A single incident taken from many that might be given, will sufficiently illustrate the superior qualities of this remarkable dog, as well as the usual success attendant upon the efforts to detract from his merited superiority by running picked hounds with him in the chase. A number of persons in every neighborhood kept hounds, and each owner considered himself the possessor of a small fortune, consisting at least of one animal that was considered faster and truer than any one belonging to a neighbor; and it was an easy matter at any time to summon on short notice fifteen to thirty of these favorites surrounded by a conflict of good opinions. On the 11th of November, 18—, twenty gentlemen, some of whom afterwards rose to high political and judicial eminence in the history of the state and nation, met by agreement and entered the forest at four o’clock in the morning with twelve dogs, the pick of the best packs known in the state. The atmosphere was still, white frost hung on the trees all day; the ground was but little frozen, and other things perhaps conspired to make it favorable, as hunters say, “for scent to lay.”
The dogs soon struck a cold trail, perhaps where the fox had been the previous evening, and which could be followed but slowly. Before midday, it became too cold for all the dogs excepting Gamer and two old hounds, one of which was famous for his “cold nose.” The latter dogs, however, were unable to get scent excepting in favorable places; and, by three o’clock in the afternoon, they too were out, and no longer able to render assistance. Gamer still kept at work trailing Reynard’s footsteps so closely, that on his way he entered an old vacant cabin, declaring most emphatically that Reynard had been there, showing that even on the dry ground and probably more than ten hours after the presence of the animal, there was enough found to call forth a most vigorous cry.
When more than half a mile from this cabin, the trail was lost, and half an hour was consumed, with all the dogs in circuits, to no purpose. While engaged in these efforts to strike the track, the wonderful “pup” raised his voice most significantly at the very spot where he had ceased his cry. He had discovered the track and commenced a rapid backward march in the precise line over the same ground he had passed but a short time before. When within fifteen or twenty rods of the old vacant cabin, he turned off through a “deadening” in the direction of Mount Logan, showing that, notwithstanding the fox had retraced his steps for a long distance, the sagacious hound detected the fact after going over the ground, and that, too, when the trail was so very cold that no other dog in the chase could take the scent.
From Mount Logan the trail was leading through thicker timber, and Reynard had been zig-zagging here and there, in search, perhaps, of birds and rodents for his supper the night before, walking on logs and limbs of trees whenever near his intended line of march. Here, the dog quite knowingly changed his tactics, and for two hours ran at more than half speed from log to log, right to left, with nose close to the bark and decayed wood, as he rapidly passed, would let out his encouraging cry.
In this way he followed the crooked course until the close of the day, carrying a trail for thirteen hours, which the fox had passed at no point less than ten hours before, following it, too, more than three hours after the best and most renowned dogs ever in Ohio were silent. It was now dusk, the timber sparse and logs few, making the chances seemingly more unfavorable. So, the hunters who had been on the go for fifteen hours, and without the substantials of life for twenty-four hours, concluded to quit, and, calling the dogs to follow, turned in the direction of the by-path leading toward home. All the dogs were very ready to obey, excepting Gamer, who only stopped for a moment to gaze at his retreating masters, and then resumed his work, in which he became more and more interested as the day passed on. It was thought, however, he would soon quit and overtake his companions but, before the hunters had gone a mile, Gamer’s starting cry was heard; he had winded Reynard where he had stopped to spend the day high up the mountain side. Every hound knew it was no cry on a cold trail, and turned and went off at the top of their speed. Soon Gamer could be heard over ridges and hills far away; and the hunters, thinking the run would be made in the broken mountains, went home. A squirrel hunter in that vicinity, who obtained Reynard’s “brush,” reported the fox so closely pressed, that he soon doubled, came back, and entered a hollow log near his cabin, and was captured. The time given showed the run was finished in less than an hour after the hunters left.
Our Cabin, 1821.
The sense called “power of scent” is exceedingly delicate in the dog, enabling him to follow the course of one animal amid a multitude of “tracks” made by others of the same species. This power of discrimination is frequently manifest even in the common house-dog as he traces the footsteps of his master or those of his master’s horse through crowded thoroughfares and winding ways, although hundreds of similar feet have passed over the ground after the walk of the one he seeks was made. But, to tell any one but an old foxhunter that it was possible to find perfection in a dog sufficiently, under the most favorable circumstances, to run all day on a trail ten hours’ cold, would be deemed purely chimerical.—Gamer is no more.—James Gibbs has long been numbered with the dead.—And of those who participated in and enjoyed the pleasures of that day’s chase but one remains a living witness of the facts herein stated—the old Roman—the Hon. Allen G. Thurman.—It is a notable fact, that in after years, when those Ohio boys no longer resembled the festive hunter, they always gave a smile of pleasure at the mention of those merry times; and, even in old age, when oppressed with the heavy hand of time, nothing awakened the flush of youthful pride and satisfaction like the rehearsal of the deeds of the hound that had no equal in the history of the country—“Gibbs’ Stray Pup.”
The exterior beauties of an animal are always attractive. But more than these do we admire those qualities termed intelligence, instinct, and reason in their beneficent relations to man and the external world. The dog possesses a most wonderful harmony in form and faculties. He is the type and embodiment of beauty, strength, and freedom of motion combined with endurance, courage, zeal, fidelity, constancy, and uncompromising affection. For these reasons he is of all man’s friends, the most valuable, the truest, and the best. So devoted and unchangeable is his love, that he is ever ready to sacrifice his life to save his master from threatened injury. He long remembers a kindness, and soon forgives ill usage. At an early age he obtains a knowledge of the meaning of words in the language of his master, and understands and obeys commands; and with that retentive memory which animals possess, he never falters or forgets. The story of Ulysses and his favorite is but the citation of the tenacity of memory which belongs to the species. After twenty years—
“Near to the gates, conferring as they drew