“Because he can’t help it, just as we sing and shout when we feel happy and merry.”
“There he goes! That means something!” exclaimed Tom, coming to an abrupt halt to listen to the baying of the hound, a considerable distance ahead.
But Bob again shook his head.
“Wild animals aint so plenty that they can be scared up as quick as all that; we must get further up the mountain before we can look for anything worth shooting.”
When Bob was a small boy he had accompanied his uncle on several hunting expeditions in this part of the world, and he held a bright recollection of the occasion.
Many years before deer and bears had been plentiful, and he remembered that his uncle described how the hunt for a deer should be managed among the mountainous section to the rear of their camp.
That knowledge promised to be of great help to Bob, now that, after the lapse of so long a time, he had started to hunt over the same ground.
The course of the party was steadily ascending, and since there were many rocks and considerable tangled undergrowth in their way, it was not long before they felt the result of the unusual exertion.