"How ought you to know?
Are you a veterinary?
Have you ever made a study of dogs and of their maladies?
Have you ever read up, carefully, on the subject of rabies?
Have you read Eberhardt or Dr.Bennett or Skinner or any of a dozen other authorities on the disease?
Have you consulted such eminent vets as Hopper and Finch, for instance?
If you have, you certainly must know that a dog, afflicted with genuine rabies, will no more turn out of his way to bite anyone than a typhoid patient will jump out of bed to chase a doctor.

I'm not saying that the bite of any sick animal (or of any sick human, for that matter) isn't more or less dangerous; unless it's carefully washed out and painted with iodine.

But that's no excuse to go around the country, shooting every dog that some sick mongrel has snapped at.

Put such dogs under observation, if necessary; and then--" "You talk like a fool!" snorted Wefers, in lofty contempt.

"I--" "But I am going to keep you from acting like a fool," returned the Master, his hard-held temper beginning to fray.