"Oh, hell!" groaned Buck Daniels. Then he explained more gently: "I don't say you're yellow. All I say is: this mess ain't one that you can straighten out--nor no other man can. Give it up, wash your hands, and git back to Elkhead. I dunno what Kate was thinkin' of to bring you out here!" "The excellence of your intention," said the doctor, "I shall freely admit, though the assumption that difficulty in the essential problem would deter me from the analysis is an hypothesis which I cannot leave uncontested. In the vulgar, I may give you to understand that I am in this to stay!" Buck Daniels started to speak, but thinking better of it he shrugged his shoulders and sat back, resigned. "Well," he said, "Kate brought you out here. Maybe she has a reason for it. What d'you want to know?" "What connection," said the doctor, "have wild geese with a man, a horse, and a dog?" "What in hell d'you know about a horse and a man and a dog--and wild geese?" inquired Buck in a strained voice. "Rumour," said the doctor, "has been in this instance, unfortunately, my only teacher. But, sir, I have ascertained that Mr. Cumberland, his daughter, and you, sir, are all waiting for a certain thing to come to this ranch, and that thing I naturally assume to be a man." "Doc," said the cowpuncher sarcastically, "there ain't no doubt you got a wonderful brain!" "Mockery," pronounced the man of learning, "is a use of the mental powers which is both unworthy and barren and does not in this case advance the argument, which is: Who and what is this man for whom you wait?" "He came," said Buck Daniels, "out of nowhere. That's all we know about who he is. What is he? I'll tell you easy: He's a gent that looks like a man, and walks like a man, and talks like a man--but he _ain't_ a man." "Ah," nodded the philosopher, "a crime of extraordinary magnitude has, perhaps, cut off this unfortunate fellow from communication with others of his kind. Is this the case?" "It ain't," replied Buck. "Doc, tell me this: Can a wolf commit a crime?" "Admitting this definition: that crime is the breaking of law, and that law is a force created by reason to control the rational, it may be granted that the acts of the lower animals lie outside of categories framed according to ethical precepts. To directly answer your not incurious question: I believe that a wolf cannot commit a crime." Buck Daniels sighed. "D'you know, doc," he said gravely, "that you remind me of a side-hill goat?" "Ah," murmured the man of learning, "is it possible? And what, Mr. Daniels, is the nature of a side-hill goat?" "It's a goat that's got the legs of one side shorter than the legs on the other side, and the only way he can get to the top of a hill is to keep trottin' around and around the hill like a five per cent. grade. He goes a mile to get ten feet higher."