> the present writing attached himself impartially and equally to everyone

in camp, no one ventured to exclusively claim him; while, after the

perpetration of any canine atrocity, everybody repudiated him with

indecent haste.



"Well, I can swear he hasn't been near our shanty for weeks," or the

retort, "He was last seen comin' out of YOUR cabin," expressed

the eagerness with which Rattlers Ridge washed its hands of any

responsibility. Yet he was by no means a common dog, nor even an

unhandsome dog; and it was a singular fact that his severest critics

vied with each other in narrating instances of his sagacity, insight,

and agility which they themselves had witnessed.



He had been seen crossing the "flume" that spanned Grizzly Canyon at a

height of nine hundred feet, on a plank six inches wide. He had tumbled

down the "shoot" to the South Fork, a thousand feet below, and was found

sitting on the riverbank "without a scratch, 'cept that he was lazily

givin' himself with his off hind paw." He had been forgotten in a

snowdrift on a Sierran shelf, and had come home in the early spring with

the conceited complacency of an Alpine traveler and a plumpness alleged

to have been the result of an exclusive diet of buried mail bags and

their contents. He was generally believed to read the advance election

posters, and disappear a day or two before the candidates and the brass

band--which he hated--came to the Ridge. He was suspected of having

overlooked Colonel Johnson's hand at poker, and of having conveyed to

the Colonel's adversary, by a succession of barks, the danger of betting

against four kings.



While these statements were supplied by wholly unsupported witnesses, it

was a very human weakness of Rattlers Ridge that the responsibility of

corroboration was passed to the dog himself, and HE was looked upon as a

consummate liar.



"Snoopin' round yere, and CALLIN' yourself a poker sharp, are ye! Scoot,

you yaller pizin!" was a common adjuration whenever the unfortunate

animal intruded upon a card party. "Ef thar was a spark, an ATOM of

truth in THAT DOG, I'd believe my own eyes that I saw him sittin' up and

trying to magnetize a jay bird off a tree. But wot are ye goin' to do

with a yaller equivocator like that?"



I have said that he was yellow--or, to use the ordinary expression,

"yaller." Indeed, I am inclined to believe that much of the ignominy

attached to the epithet lay in this favorite pronunciation. Men who

habitually spoke of a "YELLOW bird," a "YELLOW-hammer," a "YELLOW leaf,"

always alluded to him as a "YALLER dog."



He certainly WAS yellow. After a bath--usually compulsory--he presented

a decided gamboge streak down his back, from the top of his forehead to

the stump of his tail, fading in his sides and flank to a delicate straw

color. His breast, legs, and feet--when not reddened by "slumgullion,"

in which he was fond of wading--were white. A few attempts at ornamental

decoration from the India-ink pot of the storekeeper failed, partly

through the yellow dog's excessive agility, which would never give the

paint time to dry on him, and partly through his success in transferring

his markings to the trousers and blankets of the camp.



The size and shape of his tail--which had been cut off before his

introduction to Rattlers Ridge--were favorite sources of speculation to

the miners, as determining both his breed and his moral responsibility

in coming into camp in that defective condition. There was a general

opinion that he couldn't have looked worse with a tail, and its removal

was therefore a gratuitous effrontery.



His best feature was his eyes, which were a lustrous Vandyke brown, and

sparkling with intelligence; but here again he suffered from evolution

through environment, and their original trustful openness was marred by

the experience of watching for flying stones, sods, and passing kicks

from the rear, so that the pupils were continually reverting to the

outer angle of the eyelid.



Nevertheless, none of these characteristics decided the vexed question

of his BREED. His speed and scent pointed to a "hound," and it is

related that on one occasion he was laid on the trail of a wildcat with

such success that he followed it apparently out of the State, returning

at the end of two weeks footsore, but blandly contented.



Attaching himself to a prospecting party, he was sent under the same

belief, "into the brush" to drive off a bear, who was supposed to be

haunting the campfire. He returned in a few minutes WITH the bear,

DRIVING IT INTO the unarmed circle and scattering the whole party. After

this the theory of his being a hunting dog was abandoned. Yet it was

said--on the usual uncorroborated evidence--that he had "put up" a

quail; and his qualities as a retriever were for a long time accepted,

until, during a shooting expedition for wild ducks, it was discovered

that the one he had brought back had never been shot, and the party were

obliged to compound damages with an adjacent settler.



