“He’s got it in for Black Dan now,” remarked MacDonald. And the whole party followed with hopeful expectation, so great was their faith in Jim’s sagacity.
The dog, in his haste, overshot the end of the trail. He stopped abruptly, whined, sniffed about, and came back to the deep boot-print. All about it he circled, whimpering with impatience, but never going more than a dozen feet away from it. Then he returned, sniffed long and earnestly, and stood over it with drooping tail, evidently quite nonplussed.
“He don’t appear to make no more of it than you did, Tug,” said Long Jackson, much disappointed.
“Oh, give him time, Long,” retorted Blackstock. Then——
“Seek him! Seek him, good boy,” he repeated, waving Jim to the front.
Running with amazing briskness on his three sound legs, the dog began to quarter the undergrowth in ever-widening half-circles, while the men stood waiting and watching. At last, at a distance of several hundred yards, he gave a yelp and a growl, and sprang forward.
“Got it!” exclaimed Big Andy.
“Guess it’s only the trail o’ that there b’ar he’s struck,” suggested Jackson pessimistically.
“Jim, stop!” ordered Blackstock. And the dog stood rigid in his tracks while Blackstock hastened forward to see what he had found.
“Sure enough. It’s only the bear,” cried Blackstock, investigating the great footprint over which Jim was standing. “Come along back here, Jim, an’ don’t go foolin’ away yer time over a bear, jest now.”