“Then I grabbed that farmer and began to recite facts about his career, while the boys spit on their hands and took hold of shovels. It looked like uncle farmer would lead an upright life for some time, but he begged and hollered and pled, so the fellows loosed him from the position where we could best apply shovels, and he explained that he didn’t go for to do all this when he started, and we let him up. “He rose to his feet and apologized to us, singly and collectively, and then he says, ‘Now I’ll just get little Pettie and ride right along home,’ and he began to holler, ‘Pettie! Pettie! Pettie!’ and all that come was old Hank, who looked him straight in the face. [Illustration: “Little Pettie has departed,” I said. Page 211] “‘Well, what has become of the durn little coyote?’ says everybody, and then it just occurred to me that I knew, so I went back to where I had seen little Pettie grab old Hank by the nose, and, sure enough, there was a lovely little black tail! “I brought it down to the rancher and I said, ‘Little Pettie has departed, but he, she or it leaves this for you as a souvenir.’ “The rancher says, ‘Gosh almighty!’ as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. I held up the tail, and I asked Hank: “‘Here, little Hanky-Panky, did it eat the rest of little Pettie?’ and Hank looked at the tail and slouched off, with a kind of long and non-complaining squeal. “‘Well,’ says the Boss, brisk, ‘if we find any more of little Pettie we’ll send it down to you, but I guess that’s all you can collect of him now.’ “‘Well, darnation!’ said the farmer, and he brushed off the dust and dirt of his hands on his trousers’ leg. ‘Well, say,’ says he, ‘I don’t know whether to weep or to yell Hosanna! As for me, personally,’ he said, ‘that cussed little dog has nigh chewed my fingers off,’ and he showed us all kinds of bites on his fingers; ‘but,’ he says, ‘on the other hand, it’s my wife’s pet, and every time one of the children lets itself get bit by it, why, their mother raises sin with them for tormentin’ it. If I had a good lie ready I wouldn’t weep one bit. But the circumstances and hullabaloos and waterfalls and geysers I have seen in the last twenty minutes have left my mind running in streaks.’ “We all looked at one another. We couldn’t think of anything, so we shook our heads. “‘Well,’ said he, ‘perhaps by the time I get home I will be able to explain how little Pettie separated himself from this,’ and he twirled the last remains. ‘Perhaps I can,’ he said. ‘I don’t bear you boys the slightest grudge no more. I can’t. I set this dog on your pig a-purpose, and I can’t pretend to be at all sorry that your pig et him up.’ He shook his head again, and fixed his hat on. “‘Well,’ says he, ‘matrimony is the mother of invention. I reckon I’ll get out of it somehow. Good-by, boys!’ And he took one more look at Pettie’s tail and put it in his pocket. ‘If anything happens to me you will know who it is by that,’ said he.