And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you’d think he warn’t worth a cent, but to set
around and look onery, and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was up on him he
was a different dog—his under-jaw’d begin to stick out like the for’castle of a steamboat, and his teeth
would uncover, and shine savage like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bullyrag him, and
bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson—which was the name
of the pup—Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he was satisfied, and hadn’t expected nothing
else—and the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all
up—and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog just by the joint of his hind legs and freeze to
it—not chaw, you understand, but only just grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a
year. Smily always came out winner on that pup till he harnessed a dog once that didn’t have no hind
legs, because they’d been sawed off in a circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and
the money was all up, and he came to make a snatch for his pet holt, he saw in a minute how he’d been
imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he ’peared surprised, and then
he looked sorter discouraged like, and didn’t try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad.
He gave Smily a look as much as to say his heart was broke, and it was his fault, for putting up a dog that
hadn’t no hind legs for him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped
off a piece, and laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made
a name for hisself if he’d lived, for the stuff was in him, and he had genius—I know it, because he hadn’t
no opportunities to speak of, and it don’t stand to reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could
under them circumstances, if he hadn’t no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last
fight of his’n, and the way it turned out.