In about fifteen minutes the hound came in full blast with her nose in
the air, and never once did she put it to the ground while in my sight.
When she came to the stone wall she took the other side from that taken
by the fox, and kept about the same distance from it, being thus
separated several yards from his track, with the fence between her and
it. At the point where the fox turned sharply to the left, the hound
overshot a few yards, then wheeled, and feeling the air a moment with
her nose, took up the scent again and was off on his trail as
unerringly as fate. It seemed as if the fox must have sowed himself
broadcast as he went along, and that his scent was so rank and heavy
that it settled in the hollows and clung tenaciously to the bushes and
crevices in the fence. I thought I ought to have caught a remnant of
it as I passed that way some minutes later, but I did not. But I
suppose it was not that the light-footed fox so impressed himself upon
the ground he ran over, but that the sense of the hound was so keen.
To her sensitive nose these tracks steamed like hot cakes, and they
would not have cooled off so as to be undistinguishable for several
hours.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283