If you ever saw the spot when there was
just moon enough to bring out the little surrounding clumps of
chapparal until they looked like crouching figures, and make the
bits of broken quartz glisten like skulls, you'd begin to
understand how big a contract that man and that yellow dog
undertook.
"They went into possession that afternoon, and old Hard Times set
out to cook his supper. When it was over he sat down by the embers
and lit his pipe, the yellow dog lying at his feet. Suddenly 'Rap!
rap!' comes from the door. 'Come in,' says the man, gruffly.
'Rap!' again. 'Come in and be d--d to you,' says the man, who has
no idea of getting up to open the door. But no one responded, and
the next moment smash goes the only sound pane in the only window.
Seeing this, old Hard Times gets up, with the devil in his eye, and
a revolver in his hand, followed by the yellow dog, with every
tooth showing, and swings open the door. No one there! But as the
man opened the door, that yellow dog, that had been so chipper
before, suddenly begins to crouch and step backward, step by step,
trembling and shivering, and at last crouches down in the chimney,
without even so much as looking at his master.
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