At that there were loud shouts, and even Steve himself could hardly keep from grinning at the recollection of the picture Toby's words recalled.
"'Spose you fellers never will get over that affair," he remarked, as he put his hand behind him, just as if after all these months he still felt a pain where the dog had bitten him. "Cost me a good pair of trousers, too, in the bargain. It was a bulldog," he added, turning toward Trapper Jim, "and he was so much attached to me that he followed me halfway 'over a seven-foot fence. Would have gone the whole thing only the cloth gave way and he lost his grip."
"Well, that showed a warm, generous nature," remarked Trapper Jim; "some dogs are marked that way."
"This one was," declared Steve. "But I got even with the critter."
"How was that?" asked the other, looking a little serious; for, himself a lover of dogs, he never liked to hear of one being abused.
"I got me one of those little liquid pistols, you know, and laid for my old enemy," Steve continued; "he saw me passing by and came bouncing out to try my other leg. But he changed his mind in a big hurry. And, say, you just ought to 'a' heard him yelp when he turned around and faced the other way."
"You didn't blind the poor beast, I hope?" remarked Jim.
"Oh, nothin' to speak of," said Steve, gayly. "He was all right the next day. Ammonia smarts like fun for awhile, but it goes off. But, listen, whenever I passed that house, if old Beauty was sitting on the steps like he used to do, as soon as he glimpsed me, would you believe it, he'd turn tail and run quick for the back yard and watch me around the comer of the house."
"You had him tamed, all right," said Max.
"We called it an even break, and let it go at that," said Steve.