Hervey encouraged the eager hound.
“See––ek ’em,” he hissed, in an undertone.
The dog responded, making the earth fly beneath its sharp claws. The animal’s excitement had communicated itself to its master, and the man’s great eyes glowed strangely. He now moved from his position and came over to the dog’s side. He stooped down and examined the place where the dog had been working. He pushed his fingers deep into the hollow which the vigorous claws had made. The next instant he drew them back sharply, and a faint ejaculation escaped him. He straightened himself up and pushed the dog roughly away from the spot.
“Come here, you cur,” he muttered. “Come over to the hut.”
The dog obeyed with reluctance, and Hervey had to keep a clutch upon the beast’s mane to hold him to his side. He half dragged him and half led him up the path until they neared the ruin. Then with a bound the dog leapt forward and rushed in beneath the sacking which covered the doorway, giving tongue to little yelps of eagerness as he went.
Hervey was about to follow, but a strange sound beneath his feet attracted him and made him pause. He listened. The noise went on. It was very faint but quite distinct, and very like the regular fall of a hammer. He called instantly to the dog. Neche’s head appeared from beneath the canvas, but he showed unusual signs of disobedience. Instantly, Hervey seized him by the mane, then, subdued and sulky, the animal allowed himself to be dragged from the building. Hervey did not relax his hold until he and the dog were well clear of the place, and were once more buried from view within the depths of the woods.
For a moment, when the hound regained its freedom, it stood still and turned its head back towards the place they had just left, but a threatening command from the man brought him to heel at once, and there was no further bother. It was strange the relations which existed between this curiously-assorted pair. There could be no doubt that Hervey hated the dog, and the dog’s regard for its master was of doubtful quality. As a rule, it would fawn in a most servile manner, but its attitude, the moment its master’s back was turned, was always morose and even truculent. Hervey had told his sister that the dog was as treacherous as an Indian. But Hervey was not a keen observer, or he would have added, “and as wicked as a rattlesnake.”
The two tramped on all that day, but there was little shooting done. Hervey also seemed to have utterly forgotten his intention to shoot the dog. Time after time jack-rabbits got up and dashed off into the woods, but there followed no report of the 196 gun. Prairie chicken in the open glades whirred up from the long succulent grass, but Hervey paid no heed, and when several deer trotted across the man’s path, and the gun remained tucked under his arm, it plainly showed the pre-occupied state of his mind.
The truth was that Hervey was thinking with a profundity that implied something which must very nearly affect his personal interests. And these personal interests, at the moment, centred round George Iredale and––the graveyard. He had discredited the story the girls had told as he would discredit anything which pertained to the supernatural. But now he had learned something which put an entirely different meaning to the adventures the two girls had related. It is easy enough to mystify the simple human mind, but dogs’ instincts are purely practical, and, as Hervey argued, ghosts do not leave a hot scent. Neche had lit upon a hot scent. At first the man had been doubtful as to what that scent was. Graveyards on the prairie are places favoured by the hungry coyote, and he had been inclined to believe that such was the trail which the dog had discovered. But his own investigations had suggested something different.