His fondness for paddling in the ditches and "slumgullion" at one time

suggested a water spaniel. He could swim, and would occasionally bring

out of the river sticks and pieces of bark that had been thrown in; but

as HE always had to be thrown in with them, and was a good-sized dog,

his aquatic reputation faded also. He remained simply "a yaller dog."

What more could be said? His actual name was "Bones"--given to him, no

doubt, through the provincial custom of confounding the occupation of

the individual with his quality, for which it was pointed out precedent

could be found in some old English family names.



But if Bones generally exhibited no preference for any particular

individual in camp, he always made an exception in favor of drunkards.

Even an ordinary roistering bacchanalian party brought him out from

under a tree or a shed in the keenest satisfaction. He would accompany

them through the long straggling street of the settlement, barking his

delight at every step or misstep of the revelers, and exhibiting none of

that mistrust of eye which marked his attendance upon the sane and the

respectable. He accepted even their uncouth play without a snarl or a

yelp, hypocritically pretending even to like it; and I conscientiously

believe would have allowed a tin can to be attached to his tail if the

hand that tied it on were only unsteady, and the voice that bade him

"lie still" were husky with liquor. He would "see" the party cheerfully

into a saloon, wait outside the door--his tongue fairly lolling from his

mouth in enjoyment--until they reappeared, permit them even to tumble

over him with pleasure, and then gambol away before them, heedless of

awkwardly projected stones and epithets. He would afterward accompany

them separately home, or lie with them at crossroads until they were

assisted to their cabins. Then he would trot rakishly to his own haunt

by the saloon stove, with the slightly conscious air of having been a

bad dog, yet of having had a good time.



We never could satisfy ourselves whether his enjoyment arose from some

merely selfish conviction that he was more SECURE with the physically

and mentally incompetent, from some active sympathy with active

wickedness, or from a grim sense of his own mental superiority at such

moments. But the general belief leant toward his kindred sympathy as a

"yaller dog" with all that was disreputable. And this was supported by

another very singular canine manifestation--the "sincere flattery" of

simulation or imitation.



"Uncle Billy" Riley for a short time enjoyed the position of being

the camp drunkard, and at once became an object of Bones' greatest

solicitude. He not only accompanied him everywhere, curled at his feet

or head according to Uncle Billy's attitude at the moment, but, it was

noticed, began presently to undergo a singular alteration in his own

habits and appearance. From being an active, tireless scout and forager,

a bold and unovertakable marauder, he became lazy and apathetic;

allowed gophers to burrow under him without endeavoring to undermine the

settlement in his frantic endeavors to dig them out, permitted squirrels

to flash their tails at him a hundred yards away, forgot his usual

caches, and left his favorite bones unburied and bleaching in the sun.

His eyes grew dull, his coat lusterless, in proportion as his companion

became blear-eyed and ragged; in running, his usual arrowlike directness

began to deviate, and it was not unusual to meet the pair together,

zigzagging up the hill. Indeed, Uncle Billy's condition could be

predetermined by Bones' appearance at times when his temporary master

was invisible. "The old man must have an awful jag on today," was

casually remarked when an extra fluffiness and imbecility was noticeable

in the passing Bones. At first it was believed that he drank also, but

when careful investigation proved this hypothesis untenable, he was

freely called a "derned time-servin', yaller hypocrite." Not a few

advanced the opinion that if Bones did not actually lead Uncle Billy

astray, he at least "slavered him over and coddled him until the old man

got conceited in his wickedness." This undoubtedly led to a compulsory

divorce between them, and Uncle Billy was happily dispatched to a

neighboring town and a doctor.



Bones seemed to miss him greatly, ran away for two days, and was

supposed to have visited him, to have been shocked at his convalescence,

and to have been "cut" by Uncle Billy in his reformed character; and

he returned to his old active life again, and buried his past with his

forgotten bones. It was said that he was afterward detected in trying

to lead an intoxicated tramp into camp after the methods employed by

a blind man's dog, but was discovered in time by the--of

course--uncorroborated narrator.



I should be tempted to leave him thus in his original and picturesque

sin, but the same veracity which compelled me to transcribe his

faults and iniquities obliges me to describe his ultimate and somewhat

monotonous reformation, which came from no fault of his own.



It was a joyous day at Rattlers Ridge that was equally the advent of

his change of heart and the first stagecoach that had been induced to

diverge from the highroad and stop regularly at our settlement. Flags

were flying from the post office and Polka saloon, and Bones was flying

before the brass band that he detested, when the sweetest girl in the

county--Pinkey Preston--daughter of the county judge and hopelessly

beloved by all Rattlers Ridge, stepped from the coach which she had

glorified by occupying as an invited guest.



