The Day of the Dog

by George Barr McCutcheon

"Oh, goodness!" some one whispered in Crosby's ear.

"But he ain't armed," argued Higgins. "If he'd had a gun don't you s'pose he'd shot that dog an' got away long before he did?"

"That shows how much you know about these crooks, Higgins," said the other loftily. "He had a mighty good reason for not shooting the dog."

"What was the reason?"

"I don't know jest what it was, but any darned fool ought to see that he had a reason. Else why didn't he shoot? Course he had a reason. But the funny part of the whole thing is what has become of the woman."

"What woman?"

"That widder," responded the other, and Crosby felt her arm harden. "I never thought much o' that woman. You'd think she owned the whole town of Dexter to see her paradin' around the streets, showin' off her city clothes, an' all such stuff. They do say she led George Delancy a devil of a life, an' it's no wonder he died."

"The wretch!" came from the rear of the wagon.

"Well, she's up and skipped out with the horse thief. Austin says she tried to protect him, and I guess they had a regular family row over the affair. She's gone an' the man's gone, an' it looks darned suspicious. He was a good-lookin' feller, Austin says, an' she's dead crazy to git another man, I've heard. Dang me, it's jest as I said to Davis: I wouldn't put it above her to take up with this good-lookin' thief an' skip off with him. Her husband's been dead more'n two year, an' she's too darned purty to stay in strict mournin' longer'n she has to—-"

But just then something strong, firm, and resistless grasped his neck from behind, and, even as he opened his mouth to gasp out his surprise and alarm, a vise-like grip shut down on his thigh, and then, he was jerked backward, lifted upward, tossed outward, falling downward. The wagon clattered off in the night, and a tall man and a woman looked over the side of the wagon-bed and waited for the next flash of lightning to show them where the official gossiper had fallen. The long, blinding, flash came, and Crosby saw the man as he picked himself from the ditch at the roadside.