into the woods with our own dog and put them
both upon the track of a deer.

The black hound followed the track steadily, but he uttered no bark,
confining himself to a low, excited whimpering. Even when the game was
roused and the hot scent gave ardor to the pursuing dogs, the black
hound did not join in the frantic baying of his companion.

The deer did not enter the lake at the runway where I was watching, but
with my spy-glass I saw it plunge into the water a quarter of a mile
away. A boat happened to be passing at the time and the deer was killed.
A moment later the black hound appeared on the shore. He could not have
been forty rods behind the deer, but no bark betrayed the eagerness of
his pursuit. I heard the baying of my own dog, as he slowly followed the
scent, away back among the wooded hills that rose on all sides of the
lake.

This, then, was the reason why Rufe had heard no baying on the morning
when we had found the black hound. He was silent, and as swift as he was
silent.

As I looked at him that evening, I noticed he did not have the long ears
and heavy jaws of the common American deer or foxhound. His long, sharp
nose and slender proportions indicated the blood of the Scotch
staghound, or that of some large breed of greyhound.

But this cross had not made him more delicate or less fierce. Even Rufe
was afraid to handle him roughly, for, unless treated with every
consideration, the great hound snarled, and showed rows of savage teeth.
He ruled over the other dogs with a cool assumption of more aristocratic
breeding.

The morning after the deer was driven to water and the black hound had
proved his swiftness and persistence, Rufe again went into the woods for
the purpose of starting deer with the two hounds, or "putting out the
dogs," as it is called; but this morning it was the guide's intention to
put the dogs on separate tracks. They differed too much in speed to be
useful when following the same deer.

I took my station at my favorite stand, a runway which reaches the lake
where a deep, narrow bay collected the waters before they were
discharged into the river which flowed into the St. Lawrence.

One side of this bay was nearly separated from the lake by a long, sharp
point of land, and near the bay's farther shore was a little island, a
green, bushy spot amid the blue waters.

The bay was a favorite place for the pursued deer to take to the water
in their endeavor to baffle the hounds fo