

Chumfo, the Super-sense 



a horse feels when he is holding the right direction 

 through a blinding snowstorm, as he does hold 

 it, steadily, surely, if you are wise enough not to 

 bother him with the reins or your opinions. 



Simmo is one of these rare men. At one moment 

 he is a mere child, so guileless, so natural, so in- 

 nocent of worldly wisdom, that he is forever sur- 

 prising you. Once when his pipe was lost I saw 

 him fill an imaginary bowl, scratch an imaginary 

 match, and puff away with a look of heavenly 

 content on his weathered face. So you treat him 

 as an unspoiled creature, humoring him, till there 

 is difficulty or danger ahead, or a man's work to 

 be done, when he steps quietly to the front as if 

 he belonged there. Or you may be talking with 

 him by the camp-fire, elaborating some wise theory, 

 when he brushes aside your book knowledge as of 

 no consequence and suddenly becomes a philos- 

 opher, proclaiming a new or startling doctrine of 

 life in the sublimely unhampered way of Emerson, 

 who finished off objectors by saying, "I do not 

 argue; I know." But where Emerson gives you a 

 mystical word or a bare assertion which he cannot 

 possibly prove, Simmo has a disconcerting way of 

 establishing a challenged doctrine by a concrete 

 and undeniable fact. 



One misty day when we were astray in the wil- 

 derness, he and I, we attempted to travel by get- 



[71] 



