The eager dogs take up the trail and start on a run up the stream bank.
They cross on a great fallen tree and mount the wooded hill on the
other side where I lose them in the jungle. I run on by instinct,
listening for their directing bark. Once in a while I catch it faintly
in the distance. They must be mounting rapidly and too busy to bark.
Again it is audible far off to my left and I force my tired legs to
renewed energy, climbing higher and higher.
Up I mount through the forest, alert for the telltale yelp. There it
is, a whine and faint, stifled guttural sounds, but so indistinct and
so obscured by the prattle of the stream and the murmuring tree tops
that I fail to locate it. So I flounder on through vines and
underbrush, wondering where my dogs have gone. I blow the horn and
Dixie answers with a pathetic howl, away off to the right. I run and
blow the horn again; again that puppy whine. Teddy doesn't answer and I
wonder how Dixie could have been lost, though after all, he is only a
recent graduate from the kennel and unseasoned in this world of canine
misery and wisdom. Unexpectedly, I come upon him, looking very
disconsolate and somewhat mauled.
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