og,
and in his prime a grand fighter, able to whip all the other dogs in
the neighborhood. Comparing him with ourselves, we soon learned that
although he could not read books he could read faces, was a good judge
of character, always knew what was going on and what we were about to
do, and liked to help us. We could run nearly as fast as he could, see
about as far, and perhaps hear as well, but in sense of smell his nose
was incomparably better than ours. One sharp winter morning when the
ground was covered with snow, I noticed that when he was yawning and
stretching himself after leaving his bed he suddenly caught the scent
of something that excited him, went round the corner of the house, and
looked intently to the westward across a tongue of land that we called
West Bank, eagerly questioning the air with quivering nostrils, and
bristling up as though he felt sure that there was something dangerous
in that direction and had actually caught sight of it. Then he ran
toward the Bank, and I followed him, curious to see what his nose had
discovered. The top of the Bank commanded a view of the north end of
our lake and meadow, and when we got there we saw an Indian hunter
with a long spear, going from one muskrat cabin to another,
approaching cautiously, careful to make no noise, and then suddenly
thrusting his spear down through the house. If well aimed, the spear
went through the poor beaver rat as it lay cuddled up in the snug nest
it had made for itself in the fall with so much far-seeing care, and
when the hunter felt the spear quivering, he dug down the mossy hut
with his tomahawk and secured his prey,--the flesh for food, and the
skin to sell for a dime or so. This was a clear object lesson on dogs'
keenness of scent. That Indian was more than half a mile away across a
wooded ridge. Had the hunter been a white man, I suppose Watch would
not have noticed him.

When he was about six or seven years old, he not only became cross, so
that he would do only what he liked, but he fell on evil ways, and was
accused by the neighbors who had settled around us of catching and
devouring whole broods of chickens, some of them only a day or two out
of the shell. We never imagined he would do anything so grossly
undoglike. He never did at home. But several of the neighbors declared
over and over again that they had caught him in the act, and insisted
that he must be shot. At last, in spite of tearful protests, he was
condemned and