chin--and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and
slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a
frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says:

"Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his forepaws
just even with Dan'l's, and I'll give the word." Then he says,
"One--two--three--_git_!" and him and the feller touched up the frogs
from behind, and the new frog hopped off lively, but Dan'l give a
heave, and hysted up his shoulders--so--like a Frenchman, but it
warn't no use--he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as a church,
and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a
good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no
idea what the matter was, of course.

The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out
at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder--so--at
Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, "Well," he says, "_I_ don't
see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long
time, and at last says, "I do wonder what in the nation that frog
throwed off for--I wonder if there ain't something the matter with
him--he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow." And he ketched Dan'l up
by the nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, "Why blame my cats
if he don't weigh five pounds!" and turned him upside down and he
belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and
he was the maddest man--he set the frog down and took out after that
feller, but he never ketched him. And----

(Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got