ftly--like that. "Is it? Do they?"

"Yes," said Johnny. "I reckin there's liable to be one come shovin' his
old nose into that door any minute. Or probably two--they mostly travels
in pairs--sets, as you might say."

"You'd know one the minute you saw him, though," said Bill. "They're
smaller than a regular skunk and spotted where the other kind is
striped. And they got little red eyes. You won't have no trouble at all
recognizin' one."

It was at this juncture that we both got up and moved back by the stove.
It was warmer there and the chill of evening seemed to be settling down
noticeably.

"Funny thing about Hydrophoby Skunks," went on Johnny after a moment of
pensive thought--"mad, you know!"

"What makes them mad?" The two of us asked the question together.

"Born that way!" explained Bill--"mad from the start, and won't never do
nothin' to get shut of it."

"Ahem--they never attack humans, I suppose?"

"Don't they?" said Johnny, as if surprised at such ignorance. "Why,
humans is their favorite pastime! Humans is just pie to a Hydrophoby
Skunk. It ain't really any fun to be bit by a Hydrophoby Skunk neither."
He raised his coffee cup to his lips and imbibed deeply.

"Which you certainly said something then, Johnny," stated Bill. "You
see," he went on, turning to us, "they aim to catch you asleep and they
creep up right soft and take holt of you--take holt of a year
usually--and clamp their teeth and just hang on for further orders. Some
says they hang on till it thunders, same as snappin' turtles. But that's
a lie, I judge, because there's weeks on a stretch down here when it
don't thunder. All the cases I ever heard of they let go at sun-up."

"It is right painful at the time," said Johnny, taking up the thread of
the narrative; "and then in nine days you go mad yourself. Remember that
fellow the Hydrophoby Skunk bit down here by the rapids, Bill? Let's
see now--what was that hombre's name?"

"Williams," supplied Bill--"Heck Williams. I saw him at Flagstaff when
they took him there to the hospital. That guy certainly did carry on
regardless. First he went mad and his eyes turned red, and he got so he
didn't have no real use for water--well, them prospectors don't never
care much about water anyway--and then he got to snappin' and bitin' and
foamin' so's they had to strap him down to his bed. He got loose
though."

"Broke loose, I suppose?" I said.

"No, he bit loose," said Bill with the air of one