There was hardly much point in such industry in a country as smooth as this, not much more difference, say, than the saving of distance which the horse makes who hugs the fence on the turn and on account of that sticks his head under the finish wire a nose in front; and Bart clung to his work with scrupulous care.
Sometimes he ran back with lolling, red tongue, when the course lay clear even to the duller sense of a human, and frisked under the nose of Satan until a word from Barry sent him scurrying away like a pleased child.

His duties comprehended not only the selection of the course but also an eagle vigilance before and behind, so that when he came again with a peculiar whine, Barry leaned a little from the saddle and spoke to him anxiously.
"D'you mean to say that they been gainin' ground on us old boy ?" Black Bart leaped sidewise, keeping his head toward the master, and he howled in troubled fashion.
"Whereaway are they now ?" muttered Barry, and looked back again.
A great distance behind, hardly distinguishable now, the dust of the posse was blending into the landscape and losing itself against a gray background.
"If they's nothin' wrong behind, what's bitin' you, Bart.

You gettin' hungry, maybe?
Want to hurry home ?" Another howl, still louder, answered him.
"Go on, then, and show me where they's trouble." Black Bart whirled and darted off almost straight ahead, but bearing up a hill slightly south of their course.

Toward the top of this eminence he changed his lope for a skulking trot that brought his belly fur trailing on the ground.
"They's somethin' ahead of us, Satan!" cried the master softly.

"What could that be?
It's men, by the way Bart sneaks up to look at 'em.
They's nothin' else that he'd do that way for.