I ran quickly out of the house and through the gateway in the direction of the cries, which were growing more agonizing. I thought somebody was being murdered. I rushed past "Spot," who was calmly munching grass, undisturbed by the hullabaloo. At first I could see nobody; then I discovered the huge bulk of old Snook, the hootz-hunter, crouching behind a stump. His face was as pale as its coating of smoke and grease would permit, and he was shaking like a leaf.
"Why, Snook!" I cried in Thlinget, "what's the matter? Is anything wrong in the Indian village?"
He pointed a trembling finger towards the cow and quavered, "Drive that thing away!"
The thought of that famous old bear-hunter, scared to death at my gentle old cow, was too much for me, and I burst into a roar of laughter. When I had recovered my powers of speech and locomotion I walked to "Spot" and put my arm over her neck.
"This is a shawat wusoos" (a woman cow), I explained. "She will not hurt anybody. See how kind and gentle she is."
Snook was unconvinced. His eyes were fixed in fascinated terror upon "Spot," and he dodged at every motion of her head.
"Eehya-a-ah!" he answered in contempt, "she knows white man; she doesn't know Indian. See the sharp horns on her head!" and he refused to come away from the shelter of the stump until I had driven "Spot" away some distance; and even then he sidled past, eyeing her apprehensively and then hurrying through the gateway and across the parade ground with the air of one who has escaped deadly peril.
The memory of Snook and the cow has often braced me up when I was tempted to retreat from the path of duty, because I did not know what was in the gateway, or because of unfamiliar obstacles. It is the unknown that terrifies us. If we march right up to the bugaboos that stand across our way, we will find the terrible horned monster change into something no more harmful than a gentle old cow.