Page:The power of the dog.djvu/22

 imaginative picture conjured up by excessive devotion. That the thing can be done has been demonstrated times without number, and if there are failures, as failures there must be, we should not blame the hound so much as those who have had his education in hand. The instinct is present in practically all, although, naturally, it is more fully developed in some than others. All that is needed is for man to draw it out by his knowledge of hound work, aided by patience. It would be just about as stupid to expect a beginner to work a line eighteen hours cold as it would to chide a year-old infant for tumbling in his earliest essays to stand alone. Line upon line, precept upon precept. First a short distance, hot upon the footsteps of the runner; then further afield and with a longer interval elapsing, until you may despatch the quarry over night and ask the hound in the morning to show you where he has been. As a further refinement in the educative processes the line may be crossed here and there by strangers, with the intent of teaching the tracker to discriminate between the true and the false. If he is worth his keep his sensitive olfactory nerves will have stored up impressions of the original scent which never can be effaced by any attempts to foil the track.

One of the great advantages of keeping a bloodhound is that the delicacies of hound work may be observed without the infliction of cruelty upon another animal, and at a small expense. At the same time one has the pleasure of feeling that in his possession is