The story is told in first-person by an unnamed narrator who reveals little about himself besides that he is a wandering stranger stranded in a small Mexican border village.
The narrator is fascinated by Joseph Calloway, a famous con man believed to be extremely wealthy, who is in the Mexican village on the run from the law.
In the end, Calloway is killed by the detectives' car, apparently while trying to save the dog's life, and the truth about the human experience isn't revealed.
The reader is left to evaluate the meaning of this statement and weigh both the story's tragic and comic elements.
The story builds its tension on dramatic irony, with the narrator knowing more about the story than both Calloway and the detectives and the Mexican natives knowing more than the narrator, who says, "Any man doing dusty business in any of the wooden booths in the town is better fitted by long observation to tell Mr Calloway's tale than I am."