"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