Page:The power of the dog.djvu/21



So hard a-dying are old prejudices that unto this day this noble hound, gentlest of his kind, is regarded with a kind of awe. Time after time have I known a lady pet and fondle one, with the the remark, "What a beautiful creature. What kind of dog is he?" and when she has heard the dread name she has recoiled in fear. It is useless to tell her that one rarely sees a bad tempered bloodhound, that they are the kindliest mannered gentlemen that ever walked. She thinks of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and associates the name in some way with a thirst for blood. That is sufficient.

In modern times the uses of the bloodhound, when properly applied, are wholly beneficent. Those marvellous scenting faculties of his, which astonish all who see them at their fullest development, may aid in bringing a criminal to justice or in discovering the whereabouts of a wanderer lost in the wilds. The hound little recks of the task to which he is being put. His not to reason why. Ask him to unravel the intricacies of an invisible track left by the body scent of a person who may have passed many hours earlier, and, if he be well trained, down goes his nose, and he will follow yard by yard until the missing one is found. This is no