"What makes him run away?" she asked quickly, opening her lovely eyes in

a possibly innocent wonder that anything could be found to run away from

her.



"He don't like the brass band," we explained eagerly.



"How funny," murmured the girl; "is it as out of tune as all that?"



This irresistible witticism alone would have been enough to satisfy

us--we did nothing but repeat it to each other all the next day--but we

were positively transported when we saw her suddenly gather her dainty

skirts in one hand and trip off through the red dust toward Bones, who,

with his eyes over his yellow shoulder, had halted in the road,

and half-turned in mingled disgust and rage at the spectacle of the

descending trombone. We held our breath as she approached him. Would

Bones evade her as he did us at such moments, or would he save our

reputation, and consent, for the moment, to accept her as a new kind of

inebriate? She came nearer; he saw her; he began to slowly quiver with

excitement--his stump of a tail vibrating with such rapidity that

the loss of the missing portion was scarcely noticeable. Suddenly she

stopped before him, took his yellow head between her little hands,

lifted it, and looked down in his handsome brown eyes with her two

lovely blue ones. What passed between them in that magnetic glance no

one ever knew. She returned with him; said to him casually: "We're not

afraid of brass bands, are we?" to which he apparently acquiesced, at

least stifling his disgust of them while he was near her--which was

nearly all the time.



During the speechmaking her gloved hand and his yellow head were always

near together, and at the crowning ceremony--her public checking of Yuba

Bill's "waybill" on behalf of the township, with a gold pencil presented

to her by the Stage Company--Bones' joy, far from knowing no bounds,

seemed to know nothing but them, and he witnessed it apparently in the

air. No one dared to interfere. For the first time a local pride in

Bones sprang up in our hearts--and we lied to each other in his praises

openly and shamelessly.



Then the time came for parting. We were standing by the door of the

coach, hats in hand, as Miss Pinkey was about to step into it; Bones

was waiting by her side, confidently looking into the interior, and

apparently selecting his own seat on the lap of Judge Preston in the

corner, when Miss Pinkey held up the sweetest of admonitory fingers.

Then, taking his head between her two hands, she again looked into

his brimming eyes, and said, simply, "GOOD dog," with the gentlest of

emphasis on the adjective, and popped into the coach.



The six bay horses started as one, the gorgeous green and gold vehicle

bounded forward, the red dust rose behind, and the yellow dog danced

in and out of it to the very outskirts of the settlement. And then he

soberly returned.



A day or two later he was missed--but the fact was afterward known that

he was at Spring Valley, the county town where Miss Preston lived, and

he was forgiven. A week afterward he was missed again, but this time for

a longer period, and then a pathetic letter arrived from Sacramento for

the storekeeper's wife.



"Would you mind," wrote Miss Pinkey Preston, "asking some of your boys

to come over here to Sacramento and bring back Bones? I don't mind

having the dear dog walk out with me at Spring Valley, where everyone

knows me; but here he DOES make one so noticeable, on account of HIS

COLOR. I've got scarcely a frock that he agrees with. He don't go with

my pink muslin, and that lovely buff tint he makes three shades lighter.

You know yellow is SO trying."



A consultation was quickly held by the whole settlement, and a

deputation sent to Sacramento to relieve the unfortunate girl. We

were all quite indignant with Bones--but, oddly enough, I think it was

greatly tempered with our new pride in him. While he was with us alone,

his peculiarities had been scarcely appreciated, but the recurrent

phrase "that yellow dog that they keep at the Rattlers" gave us a

mysterious importance along the countryside, as if we had secured a

"mascot" in some zoological curiosity.



This was further indicated by a singular occurrence. A new church had

been built at the crossroads, and an eminent divine had come from San

Francisco to preach the opening sermon. After a careful examination of

the camp's wardrobe, and some felicitous exchange of apparel, a few of

us were deputed to represent "Rattlers" at the Sunday service. In our

white ducks, straw hats, and flannel blouses, we were sufficiently

picturesque and distinctive as "honest miners" to be shown off in one of

the front pews.



Seated near the prettiest girls, who offered us their hymn books--in the

cleanly odor of fresh pine shavings, and ironed muslin, and blown over

by the spices of our own woods through the open windows, a deep sense

of the abiding peace of Christian communion settled upon us. At this

supreme moment someone murmured in an awe-stricken whisper:



"WILL you look at Bones?"



