On his return home to his hut one day, an Indian discovered that his venison, which had been hung up to dry, had been stolen. After going some distance, he met some persons, of whom he inquired if they had seen a little, old, white man, with a short gun, and accompanied by a small dog with a bob-tail. They replied in the affirmative; and upon the Indian’s assuring them that the man thus described had stolen his venison, they desired to be informed how he was able to give such a minute description of a person whom he had not seen. The Indian answered thus:

“The thief I know is a little man, by his having made a pile of stones in order to reach the venison from the height I hung it standing on the ground; that he is an old man, I know by his short steps, which I have traced over the dead leaves in the woods; that he is a white man, I know by his turning out his toes when he walks, which an Indian never does; his gun I know to be short by the mark which the muzzle made by rubbing the bark of the tree on which it leaned; that his dog is small, I know by his tracks; and that he has a bob-tail I discovered by the mark of it in the dust where he was sitting at the time his master was taking down the meat.”