Page:The Country Boy.djvu/82

74 turn a back somersault just for the asking. What is more, he understood any plain language, the kind we used in Silverton.

When I was an engine wiper he was the watchdog of all the company’s property. Thus, when Receiver Scott, of the O. R. Co., doubted the dog’s ability to watch the engine all night as he slept on the cab seat—where I ought to have been, but was accustomed to stay away from my post and sleep in my bed—Duff attacked the inquisitive receiver who had sneaked up in the dark, and treed him on an old-fashioned pump in the yard of a nearby hotel.

A lady once, when I was boasting of Duff’s wonderful intelligence, said:

“Do you mean to tell me that I can’t hide your knife where he can’t find it?”

“Yes,” I said; “it would be impossible.”

I told Duff to go in the next room till we hid the knife. She put it up on the top shelf of the sideboard, behind the only real cut glass there was in Silverton.

Duff came in and began to sniff with his head up. Before either of us had time to stop him he mounted the sideboard, knocking down