We stopped a minute. I tore off the sleeve of my hunting shirt, and then Rube gave me a bit of a cut on the arm. I let the blood run till the sleeve was soaked and dripping, then Rube tore off a strip from his shirt and bandaged my arm up tight. We rolled the sleeve in a ball and threw it down, then took a turn, made a zigzag or two to puzzle the brute, and then went on our line again. For another ten minutes we could hear the barking get nearer and nearer, and then it stopped all of a sudden. On we went, and it was half an hour again before we heard it, and then it was a long way off.
'I expect we're all right now, Seth,' Rube said.
'I guess we are,' I said; 'but the sooner we strike water the better I shall be pleased.'
It was nigh another half-hour, and we were both pretty nigh done, when we came upon the stream, and the dog couldn't have been more than a mile off. It was a bit of a thing five or six yards wide, and a foot or two deep in the middle.
'Which way?' says Rube. 'Up's our nearest way, so we had better go down.'
'No, no,' says I; 'they're sure to suspect that we shall try the wrong course to throw them off, so let's take the right.'
Without another word up stream we went, as hard as we could run. In a few minutes we heard the dog stop barking, when we might have been half a mile up stream.
'We must get out of this, Rube,' I said. 'Whichever way they try with the dog, they are safe to send horsemen both ways.'
'Which side shall we get out, Seth?'
'It don't matter,' I said; 'it's all a chance which side they take the dog. Let's take our own side.'