Basil instantly leaped into his saddle; and, snatching up the reins, cried out to his brother,—
“Come, Lucien! we must not lose sight of the dog, though our horses drop dead in their tracks! All depends upon keeping him in view.”
Both plied the spur, and dashed forward at a gallop.
“We must know how to find our way back again,” said Basil, reining up, as they passed the edge of one of the timber clumps. “We must not ourselves get lost;” and, as he said this, he crashed the branch of a tree, until the broken end hung dangling downward. He then resumed his gallop.
For nearly a mile the hound ran in a direct line. It was the first flight of the turkey. His course then altered, although not a great deal, and carried him half a mile or so in a direct line as before.
“The second flight,” remarked Basil to his brother, as both followed at a loose gallop, now with their eyes anxiously watching the dog, and now halting a moment by some conspicuous tree to “blaze” their way, by breaking one of its branches.
The dog at length entered a copse.
“Ha!” exclaimed Basil, “François has killed his turkey there. No,” he continued—as the hound shot out of the copse again, and struck off into the open plain—“no. It has sought shelter there, but it has been run out again, and gone farther.”
Marengo now led in a direct line for several hundred paces; when, all at once, he began to double and run in circling courses over the prairie.
“Draw up, Lucien! draw up!” cried Basil, as he pulled upon his bridle-rein. “I know what that means. Do not ride upon the track—you may baffle him—leave him to himself.”