They jumped down the bank into the river, leaping across the shallows to the left bank, and working upstream to the occasional toot of the horn. Almost at once Deadlock whimpered and bounded ahead. Tarka had touched there, on the shillets, six hours before. They came to the groove in the right bank, between two hazel stoles, where Tarka had climbed out to cross the meadows to the weir, for the river-course was like a horseshoe. The grasses still held enough scent for the hounds to own, and they followed the trail to the wood that grew steeply up from the water. A crow, that had been waiting on the weir-sill for beetles and little fish to pass in the gentle film of water near its feet, heard them as they splashed up the leat and flew to the top of a tall tree to watch hidden in the leaves. The crow had seen Tarka as he swam from the leat into the Dark Pool at five o'clock in the morning. Then he had loudly cawed, calling his mate to annoy the otter; now he kept quiet. Hounds swam up the pool. A furlong above the weir was a ford, where, in summer, horse-drawn butts go for the gravel heaped up by winter floods. By the ford was a tree, and under the roots of the tree was a holt. Deadlock, Render, and Fencer swam to the tree, whimpering, splashing, scratching and tearing at roots with their teeth. Soon the pack was trying to break into the entrance. They did not obey voice, horn, and whip at once, but had to be urged away by taps of whip-handles on ribs, and by individual commands. _Go'r'n leave it! Go'r'n leave it!_ cried one of the honorary whips in a yarring voice, to Deadlock and Render who remained. A little shivering sharp-nosed terrier, uncollared, peered with cock-ears and whined on the bank above. The entrance of the holt was under water, and Biff's collar was slipped round her neck again. The honorary whip, a retired senior officer of the army, prodded with his pole among the roots, and finding soft earth tried to force the pole to the back of the holt. The water moved away in a yellow muddy wound. He worked until he was hot. He stopped, pushed his hat back from his forehead, and rubbed it with his goatskin glove. "Where's that chap with the bar?" Below the holt, at intervals of ten to fifteen yards, men were gazing into the sun-dappled water of the Dark Pool. Voices sounded high above, where on the road cut in the rock many of the cars were waiting. A man came hastening down the cart-track with the iron digging bar. A hole was worked in the ground over the holt, while a sportsman in the Cheriton uniform banged the turf with the length of his pole. The hole was made deeper, the bar worked backwards and forwards, and plunged hard down.