ke sure you 'save' teh whelp when he
is run out."

The men left their saddles and moved forward with manifest reluctance.
They had the highly emotional nature usual in the poor white of the
South, and this was deeply depressed by the weird loneliness that
brooded over everything, and the bloodshed they had witnessed.
Their thirst for vengeance was being tempered rapidly by a growing
superstitious fear. There was something supernatural in these mysterious
killings. Each man, therefore, only moved forward as he felt the
Captain's eye on him, or his comrades advanced.

The dog, after some false starts, got the scent, and started to follow
Fortner's footsteps.

"He's done tuck the trail, Cap'n," called back one of the men.

"All right," answered the officer, "don't take your eyes off of him for
a second till he trees the game."

But the logs and rocks and the impenetrable darkness in the shadows made
it impossible to follow the movements of the hound every moment. Only
Fortner was able to do this. He could see the great greenish-yellow eyes
burn in the pitchy-depths and steadily draw nearer him. They entered
the laurel thicket, and the beast growled as he felt the nearness of his
prey.

"Wolf must be gitten close ter him," said one of the men.

Fortner laid his rifle across the log, and drew from his belt a long
keen knife. He stirred slightly in doing this, and in turning to
confront the dog. The hound sprang forward with a growl that was
abruptly ended, for Fortner's left hand shot out like an arrow, and
caught the loose folds of skin on the brute's neck, and the next
instant his right, armed with the knife, descended and laid the animal's
shoulder and neck open with a deep cut. But the darkness made Fortner
mistake his distance. He neither caught the dog securely, nor sent the
knife to his heart, as he intended, and the hound tearing away, ran out
into the moonlight, bleeding and yelping. Before he reached his human
allies Fortner had silently sped back a hundred yards, to a more secure
shelter, so that the volley which was poured into he thicket only
endangered the lives of the chipmunks denizened there. The mounted men
rode forward and joined those on foot, in raking the copse with charges
of buckshot.

Away above Fortner and Harry rose yells and the clatter of galloping
horses. Before they could imagine what this meant a little cavalcade
swept by at a mad gallop, yelling at the tops of their voices, and
cha