"Now arn't it a strange thing," said Tom, "arn't it a strange thing, Mr. Forester, that every critter under Heaven takes somehow nat'rally to that are Archer--the very hounds--old Whino there! that I have had these eight years, and fed with my own hands, and hunted steady every winter, quits me the very moment he claps sight on him; by the eternal, I believe he is half dog himself." "You hunted them indeed," interrupted Harry, "you old rhinoceros, why hang your hide, you never so much as heard a good view-holloa till I came up here--you hunted them--a man talk of hunting, that carries a cannon about with him on horseback; but come, where are we to try first, on Rocky Hill, or in the Spring Swamps?" "Why now I reckon, Archer, we'd best stop down to Sam Blain's--by the blacksmith's--he was telling t'other morning of an eternal sight of them he'd seen down hereaway--and we'll be there to rights!--Jem, cus you, out of my way, you dumb nigger--out of my way, or I'll ride over you"-- for, traveling along at a strange shambling run, that worthy had contrived to keep up with us, though we were going fully at the rate of eight or nine miles in the hour. "Hurrah!" cried Tom, suddenly pulling up at the door of a neat farm-house on the brow of a hill, with a clear streamlet sweeping round its base, and a fine piece of woodland at the farther side. "Hurrah! Sam Blain, we've come to make them foxes, you were telling of a Sunday, smell h-ll right straight away. Here's Archer, and another Yorker with him--leastwise an Englisher I should say--and Squire Conklin, and Bill Speers, and that white nigger Jem! Look sharp, I say! Look sharp, cuss you, else we'll pull off the ruff of the old humstead." In a few minutes Sam made his appearance, armed, like the rest, with a Queen Ann's tower-musket. "Well! well!" he said, "I'm ready. Quit making such a clatter! Lend me a load of powder, one of you; my horn's leaked dry, I reckon!" Tom forthwith handed him his own, and the next thing I heard was Blain exclaiming that it was "desperate pretty powder," and wondered if it shot strong. "Shoot strong? I guess you'll find it strong enough to sew you up, if you go charging your old musket that ways!" answered Tom. "By the Lord, Archer, he's put in three full charges!"