lonel, "what do you think of our bacon 'as it runs?'"

"I think the Southern article can't be beat, whether raw or cooked,
standing or running."

At this moment the hound, who had been leisurely jogging along in the
rear, disdaining to join in the race in which his dog of a master and I
had engaged, came up, and dashing quickly on to the river's edge, set up
a most dismal howling. The Colonel dismounted, and clambering down the
bank, which was there twenty feet high, and very steep, shouted:

"The d----d Yankee has swum the stream!"

"Why so?" I asked.

"To cover his tracks and delay pursuit; but he has overshot the mark.
There is no other road within ten miles, and he must have taken to this
one again beyond here. He's lost twenty minutes by this manoeuvre.
Come, Sandy, call in the dog, we'll push on a little faster."

"But he tuk to t'other bank, Cunnel. Shan't we trail him thar?" asked
Sandy.

"And suppose he found a boat here," I suggested, "and made the shore
some ways down?"

"He couldn't get Firefly into a flat--we should only waste time in
scouring the other bank. The swamp this side the next run has forced him
into the road within five miles. The trick is transparent. He took me
for a fool," replied the Colonel, answering both questions at once.

I had reined my horse out of the road, and when my companions turned to
go, was standing at the edge of the bank, overlooking the river.
Suddenly I saw, on one of the abutments of the bridge, what seemed a
long, black log--strange to say, _in motion_!

"Colonel," I shouted, "see there! a live log as I'm a white man!"

"Lord bless you," cried the planter, taking an observation, "it's an
alligator!"

I said no more, but pressing on after the hound, soon left my companions
out of sight. For long afterward, the Colonel, in a doleful way, would
allude to my lamentable deficiency in natural history--particularly in
such branches as bacon and "live logs."

I had ridden about five miles, keeping well up with the hound, and had
reached the edge of the swamp, when suddenly the dog darted to the side
of the road, and began to yelp in the most frantic manner. Dismounting,
and leading my horse to the spot, I made out plainly the print of
Firefly's feet in the sand. There was no mistaking it--that round shoe
on the off forefoot. (The horse had, when a colt, a cracked hoof, and
though the wound was outgrown, the foot was still tender.) These prints
were dry, while the