But the first man on Mars would have experienced less
unfamiliarity than did he. Without any antecedent knowledge, without any
warning whatever that such existed, he found himself an explorer in a
totally new world.
Now that the terrible unknown had let go of him, he forgot that the
unknown had any terrors. He was aware only of curiosity in all the
things about him. He inspected the grass beneath him, the moss-berry
plant just beyond, and the dead trunk of the blasted pine that stood on
the edge of an open space among the trees. A squirrel, running around
the base of the trunk, came full upon him, and gave him a great fright.
He cowered down and snarled. But the squirrel was as badly scared. It
ran up the tree, and from a point of safety chattered back savagely.
This helped the cub's courage, and though the woodpecker he next
encountered gave him a start, he proceeded confidently on his way. Such
was his confidence, that when a moose-bird impudently hopped up to him,
he reached out at it with a playful paw. The result was a sharp peck on
the end of his nose that made him cower down and ki-yi. The noise he
made was too much for the moose-bird, who sought safety in flight.
But the cub was learning. His misty little mind had already made an
unconscious classification. There were live things and things not alive.
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