Melville Davisson Post

“ They had seen our lights and were prepared to stop us. The men stood up with their weapons in their hands, an array of indiscriminate fire arms. Our motor did not entirely stop. We slowed down, running into the crowd of men. Mooney got on his feet, shouting:
“We have ’em surrounded in the express car. Get there as fast as you can; we’ve got to go into the town for gasoline. ... Don’t stand here. Hurry!”
To the posse the explanation was complete.
We were a party of the train crew; one could clearly see that. What Mooney said coincided with the report that had come in to them. ”

“ And here one must consider the instinct of the bloodhound. He will follow the trail of a man, that is, something living, a thing which he has observed to move, but he will not follow the trail of a pine tree. ”

“ There was a fog, and the engineer did not see the red signal soon enough. The train roared past us. We knew the engineer had thrown on the emergency, “goosed the air” as White called it. The fire from the brake shoes grinding on the wheels showed up red along the whole train. The engineer reversed and brought back his engine to the point where Mooney was hidden behind a tree on the right of way. The engineer was following a rule of the road that one must not under any circumstances run past a red light. ”

“ Mooney was very careful about this thing. The whole of our shoes were carefully painted with the turpentine. He explained the theory of the thing while he was at work.
“It makes me laugh,” he said, “to think how our brethren of the road have been chased about by dogs. ... It is ridiculous to be chased by anything, especially a creature depending on its nose. It is the fine discriminating sense of odors that distinguishes the bloodhound. ”

“ But at any rate we walked away, having restored the car to its house, Mooney with the loot sack on his shoulder. It was Saturday night and the circus remained over until Sunday in the meadow beyond the town.
Only the top of the great tent stood now above the sheet of fog as we set out across the field toward it. ”

“ Mooney took a flash light out of his pocket.
It was not the usual cylinder affair. It was, rather, a little squat lantern with a bull’s-eye bulb; thick—necessarily so, I imagine—for there was a powerful light concentrated on the small disc and it, therefore, required a considerable battery.
He looked at the clock on the motor.
“We shall have some time to wait,” he said, “but the fog may increase and we ought to look over the ground.”
I got up to get out of the car, when he put his hand on my arm.
“My son,” he said, “the bloodhound will be no friend of ours ”

“ If our foot-weary predecessors had only thought about it they might have saved themselves the walking.
“How does one destroy a delicate odor?
“The solution is simple—by laying down over it a heavier, gross one. ”