on in an unerring line to the fateful tree. But that dread directness of
scent was Courtland's opportunity. His revolver flashed out in an aim as
unerring. The brute, pierced through neck and brain, dashed on against
the tree in his impetus, and then rolled over against it in a quivering
bulk. Again another bay coming from the same direction told Courtland
that his pursuers had outflanked him, and the whole pack were crossing
the swamp. But he was prepared; again the same weird shadow, as spectral
and monstrous as a dream, dashed out into the brief light of the open,
but this time it was stopped, and rolled over convulsively before it had
crossed. Flushed, with the fire of fight in his veins, Courtland turned
almost furiously from the fallen brutes at his feet to meet the onset of
the more cowardly hunters whom he knew were at his heels. At that moment
it would have fared ill with the foremost. No longer the calculating
steward and diplomatic manager, no longer the cool-headed arbiter of
conflicting interests, he was ready to meet them, not only with the
intrepid instincts of a soldier, but with an aroused partisan fury equal
to their own. To his surprise no one followed; the baying of a third
hound seemed to be silenced and checked; the silence was broken only by
the sound of distant disputing voices and the uneasy trampling of hoofs.
This was followed by two or three rifle shots in the distance, but not
either in the direction of the quarters nor the Dows' dwelling-house.
There evidently was some interruption in the pursuit,--a diversion of
some kind had taken place,--but what he knew not. He could think of
no one who might have interfered on his behalf, and the shouting and
wrangling seemed to be carried on in the accents of the one sectional
party. He called cautiously to Cato. The negro did not reply. He crossed
to the tree and shook it impatiently. Its boughs were empty; Cato
was gone! The miserable negro must have taken advantage of the first
diversion in his favor to escape. But where, and how, there was nothing
left to indicate.