“That's funny,” says Bill, “I could have swore you was boys I once knowed a long ways off from here that time I was on my travels.” BLOOD WILL TELL (As told by the dog) I am a middle-sized dog, with spots on me here and there, and several different colours of hair mixed in even where there aren't any spots, and my ears are frazzled a little on the ends where they have been chewed in fights. At first glance you might not pick me for an aristocrat. But I am one. I was considerably surprised when I discovered it, as nothing in my inmost feelings up to that time, nor in the treatment which I had received from dogs, humans or boys, had led me to suspect it. I can well remember the afternoon on which the discovery was made. A lot of us dogs were lying in the grass, up by the swimming hole, just lazying around, and the boys were doing the same. All the boys were naked and comfortable, and no humans were about, the only thing near being a cow or two and some horses, and although large they are scarcely more human than boys. Everybody had got tired of swimming, and it was too hot to drown out gophers or fight bumblebees, and the boys were smoking grapevine cigarettes and talking. Us dogs was listening to the boys talk. A Stray Boy, which I mean one not claimed or looked out for or owned by any dog, says to Freckles Watson, who is my boy: “What breed would you call that dog of yours, Freck?” I pricked up my ears at that. I cannot say that I had ever set great store by breeds up to the time that I found out I was an aristocrat myself, believing, as Bill Patterson, a human and the town drunkard, used to say when intoxicated, that often an honest heart beats beneath the outcast's ragged coat. “Spot ain't any _one_ particular breed,” says Freckles. “He's considerably mixed.” “He's a mongrel,” says Squint Thompson, who is Jack Thompson's boy. “He ain't,” says Freckles, so huffy that I saw a mongrel must be some sort of a disgrace. “You're a link, link liar, and so's your Aunt Mariar,” says Freckles. I thought there might be a fight then, but it was too hot for any enjoyment in a fight, I guess, for Squint let it pass, only saying, “I ain't got any Aunt Mariar, and you're another.” “A dog,” chips in the Stray Boy, “has either got to be a thoroughbred or a mongrel. He's either an aristocrat or else he's a common dog.” “Spot ain't any common dog,” says Freckles, sticking up for me. “He can lick any dog in town within five pounds of his weight.” “He's got some spaniel in him,” says the Stray Boy. “His nose is pointed like a hound's nose,” says Squint Thompson. “Well,” says Freckles, “neither one of them kind of dogs is a common dog.” “Spot has got some bulldog blood in him, too,” says Tom Mulligan, an Irish boy owned by a dog by the name of Mutt Mulligan. “Did you ever notice how Spot will hang on so you can't pry him loose, when he gets into a fight?” “That proves he is an aristocratic kind of dog,” says Freckles.