But one morning he come in, and Smiley asked him how was his wife, and he said she was better, thank God. And Smiley, before he thought, says, “Well, I'll risk my money she will not get well.'"

And Smiley had a little small dog. To look at the dog, you would think he was not worth anything but to sit around and look mean and look for a chance to steal something. But as soon as there was money, he was a different dog. Another dog might attack and throw him around two or three times. Then all of a sudden Smiley’s dog would grab that other dog by his back leg and hang on till the men said it was over.

Smiley always come out the winner on that dog, at least until he found a dog once that did not have any back legs. The dog’s legs had been cut off in a machine. Well, the fighting continued long enough, and the money was gone. Then when Smiley’s dog come to make a grab the other dog’s back legs, he saw in a minute how there was a problem.

The other dog was going to win and Smiley’s dog looked surprised and did not try to win the fight anymore. He gave Smiley a look that said he was sorry for fighting a dog that did not have any back legs for him to hold, which he needed to win a fight. Then Smiley’s dog walked away, laid down and died. He was a good dog, and would have made a name for himself if he had lived, for he had intelligence. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of his and the way it turned out.

Well, this Smiley had rats, and chickens, and cats and all of them kind of things. You could not get anything for him to risk money on but he would match you. He caught a frog one day, and took him home, and said he was going to educate the frog. And so he never done nothing for three months but sit in his back yard and teach that frog to jump. And you bet you he did teach him, too.

He would give him a little hit from behind. And the next minute you would see that frog dancing in the air and then come down all on his feet and all right, like a cat. Smiley got him so the frog was catching flies, and he would catch one of those insects every time.

Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do almost anything. And I believe him. Why, I have seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor--Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog -- and sing out, "Flies, Dan'l, flies!" And quicker than you could shut your eyes that frog would jump straight up and catch a fly off the table. Then he would fall down on the floor again like a ball of dirt and start rubbing the side of his head with his back foot as if he had no idea he had been doing any more than any frog might do.

You never seen a frog so honest and simple as he was, for all he was so skilled. And when it come to jumping, he could get over more ground in one jump than any animal of his kind that you ever saw.

Smiley was very proud of his frog, and people who had traveled and been everywhere all said he was better than any frog they had ever seen.

Well, one day a stranger came in and says to Smiley, "What might be that you have got in the box?"

And Smiley says, "It’s only just a frog." And the man took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, "H'm, so it is. Well, what is he good for?"

"Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, “he can out jump any frog in Calaveras county."

The man took the box again, and took another long look, and gave it back to Smiley, and says, "Well, I don't see anything about that frog that is any better than any other frog."

"Maybe you don't," Smiley says. "Maybe you understand frogs and maybe you don't. Anyways, I will risk forty dollars and bet you that he can jump farther than any frog in Calaveras County."

And the man studied a minute. "Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I do not have a frog. But if I had a frog, I would risk my money on it.

And then Smiley says, "That's all right. If you will hold my box a minute, I will go and get you a frog." And so the man took the box, and put up his forty dollars and sat down to wait.

He sat there a long time thinking and thinking. Then he got the frog out of the box. He filled its mouth full of bullets used to kill small birds. Then he put the frog on the floor.

Now Smiley had caught another frog and gave it to the man and said, “Now sit him next to Dan’l and I will give the word.”

Then Smiley says, “One-two-three-go!” and Smiley and the other man touched the frogs.

The new frog jumped. Dan’l just lifted up his body but could not move at all. He was planted like a building. Smiley was very surprised and angry too. But he did not know what the problem was.

The other man took the money and started away. And when he was going out the door, he looked back and said "Well, I don’t see anything about that frog that is any better than any other frog."

Smiley stood looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last says, "I wonder what in the nation happened to that frog. I wonder if there is something wrong with him.”

And he picked up Dan’l and turned him upside down and out came a whole lot of bullets. And Smiley was the angriest man. He set the frog down and took out after that man but he never caught him.

Now Simon Wheeler heard his name called and got up to see what was wanted. He told me to wait but I did not think that more stories about Jim Smiley would give me any more information about Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started to walk away.

At the door I met Mister Wheeler returning, and he started talking again. "Well, this here Smiley had a yellow cow with one eye and no tail…”

However, lacking both time and interest, I did not wait to hear about the cow. I just left.