We looked. Bones had entered the church and gone up in the gallery

through a pardonable ignorance and modesty; but, perceiving his mistake,

was now calmly walking along the gallery rail before the astounded

worshipers. Reaching the end, he paused for a moment, and carelessly

looked down. It was about fifteen feet to the floor below--the simplest

jump in the world for the mountain-bred Bones. Daintily, gingerly,

lazily, and yet with a conceited airiness of manner, as if, humanly

speaking, he had one leg in his pocket and were doing it on three, he

cleared the distance, dropping just in front of the chancel, without a

sound, turned himself around three times, and then lay comfortably down.



Three deacons were instantly in the aisle, coming up before the eminent

divine, who, we fancied, wore a restrained smile. We heard the hurried

whispers: "Belongs to them." "Quite a local institution here, you know."

"Don't like to offend sensibilities;" and the minister's prompt "By no

means," as he went on with his service.



A short month ago we would have repudiated Bones; today we sat there

in slightly supercilious attitudes, as if to indicate that any affront

offered to Bones would be an insult to ourselves, and followed by our

instantaneous withdrawal in a body.



All went well, however, until the minister, lifting the large Bible

from the communion table and holding it in both hands before him, walked

toward a reading stand by the altar rails. Bones uttered a distinct

growl. The minister stopped.



We, and we alone, comprehended in a flash the whole situation. The Bible

was nearly the size and shape of one of those soft clods of sod which we

were in the playful habit of launching at Bones when he lay half-asleep

in the sun, in order to see him cleverly evade it.



We held our breath. What was to be done? But the opportunity belonged

to our leader, Jeff Briggs--a confoundedly good-looking fellow, with the

golden mustache of a northern viking and the curls of an Apollo. Secure

in his beauty and bland in his self-conceit, he rose from the pew, and

stepped before the chancel rails.



"I would wait a moment, if I were you, sir," he said, respectfully, "and

you will see that he will go out quietly."



"What is wrong?" whispered the minister in some concern.



"He thinks you are going to heave that book at him, sir, without giving

him a fair show, as we do."



The minister looked perplexed, but remained motionless, with the book in

his hands. Bones arose, walked halfway down the aisle, and vanished like

a yellow flash!



With this justification of his reputation, Bones disappeared for a week.

At the end of that time we received a polite note from Judge Preston,

saying that the dog had become quite domiciled in their house, and

begged that the camp, without yielding up their valuable PROPERTY in

him, would allow him to remain at Spring Valley for an indefinite time;

that both the judge and his daughter--with whom Bones was already an old

friend--would be glad if the members of the camp would visit their old

favorite whenever they desired, to assure themselves that he was well

cared for.



I am afraid that the bait thus ingenuously thrown out had a good deal to

do with our ultimate yielding. However, the reports of those who visited

Bones were wonderful and marvelous. He was residing there in state,

lying on rugs in the drawing-room, coiled up under the judicial desk in

the judge's study, sleeping regularly on the mat outside Miss Pinkey's

bedroom door, or lazily snapping at flies on the judge's lawn.



"He's as yaller as ever," said one of our informants, "but it don't

somehow seem to be the same back that we used to break clods over in the

old time, just to see him scoot out of the dust."



And now I must record a fact which I am aware all lovers of dogs will

indignantly deny, and which will be furiously bayed at by every faithful

hound since the days of Ulysses. Bones not only FORGOT, but absolutely

CUT US! Those who called upon the judge in "store clothes" he would

perhaps casually notice, but he would sniff at them as if detecting and

resenting them under their superficial exterior. The rest he simply paid

no attention to. The more familiar term of "Bonesy"--formerly applied

to him, as in our rare moments of endearment--produced no response.

This pained, I think, some of the more youthful of us; but, through some

strange human weakness, it also increased the camp's respect for him.

Nevertheless, we spoke of him familiarly to strangers at the very moment

he ignored us. I am afraid that we also took some pains to point

out that he was getting fat and unwieldy, and losing his elasticity,

implying covertly that his choice was a mistake and his life a failure.



A year after, he died, in the odor of sanctity and respectability, being

found one morning coiled up and stiff on the mat outside Miss Pinkey's

door. When the news was conveyed to us, we asked permission, the camp

being in a prosperous condition, to erect a stone over his grave. But

when it came to the inscription we could only think of the two words

murmured to him by Miss Pinkey, which we always believe effected his

conversion:



"GOOD Dog!"