I began to talk quietly, calling him a rattle-head and a
disturber of the peace. At the first sound of my voice he
listened with intense curiosity, then leaped to the log, ran the
length of it, jumped down and began to dig furiously among the
moss and dead leaves. Every moment or two he would stop, and jump
to the log to see if I were watching him.

Presently he ran to my canoe, sprang upon the gunwale, jumped
back again, and ran along the log as before to where he had been
digging. He did it again, looking back at me and saying plainly:
"Come here; come and look." I stepped out of the canoe to the old
log, whereupon Meeko went off into a fit of terrible excitement.
--I was bigger than he expected; I had only two legs;
kut-e-k'chuck, kut-e-k'chuck! whit, whit, whit, kut-e-k'chuck!

I stood where I was until he got over his excitement. Then he
came towards me, and led me along the log, with much chuckling
and jabbering, to the hole in the leaves where he had been
digging. When I bent over it he sprang to a spruce trunk, on a
level with my head, fairly bursting with excitement, but watching
me with intensest interest. In the hole I found a small lizard,
one of the rare kind that lives under logs and loves the dusk. He
had been bitten through the back and disabled. He could still use
legs, tail and head feebly, but could not run away. When I picked
him up and held him in my hand, Meeko came closer with
loud-voiced curiosity, longing to leap to my hand and claim his
own, but held back by fear.--"What is it? He's mine; I found him.
What is it?" he barked, jumping about as if bewitched. Two
curiosities, the lizard and the man, were almost too much for