ain't a man in th' country knows as much about hosses as I do. We
ain't had but two sick this fall, an' between you an' me, they's a
skate lot. You're a greenhorn, ain't you?"

"Yes," confessed Thorpe.

"Well," said Jackson, reflectively but rapidly, "Le Fabian, he's
quiet but bad; and O'Grady, he talks loud but you can bluff him;
and Perry, he's only bad when he gets full of red likker; and Norton
he's bad when he gets mad like, and will use axes."

Thorpe did not know he was getting valuable points on the camp
bullies. The old man hitched nearer and peered in his face.

"They don't bluff you a bit," he said, "unless you likes them,
and then they can back you way off the skidway."

Thorpe smiled at the old fellow's volubility. He did not know
how near to the truth the woodsman's shrewdness had hit; for to
himself, as to most strong characters, his peculiarities were the
normal, and therefore the unnoticed. His habit of thought in
respect to other people was rather objective than subjective. He
inquired so impersonally the significance of whatever was before
him, that it lost the human quality both as to itself and himself.
To him men were things. This attitude relieved him of self-
consciousness. He never bothered his head as to what the other
man thought of him, his ignorance, or his awkwardness, simply
because to him the other man was nothing but an element in his
problem. So in such circumstances he learned fast. Once introduce
the human element, however, and his absurdly sensitive self-