"The reasoning part I cannot answer for; but that they can convey thought and feeling as well as the passions, from one to another, there is no doubt. You and I understand what each other wishes to be understood by language; but we cannot comprehend the first sound a beast makes, yet, they not only understand their own language, but many words of our own. Which then has the most intellect?"
"You are not in earnest when you would compare man and beast together?"
"The Great Spirit made them both, and gave to each the attributes best suited to the station it was to occupy; and when those attributes are exhibited as they were to-night, it would anger the Great Spirit to believe they were not bestowed upon a creature, because that creature was not a man."
"It is a truth well known to those who have spent the greater part of their lives in the forest as I have, that the scene we have witnessed to-night, is not of rare occurrence. This is the third time that I have had to save myself by stratagem from panthers in my life," said the trapper.
The next morning they again bent their course towards the north-east; and as the day began to wane, the lofty peaks of a range of mountains loomed up before them directly in their path.
"What can that mean," said the trapper, calling the attention of the others to them. "It cannot be the Wahsatch mountains, for we went through them; besides, they ought to be nearly a hundred miles behind us. And they are not the Medicine Bow Mountains, for I am familiar with them, and these are quite unlike them."
"Oh! uncle, it cannot be we have been travelling the wrong direction, and are quite lost," said Jane, anxiously.
"I hardly know myself," he replied, with some trepidation. "I was sure we came south and west when carried away, and then of course the opposite direction is north-east, and we have, as near as I could tell, been travelling that direction. Yet," he added, musingly, "I ought to know the ground, but I do not recall one feature of it as familiar. What do you think about these mountains?" he asked of the chief, who stood moodily apart gazing upon the distant range with a troubled look.
"It is time Whirlwind visited the hunting grounds of the Great Spirit, for he is no longer a chief to lead his warriors to victory, but is a child that cannot find his way to his village through the forest," returned the chief.
"Then we are lost! I feared it! Oh! we shall never see home again!" said Jane, weeping.