"As for H----, he never spun a yarn save under some strong compulsion, yet we knew more or less vaguely that many a strange experience had fallen to his lot. We had had some stirring adventures together, he and I, since first I had initiated him into the mysteries of woodcraft. But it was rare for him to recall them in conversation, and hence I judged that there was much in his experience of which I had never heard.
"On the present occasion the long silence was becoming almost drowsy. For me the flame from our logs was beginning to change mistily into the glow from a heaped-up grate, and to play over two small curly heads and a long-eared pup on a hearth-rug, when suddenly from far up in the moonlit rocks of the summit came the wail of the northern panther.
"I was startled wide-awake; and the little vision faded instantly into a consciousness of the open heaven, the white lake, and that lonely, haunted summit.
"But it was not altogether the panther that had startled me. It was Dan, who had sprung almost over my head toward the hillside, and now stood trembling with wrath.
"At the command of his master he stalked back and sat down again; but he faced the hillside, and never withdrew his fierce gaze from the spot whence the sound had seemed to come.
"'Never mind him, old dog,' said H---- soothingly; 'you can't get at him, you know.'
"'What makes Dan so excited?' I asked. 'I never saw him so much worked up before. See, he's fairly quivering!'
"'Oh,' replied H----, 'there's no love lost between Dan and the Indian devils. That yelling stirs up some lively reminiscences in his old pate. He thinks that Indian devil is coming right down here to tackle me. See how he keeps me in his eye! And see him turn his muzzle round now and then to lick those scars of his. I'll venture to say he feels them smart now, when he remembers the night he got them at the head of the Little Tobique.'
"'Let's have it, old man,' I urged. 'You've never told me about that scrape. I've been taking those scars as a certificate of Dan's fighting propensities.'
"'Do you suppose any _dog_,' said H---- in a tone of disdain, 'could carve Dan up in that style? Not by a good deal! It was a big Indian devil that undertook the contract. He accomplished the frescoing in a very elaborate fashion, as you see. But he didn't survive the job.'