gnant pond--had no communication either
with the river or the adjacent bayous. We were leaving no tracks--I
took care of that--that could be perceived under the forest gloom; and
our pursuers might possibly conclude that the dogs had been running upon
the trail of a bear, a cougar, or the swamp wild-cat (_Lynx rufus_)--all
of which animals freely take the water when pursued. With such
probabilities I was cheering myself and my companion, as we kept rapidly
along our course!

My greatest source of apprehension was the delay we should have to make,
after giving the signal to the runaway. Would he hear it at once?
Would he attend to it in due haste? Would he arrive in time? These
were the points about which I felt chiefly anxious. Time was the
important consideration; in that lay the conditions of our danger. Oh!
that I had thought of this purpose before!--oh! that we had started
earlier!

How long would it take our pursuers to come up? I could scarce trust
myself to think of a reply to this question. Mounted as they were, they
would travel faster than we: the dogs would guide them at a run!

One thought alone gave me hope. They would soon find our resting-place
of the night; they would see where we had slept by the pawpaw-leaves and
the moss; they could not fail to be certain of all that; but would they
so easily trail us thence? In our search after the horses, we had
tracked the woods in all directions. I had gone back to the bye-road,
and some distance along it. All this would surely baffle the dogs for a
while; besides, D'Hauteville, at starting, had left the pawpaw thicket
by a different route from that we had taken. They might go off on _his_
trail. Would that they might follow D'Hauteville.

All these conjectures passed rapidly through my mind as we hurried
along. I even thought of making an attempt to throw the hounds off the
scent. I thought of the _ruse_ practised by the Bambarra with the spray
of the loblolly pine; but, unfortunately, I could not see any of these
trees on our way, and feared to lose time by going in search of one. I
had doubts, too, of the efficacy of such a proceeding, though the black
had solemnly assured me of it. The common red onion, he had afterwards
told me would be equally effective for the like purpose! But the red
onion grew not in the woods, and the _pin de l'encens_ I could not find.

For all that I did not proceed without precautions. Youth though I was,
I