Our dogs took up
the scent at once and we began to travel at a rapid pace.
Here again, one must have a good pair of legs. If automobiles,
elevators, and general laziness have not ruined your powers of
locomotion, you may follow the dogs; otherwise, you had best stay at
home.
At first we walk, then we trot, and when with a leap the hounds start
in full cry, we race. Regardless of five thousand feet of altitude,
regardless of brush, rocks, and dizzy cliffs, we follow at a breakneck
pace. I don't know where our breath comes from in these trials. We just
have to run; in fact, we have planned to run on our hands when our legs
play out. With pounding hearts we surge ahead. "Keep the dogs within
hearing!" "It can't last long!" But this time we come to a sudden halt
on a rocky slide. We've lost the scent. The dogs circle and backtrack
and work with feverish haste. The sun has risen, and up the mountain
side comes a band of goats led by a single shepherd dog--no man in
sight. We shout to the dog to steer his rabble away, but on they come,
and obliterate our trail with a thousand hoofprints and a cloud of
dust.
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