Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/244

 horses had often traveled on this trail. They had gone but a few yards upstream when Flash’s uneasiness was noticed by Moran. Flash knew well what lay ahead. Moran studied his actions closely. Flash gave no sign of having discovered any definite scent or sound but his general air was one of caring little for the place where Moran was leading him. From this Moran decided that Flash detected some lingering taint of man among these old signs; that it caused him uneasiness even though he knew that the men themselves were gone.

But it was not this. Once more Flash was handicapped by the animal habit of heeding more what his senses told him than of relying on what he knew. He needed something actual, something of the present, communicated to his brain over the paths of his senses rather than that which was stored in his mind from the past. He knew the camp was ahead. He had been there many times. From this he felt uneasiness, But there was nothing definite, no real scent or sound to prove to him that the danger was still there. Being an animal he needed the present corroboration of his physical senses to be sure of the menace which his mind told him lay ahead. Man, on