“Me see fine dawg, lubly dawg, Massa Seth, sailin’ round de camp; and me foller um up, Massa Seth. Um berry good dawg for huntin’, sah, and me don’t want to lose him; dat’s all.”
“Oh,” said Seth, “that’s all, is it? The dorg is here, right enough, with the gentleman theer, who’s his master,” pointing to Ernest Wilton and Wolf. “And now, you lazy lubber, as you have kinder satisfied yer mind, you can jist go back agin to that job I sot you on.”
“Prey let him stop now,” said Ernest, pleased with the interest which the negro steward had taken in Wolf’s fate, “as he has come so far. If we kill anything, as I hope we shall presently, he’ll be of use in helping to take the meat back to the camp.”
“That’s so,” said Seth; and with this tacit consent to his remaining, Jasper joined the party, who now proceeded to look more carefully after game than they had previously done, the young engineer’s allusions to “meat” having acted as a spur to their movements, besides, no doubt, whetting their appetites.
It was curious to observe, however, before they separated to hunt up a deer—of which there were but few traces about, when Wolf attached himself, like a proper sporting-dog, closely behind Ernest—how interested the animal seemed to be in Sailor Bill, who accompanied Seth, of course, on their leaving the camp. As soon as the dog had given, as he thought, ample testimony of his delight at rejoining his own master, he sniffed about the boy as if he also were well-known to him; and he was nearly equally glad to meet him again, only leaving him when Ernest Wilton gave him the signal to “come to heel.”
It was singular; but no one paid much notice to it, excepting that Mr Rawlings regarded it as another instance of how dumb animals, like savages, have some sort of especial sympathy with those afflicted beings who have not the entire possession of their mental faculties, and seem actuated by instinct rather than reason, like themselves.
“Seems, mister, as if he war kinder acquainted with him?” said Seth.
“Yes,” replied Ernest Wilton; “but that’s impossible, as I’ve had Wolf ever since he was a puppy. My aunt gave him to me,” he continued aside to Mr Rawlings in a confidential key, “and I ought to have been more thoughtful in writing to her, as you hauled me over the coals just now for not doing, if only in gratitude for all the comfort that dog has been to me since I left home. I suppose I’m an ungrateful brute—more so than Wolf, eh, old fellow?”—patting the latter’s head again as he looked up into his master’s face with his wistful brown eyes, saying as plainly as he could in doggy language how much he would like to be able to speak, so that he could express his affectionate feelings more explicitly.
“No,” said Mr Rawlings, “not ungrateful, I hope and believe, only unthinking, that’s all.”
“Ah!” replied the other, “‘evil is wrought by want of thought,’” quoting the old distich. “But,” he added, shaking off the momentary feeling of sadness produced by reflection, as if he were ashamed of it, “if we don’t look ‘smart,’ as our friend Seth says, we won’t get a shot all day; and then, woe betide the larder!”