272 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



liim for a time, or what then suggested to liim 

 tliat the weig"ht they had carried so far was 

 no longer on their shoulders ? No blood had been 

 falling from the deer, for the thieves had taken 

 the iDrecaution to tie up her throat Avith a hand- 

 kerchief; and therefore, versed as I am, and have 

 been, in every phase of scent pertaining to the 

 chase, I cannot imagine how the dog came to 

 know that the men no longer bore a cold carcase, 

 from which neither breath nor blood came, and 

 which did not touch the ground. 



Now there was not mere brute instinct in what 

 tliis dog did. Instinct could not have suggested 

 to him to do a thing for which he had not been 

 intended and never taught to do, nor could mere 

 instinct have induced him to gather from his 

 master's looks the loss that master had sustained, 

 and the wish that master had to trace the thieves 

 who had stolen his jjroperty. In many instances, 

 in animals and birds, there exists, more or less, 

 the faculty of reason; and man, in my opinioUj 

 has no more just ground for claiming for himself 

 an exclusive heaven, than he has to deem all 

 other brains tlian iiis own as simply gifted with 

 instinctive powers. 



