Читать книгу The Sportsman's Club in the Saddle онлайн

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It did not take them long to walk to the barn and saddle their horses; and in ten minutes more they were sitting around the fire, which was still burning brightly near the stump of the oak, comparing notes and waiting impatiently for daylight. It came at last, and as soon as they could see to ride through the woods, they led their hounds to the tree and showed them the limb on which the panther had been sitting. They did this so that the dogs might know what game they were expected to follow. If their masters had simply ordered them into the woods, they would have opened on the first trail they found, and it might have been that of a rabbit or coon. But now they understood that the boys wanted them to follow the panther; and they were so well trained that if a bear or deer had run through the woods in plain sight, they would not have paid the least attention to it. They smelt at the limb and began circling about the tree in search of the trail. They worked faithfully for a quarter of an hour, and then a long, deep-toned bay echoed through the woods, telling the young hunters that their efforts had been successful.