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 he mumbled around it, as if he communed to himself.

"I guess every man knows why he left and where he's bound for. I know I left Mezoury one time 'cause I killed a feller's dog. Yes, sir, that dang man was goin' to shoot me."

"I never killed anybody's dog in my life," said Texas.

He was looking out into the street, but with that in his eyes eyes which told the old man his thoughts were far away from the scene before him. People were passing, afoot and on horse, and the dust of their coming and going was blowing lazily on the soft, autumn wind; but Texas could not have told whether they were men or cattle, and Uncle Boley would have bet a handful of tacks on that.

"A man don't have to kill a dog," the old man suggested.

"Sir?" said Texas, with that peculiar start, that unaccountable mounting of color, to his brown, tough face.

"I said a man might run off with some other feller's wife," said Uncle Boley, very sarcastically, speaking loudly, as if to a deaf person.

"He might," Texas allowed, his all-transforming smile moving the corners of his eyes again, "but I assure you, sir, I never did."

Uncle Boley looked at him comically a moment,