ur potato peelings and
discarded fish that they eat, they warm into friendliness. Indeed, on these
occasions, one can make quite a show of bravery by stroking and dealing
lightly with them. But once upon a time in an ignorant moment two other
campers and myself followed a lonely railroad track and struck off on a
path through the pines in search of a certain trapper on a fur farm. The
path went on a broken zigzag avoiding fallen trees and soft hollows,
conducting itself on the whole with more patience than firmness. We walked
a quarter of a mile, but still we saw no cabin. The line of the railroad
had long since disappeared. An eagle wheeled above us and quarrelled at our
intrusion. Presently to test our course and learn whether we were coming
near the cabin, we gave a shout. Immediately out of the deeper woods there
came a clamor that froze us. Such sounds, it seemed, could issue only from
bloody and dripping jaws. In a panic, as by a common impulse we turned and
ran. Yet we did not run frankly as when the circus lion is loose, but in a
shamefaced manner--an attempt at a retreat in good order--something between
a walk and a run. At the end of a hundred yards we stopped. No dogs had
fallen on us. Danger had not burst its kennel. We hallooed again, to rouse
the trapper. At last, after a minute of suspense, came his answering voice,
the sweetest sound to be imagined. Whereupon I came down from my high stump
which I had climbed for a longer view.

I am convinced that I am not alone in my--shall I say diffidence?--toward
dogs. Indeed, there is evidence from the oldest times that mankind, in its
more honest moments, has confessed to a fear of dogs. In recognition of
this general fear, the unmuzzled Cerberus was put at the gate of Hades.
It was rightly felt that when the unhappy pilgrims got within, his fifty
snapping heads were better than a bolt upon the door. It was better for
them to endure the ills they had, than be nipped in the upper passage. He,
also, who first spoke the ancient proverb, _Let sleeping dogs lie_, did no
more than voice the caution of the street. And he, also, who invented the
saying that the world is going to the bow-wows, lodged his deplorable
pessimism in fitting words.

It was Daniel who sat with the lions. But there are degrees of bravery. On
Long Street, within sight of my window--just where the street gets into its
most tangled traffic--there has hung for many years the painted signboard
of a vet