Pow-wow had not barked within hearing of the fort since the evening he had found his little master down there at the foot of the precipice. He had gone and come, hastening back when he went, lingering when he came—a silent, sad and thoughtful dog. By some inscrutable operation of instinct he had soon discovered that the errands which led Ben and Bertha daily abroad had a reference in some way to the wants of his unfortunate little friend, and that, therefore, it was his bounden duty to lend a helping hand. Accordingly he had divided his time about equally between the two young people; helping the one about the wild herds of the forest, the other about the tame herds of the field. In the morning he would follow the young hunter to the distant lick, and, having acquitted himself in the chase, with his wonted address, he would hasten back to the fort, leaving his companion to follow at that plodding pace peculiar to two-footed animals, and so irksome to dogs, to accommodate themselves to which they must needs trot out, on a magnified scale, the ground plan of a straggling worm fence, with wide digression to right and left; now to sniff at a stump, then to bark down a sinkhole. In the afternoon he would accompany Bertha to the bluegrass glades, where he would take her charge so completely upon himself as to leave her nothing to do but clamber up the hill for a fresh culling of flowers, then follow him, as homeward he drove the cows.

When not occupied thus, he would station himself on the porch at the door of the sick room, looking up wistfully into every face that passed him, in the poor, dumb, asking way, which so endears a dog to us when the shadow of death is on our home. He had never ventured to intrude himself into the house, but now that he was called, the grateful look and humble alertness with which he answered the summons testified how earnestly he had wished to do all along. Setting his feet as carefully on the floor as were he shod with heavy shoes, that, too, without a warning whisper in the ear from Ben's mother, he slowly walked up to the bedside and softly ran his huge head under the little hand, so white and wan, extended to greet and caress him. Pow-wow licked the hand in the dear old way, and the familiar sensation helped, not a little, to reassure the boy of his own identity and make him more present to the state of things around him. And it was strange how much more natural his voice and manner became the moment he began speaking to his old play-fellow; though what he spoke was hardly less fantastic or more coherent than the greater part of what he had spoken already.

"Pow-wow, is it really you, old pard, and no mistake? And are we all alive and here at grandpap's house, and no dreaming about it? (Pausing to pat the old dog's head.) Pow-wow, did Nick of the Woods ever give you a pair of red moccasins? No, he never did, because he knew you weren't a fool. (Here closing his eyes and seeming for a moment to forget the dog.) Pow-wow, were you ever chased by the Manitous? No, you never were, for you never sneaked away from home with a lie in your mouth, like a spit-thief dog. (Again closing his eyes for a few moments, to open them again and add:) The Manitous chase nobody but bad people, and chase them only to make them good. (Pausing to play with the old dog's ear.) And so they have chased your old Sprigg, Pow-wow; chased him out of the world! You shall never see your old friend Sprigg again! Never! Never! Never!" (Now giving the old dog's ragged ear a certain pluck which had always been well understood between them.)

At each repetition of his name the only part of his little master's speech which had any sound of English to his ear, Pow-wow would fall to wagging his tail in a hearty, emphatic manner, as were he, Chinaman-like, shaking hands with himself over the glad event of the day. But on receiving the pluck of the ear, in the dear old way, the dear old fellow, quick to take the hint, gave vent to a sort of double yelp, peculiar to him when in a waggish humor—a smothered nasal "boo-woo," so irresistibly ludicrous that it had always made Sprigg laugh, as now it did, right heartily. This is but the prelude to what needs must follow. Up he rears himself on his hind legs, snaps at the imaginary bone thrown up by an imaginary hand, catches it in his mouth, drops with it to the floor, and, stretching himself out at full length, pretends to gnaw what he pretends to hold between his paws. But this was Pow-wow's only accomplishment—fancy accomplishment, I mean—for he was a finished hunter and a finishing fighter, and we have seen for ourselves that he knew exactly what to do with cows when he went with a nice little girl to the pasture to help her drive them home. Therefore, finding himself at the end of his programme sooner than the occasion seemed to demand, he raised himself to his haunches and looked around him with a deprecating air, as if he would fain apologize for his deficiencies.

Hardly, however, could the apology have been expressed in words, when up he bounces again to his hind feet and begins executing a series of antics, so fantastic and undog-like that they who witnessed them were quite as much astonished as amused. Jervis Whitney himself, than whom there was not a man in the hunter's paradise more deeply versed in dogs and their ways, and who thought he knew his own dog from head to tail and back again, was even more astonished than the rest. Had old Mother Hubbard and her far-famed dog risen from their honored graves and, presenting themselves before our friends, repeated the dear old programme, from the cupboard so bare, to the bier so sad, with the fruits and the flue, the tripe and the pipe, the wig and the jig, and all the other fondly remembered marvels between—scarcely could the effect have been more startling.

Now, Pow-wow's antics on this occasion, unaccountable as they seemed to those who witnessed them, and must seem to the more sober class of my readers, admit of perfectly rational explanation, give them only Manitou ground to rest on. Nick of the Woods and Meg of the Hills, who knew as well as anybody—better, I fear, than many a human body—that there are few things more wholesome for us poor mortals than hearty, unrestrained, unrestrainable, innocent laughter, had decided between them that, in order to put his case beyond all human or superhuman possibility of relapse, Sprigg should have some hearty laughter. Accordingly, they had sent one of their dog-robed, dog-natured elves to tinker and conjure with Pow-wow's tail, and through that sensitive member, as a medium, telegraph, as it were, such fancies to his sober old noddle as should, for a brief space, set him quite beside himself. In other words, set him to acting the human, according to the monkey conception of the character. A conception so nearly suits an occasional specimen of the model race as scarcely to be deemed caricature.

And Sprigg did laugh—laughed till his sore sides ached—laughed "fit to die," as they say, when they mean the very opposite—"fit to live." After such a laugh, Sprigg was in no more danger of dying than had all the doctors, with their doses; all the preachers, with their prayers, stood between him and the grave. Of course, everybody else was laughing; not but that they felt still more inclined to cry, so touching was it to witness the old dog's clumsy playfulness and the little sufferer's spasmodic merriment—for spasmodic it needs must be, as yet, though so hearty, heart-easing and wholesome. Indeed, there are few things more pathetical than the innocent mirth of the young heart, over whose dawning existence has already fallen, though but for a brief space, the shadow of the inevitable hour. And I will venture to affirm, upon the strength of my own experience and observation, that if you, my gentle reader, had been present and witnessed, without both tears and laughter, the scene I am describing, you would be as fit a subject for a "putting through" as ever was poor Sprigg; and that, sooner or later for your fuller humanizing, you must run the Manitou gauntlet. And whether you run it in red moccasins or in split-leather Yankee shoes, all one will it be to Nick of the Woods!