270 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



police, and he started the same evening or the next morning, I 

 forget which, and elicited such evidence from the plate-layers 

 that he took into custody the little man who carried the stolen 

 deer, and who was but recently discharged from gaol, having 

 undergone punishment for stealing a gun. The next morning 

 another constable captured an accomplice who had aided in the 

 theft, a man who had been previously fined for a savage assault, 

 in company with four or five others, on Bromfield, one of the 

 marksmen of the forest, whom they had beaten and left for 

 dead. These fellows were committed to Winchester to await 

 their trial, and were afterwards convicted in two months with 

 hard labour. 



Now this is perhaps the most extraordinary instance of 

 sagacity in that wonderful animal the dog ever related. Tramp 

 had never run the scent of a deer, nor the scent of a man, and 

 yet out of three or four lines of scent, the men all strange to 

 him, and all more or less blooded or tainted with the deer, he 

 distinguished the man who carried her, although not a drop of 

 fresh blood fell to direct him, as the thieves took the precaution 

 to tie up the head and throat before they removed her. The 

 check where the lines of scent crossed each other showed that 

 the various footsteps occasioned a difficulty ; and also the one 

 at the railway wires before he carried the trail over the line, 

 that check too was accounted for. The thief had put the deer 

 down there, while he ran to the plate -layers and bought a 

 promise of silence from them by saying that they should have a 

 share of the spoil. When Tramp showed an inclination to run 

 down the line instead of across it, he was perfectly true to the 

 steps of the man ; but he had not gone forty yards before he 

 discovered that he did not then carry the burthen he was en- 

 deavouring to overtake. He returned, therefore, before he had 

 run those footsteps out, and resumed the scent where the deer 

 was again lifted and carried on. 



I have never in the whole course of my experience been able 

 to account for scent, or what it is that leads on the gifted dog. 

 I have seen hounds plunge their heads and noses in the most 



