Benton returned in the
afternoon from a search for the missing hounds, and, as he
descended the deep hill-side on approaching the tent, I saw tent
he and a native were carrying something slung upon a pole. At
first I thought it was an elk's head, which the missing hounds
might have run to bay, but on his arrival the worst was soon
known.
It was poor Leopold, one of my best dogs. He was all but dead,
with hopeless wounds in his throat and belly. He had been struck
by a leopard within a few yards of Benton's side, and, with his
usual pluck, the dog turned upon the leopard in spite of his
wounds, when the cowardly brute, seeing the man, turned and fled.
That night Leopold died. The next morning Bluebeard was so bad
that I returned home with him slung in a litter between two men.
Poor fellow! he never lived to reach his comfortable kennel, but
died in the litter within a mile of home. I had him buried by
the side of old Smut, and there are no truer dogs on the earth
than the two that there lie together.
A very few weeks after Bluebeard's death, however, I got a taste
of revenge out of one of the race.
