The human labor had proceeded lazily, for the day was warm; there was no change in the environment, so far as I could discern; the only sounds in the air were the sleepy lap of wavelets and the creaking of pulleys; yet my instant thought was, “That dog is frightened; but at what?” After a few moments of watching he moved off a dozen yards and threw himself flat on his side to sleep again. His body was hardly relaxed when a guy-rope parted, and the iron-bound mast of the derrick crashed down on the wharf.
It was certainly “touch and go” for me; I felt the wind of the thing as it fell, and was almost knocked off the wharf; but I was not thinking then of my own close call. With my interest at high pitch I examined the mast, and found it lying squarely athwart the impression left by the dog in the dust of the road.
“Merely a coincidence,” you say; which indicates that we are apt to think alike and in set formulas. That is precisely what I said at the time—a mere coincidence, but a startling one, which made me think of luck (a most foolish notion) [[69]]and wonder why luck should elect to light on a worthless old dog and take no heed of what seemed to me then a precious young man. But I have since changed my mind; and here is one of the many observations which made me change it.
Years afterward my Indian guide, Simmo, was camped with a white man beside a salmon river. It was a rough night, and a storm was roaring over the big woods. For shelter they had built a bark commoosie, and for comfort a fire of birch logs. At about nine o’clock they turned in, each wrapped in his blanket, and slept soundly but lightly, as woodsmen do, after a long day on the trail. Some time later—hours, probably, for the fire was low, the storm hushed, the world intensely still—the white man was awakened by a touch, and opened his eyes to find his companion in a tense, listening attitude.
“Bes’ get out of here quick, ’fore somet’ing come,” said the Indian, and threw off his blanket.
“But why—what—how do you know?” queried the white man, startled but doubting, for he had listened and heard nothing.
The Indian, angered as an Indian of the woods always is when you question or challenge his craft, made an impatient gesture. “Don’ know how; don’ know why; just know. Come!” he called sharply, and the white man followed him away [[70]]from the camp toward the river, where it was lighter. For several minutes they stood there, like two alert animals, searching the dark woods with all their senses; but nothing moved. The white man was beginning another fool question when there came a sudden dull crack, a booming of air, as a huge yellow-birch stub toppled over the fire and flattened the commoosie like a bubble.
“Dere! Das de feller mus’ be comin’,” said Simmo. “By cosh, now, nex’ time Injun tell you one t’ing, p’r’aps you believe-um!” And, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he stepped over death-and-destruction, kicked aside some rubbish, and lay down to sleep where he was before.
“How do I explain it?” I don’t. I simply recognize a fact which I cannot explain, and which I will not blink by calling it another coincidence. For the fact is, as I judge, that a few men and many animals exercise some extra faculty which I do not or cannot exercise, or have access to some source of information which is closed to me. When I question the gifted men or women who possess this faculty, or what’s-its-name, I find that they are as much in the dark about it as I am. They know certain things without knowing how they learn; and the only word of explanation they offer is that they “feel” thus and so—perhaps as [[71]]a horse feels when he is holding the right direction through a blinding snowstorm, as he does hold it, steadily, surely, if you are wise enough not to bother him with the reins or your opinions.
Simmo is one of these rare men. At one moment he is a mere child, so guileless, so natural, so innocent of worldly wisdom, that he is forever surprising you. Once when his pipe was lost I saw him fill an imaginary bowl, scratch an imaginary match, and puff away with a look of heavenly content on his weathered face. So you treat him as an unspoiled creature, humoring him, till there is difficulty or danger ahead, or a man’s work to be done, when he steps quietly to the front as if he belonged there. Or you may be talking with him by the camp-fire, elaborating some wise theory, when he brushes aside your book knowledge as of no consequence and suddenly becomes a philosopher, proclaiming a new or startling doctrine of life in the sublimely unhampered way of Emerson, who finished off objectors by saying, “I do not argue; I know.” But where Emerson gives you a mystical word or a bare assertion which he cannot possibly prove, Simmo has a disconcerting way of establishing a challenged doctrine by a concrete and undeniable fact.