Quiet now! - down, Bluebeard! - back, will you, Lucifer! Here's a
smash! there goes the jungle kennel! the pack squeezing out of it
in every direction as they hear the preparations for departure.
Now we are all right; ten couple out, and all good ones. Come
along, yo-o-i, along here! and a note on the horn brings the pack
close together as we enter the forest on the very summit of the
ridge. Thus the start was completed just as the first tinge of
gold spread along the eastern horizon, about ten minutes before
sunrise.
The jungles were tolerably good, but there were not as many elk
tracks as I had expected; probably the high wind on the ridge had
driven them lower down for shelter; accordingly I struck an
oblique direction downward, and I was not long before I
discovered a fresh track; fresh enough, certainly, as the thick
moss which covered the ground showed a distinct path where the
animal had been recently feeding.
Every hound had stolen away; even the greyhounds buried their
noses in the broad track of the buck, so fresh was the scent; and
I waited quietly for "the find." The greyhounds stood round me
with their cars cocked and glistening eyes, intently listening
for the expected sound.
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