“I never heard of one, I will confess; but I am no judge of animals that live in the water, unless it be the fishes of the rivers and the brooks.”
“Nor a grampus, nor a porpoise even? not so much as a poor devil of a shark?”
“I will not take it on myself to say there is either. My gifts are not in that way, I tell you, Master Cap.”
“Nor herring, nor albatross, nor flying-fish?” continued Cap, who kept his eye fastened on the guide, in order to see how far he might venture. “No such thing as a fish that can fly, I daresay?”
“A fish that can fly! Master Cap, Master Cap, do not think, because we are mere borderers, that we have no idees of natur', and what she has been pleased to do. I know there are squirrels that can fly—”
“A squirrel fly!—The devil, Master Pathfinder! Do you suppose that you have got a boy on his first v'y'ge up here among you?”
“I know nothing of your v'y'ges, Master Cap, though I suppose them to have been many; for as for what belongs to natur' in the woods, what I have seen I may tell, and not fear the face of man.”
“And do you wish me to understand that you have seen a squirrel fly?”
“If you wish to understand the power of God, Master Cap, you will do well to believe that, and many other things of a like natur', for you may be quite sartain it is true.”
“And yet, Pathfinder,” said Mabel, looking so prettily and sweetly even while she played with the guide's infirmity, that he forgave her in his heart, “you, who speak so reverently of the power of the Deity, appear to doubt that a fish can fly.”