trace of blood on the
grass. Blood lasts a long time. Manitou has willed that it should be so,
because it is the life fluid of his creatures. It was a wild goose that the
Great Bear shot."

"And why not a wild duck?"

"Because here are two of the feathers, and even Dagaeoga knows they are
the feathers of a goose and not of a duck. It was, too, the fattest goose
in the flock."

"Which you have no possible way of knowing, Tayoga."

"But I do, Dagaeoga. It was the fattest goose of the flock, because the
fattest goose of the flock was the one that so wise and skillful a hunter
as the Great Bear would, as a matter of course, select and kill. Learn, O,
Dagaeoga, to trail with your mind as well as with your eye, and ear. The
day may come when the white man will equal the red man in intellect, but it
is yet far off. The Great Bear was very, very hungry, and we shall soon
reach the place where he cleaned and cooked his goose."

"Come, come, Tayoga! You may draw good conclusions from what you see, but
there are no prophets nowadays. You don't know anything about the state of
Dave's appetite, when he shot that goose, and you can't predict with
certainty that we'll soon come to the place where he made it ready for the
eating."

"I cannot, Dagaeoga! Why, I am doing it this very instant. Mind! Mind! Did
I not tell you to use your mind? O, Dagaeoga, when will you learn the
simpler things of life? The Great Bear would not have risked a shot at a
wild goose in enemy country, if he had not been very hungry. Otherwise he
would have waited until he rejoined the rangers to obtain food. And, having
risked his shot, and having obtained his goose, which was the fattest in
the flock, he became hungrier than ever. And having risked so much he was
willing to risk more in order to complete the task he had undertaken,
without which the other risks that he had run would have been all in vain."

"Tayoga, I can almost believe that you have your dictionary with you in
your knapsack."

"Not in my knapsack, Dagaeoga, but in my head, where yours also ought to
be. Ah, here is where the Great Bear began to make preparations to cook his
goose! His trail wanders back and forth. He was looking for fallen wood to
build the fire. And there, in the little sink between the hills, was where
he built it. Even you, Dagaeoga, can see the ashes and burnt ends of
sticks. The Great Bear must have been as hungry as a wolf to have eaten a
whole goose, and the fat