The Happy Hooligan 117 



with myself as to which of the two bluffers (for I knew 

 that they were both bluffing) would eventually take 

 the trick. Kerfoot finally settled the matter by 

 actually hitting the bear a whack over the rump with 

 his club, and the latter scurried back up the tree, twice 

 as fast as he had come down. 



One of the most characteristic features of the Black 

 Beards game of bluff is its utter failure to show any 

 concern when the bluff is called. A dog, for instance, 

 when he indulges in a bluff that fails to work, very 

 frequently shows plainly that he feels himself a fool. 

 He'll rush out with every evidence of intending to at- 

 tack ; growling, snarling, and coming headlong toward 

 you; and when (if you know dogs and are not im- 

 pressed by his fine acting) he gets quite up to you 

 without frightening you, he will cringe, lick your boots, 

 sometimes roll over and put all four feet up — which is 

 the dog sign of complete discomfiture or complete sur- 

 render. Of course it is not possible for us to really 

 know how any animal's mind works. We are almost 

 certain to credit them with some of our own psychology 

 in trying to follow theirs. And so I do not mean to 

 imply that a dog under these circumstances 'Hhinks he 

 is a fool." But we know that he acts very much as we 

 would feel if we thought we had been shown up. The 

 nearest that we can come to interpreting his actions 

 is to say that they seem to mean, ^^I did not know that 

 it was you, or I never would have tried to frighten you." 



