“It seems to me,” the trapper calmly observed, “that there is something dark and hidden in this matter. I am a witness that the traveller likes none to look into the tent, and I have a proof more sure than what either of you can lay claim to, that the wagon does not carry the cage of a beast. Here is Hector, come of a breed with noses as true and faithful as a hand that is all-powerful has made any of their kind, and had there been a beast in the place, the hound would long since have told it to his master.”
“Do you pretend to oppose a dog to a man! brutality to learning! instinct to reason!” exclaimed the Doctor in some heat. “In what manner, pray, can a hound distinguish the habits, species, or even the genus of an animal, like reasoning, learned, scientific, triumphant man!”
“In what manner!” coolly repeated the veteran woodsman. “Listen; and if you believe that a schoolmaster can make a quicker wit than the Lord, you shall be made to see how much you’re mistaken. Do you not hear something move in the brake? it has been cracking the twigs these five minutes. Now tell me what the creatur’ is?”
“I hope nothing ferocious!” exclaimed the Doctor, who still retained a lively impression of his rencounter with the vespertilio horribilis. “You have rifles, friends; would it not be prudent to prime them? for this fowling piece of mine is little to be depended on.”
“There may be reason in what he says,” returned the trapper, so far complying as to take his piece from the place where it had lain during the repast, and raising its muzzle in the air. “Now tell me the name of the creatur’?”
“It exceeds the limits of earthly knowledge! Buffon himself could not tell whether the animal was a quadruped, or of the order, serpens! a sheep, or a tiger!”
“Then was your buffoon a fool to my Hector! Here: pup!—What is it, dog?—Shall we run it down, pup—or shall we let it pass?”
The hound, which had already manifested to the experienced trapper, by the tremulous motion of his ears, his consciousness of the proximity of a strange animal, lifted his head from his fore paws and slightly parted his lips, as if about to show the remnants of his teeth. But, suddenly abandoning his hostile purpose, he snuffed the air a moment, gaped heavily, shook himself, and peaceably resumed his recumbent attitude.
“Now, Doctor,” cried the trapper, triumphantly, “I am well convinced there is neither game nor ravenous beast in the thicket; and that I call substantial knowledge to a man who is too old to be a spendthrift of his strength, and yet who would not wish to be a meal for a panther!”
The dog interrupted his master by a growl, but still kept his head crouched to the earth.