WARWICK WOODLANDS. 129 



attain the friendly shelter of the dingle, to which with all due 

 speed he was retreating. By this time all our comrades had as- 

 sembled. Loud was the glee boisterous the applause, which 

 fell especially to me, who had performed with my own hand the 

 glorious feat of slaying two wolves in one morning ; and deep 

 the cups of applejack. Scotch whiskey, and Jamaica spirits, 

 which flowed in rich libations, according to the tastes of the 

 compotators, over the slaughtered quarry. 



" Breakfast was produced on the spot ; cold salt pork, onions, 

 and hard biscuit forming the principal dishes, washed down by 

 nothing weaker than the pure ardent ! Not long, however, did 

 fat Tom permit us to enjoy our ease. 



" * Come, boys/ he shouted, * no lazin' here ; no gormandizin' 

 the worst part of our work's afore us ; the old lame devil is 

 afoot, and five miles off by now. We must get back, and lay 

 the hounds on, right stret off and well if the scent an't cold 

 now ! He's tuk right off toward Duckcedars' for so Tom ever 

 calls Truxedo Pond a lovely crescent-shaped lakelet deep in 

 the bosom of the Greenwoods ' so off with you, Jem, down by 

 the road, as hard as you can strick with ten of your boys in 

 sleighs, and half the hounds ; and if you find his tracks acrost 

 the road, don't wait for us, but strick right arter him. Yon, 

 Garry, keep stret down the old road with ten dogs and all the 

 plunder we'll meet at night, I reckon.' 



" No sooner said than done ! the parties were sent off with 

 the relays. This was on Monday morning Tom and I, and 

 some thirteen others, with eight couple of the best dogs, stuck 

 to his slot on foot. It was two hours at least, so long had he 

 been gone, before a single hound spoke to it, and I had begun 

 well nigh to despair ; but Tom's immense sagacity, which seem- 

 ed almost to know instinctively the course of the wily savage, 

 enabling us to cut off the angles of his course, at last brought 

 us up somewhat nearer to him. At about noon, two or three 

 of the hounds opened, but doubtfully and faintly. His slot, 

 however, showed that they were right, and lustily we cheered 

 them on ! Tom, marvelling the while that we heard not the 

 cry of Jem's relay. 



" ' For I'll be darned,' he said, * if he hasn't crossed the road 

 long enough since ; and that dumb nigger, Jenrs not had the 

 sense to stick to him !' 



" For once, however, the fat man was wrong ; for, as it ap- 

 peared when we neared the road, the wolf had headed back, 

 6* 



