They have brought the bloodhounds up, and they
Have taken the trail to the mountain way.
Three times they circled the trail and crossed,
And thrice they found it and thrice they lost.
Now straight through the trees and the underbrush
They follow the scent through the forest’s hush.
And their deep-mouthed bay is a pulse of fear
In the heart of the wood that the man must hear.
The man who crouches among the trees
From the stern-faced men who follow these.
A huddle of rocks that the ooze has mossed
And the trail of the hunted again is lost.
An upturned pebble, a bit of ground
A heel has trampled—the trail is found.
And the woods reëcho the bloodhounds’ bay
As again they take to the mountain way.
A rock, a ribbon of road, a ledge,
With a pine tree clutching its crumbling edge.
A pine, that the lightning long since clave,
Whose huge roots hollow a ragged cave.