"Dandy! Dandy!" he cried, with wild elation2 of voice and still no emotion in his face. "Niggeh-fellah thah. Dandy! Ah, Dandy! look him out!"
The music swelled3 from Dandy's throat. Away went the pair. The younger couple, in yoke4, trembled and moaned to be after them. The two clerks had swung down three or four rails from the fence, and with Hardy were hurrying their horses through, when the youngest dog, nose to the ground and tugging5 his yokemate along, let go a cry of discovery and began to dig furiously under a bottom rail. His master threw him off and drew from under it "Mrs. Southmayd's" tiny beflowered bonnet6.
"Good God!" exclaimed one of the boys as he held it up, "they've made way with her!"
"Now, none of that nonsense!" I cried; "she's given it to one of them and they've feared 'twould get them into trouble!" But the three had spurred off and I could only toss it away and follow.
The baying had ceased and an occasional half-smothered yap told that the scent7 was broken. A huge grape-vine end, hanging from a lofty bough8, had enabled the run-away to take a long sidewise swing clear of the ground; but as I came up the brutes9 had recovered the trail and sped on, once more breaking the still air, far and wide, into deep waves of splendid sound. Close after them, as best they might in yoke, scuttled10 the younger pair, dragging each other this way and that, their broad ears trailing to their feet, and Hardy riding close behind them, reciting their pedigrees and their distinguishing whims11.
Presently we issued from the woods, at the edge of wide fields surrounding a plantation12-house and slave-quarters, and I hoped to find the trail broken again; but without a pause the chase turned along a line of fence as if to half encircle the plantation. The master of the hounds, in nervy yet placid13 words, explained that a runaway14 knew better than to cross open ground by night and set the house-dogs a-barking. It was only on seeing no workers in the fields that I remembered it was Sunday, and feared intensely that the pious15 fugitives16 might have shortened their flight.
From the plantation's farther bound we ran down a long, gentle slope of beautiful open woods. At the bottom of it a clear stream rippled17 between steep banks shrouded18 with strong vines. Here the scent had failed and it was wonderful to see the docile19 faith and intelligence with which the dogs resigned the whole work to their master, and followed beside him while he sought a crossing-place for his horse. This took many minutes, but by and by they scrambled20 over, he bidding us wait where we were until the dogs should open again; and as he started down-stream along the farther bank the older hounds, at a single word, ran circling out before him in the tangle22, electrified23 by the steel-cold eagerness of his implorings.
But now, to my joy, he found their hungry snufflings as futile25 as his own scrutinizings and divinations, and after following the stream until my companions fretted26 openly at the delay, he dropped a note from his horn, rode back with the four dogs, recrossed, and passed down on our side with them at his heels, frowning at last and scanning the tangled27 growth of the opposite bank.
And now again he came back: "You see, this stream runs so nigh the way they wanted to go that there's no tellin' how fur they waded28 down it or whether they was two, three, or four of 'em rej'ined together. They're shore to 'a' been all together when they left it, but where that was hell only knows. Come on."
We plunged29 across after him and followed down the farther bank, and at the point where he had turned back he put the hounds on again. "How do you know there were more than one here?" I asked.
"Because, if noth'n' else, this trail at first was a fool's trail and now it's as smart as cats a-fight'n'--look 'em out, Dandy! Every time the rascals30 struck a swimmin'-hole they swum it, the men sort o' tote'n' the women, I reckon--ah, my Charmer! Yes, my sweet lady! take 'em! take 'em!"
As the stream emerged into an old field--"Sun's pow'ful hot for you-all!" Hardy added. "Ain't see' such a day this time o' year fo' a coon's age. Hosses feel'n' it. Hard to say which is hottest, sun or brush."
We had skirted the branch a full mile, beating its margin31
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