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."
"This fact," said Byrne, and he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "is not
without interest, though I fail to perceive the relation between me and
such a creature, unless, perhaps, there are biologic similarities of
which I have at present no cognition."
"I didn't think you'd follow me," replied Buck with an equal gravity.
"But you can lay to this, Doc; this gent we're waitin' for ain't
committed any more crimes than a wolf has."
"Ah, I see," murmured the doctor, "a man so near the brute that his
enormities pass beyond--"
"Get this straight," said Buck, interrupting with a sternly pointed
finger: "There ain't a kinder or a gentler man in the mountain-desert
than him.
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