Aaron was glad to see the Brindle Steer and Brindle.

So glad to see Aaron that he must needs hoist his tail in the air and lower his horns, which were remarkably long and sharp, and pretend that he was on the point of charging, pawing the ground and making a noise with his mouth that was something between a bleat and a bellow. It was such a queer sound that Aaron laughed, seeing which Brindle shook his head and capered around the Son of Ben Ali as if trying to find some vulnerable point in his body that would offer slight resistance to the long horns.

“You are well, Brindle,” said Aaron.

“No, Son of Ben Ali, not well — only a great deal better,” replied Brindle.

“That is something, Brindle; be glad, as I[104] am,” remarked Aaron. “You may have work to do today — with your horns.”

Brindle drew a long breath that sounded like a tremendous sigh. “It is well you say with my horns, Son of Ben Ali. No cart for me. When the time comes for the cart, I shall have — what do you call it?”

“The hollow horn,” suggested Aaron.

“Yes, two hollow horns, Son of Ben Ali. No cart for me. Though there is nothing the matter with my horns, the people shall believe that both are hollow. When I was sick, Son of Ben Ali, something was the matter with all nine of my stomachs.”

“Nine! You have but three, Brindle,” said Aaron.

“Only three, Son of Ben Ali? Well, when I was sick, I thought there were nine of them. What am I to do today?”

“Go not too far, Brindle. When you hear hounds running through the fields from the river, come to the big poplar. There you will find me and the White Grunter.”

“I’m here, Son of Ben Ali, and here I stay. All night, I have fed on the sprouts of the young cane, and once I waded too far into the quagmire. I’m tired. I’ll lie here and chew my cud. But no yoke, Son of Ben Ali, and no cart.” Whereupon old Brindle made himself comfortable by lying down and chewing his cud between short pauses.

BRINDLE AND AARON

Meanwhile, Mr. Jim Simmons, accompanied only by George Gossett (the father had turned back in disgust soon after the chase began), was galloping across the country in a somewhat puzzled frame of mind.

When Mr. Simmons had given one short blast on his horn to warn his dogs that a hunt was on the programme, the three men rode along the plantation path toward the Abercrombie place.

“Now, Colonel,” remarked Mr. Simmons as they started, “I want you to keep your eyes on that red dog. It’ll be worth your while.”

“Is that Sound?” George Gossett asked.

“Well, sometimes I call him Sound on account of his voice, and sometimes I call him Sandy on account of his color, but just you watch his motions.” Pride was in the tone of Mr. Simmons’s voice.

The dog was trotting in the path ahead of the horse. Suddenly, he put his nose to the ground and seemed to be so delighted at what he found there that his tail began to wag. He lifted his head and ran along the path for fifty yards or more. Then he put his nose to the ground again, and kept it there as he cantered along the narrow trail. Then he began to trot, and finally, with something of a snort, turned and ran back the way he had come. He had not given voice to so much as a whimper.

“Don’t he open on track?” asked George Gossett.

“He’ll cry loud enough and long enough when he gets down to business,” Mr. Simmons explained. “Just you keep your eyes on him.”

“Fiddlesticks. He’s tracking us,” exclaimed Mr. Gossett contemptuously.

“But, Colonel, if he is, I’m willing to take him out and kill him, and, as he stands, I would take no man’s hundred dollars for him. I’ll see what he’s up to.”

Suiting the action to the word, Mr. Simmons turned his horse’s head and galloped after Sound, who was now rushing, followed by all the 107 expectant dogs. Nothing was left for the two Gossetts to do but to follow Mr. Simmons, though the elder plainly showed his indignation, not only by his actions, but by the use of a few words that are either too choice or too emphatic to be found in a school dictionary.

Sound ran to the point where Aaron and the woman had stopped. He followed the woman’s scent to her cabin, but this not proving satisfactory, he turned and came back to where the two had stood. There he picked up Aaron’s scent, ran around in a small circle, and then, with a loud, wailing cry, as if he had been hit with a cudgel, he was off, the rest of the dogs joining in, their cries making a musical chorus that fell on the ear with a lusty, pleasant twang as it echoed through the woods.

“Wait,” said Mr. Gossett, as Mr. Simmons moved to follow the dogs. “This is a fool’s errand you are starting on. The nigger we’re after wouldn’t come within a mile of this place. It’s one of the Spivey niggers the dogs are tracking. Or one of the Ward niggers. I’m too old to go galloping about the country just to see the dogs run. George, you can go if you want to,[108] but I’d advise you to go to the house and go to bed. That’s what I’ll do. Simmons, if you catch the right nigger, well and good. If I thought the dogs were on his track, I’d ride behind them the balance of the week. But it’s out of reason. We know where the nigger goes, and the dogs haven’t been there.”

“I’ll risk all that, Colonel. If we don’t come up with the nigger, why, it costs nobody nothing,” remarked Mr. Simmons.

“I’ll go along and see the fun, pap,” said George.

“Well, be back by dinner time. I want you to do something for me.”

Mr. Gossett called a negro and had his horse taken, while George and Mr. Simmons galloped after the hounds, which were now going out of the woods into the old, worn-out fields beyond. As Mr. Simmons put it, they were “running pretty smooth.” They were not going as swiftly as the modern hounds go, but they were going rapidly enough to give the horses as much work as they wanted to do.

The hounds were really after Aaron. Mr. Simmons suspected it, but he didn’t know it.[109] He was simply taking the chances. But his hopes fell as the dogs struck into the plantation road leading to the river. “If they were after the runaway, what on earth did he mean by going in this direction?” Mr. Simmons asked himself. He knew the dogs were following the scent of a negro, and he knew the negro had been to the Abercrombie place, but more than this, he did not know.

Then it occurred to him that a runaway with some sense and judgment might be expected to go to the river, steal a bateau, and float downstream to avoid the hounds. He had heard of such tricks in his day and time, and his hopes began to rise. But they fell again, for he suddenly remembered that the negro who left the scent which the hounds were following could not possibly have known that he was to be hunted with dogs; consequently, he would not be going to the river to steal a boat. But wait! Another thought struck Mr. Simmons. Didn’t the Colonel send one of his nigger women to the quarters on the Abercrombie plantation? He surely did. Didn’t the woman say she had seen the runaway? Of course she did. Weren’t the chances[110] ten to one that when she saw him, she told him that Simmons would be after him in the morning? Exactly so! The result of this rapid summing up of the situation was so satisfactory to Mr. Simmons that he slapped the pommel of his saddle and cried: —

“By jing, I’ve got him!”

“Got who?” inquired George Gossett, who was riding close up.

“Wait and see!” replied Mr. Simmons.

“Oh, I’ll wait,” said young Gossett, “and so will you.”

THE HUNT ENDS.

It will be seen that Mr. Jim Simmons, in his crude way, was a very shrewd reasoner. He didn’t “guess;” he “reckoned,” and it cannot be denied that he came very near the truth. You will remember that when we children play hide-the-switch, the one who hides it guides those who are hunting for it by making certain remarks. When they are near where the switch is hidden, the hider says, “You burn; you are afire,” but when they get further away from the hiding-place, the word is, “You are cold; you are freezing.” In hunting for Aaron, Mr. Jim Simmons was burning, for he had come very close to solving the problem that the fugitive had set for him.