How Animals Talk 



the mutter of a frog becomes like the roar of a bull 

 of Bashan; or suddenly you begin to hear music 

 as the faint vibration of some dry stub, purring 

 in the unfelt air currents, turns to the booming of 

 a mighty church organ. At such a time, unless 

 one has trained his senses to ignore the obvious 

 (the Indian secret of seeing and hearing things), 

 one soon becomes confused, uncertain of the bor- 

 derland between the real and the imaginary; so 

 presently I turned to Simmo and whispered, "You 

 hear him?" 



The Indian shook his head. "No hear-um; 

 just feel-um," he said; and again we settled down 

 to watch. For several minutes we questioned the 

 woods, the lake, the meadow; but nothing stirred, 

 not a sound broke the painful quiet, the while 

 we both felt strongly that some living thing was 

 near us. Then a shadow moved from the darker 

 shadow of an upturned root, only a few yards away, 

 and a great bull stood alert on the open shore. 



I thought then, and I still think, that besides our 

 ordinary five senses we have a finer faculty which 

 I must call, for lack of a better term, the sense of 

 presence; and I explain it on the assumption that 

 every life recognizes and attracts every other life 

 by some occult force, as dead matter (if there be 

 such a thing) attracts all other matter by the 

 mysterious force of gravitation.' 



[54] 



