After a bath--usually compulsory--he presented a decided gamboge streak down his back, from the top of his forehead to the stump of his tail, fading in his sides and flank to a delicate straw color.

His breast, legs, and feet--when not reddened by "slumgullion," in which he was fond of wading--were white.

A few attempts at ornamental decoration from the India-ink pot of the storekeeper failed, partly through the yellow dog's excessive agility, which would never give the paint time to dry on him, and partly through his success in transferring his markings to the trousers and blankets of the camp.
The size and shape of his tail--which had been cut off before his introduction to Rattlers Ridge--were favorite sources of speculation to the miners, as determining both his breed and his moral responsibility in coming into camp in that defective condition.

There was a general opinion that he couldn't have looked worse with a tail, and its removal was therefore a gratuitous effrontery.
His best feature was his eyes, which were a lustrous Vandyke brown, and sparkling with intelligence; but here again he suffered from evolution through environment, and their original trustful openness was marred by the experience of watching for flying stones, sods, and passing kicks from the rear, so that the pupils were continually reverting to the outer angle of the eyelid.
Nevertheless, none of these characteristics decided the vexed question of his BREED.

His speed and scent pointed to a "hound," and it is related that on one occasion he was laid on the trail of a wildcat with such success that he followed it apparently out of the State, returning at the end of two weeks footsore, but blandly contented.
Attaching himself to a prospecting party, he was sent under the same belief, "into the brush" to drive off a bear, who was supposed to be haunting the campfire.