"No; he don't know nothin'; but I reckon he'll pick up some larnin' in
the next two, three days."

"Have these dogs got the Plott strain? I've been told that the Plott
hounds are the best bear dogs in the country."

"'Tain't so," snorted John. "The Plott curs are the best: that is, half
hound, half cur--though what we-uns calls the cur, in this case, raelly
comes from a big furrin dog that I don't rightly know the breed of.
Fellers, you can talk as you please about a streak o' the cur spilin' a
dog; but I know hit ain't so--not for bear fightin' in these mountains,
whar you cain't foller up on hossback, but hafter do your own runnin'."

"What is the reason, John?"

[Illustration: "What soldiers these fellows would make, under leadership
of some Backwoods Napoleon!"]

"Waal, hit's like this: a plumb cur, of course, cain't foller a cold
track--he just runs by sight; and he won't hang--he quits. But,
t'other way, no hound 'll raelly fight a bear--hit takes a big severe
dog to do that. Hounds has the best noses, and they'll run a bear all
day and night, and the next day, too; but they won't never tree--they're
afeared to close in. Now, look at them dogs o' mine. A cur ain't got no
dew-claws--them dogs has. My dogs can foller ary trail, same's a hound;
but they'll run right in on the varmint, snappin' and chawin' and
worryin' him till he gits so mad you can hear his tushes pop half a
mile. He cain't run away--he haster stop every bit, and fight. Finally
he gits so tired and het up that he trees to rest hisself. Then we-uns
ketches up and finishes him."

"Mebbe you-uns don't know that a dew-clawed dog is snake-proof----"

But somebody, thinking that dog-talk had gone far enough, produced a
bottle of soothing-syrup that was too new to have paid tax. Then we
discovered that there was musical talent, of a sort, in Little John. He
cut a pigeon-wing, twirled around with an imaginary banjo, and sang in a
quaint minor:

Did you _ever_ see the devil,
With his _pitchfork_ and ladle,
And his _old_ iron shovel,
And his old gourd head?
O, I _will_ go to meetin',
And I _will_ go to meetin',
Yes, I _will_ go to meetin',
In an old tin pan.

Other songs followed, with utter irrelevance--mere snatches from
"ballets" composed, mainly, by the mountaineers themselves, though some
dated back to a long-forgotten age when the British ancestors of these
Carolina woodsmen were battling with lance and lo