think they've missed something, though," she said. "There must be
something more than the things they tabulate. Some subtle force of life
which isn't physical at all. Something that uses physical things as
tools. If its tools are fine, it will do finer work, but if its tools
are blunt it will work with them anyway. And it gets things done."

"By Jove!" said Spence. This was one of Desire's "windows with a view."
He was always stumbling upon them. But he knew she was shy of comment.
"We'll tell Aunt Caroline that," he murmured hopefully. "It may
distract her mind." ...

That day they found and followed the trail to the shack of Hawk-Eye
Charlie. It proved to be neither long nor arduous. The professor
managed it with ease. But he would have been quite unable to manage the
hawk-eyed one without the expert aid of his secretary. To his
unaccustomed mind their quarry was almost witless and exceedingly
dirty. But Desire knew her Indian.

"It isn't what he is, but what he knows," she explained. "And he has a
retiring nature."

So very retiring was it that only fair words, aided by tactful displays
of tea and tobacco, could penetrate its reservations. Desire was quite
unhurried. But presently she began to extract bits of carefully hidden
knowledge. It had to be slow work, for, witless as he of the hawk-eye
seemed, he was well aware of the value (in tobacco) of a wise
conservation. He who babbles all he knows upon first asking is a fool.
But he who withholds beyond patience is a fool also. Was it not so?
Desire agreed that a middle course is undoubtedly the path of wisdom.
She added, carelessly, that the white-man-who-wished-stories was in no
hurry. Neither had he come seeking much for little. Payment would be
made strictly on account of value received. The tea was good. And the
tobacco exceptionally strong, as anyone could tell from a distance. Why
then should the hawk-eyed one delay his own felicity?

This hastened matters considerably and the secretary's note-book was
soon busy. Spence felt his oldtime keenness revive. And Desire was
happy for was not this her work at last? It was a profitable day.
Should anyone care to know its results, and the results of others like
it, they may look up chapter six, section two, of Spence's Primitive
Psychology, unabridged edition. Here they will find that the fables of
Hawk-Eye Charlie, properly classified and commented upon, have added
considerably to our knowledge of a fascinating su