"
"No," I said. "I saw nothing."
"Well, you look when you go back. As for me, I'm done
with it. The thing's worked out. I'm going back to the
city to see whether I can't, right there in the heart of
the city, earn myself a livelihood with my unaided hands
and brains. That's the real problem; no more bumming on
the animals for me. This bush business is too easy. Well,
good-bye; I'm off."
"But stop a minute," I said. "How is it that, if what
you say is true, I haven't seen or heard anybody in the
bush, and I've been here since the middle of the morning?"
"Nonsense," the man answered. "They were probably all
round you but you didn't recognize them."
"No, no, it's not possible. I lay here dreaming beneath
a tree and there wasn't a sound, except the twittering
of a squirrel and, far away, the cry of a lake-loon,
nothing else."
"Exactly, the twittering of a squirrel! That was some
feller up the tree twittering to beat the band to let on
that he was a squirrel, and no doubt some other feller
calling out like a loon over near the lake. I suppose
you gave them the answering cry?"
"I did," I said. "I gave that low guttural note which--"
"Precisely--which is the universal greeting in the
freemasonry of animal speech.
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