How Animals Talk 



from the camp toward the river, where it was 

 lighter. For several minutes they stood there, 

 like two alert animals, searching the dark woods 

 with all their senses; but nothing moved. The 

 white man was beginning another fool question 

 when there came a sudden dull crack, a booming 

 of air, as a huge yellow-birch stub toppled over the 

 fire and flattened the commoosie like a bubble. 



"Dere! Das de feller mus' be comin'," said 

 Simmo. "By cosh, now, nex' time Injun tell you 

 one t'ing, pYaps you believe-um!" And, as if it 

 were the most natural thing in the world, he 

 stepped over death-and-destruction, kicked aside 

 some rubbish, and lay down to sleep where he was 

 before. 



"How do I explain it?" I don't. I simply 

 recognize a fact which I cannot explain, and which 

 I will not blink by calling it another coincidence. 

 For the fact is, as I judge, that a few men and many 

 animals exercise some extra faculty which I do 

 not or cannot exercise, or have access to some 

 source of information which is closed to me. 

 When I question the gifted men or women who 

 possess this faculty, or what's-its-name, I find 

 that they are as much in the dark about it as I am. 

 They know certain things without knowing how 

 they learn; and the only word of explanation they 

 offer is that they "feel" thus and so perhaps as 



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