The Parson, meanwhile, labouring doggedly on, had caught a distant glimpse of the hounds even as they disappeared over the brink of this precipitous coombe, in time to play a bold stroke that merited success. He determined not to cross the valley at all, but to steer for that side of it on which the line of chase now seemed to lie, and so hoped to come in on the deer, refreshed by the bath he never doubted it had indulged in, as it rose the hill once more and made for the open moor. Urging Cassock to further effort, he increased the pace for a stretch of another mile, but when he halted his good horse--who stopped willingly enough at the wished-for station--not a living object was to be seen dotting the brown expanse, not a sound to be heard but the wail of the curlew flitting softly over the waste. Deer and hounds and John Garnet must have sunk into the earth! The solitude seemed unbroken, the chase had come to a standstill, and the Parson was at fault! CHAPTER XXIV. AT BAY. Tancred, a marvel of canine sagacity, had good reason for deserting his comrades, to engage in some quiet researches of his own. It is unnecessary to inform those who love stag-hunting--and those who do not will hardly care to learn--that scent often hangs over running water, and travels downwards with the moving stream; therefore the deer, wading craftily towards the river's source, emerged on its farther bank, refreshed and strengthened by the bath, at some considerable distance above the place where it plunged in. Such tactics were only in accordance with the calculation and reflection we call _instinct_; but Tancred was possessed of _instinct_ too, and remembered, no doubt, many a cast he had made on similar occasions with successful result. The old hound, therefore, assuming an expression of ludicrous solemnity, dashed through the water, to enter without delay, on a close scrutiny of his own, along the opposite bank, in the reverse direction from that mistaken line on which his grandson was insisting with unbecoming clamour, and snuffled at every pebble, poked his black nose into every tuft of brushwood, grass, or heather he came across. Soon, with a flap of his pendant ears, a lash of his stern against his mighty ribs, up went the wise and handsome head in a roar of triumph--a roar that, for the first, struck terror to the red-deer's heart, some furlongs on in front--a roar that brought the old hound's comrades to his side, with an alacrity sufficiently denoting how, by the best of all judges, this lord of the kennel was trusted and revered. "He's forward!" exclaimed John Garnet, plunging through briar and brushwood, with the rein on Katerfelto's neck. "Hold up, old man! we shall soon be in the open again; and, by George, this is the best run you or I ever saw in our lives."