So you and I and the dog know how he got there, but Bill Jordan, the
punchers, and the boys didn't, and presently they gave up trying to
figure it out.

"'Tain't likely his owner'll show up, so he's ours," said Bill Jordan.

"He's Whitey's," Buck Higgins maintained. "He saw him first."

This law was older than any ranch house, or any cowpuncher, so it held
good, and Whitey became the proud owner of the dog. The matter of his
name came next in importance. Of course he had one, and he was awakened,
and asked to respond to as many dog names as the party could think of.
These were many, running from Towser to Nero, but they brought no
response from the sleepy animal.

"Must be somep'n unusual," Buck Higgins decided, and he ventured on
"Alphonse" and "Julius Cæsar," but they didn't fit.

"Well, we jest nachally got t' give him a name," said Shorty Palmer.

Again the list was gone over, but nothing seemed quite right. "Oughta be
somep'n' 'propriate," said Bill Jordan. "How 'bout Moses? He was lost in
th' wilderness."

"Wilderness nothin'!" objected Buck. "In the bullrushes. Them ain't
prairie grass."

"Besides," said Whitey, "he ought to have a fighting name. Napoleon!"