d and spirit. They had not
proceeded more than a furlong farther, when Grumbo stopped short, and
giving a double sniff uttered a quick, low yelp both of surprise and
joy, so it seemed, which said, as plainly as words could have said it,
"Halloo! what's this?" Then, after another quick sniff or two, looking
up at his master and expressing himself by wag of tail and glance of
eye, he added: "Good luck in the wind ahead."

That Grumbo had actually expressed this much may fairly be inferred from
Burl's answer: "O you's got a sniff of our pore little master's sweet
little feet, has you, at las'? Well, we kin foller our noses now an'
know whar we gwine."

Had Burl needed any interpretation of his dog's language in this
particular instance, he would have found it, a few yards farther on, in
two little foot-prints left clearly impressed in the clayey margin of a
forest brook but a few hours before. He stopped to look at them, and his
big eyes filled with tears of pitying tenderness at the sight. Grumbo,
too, smelt of them, and as he slowly drew in the familiar scent, his
wild eyes grew almost human in their look of affection, like those of a
Newfoundland. Burl now turned to inspect more narrowly the foot-prints
of the Indians, which were likewise left deeply impressed in the stiff
clay of the brook's margin. Nearest to those of the boy's were the
traces of the slender-footed Indian, who, in the act of taking the long
stride that was to clear him of the water, seemed to have taken a short
step aside to pick the little fellow up and lift him over dry-shod. This
was further evident from the reaeppearance of the little foot-prints on
the other bank, side by side, instead of one in advance of the other.
Farthest to the left were the traces of the savage who wore the patched
moccasin. Between them, broad, long, and deep, and at huge strides
apart, were the foot-prints of the giant. At these traces of some
redoubtable warrior, so it would seem, Big Black Burl, with grave and
fixed attention, gazed for many moments. Then, as if to bring the
dimensions of the savage more vividly before his mind's eye, he measured
one of the prints by laying his own foot over it, and found that,
although not the broader of the two, it was the longer, from which it
was fairly to be inferred that the red giant must be at least seven feet
high, standing in his moccasins.

"Shorely, Grumbo," said the black hunter, addressing his dog, "it mus'
be dat Black