king out. It was one of them restful scenes our friends the poets
sing about. It did appear wicked to disturb it but----

"'Will you risk your dog?' I asked that man very softly and politely.

"'Certainly!' says he.

"Says I, 'His blood be on your shirtfront,' and I moved my leg.

"Well, sir, Billy landed on the grocery shelf. Wind-River grabbed his
gun and sat up paralysed. It really was a most surprising noise. I've
had hard luck in my life, but all the things that ever happened to me
would seem like a recess to that bulldog. Our domestic difficulties
was forgotten. 'United We Stand,' waved the motto of the lake-bed
cabin. Jerusalem! That dog was snake-bit, and
hawk-scratched-and-bit-and-clawed, and
bobcat-scratched-and-bit-and-clawed, till you could not see a cussed
thing in that cabin but blur. And of all the hissing and squawking and
screeching and yelling and snapping and roaring and growling you or any
other man ever heard, that was the darndest. I took a look at the
visitor. He'd got off his horse and was standing in the doorway with
his hands spread out. His face expressed nothing at all, very
forcible. Meanwhile, things were boilin' for fair; cook-stove,
frying-pans, stools, boxes, saddles, tin cans, bull-snakes, hawks,
bob-cats, and bulldogs simply floated in the air.

"'I wish you'd tell me what has busted loose, Red Saunders!' howls old
Wind-River in an injured tone of voice; 'and whether I shell shoot or
sha'n't I?'

"There come a second's lull. I see Judge Jenkins on the dog's back,
his talents sunk to the hock, whilst he had hold of an ear with his
bill, pullin' manfully. Tommy had swallered the dog's stumpy tail, and
Bob was dragging hair out of the enemy like an Injun dressing hides.

"A bulldog is like an Irishman; he's brave because he don't know any
better, and you can't get any braver than that, but there's a limit,
even to lunk-headedness. It bored through that dog's thick skull that
he had butted into a little bit the darndest hardest streak of
petrified luck that anything on legs could meet with.

"'By-by,' says he to himself. 'Out doors will do for me!' And here he
come! Neither the visitor nor me was expecting him. He blocked the
feet out from under us and sat his master on top. We got up in time to
see a winged bulldog, with a tail ten foot long, bounding merrily over
the turf, searching his soul for sounds to tell how scart he was,
whilst a desperate bob-cat, s