ed by reason to control the rational, it may be
granted that the acts of the lower animals lie outside of categories
framed according to ethical precepts. To directly answer your not
incurious question: I believe that a wolf cannot commit a crime."

Buck Daniels sighed.

"D'you know, doc," he said gravely, "that you remind me of a side-hill
goat?"

"Ah," murmured the man of learning, "is it possible? And what, Mr.
Daniels, is the nature of a side-hill goat?"

"It's a goat that's got the legs of one side shorter than the legs on
the other side, and the only way he can get to the top of a hill is to
keep trottin' around and around the hill like a five per cent. grade. He
goes a mile to get ten feet higher."

"This fact," said Byrne, and he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "is not
without interest, though I fail to perceive the relation between me and
such a creature, unless, perhaps, there are biologic similarities of
which I have at present no cognition."

"I didn't think you'd follow me," replied Buck with an equal gravity.
"But you can lay to this, Doc; this gent we're waitin' for ain't
committed any more crimes than a wolf has."

"Ah, I see," murmured the doctor, "a man so near the brute that his
enormities pass beyond--"

"Get this straight," said Buck, interrupting with a sternly pointed
finger: "There ain't a kinder or a gentler man in the mountain-desert
than him. He's got a voice softer than Kate Cumberland's, which is some
soft voice, and as for his heart--Doc, I've seen him get off his horse
to put a wounded rabbit out of its pain!"

A ring of awe came in the throat of Daniels as he repeated the
incredible fact.

He went on: "If I was in trouble, I'd rather have him beside me than ten
other men; if I was sick I'd rather have him than the ten best doctors
in the world; if I wanted a pal that would die for them that done him
good and go to hell to get them that done him bad, I'd choose him first,
and there ain't none that come second."

The panegyric was not a burst of imagination. Buck Daniels was speaking
seriously, hunting for words, and if he used superlatives it was because
he needed them.

"Extraordinary!" murmured the doctor, and he repeated the word in a
louder tone. It was a rare word for him; in all his scholastic career
and in all of his scientific investigations he had found occasion to use
so strong a term not more than half a dozen times at the most. He went
on, cautiously, and his weak