a single keen yap of preoccupied affirmation. Almost at once Charmer
came to the spot pointed out to me, reared her full length upon the
rails and let out a new note; long, musical, fretful, overjoyed. Hardy
mounted breast-high to the fence's top, wreathed two fingers in the
willing brute's collar, lifted her, and dropped her on the other side.
There she instantly resumed her search.

At the same time her yoke-mate's deep bay pealed like a trumpet, from a
few yards up the roadway. He had struck the broad, frank trail of the
other three negroes. The "puppy," still in leash, replied in a note
hardly less deep and mellow, but the whip of cool discipline cut him
off. From an ox-horn the master blew a short, sharp recall and at once
Dandy returned and began his work over, knowing now which runaway to
single out.

Hardy remained on the fence, watching his favorite, over in the brush.
By a stir of the bushes, now here, now there, we could see how busy she
was, and every now and then she sent us, as if begging our patience,
her eager promissory yelp.

Suddenly her master had a new thought. He stepped onward to the next
lock of the fence, scrutinized its top rail, moved to, the next lock,
examining the top rail there, then to the next, the next, the next, and
at the seventh or eighth beckoned us.

"See, here?" he asked. "Think that ain't a runaway nigger? Look." A
splinter had been newly rubbed off the rail. "What you reckon done
that, sir; a bird or a fish? That's where he jumped. Look yonder,
where he landed and lit out."