All was still, save here and there the sharp, distant bark of a dog.

“I wonder which way they went?” he asked, looking down at us.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE POLICE DOG

Dillon pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew a short blast sharply.  Far down the road, we could hear faintly an answering bark.  It came nearer.

“They’re taught to obey a police whistle and nothing else,” remarked Dillon, with satisfaction.  “I wonder which one of the dogs that was.  By the way, just keep out of sight as much as you can—­get back up in our car.  They are trained to worry anyone who hasn’t a uniform.  I’ll take this dog in charge.  I hope it’s Cherry.  She ought to be around here, if the men obeyed my orders.  The others aren’t keen on a scent even when it is fresh, but Cherry is a dandy and I had the man bring her up purposely.”

We got back into our car and waited impatiently.  Across the hills now and then we could catch the sounds of dogs scouting around here and there.  It seemed as if every dog in the valley had been aroused.  On the other slope of the hill from the main road we could see lights in the scattered houses.

“I doubt whether they have gone that way,” commented Garrick following my gaze.  “It looks less settled over here to the right of the road, in the direction of New York.”

The low baying of the dog which had answered Dillon’s call was growing nearer every moment.  At last we could hear it quite close, at the deserted car ahead.

Cherry seemed to have many of the characteristics of the wild, prehistoric animal, among them the full, upright ears of the wild dog, which are such a great help to it.  She was a fine, alert, up-standing dog, hardy, fierce, and literally untiring, of a tawny light brown like a lioness, about the same size and somewhat of the type of the smooth-coated collie, broad of chest and with a full brush of tail.

Untamed though she seemed, she was perfectly under Dillon’s control, and rendered him absolute and unreasoning obedience.

“Now, Cherry, nice dog,” we heard Dillon encouraging, “Here, up here.  And here.”

He was giving the dog the scent from the deserted car.  His voice rang out sharply in the night air, “Come on Garrick and Marshall.  She’s got it.  I’ve got her on leash.  Follow along, now, just a few feet behind.”

Cherry was on the trail and it was a hot one.  We could just see her magnificent head, narrow and dome-like, between the keen ears.  She was working like a regular sleuthhound, now, too, slowly, picking up the trail and following it, baying as she went.

She was now going without a halt or falter.  Nose to the ground, she had leaped from the bandit’s car and made straight across a field in the direction that Garrick had suspected they would take, only a little to the west.

“This is a regular, old-fashioned man hunt,” called back Dillon, as we followed the dog and himself, as best we could.