“No; he don’t know nothin’; but I reckon he’ll pick up some larnin’ in the next two, three days.”
“Have these dogs got the Plott strain? I’ve been told that the Plott hounds are the best bear dogs in the country.”
“’Tain’t so,” snorted John. “The Plott curs are the best: that is, half hound, half cur—though what we-uns calls the cur, in this case, raelly comes from a big furrin dog that I don’t rightly know the breed of. Fellers, you can talk as you please about a streak o’ the cur spilin’ a dog; but I know hit ain’t so—not for bear fightin’ in these mountains, whar you cain’t foller up on hossback, but hafter do your own runnin’.”
“What is the reason, John?”
“What soldiers these fellows would make, under leadership of some Backwoods Napoleon!”
“Waal, hit’s like this: a plumb cur, of course, cain’t foller a cold track—he just runs by sight; and he won’t hang—he quits. But, t’other way, no hound ’ll raelly fight a bear—hit takes a big severe dog to do that. Hounds has the best noses, and they’ll run a bear all day and night, and the next day, too; but they won’t never tree—they’re afeared to close in. Now, look at them dogs o’ mine. A cur ain’t got no dew-claws—them dogs has. My dogs can foller ary trail, same’s a hound; but they’ll run right in on the varmint, snappin’ and chawin’ and worryin’ him till he gits so mad you can hear his tushes pop half a mile. He cain’t run away—he haster stop every bit, and fight. Finally he gits so tired and het up that he trees to rest hisself. Then we-uns ketches up and finishes him.”
“Mebbe you-uns don’t know that a dew-clawed dog is snake-proof——”
But somebody, thinking that dog-talk had gone far enough, produced a bottle of soothing-syrup that was too new to have paid tax. Then we discovered that there was musical talent, of a sort, in Little John. He cut a pigeon-wing, twirled around with an imaginary banjo, and sang in a quaint minor:
Did you ever see the devil,
With his pitchfork and ladle,
And his old iron shovel,
And his old gourd head?
O, I will go to meetin’,
And I will go to meetin’,
Yes, I will go to meetin’,
In an old tin pan.