he had a colder nose than Bill Favers's dog Sound, who could follow a scent thirty-six hours old. It is not to be supposed that the training of Jeff went no farther than tracking the little negroes within sight of the house. The time speedily came when he was put on the trails of negroes who had hours the start,—negroes who crept along on fences and waded wide streams in their efforts to baffle the dog.
But Jeff was not easily baffled. He developed such intelligence and such powers of discriminating scent as would have put to shame the lubberly and inefficient dogs known as bloodhounds. Bloodhounds have figured very largely in fiction and in the newspapers as the incarnation of ferocity and intelligence. As a matter of fact, Jeff, the little beagle, could have whipped a shuck-pen full of them without ever showing his teeth, and he could run half a mile while a bloodhound was holding his senseless head in the air to give tongue.
Naturally the colonel was very proud of Jeff. He had the dog always at his heels, whether going to town or about the plantation, and he waited for the opportunity to
