| THE woods stretch wild to the mountain side, | |
| And the brush is deep where a man may hide, | |
| |
| They have brought the bloodhounds up again | |
| To the roadside rock where they found the slain. | |
| |
| They have brought the bloodhounds up, and they | 5 |
| Have taken the trail to the mountain way. | |
| |
| Three times they circled the trail and crossed, | |
| And thrice they found it and thrice they lost. | |
| |
| Now straight through the pines and the underbrush | |
| They follow the scent through the forest's hush. | 10 |
| |
| And their deep-mouthed bay is a pulse of fear | |
| In the heart of the wood that the man must hear. | |
| |
| The man who crouches among the trees | |
| From the stern-faced men that follow these. | |
| |
| A huddle of rocks that the ooze has mossed— | 15 |
| And the trail of the hunted again is lost. | |
| |
| An upturned pebble; a bit of ground | |
| A heel has trampled—the trail is found. | |
| |
| And the woods re-echo the bloodhounds' bay | |
| As again they take to the mountain way. | 20 |
| |
| A rock; a ribbon of road; a ledge, | |
| With a pine-tree clutching its crumbling edge. | |
| |
| A pine, that the lightning long since clave, | |
| Whose huge roots hollow a ragged cave. | |
| |
| A shout; a curse; and a face aghast, | 25 |
| And the human quarry is laired at last. | |
| |
| The human quarry, with clay-clogged hair | |
| And eyes of terror, who waits them there; | |
| |
| That glares and crouches and rising then | |
| Hurls clods and curses at dogs and men. | 30 |
| |
| Until the blow of a gun-butt lays | |
| Him stunned and bleeding upon his face. | |
| |
| A rope, a prayer, and an oak-tree near. | |
| And a score of hands to swing him clear. | |
| |
| A grim black thing for the setting sun | 35 |
| And the moon and the stars to look upon. | |
