n on his knees
in the little stream, washing his eyes, but he first heard
demoniacal barks proceed from Bonaparte, ending in wailful snorts,
howls and whines, beginning at the foot of the tree and echoing in a
fast vanishing wail toward home.

Jud got one eye in working order soon enough to see a cloud of sand
and dust rolling down the road, from the rear of which only the stub
of a tail could be seen, curled spasmodically downward toward the
earth.

Jud could scarcely believe his eyes--Bonaparte--the champion
dog--running--running like that?

"Whut--whut--whut,"--he stammered, "Whut _did he do_ to Bonaparte?"

Then he saw Archie B. up the road toward home, rolling in the sand
with shouts of laughter.

"If I git my hands on you," yelled Jud, shaking his fist at the boy,
"I'll swaller you alive."

"That's what the fly-ketcher said to the butterfly," shouted back
Archie B.

It was a half hour before Jud got all the fine eggshell out of his
eyes. After that he decided to let the Butts family alone for the
present. But as he rode away he was heard to say again:

"Whut--whut--whut _did he do_ to Bonaparte?"

Archie B. was still rolling on the ground, and chuckling now and then
in fits of laughter, when a determined, motherly looking, fat girl
appeared at the doorway of the family cottage. It was his sister,
Patsy Butts:

"Maw," she exclaimed, "I wish you'd look at Archie B. I bet he's done
sump'in."

There was a parental manner in her way. Her one object in life,
evidently, was to watch Archie B.

"You Archie B.," yelled his mother, a sallow little woman of quick
nervous movements, "air you havin' a revulsion down there? What air
you been doin' anyway? Now, you git up from there and go see why
Ozzie B. don't fetch the cows home."

Archie B. arose and went down the road whistling.

A ground squirrel ran into a pile of rocks. Archie B. turned the
rocks about until he found the nest, which he examined critically and
with care. He fingered it carefully and patted it back into shape.
"Nice little nes'," he said--"that settles it--I thought they lined
it with fur." Then he replaced the rocks and arose to go.

A quarter of a mile down the road he stopped and listened.

He heard his brother, Ozzie B., sobbing and weeping.

Ozzie B. was his twin brother--his "after clap"--as Archie B. called
him. He was timid, uncertain, pious and given to tears--"bo'hn on a
wet Friday"--as Archie B. had often said. He was alw