"To the proof, without delay!" exclaimed the chevalier, while I examined attentively the ferocious brute on whose instincts our hopes depended. Its back was about thirty inches high, its limbs exhibited vast muscle, and its chaps were long, pendulous, and frothy. It was of a deep dark-brown hue, and was of that breed which the Spaniards once used with such terrible effect on the continent and adjacent isles of South America. Leaving our horses at the hut, we retraced our steps, and entering the wild forest, which more or less covers all that part of the country, an hour's walk brought us to the place where the woodman had encountered Hautois and his victim about seven hours before--at midnight, in fact, and he assured us of the place by showing on the grass traces of the blood which had flowed from the wound inflicted by the outlaw's pistol-butt. The fierce hound inserted his square muzzle among the grass and sniffed up blood, on which the peasant gave him a kick, saying, "_Voila, mon ami!_--come, come, 'tis not my blood we wish you to sniff at so pleasantly, but the blood of another." "True," said Boisguiller, "but how are we to give him the scent of Hautois, or of the lady?" "Morbleu!" grumbled the woodman; "I did not think of that." "Had we but a piece of mademoiselle's dress!" said Urbain. "Here are what we require," said I, in a voice all but breathless with emotion, while drawing from my breast the kid glove and fragment of lace which we had found near the garden-bower. The chevalier gave me a keen glance, and snatching the relics almost abruptly from my hand, pressed them against the black nostrils of the dog, patting him soothingly the while. The glove was perfumed fortunately, and thus, in a minute or less, the dog, after sniffing and snorting about among the grass, with his head bent low and ears drooping, began to run rapidly through the forest, straining on his collar and chain, and dragging after him the peasant who grasped the other end of it. "_Parbleu, messieurs!_ he is on the track now! See how he follows the scent!" exclaimed the old man, who was compelled to run fast to keep up with the dog and with us. "Oh! by St. Malo! See, here are the footsteps, the crushed leaves, the broken twigs! 'Tis this way they have passed, messieurs. _Ah! sacré coquin!_ That tap on the head shall cost thee dear. Look to your pistols, monsieur le chevalier, for _he_ has a pair, and I know not the moment we may come upon him." Thus surely guided by the searching instinct and unflinching pertinacity of the hound, we hastened through the forest in silence, and with hearts full of intense anxiety and hope. The dog was sometimes at fault when runnels of water crossed our path, but the peasant, who was an acute old fellow, with a face of the true Breton type--eyes that were deeply set and thoughtful, a high nose and square forehead--soon set him right again.