Morning journal and courier., 1885-12-28

| each one of them has q scent that marks | him just as distinctly to my hounds from | his fellows as his appearance marks him ! under your deliberate study"
 ! "And do you expect me to believe that ! the dogs can catch this scent from the fly \ ing touch of his thick shoes on the hard ' ground?"
 Undoubtedly. And further He may stop in a squad and change shoes with convict and the dogs will still follow him. On the hardest ground his scent will be | plain to them though his shoe soles are half an inch thick. When he runs through the woods, where his clothes touch the bush es, they will trail him heads up, in full cry, fifty yards, running parallel, but away from where he ran." "Do you mean that you can take fifty eof1- victs, all clad in convict suits, let them run through the bushes, then send the convict the dogs are trailing through the same bush es and the scent of his body left on the yielding twigs as his clothes brush them will lead the hounds through the maze?' "Yes, fifty yards away they will run it parallel at full speed. To prove this I will start convict. I will let others follow him through the woods. I will let him make semicircle in the woods with fifty yards ra dius. When the hounds come to this, in stead of following the curve they will ccent the opposite side of the circle fifty yards away, cut across to it, take the track up there and follow it.'
 A gaunt convict, long of leg and flank, was selected for the run. He was told to put off quickly, circle in the woods, take s swift run over fields, roads and through eve ry squad of convicts he could find in his way. This he did. The hounds were then
 loaing about the stockade yard, as listless a
 lot of dogs as ever were seen. 'Im tempt ed, said MT. Williams, ''to let the convict
 C. l. l,,
 run while. have had dogs trail convict
 on horseback four miles and then take the
 track where he jumped from the horse." By
 this time the flying convict was small speck
 on the broad fields and in moment more
 had melted into the horizon and was gone, if indeed he had found that liberty for which
 his soul panted and had gone the strong
 winged birds go when they vanish in the blue ether.
 In an hour we mounted our horses. The hounds were still loafng about in the sun
 shine. Suddenly Mr. Williams, squaring
 himself in his saddle blew three quick, short blasts on the cows horn that hung at his side. As if by magic the hounds awakened and charged at his saddle-eager, baying, frantic. 'Niggerl'' he said sententiously. Like the wind they were off, nose to the ground, tails up, eircling like beagles. Lar ger the circles grew, the hounds silent spectres, eyes and nose eating the eartl for it's secret. ''They will pass over the tracks of convict squads, but will open the first single track they find. If it is the wrong track we will simply sit still: They will run it hundred yards or so, and noting our si- fence will throw it off and search again. When they get the right track we will halloo and start after the hound that has it. The others will join him and the race is opened. At last a red hound, careering like mad across the field, halts suddenly, tumbles over himself, faces about, noses the ground eager h li. jao1 A r-11it, ay16 off like an arrow from a bowstring. That's the track" shouts Williams and after the bowling hound we go. The other dogs join in pell nell at first, then each hound true to the track, in full cry and at a rattling gait. Away off to the left Captain James calls at- tention to moving speck against the sky. ''That is the convict circling back to camp" he said. On the doge went, keen as the wind, memorable as fate, following the track of the convict as true as his own shadow. Across the tracks of hundreds Of others, along high roads, over fields. through herds of cattle, by other convicts that smiled grim ly as they passed, the hounds vert, holding the track of the flying convict where it had heen laid as lightly as thistle on the firm earth, but where it left it's telltale scent all the same. Nothing could shake them off nothing check their furious rush. Over oth- CT tracks made by conYicts wearing shoes from the same last and same box they went without hindrance, led by some intangible miracle of the air, straight single trail. ''Now we'll see them wind his scent fifty yards away" said Williams, neared patch of forest. Close to this was a squad of convicts. These we had sent through the woods an hour before We had made ''trus ties," walking singly, touch every bush and tree. The convict we were trailing was run through, making half circle, with at least fifty yards radius. The hounds entered the
 forest at hustling pace, small red dog
 II f e
 instant, with nose in air, then burst with
 fierce cry to the left, obliquely for full
 fifty yards, with head up, when he took up
 again the track of the convict and lowered
 his head to the ground He had simply
 made short cut across the semicircle, hay
 ing caught scent of the convict on the tushes
 more than a hundred feet away. am aware
 that this is incredible to those who have nev
 CT seen it. I cannot explain what it is that
 the flying man, clad and shod a hundred
 others, fed on the same food, chained daily
 to the same chain, and sleeping in the same
 hunks at nights imparts to yielding twig
 touched by his clothes that it attracts
 hound fifty yards away. But it certainly
 does just that
 The last test was now coming. We were
 moving toward squad of convicts at work
 in cotton field. We had sent the fugitive
 convict through this squad We had then
 made them walk in a double circle around
 him. They then crossed and recrossed his
 tracks, many of them wearing exactly such
 shoes as he wore. One hour later the hounds
 struck this point. There was not an instant's
 pause There was no deviation, no let up in
 the pace. Through the labyrinth of tracks
 the hounds went swallows through the air,
 hurrying inexorably on the one track they
 had chosen.
 The end was now near. The convict, hay
 in run his race, was seen leaning against 6
 tree and watching the hounds plunging to-
 ward him. "Won't he climb the tree?" l
 asked s'No; the hounds are trained to sim
 ply bay the convicts when they come up with
 them. Otherwise the convicts would kill
 them" By this time the hounds had sighted
 him. They halted about twenty yards away
 from the tree against which he stood and
 bayed him furious y. Pretty music they
 made aud not deeper than have heard often and again under 'possum tree. MT. Will Hams called them off and the convict came forward "Dem puppies is doin' mig ty
 well, Cap'n," he said, grinning as he lazlly swung by on his way to the stockade.'
 These dogs not bloodhounds. I doubt if there is bloodhound in Georgia, though 70 are reported near Gainesville, descended from a pair owned by Colonel Jeff Johnson in the days of slavery. The Oldtown dogs are fox hounds of the Redbone breed, trained for several generations to hunt men. They are never tempted by other game. They are neither fierce nor powerful, and are relied on solely to trail the convict and lead his pursu- to h 1air