I know, myself, that the baying of those horrible dogs seems to freeze the blood; and in my case, I only escaped by luckily striking a rivulet.

Then my hopes rose again; and after following it, for a time, I had the happy thought of climbing into a tree which overhung it, and then dropping down at some little distance off, and so completely throwing the dogs off the trail." "Why do they not shoot the dogs ?" Ned asked.

"I do not mean the men whom they are scenting, but their friends." "We might shoot them," the negro said, "if they were allowed to run free; but here in the woods they are usually kept on the chain, so that their masters are close to them.
"Listen," he said, "do you not hear the distant baying ?" Listening attentively, however, the boys could hear nothing.

Their ears were not trained so well as that of the negro, and it was some minutes before they heard a distant, faint sound of the deep bark of a dog.

A few minutes later a negro, panting for breath, bathed in perspiration, and completely exhausted, staggered into the glade where they were standing.