The dogs had swerved a little to the left, and were making straight for the river—the Oconee. Butterfly ran into a plantation road and would have crossed it, but Joe held him to it, and soon discovered that he was gaining on the dogs. From slightly different directions the hounds and the horse seemed to be making for the same point—and this point, as it turned out, was the plantation ferry, where a bateau was kept. Joe Maxwell reached the top of the hill overlooking the river just as the dogs reached the ferry. Here he drew rein and looked about him. The hounds ran about on the river-bank barking and howling. Sound went into the water, but, finding that he was drifting down instead of going across, he made his way out and shook himself, but still continued to bark. A quarter of a mile away there was a great bend in the river. Far down this bend Joe could see a bateau drifting. As he watched it the thought struck him that it did not sit as lightly in the water as an empty boat should. “Suppose,” he asked himself, with a laugh—“suppose Mink is in the bottom of that bateau?”
He dismissed the thought as Mr. Locke and young Gaither came up.
“That’s a thundering slick hoss you’re riding,” said Mr. Locke. “He’d do fine work in a fox-hunt. Where’s the nigger?”
“The dogs can tell you more about it than I can,” said Joe.
“Well,” remarked Mr. Locke, with a sigh,
“I know’d I’d miss him if he ever got to the ferry here and found the boat on this side. Why, dang his black skin!” exclaimed the negro-hunter vehemently, as he glanced down the river and saw the bateau floating away in the distance, “he’s gone and turned the boat loose! That shows we was a-pushin’ ’im mighty close. I reckon you could a’ seed ’im if you’d looked clos’t when you first come up.”
“No,” replied Joe; “he was out of sight, and the boat was drifting around the elbow. You were not more than five minutes behind me.”
“Bless your soul, buddy,” exclaimed Mr. Locke, “five minutes is a mighty long time when you are trying to ketch a runaway.”
So ended the race after Mink. To Joe Maxwell it was both interesting and instructive. He was a great lover of dogs, and the wonderful performance of Sound had given him new ideas of their sagacity.
A few mornings after the unsuccessful attempt to catch Mink, a very queer thing happened. Harbert was sweeping out the printing-office, picking up the type that had been dropped on the floor, and Joe was preparing to begin the day’s work. Suddenly Harbert spoke: