how a dog discovered a hot spring

tradition reports that charles iv. discovered the carlsbad spring, but after you have read this little history perhaps you will agree with me that if it hadn't been for his dog he never would have even seen the spring.

it happened this way: more than four hundred years ago charles iv. was hunting in the neighborhood. in the exciting chase and pursuit of a stag he suddenly lost all trace of it. as he paused, undecided which course to take, he heard the yelping of one of his hounds, and following the sound, he found it lying scalded in the waters of the spring, which, as you know, is a stream of water probably escaping from a smoldering volcano way down deep in the earth. the faithful animal had followed the stag's leap into the valley, and had missed a sure footing on the rocks near by.

on the top of the hill, which is now called the hirschensprung (stag's leap), a cross has been erected, and a little lower down a lookout house has been built. still farther down, on a high pointed rock, a citizen of carlsbad has had erected an iron figure of a chamois.

after chance had made known the hot waters of the spring to charles iv., he had a bath and a hunting lodge built there, which were called after him, karlsbad.

the real discoverer of the spring, the faithful hound, has no mention made of him by name or monument, although the crest of the hill is named for a stag and the spring after a king.