You see, you smell, but your eyes ask, 'What is it?' You are a woodsman,
but a stranger among your own kin. You have never seen a living Varick;
you have never even seen a partridge."

"Your wisdom is at fault there," I said, maliciously.

"Have you seen a Varick?"

"No; but the partridge--"

"Pooh! a little creature, like a gray meadow-lark remoulded! You call it
partridge, I call it quail. But I speak of the crested thunder--drumming
cock that struts all ruffed like a Spanish grandee of ancient times.
Wait, sir!" and he pointed to a string of birds' footprints in the dust
just ahead. "Tell me what manner of creature left its mark there?"

I leaned from my saddle, scanning the sign carefully, but the bird that
made it was a strange bird to me. Still bending from my saddle, I heard
his mocking laugh, but did not look up.

"You wear a lynx-skin for a saddle-cloth," he said, "yet that lynx never
squalled within a thousand miles of these hills."

"Do you mean to say there are no lynxes here?" I asked.

"Plenty, sir, but their ears bear no black-and-white marks. Pardon, I do
not mean to vex you; I read as I run, sir; it is my habit."

"So you have traced me on a back trail for a thousand miles--from
habit," I said, not exactly pleased.