Hardy were hurrying their horses through, when the youngest dog, nose
to the ground and tugging 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 bonnet.

"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 scent was broken. A huge grape-vine end, hanging from a lofty
bough, had enabled the run-away to take a long sidewise swing clear of
the ground; but as I came up the brutes 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,
scuttled 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 whims.

Presently we issued from the woods, at the edge of wide fields
surrounding a plantation-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 placid words, explained that a runaway 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 pious fugitives might have