o the
valley--knowin' they've put the entrance fee of fifty dollars so high
that no po' devil in the County can get in, even if he had a horse
equal to theirs.

"Three thousan' dollars!--think of it! An' then Richard Travis rubs
it in. He's havin' fun over it--he always would do that. Read the
last line ag'in--in them big letters:

"'_Open to anything raised in the Tennessee Valley._'

"Fine fun an' kinder sarcastic, but, Jack, Ben Butler cu'd make them
blooded trotters look like steers led to slaughter."

Jack sat looking silently in the fire.

"If I had the entrance fee I'd do it once--jes' once mo' befo' I die?
Once mo' to feel the old thrill of victory! An' for Cap'n Tom an'
Shiloh. God'll provide, Jack--God'll provide!"

CHAPTER XXIV

BONAPARTE'S WATERLOO

Bonaparte lay on the little front porch--the loafing place which
opened into Billy Buch's bar-room. Apparently, he was asleep and
basking in the warm Autumn sunshine. In reality he was doing his star
trick and one which could have originated only in the brains of a
born genius. Feigning sleep, he thus enticed within striking distance
all the timid country dogs visiting Cottontown for the first time,
and viewing its wonders with a palpitating heart. Then, like a bolt
from the sky, he would fall on them, appalled and paralyzed--a demon
with flashing teeth and abbreviated tail.

When finally released, with lacerated hides and wounded feelings,
they went rapidly homeward, and they told it in dog language, from
Dan to Beersheba, that Cottontown was full of the terrible and the
unexpected.

And a great morning he had had of it--for already three humble and
unsuspecting curs, following three humble and unsuspecting countrymen
who had walked in to get their morning's dram, had fallen victims to
his guile.

Each successful raid of Bonaparte brought forth shouts of laughter
from within, in which Billy Buch, the Dutch proprietor, joined. It
always ended in Bonaparte being invited in and treated to a cuspidor
of beer--the drinking, with the cuspidor as his drinking horn, being
part of his repertoire. After each one Billy Buch would proudly
exclaim:

"Mine Gott, but dat Ponyparte ees one greet dog!"

Then Bonaparte would reel around in a half drunken swagger and go
back to watch for other dogs.

"I tell you, Billy," said Jud Carpenter--"Jes' watch that dog. They
ain't no dog on earth his e'kal when it comes to brains. Them country
dogs aflyin' up