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And knowing! Honest, he knew more'n some men. One day old Wind River was tellin' some things (that _might_ have happened to him) in his usual way, bein' most careful to get the dates and all dead right, you know--"Now, _was_ his name Peter, after all? Comes to my mind it was Willyam--Willyam Perkins--Well--But, anyhow, him and me, we saw that Injun," and so forth. This was a Sunday, and the gang of us sittin' in a circle, fixing leathers and one thing and another and misstatin' history faster than a horse could trot, with Foxey Bill in the middle, cocking his head from one speaker to another, takin' it all in. At last Wind River wound up the most startlin' and unlikely collections of facts he'd favoured us with for some time. Up gets Foxey with a shriek and gallops around the house. Any man with the rudiments of intelligence would know he was hollerin': "Well, that's just too much for me; ta-ra-rum!" [Illustration: "Up gets Foxy with a shriek and gallops around the house"] Wind River looked scart. "Say!" says he. "Say! Thet hawg knows I'm er-lyin' jes' 's well 's I do!" After that old Windy used to talk to the pig as though they'd been raised together. [Illustration: "Old Windy used to talk to the pig as though they'd been raised together"] Foxey Bill made one miscalculation. He thought he was a small pet, like a cat. This didn't jibe with the five hundred pounds of meat he toted. And, like a cat, one of his principal amusements was to have his back scratched. If you didn't pay attention to him, when he squealed so pretty for you to please curry him with a board, he'd hump up his back, like a cat, and rub against your legs. You instantly landed on your scalp-lock and waved the aforesaid legs in the air. Of course, when the other fellers saw this comin', they didn't feel it restin' on their conscience to call your attention to it--in fact, we sometimes busied one another talkin' to give Foxey a fair field. So Foxey had things his own way around the diggin's for some time. [Illustration: "He'd hump up his back . . . and rub against your legs"] Then comes bow-legged Hastings, our boss, with a ram tied hard and fast in the bottom of the waggon. He explains to us that the ram is valuable, but that he's butted merry Halifax out of everything down to home, and he don't want to shut him up, so will we please take care of him? And we said No--Wanitchee heap--we guessed not--never. Then Hastin
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