And that town was so mad that when they found Bill in the jail again there was talk of handling him pretty rough. But it all turned into josh. Bill, when he woke up in the calaboose, thought he had just had a dream at first, and denied he had ever been absent. Then when he saw they all took him for a deep joker he began to act like he was a joker. And before long he got to thinking he really had played that trick on the town. When they used to ask him how on earth he got into and out of the calaboose without the keys, he would wink very mysterious, and look important, and nod and chuckle to himself and say that was the best part of the joke and he intended to keep it to himself.
But one day when he was almost sober he saw Squint and me on the street and stared at us long and hard like he was trying to recollect something, and scratched his head and said: “You boys didn't always used to live in this town, did you?”
“Uh-huh,” says I.
“That's funny,” says Bill, “I could have swore you was boys I once knowed a long ways off from here that time I was on my travels.”
BLOOD WILL TELL (As told by the dog)
I am a middle-sized dog, with spots on me here and there, and several different colours of hair mixed in even where there aren't any spots, and my ears are frazzled a little on the ends where they have been chewed in fights.
At first glance you might not pick me for an aristocrat. But I am one. I was considerably surprised when I discovered it, as nothing in my inmost feelings up to that time, nor in the treatment which I had received from dogs, humans or boys, had led me to suspect it.
I can well remember the afternoon on which the discovery was made. A lot of us dogs were lying in the grass, up by the swimming hole, just lazying around, and the boys were doing the same. All the boys were naked and comfortable, and no humans were about, the only thing near being a cow or two and some horses, and although large they are scarcely more human than boys. Everybody had got tired of swimming, and it was too hot to drown out gophers or fight bumblebees, and the boys were smoking grapevine cigarettes and talking.