e was evidently on his way to my camp. He, also, had heard the
latest rumor on the mountain-top. It was highly amusing to watch his
movements. He came teetering along in the most aimless, idiotic way. Now
he drifted off a little to the right, then a little to the left; his
blunt nose seemed vaguely to be feeling the air; he fumbled over the
ground, tossed about by loose boulders and little hillocks; his eyes
wandered stupidly about; I was in plain view within four or five yards
of him, but he heeded me not. Then he turned back a few paces, but some
slight obstacle in his way caused him to change his mind. One thought of
a sleep-walker; uncertainty was stamped upon every gesture and movement;
yet he was really drifting towards camp. After a while he struck the
well-defined trail, and his gray, shapeless body slowly disappeared up
the slope. In five or six minutes I overtook him shuffling along within
sight of the big rock upon which rested my blanket and lunch. As I came
up to him he depressed his tail, put up his shield, and slowly pushed
off into the wild grass. While I was at lunch I heard a sound, and there
he was, looking up at me from the path a few feet away. "An uninvited
guest," I said; "but come on." He hesitated, and then turned aside into
the bracken; he would wait till I had finished and had gone to sleep, or
had moved off.

How much less wit have such animals,--animals like the porcupine,
opossum, skunk, turtle,--that nature has armed against all foes, than
the animals that have no such ready-made defenses, and are preyed upon
by a multitude of enemies! The price paid for being shielded against all
danger, for never feeling fear or anxiety, is stupidity. If the
porcupine were as vulnerable to its enemies as, say, the woodchuck, it
would probably soon come to be as alert and swift of foot as that
marmot.

For an hour or more, that afternoon on the mountain top, my attention
was attracted by a peculiar continuous sound that seemed to come from
far away to the east. I queried with myself, "Is it the sound of some
workman in a distant valley hidden by the mountains, or is its source
nearer by me on the mountain side?" I could not determine. It was not a
hammering or a grating or the filing of a saw, though it suggested such
sounds. It had a vague, distant, ventriloquial character. In the
solitude of the mountain top there was something welcome and pleasing in
it. Finally I set out to try to solve the mystery.