FEATS ON THE TRAIL

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 140, 15 June 1937, Page 17

FEATS ON THE TRAIL

WORK OF BLOODHOUNDS

FINDING THE MISSING

TRAPPED KIDNAPPER

A fourteen-year-old lad, Grover A; W'halen, jun., was leaving his father's Dobb's Ferry, New York, estate, for preparatory school. This was on September 27, 1935. Early in the day he left his home to make a round of the neighbourhood to say good-bye.' And he did not come back. An hour passed. The telephones were set to work. No trace of the boy. Then ttie hue and cry was raised, and police began the hunt. But every manner of searching proved futile; it began to look like a kidnapping, writes Albert Payson Terhune in the New York "Herald-Tribune." '. Finally' Captain Kemmler, of the New York State Police, came on the scene with a brace of right unspectacular dogs. They were Red, rufous in colour, and Queenie, black and tan. The dogs were friendly of heart and of aspect, smallish in stature, with ridiculous long lop ears and hanging dewlaps. Each wore a black leather harness with a greenish three-foot woven leash. The two hounds wagged their tails plea-, sanily as they blinked at the crowd. Nobody could be afraid of these peace-' ful pups, and nobody was supposed to be. A pair of young Grover's shoes and one of his coats were brought from the house, and held in front of Red arid Queen ie. Gravely, intently, both hounds sniffed at shoes and coat. And now they lost 'their air of impersonal friendliness. :Both were intent on what Iny before them. With heavy muzzles to the, ground, they cast about. Presently, all that maze of alien footsteps, they struck the boy's trail. Their masters leaned back on the thick woven leashes to keep from being pulled off their feet. The hunt was on. DOWN OVER A RAVINE. Finally Red arid his mate stopoed short at the edge of a ravine. With nostrils still to earth, the hounds plunged over the most cliff-like side of the gulch, and at the bottom, the police found a huddled body, hidden in underbrush. Young Whalen had been walking the cliff-top path when his foot had slipped. He had plunged to the bottom of the ravine. And there, but tor the two hounds, he might still be lying. For he was helpless and in grave need of medical care. "I have worked with other breeds which are alriidst -as good at tracking." Captain Kerrirrile^told me later, "but 1 like bloodhounds ; best. I don't care to set dogs on a'trail who are likely to wind up a chase, by/.biting chunks out of the persorr they Have run to earth! Our bloodhounds • never do that. In ten month's, our;three dogs have'discovered more/-..ttiSn a dozen lost per-sons—mostly.-:children—who might not have, stayed: alry-e ,if they: hadn't been found.':' They■ 'have trailed' almost 4s many* people'who weren't alive when "th.. "trail ended. :. ,' . ■. . '"About .four timesa. week I send some', man 'in. ; a. car to'a distant bit of country. There I have him'get out and walk for several miles iir a zigzag course. IThe next day or the next 'night Cat riisjit'we use"'flashlights. SO; as" to' accustom :6ur hounds "to the glare arrd:;~urrcertairrty? of them);,"l; let" the three bloodhounds follow. .1 always ar r range.■ that the. hunted man.Shall be at tlie end of the trail with a slice of raw. liver to pay 'the dogs' for their ,wbrk.. Never dp they fail to find him, no matter how he may have tried to confuse his.tracks." ,- . ! ■/•' .. . MYSTERY- 10LVED. , -.':'AV few years '.ago a /State police bloodhound... solved 'a lost lehild mystery, which 'paralleled :the-, Lindbergh tragedy in.some details. At 2 a.m. on June; I, 1920.;'Mrs.':George; H. Coughlin,,ofNoi'ris't'own, Pennsylvania, awokewith an'impression: of hearing a baby'smuffled cry.; and- the tinkle of glass. Her 13-months-old baby son, who slept in the next room, was found missing. The t(sp Qf ;a, ladder showed above the' sill .of the open window. The kidnapper ordered Couphlin to drop a package containing... 6000 dollars (£1500) from . the..'Atlantic City flyer at a .certain point' on' a given afternoon. Coughlin was to1 scan the track until he should see a \yhite sheet tied between two: trees somewhere along the line. Justi beyond this sheet he was to toss out the money. Before the scheduled time, a horde of plain-clothes men' arrived secretly on the scene, and among them was a leggy and dismal reddish bloodhound, Commissioner by name, i The flyer whizzed by. Just after it ] had passed the white sheet, a package was tossed out; and soon a man was seen strolling along the railroad right-of-way. The ;stranger glanced idly, at the money package but did not pick it up. He sauntered on. Then he hesitated and walked back. But at this moment he caught a glimpse of one of the hidden watchers. The man had not touched the package of money; and when .seized he denied all knowledge of the white sheet. - Then it was that the Commissioner came into the picture. Without being taken within many-yards of the prisoner, the red dog was allowed to smell long and thoughtfully at various parts of the sheet, especially where hands had been . busy tying its corners to tlicr. trees. As soon as he had established the scent to his own satisfaction. Commissioner dasl.ed 'away. Straight through the clump of police he ran. He- halteij in front of the prisoner, rising on his hind legs and braced both splayed forepaws on the man's chest. Then he waked the echoes with a buglfrvoiced bay of triumph. His work was done. : A MALIGNED ANIMAL. Afterwards the prisoner broke down and confessed that he hadv.stolen the Coughlin baby. But for the,genius of one old. sad-eyed, lop-eared bloodhound he might perhaps -have gone free. ' ..;■ I think it is this name "bloodhound" that has given its bearer ;.his undeserved repute for savagery.: Yet the name's origin was harmless enough. When a wounded deer or other game, centuries ago, escaped from the ring of encircling killer dogs, 'leaving a trail of blood, this breed of hound was brought up to trace ;the-gory: trail to the • quarry's final place of ■ refuge. Hence .the term "bloodhound" or "blood-tracking hound." : * ""Th exploits 6t a historic.brace of bloodhounds owhed.by Dr. J. B- Fulton, of Pueblo, Colorado, are local legends to this day,. They were X-Bay and hismate Jo-Jo. Never did they turn aside by a hairs-breadth from a trail once they' had-struck it In 1903 these two dbgs- followed the trail of an escaping burglar's stolen .horse from the scent of a curry-comb. From' Oneida, Kansas, tha hunt extended for 150 miles' to Elwbod, Karisas, where the dogs caught... up with their man. Jo-Jo's.self-imposed rule never to swerve from, the . track of any fugitive had grim results. One day at Pueblo, Dr. Fulton put her on the track of an escaping- thief. The fugitive had ci-oss-ed a railway trestle above ai wide gorge. Nose to the track, Jo-Jo followed her quarry's footsteps. An express train roared out on to the trestle in front of

her. ..She had plenty of time to.shrink to one side. But that was not Jo-Jo's way when she was on the trail. Straight ahead .she .loped, hot on the scent, until the locomotive hit her and crushed her to death. . Perhaps many a human has died less gloriously- in- the' shining' pursuit of duty. ■ ■■