The sheriff's dogs—the lean, small hounds used on such occasions—were tied, and he held the ropes. There was an anxious look on his face, and he kept his dogs near the house until the party for the barren had mounted and ridden away, and the party in the boat had pushed off into the blackness of the swamp, a torch fastened at the prow casting weird, uncertain shadows. Then ordering his six men to mount and to lead his horse, he went to the room of the negro Abram and got an old shirt. The two lean little dogs were restless, but they made no sound as he led them across the railway. Once on the other side, he let them smell the shirt, and loosed them, and was about to mount, when, in the flash of a torch, he saw something in the grass.
“A hatchet!” he said to his companions, picking it up; “and clean, thank God!”
The men looked at each other, then one said, slowly, “He coulder drowned her?”
The sheriff did not answer, but followed the dogs that had trotted away with their noses to the ground.
“I'm sure the nigger came this way,” the sheriff said, after a while. “Those others may find the poor young lady, but I feel sure of the nigger.”
One of the men stopped short. “That nigger's got to die,” he said.
“Of course,” the sheriff answered, “but not by Judge Lynch's court. This circuit's got a judge that'll hang him lawfully.”
“I b'lieve Judge More will,” the recalcitrant admitted, and rode on. “But,” he added, “if I know Mr. John Morris, that nigger's safe to die one way or another.”
They rode more rapidly now, as the dogs had quickened their pace. The moon had risen, and the riding, for men who hunted recklessly, was not bad. Through woods and across fields, over fences and streams, down by-paths and old roads, they followed the little dogs.
“We're makin' straight for the next county,” the sheriff said.