walked in, looked first at me, then at Dave, and walked out
again; and the door closed behind it.

Dave scratched his ear. 'That's rum,' he said. 'I could have sworn I
fastened that door. They must have left the cat behind.'

'It looks like it,' I said. 'Neither of us has been on the boose
lately.'

He got out of bed and up on his long hairy spindle-shanks.

The door had the ordinary, common black oblong lock with a brass knob.
Dave tried the latch and found it fast; he turned the knob, opened the
door, and called, 'Puss--puss--puss!' but the cat wouldn't come. He shut
the door, tried the knob to see that the catch had caught, and got into
bed again.

He'd scarcely settled down when the door opened slowly, the black cat
walked in, stared hard at Dave, and suddenly turned and darted out as
the door closed smartly.

I looked at Dave and he looked at me--hard; then he scratched the back
of his head. I never saw a man look so puzzled in the face and scared
about the head.

He got out of bed very cautiously, took a stick of firewood in his hand,
sneaked up to the door, and snatched it open. There was no one there.
Dave took the candle and went into the next room, but couldn't see the
cat. He came back and sat down by the fire and meowed, and presently
the cat answered him and came in from somewhere--she'd been outside
the window, I suppose; he kept on meowing and she sidled up and rubbed
against his hairy shin. Dave could generally bring a cat that way.
He had a weakness for cats. I'd seen him kick a dog, and hammer a
horse--brutally, I thought--but I never saw him hurt a cat or let any
one else do it. Dave was good to cats: if a cat had a family where Dave
was round, he'd see her all right and comfortable, and only drown a fair
surplus. He said once to me, 'I can understand a man kicking a dog, or
hammering a horse when it plays up, but I can't understand a man hurting
a cat.'

He gave this cat something to eat. Then he went and held the light close
to the lock of the door, but could see nothing wrong with it. He found a
key on the mantel-shelf and locked the door. He got into bed again, and
the cat jumped up and curled down at the foot and started her old drum
going, like shot in a sieve. Dave bent down and patted her, to tell her
he'd meant no harm when he stretched out his legs, and then he settled
down again.

We had some books of the 'Deadwood Dick' school. Dave was reading 'The
Grisly Ghost of the Haunted