“How can you tell the kind of game by the Dog’s barking?” asked Yan.

“H-m!” answered Caleb, as he put a fresh quid in his lantern jaw.  “You surely can if you know the country an’ the game an’ the Dog.  Course, no two Dogs is alike; you got to study your Dog, an’ if he’s good he’ll larn you lots about trailing.”

The brook was nearly dry now, so they crossed where they would.  Then feeling their way through the dark woods with eyes for the most part closed, they groped toward Boyle’s open field, then across it to the heavy timber.  Turk had left them at the brook, and, following its course till he came to a pool, had had a bath.  As they entered the timber tract he joined them, dripping wet and ready for business.

“Go ahead, Turk,” and again all sat down to await the opinion of the expert.

It came quickly.  The old Hound, after circling about in a way that seemed to prove him independent of daylight, began to sniff loudly, and gave a low whine.  He followed a little farther, and now his tail was heard to ‘tap, tap, tap’ the brush as he went through a dry thicket.

“Hear that?  He’s got something this time,” said Caleb in a low voice.  “Wait a little.”

The Hound was already working out a puzzle, and when at last he got far enough to be sure, he gave a short bark.  There was another spell of sniffing, then another bark, then several little barks at intervals, and at last a short bay; then the baying recommenced, but was irregular and not full-chested.  The sounds told that the Hound was running in a circle about the forest, but at length ceased moving, for all the barking was at one place.  When the hunters got there they found the Dog half-way in a hole under a stump, barking and scratching.

“Humph,” said Caleb; “nothing but a Cottontail.  Might ‘a’ knowed that by the light scent an’ the circling without treeing.”

So Turk was called off and the company groped through the inky woods in quest of more adventures.

“There’s a kind of swampy pond down the lower end of the bush—­a likely place for Coons on a Frog-hunt,” suggested the Woodpecker.

So the Hound was again “turned on” near the pond.  The dry woods were poor for scent, but the damp margin of the marsh proved good, and Turk became keenly interested and very sniffy.  A preliminary “Woof!” was followed by one or two yelps and then a full-chested “Boooow!" that left no doubt he had struck a hot trail at last.  Oh, what wonderfully thrilling horn-blasts those were!  Yan for the first time realized the power of the “full cry,” whose praises are so often sung.

The hunters sat down to await the result, for, as Caleb pointed out, there was “no saying where the critter might run.”

The Hound bayed his fullest, roundest notes at quick intervals, but did not circle.  The sound of his voice told them that the chase was straight away, out of the woods, easterly across an open field, and at a hot pace, with regular, full bellowing, unbroken by turn or doubt.