"Wagon tracks?" cried Rick and Tom together.
"Yes," went on Chot, "but I can"t make out whether the junk wagon has been along here or not. There"s too many other tracks, and marks of auto tires, besides."
"Do you really think you can tell if the junk wagon has been along here?" asked Rick.
"Well, I thought maybe I could," answered Chot. "You see I belong to the Boy Scouts," he went on, "and we"re learning how to tell marks on the ground. Course animal marks, like the paws of a dog, are easier to tell than wagon tracks. But if there was smooth ground here, instead of a lot of dust that other wagons and autos had run over, maybe I could tell if the junk wagon had been along. I could for sure if I knew what kind of marks the tires made."
"But as long as you don"t know you can"t tell very much," spoke Tom.
"But I know that Boy Scout business is good. I"m going to join a troop, I guess."
"But which way shall we go to catch up to that junk wagon and get Ruddy back?" asked Rick. He, too, was interested in Boy Scouts, but not at a time like this. He wanted his dog.
"This is the way the junk man would go after coming from Belemere,"
announced Chot, pointing down the road. "If he went that way," and he pointed in the opposite direction, "he"d be going back where he came from."
"Then let"s chase along!" cried Rick. "I want my dog!"
"That"s it!" exclaimed Tom. "We got to catch that junk man!"
"And the sailor," added Rick, "he"s the one that"s got my dog, I"m sure.
The junk man is only giving him a ride so he can get away quicker."
"And is this the sailor that had your dog before he come up out of the ocean and the coast guard found him?" asked Chot.
"I guess so," was Rick"s answer as the three boys walked along. "But, anyhow, even if that sailor did have the dog, maybe he hasn"t any right to him now. Ruddy came to me. Maybe he ran away from the sailor. And if a dog runs away from a man he doesn"t belong to him any more."
I do not say Rick was right in this belief, but his chums thought that he was, for they exclaimed:
"Sure! That"s it! He"s your dog!"
Along the road they hurried, for it was getting late and Rick"s mother had told him to come back home before dark. The highway turned around a clump of trees, where the brook ran close to the road. After that there was a straight stretch for some distance. Reaching this, and looking down it, Rick and his chums saw no junk wagon, and no sight of any dog.
"Maybe he didn"t come here at all!" murmured Rick, who was much disappointed.
"We"ll ask at the next house," suggested Chot. "If the junk wagon came along here the man would ask to buy old rags or bottles. We"ll ask, at the next house, if anybody saw him."
And there they received news which showed them that they were on the right track.
"Yep, a junk peddler was here," said the man who was watering his horse in the barnyard back of the house. "He wanted to buy stuff but I didn"t have anything to sell. Sold it all last week."
"Did you see a dog--a sort of reddish-brown dog?" asked Rick eagerly.
"No, I can"t say I did," answered the man, who ran a small truck farm.
"There was another fellow sitting out in the wagon. But I didn"t see any dog."
"Did you hear one?" asked Chot, for he was trying to remember what a Boy Scout would do, and to ask questions that would bring the kind of information needed.
"Did I _hear_ a dog--that"s so, I _did_ hear one!" exclaimed the farmer.
"Come to think of it I did hear a dog whining and whimpering in the junk wagon. I didn"t pay much attention then--though it was only half an hour ago--maybe a little more. But I did hear a dog!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Near the log cabin stood a junk wagon."]
"Then it was Ruddy--I"m sure it was!" exclaimed Rick. "Oh, fellows, come on! Maybe we"ll have him, soon, now!"
Hardly stopping to thank the man for his news, though Chot did remember to fling back, over his shoulder, a hasty "much obliged," the boys hurried on.
"We"re hot on the trail now!" exclaimed Chot, recalling some of the things his Boy Scout friends had said. "We"ll get him!"
It was getting dusk now, but the three chums hardly noticed this. Along the road they raced, looking for a sight of the junk wagon. And, as they came to a lonely stretch they saw, off to one side, in a field a small house--a log cabin it really was, and near it stood a ramshackle old vehicle--a junk wagon beyond a doubt.
"Fellows, we"ve found it!" cried Rick. He pointed toward the old log cabin. Yes, there was no doubt of it. There was the junk wagon, but there was no sign of horse, or men or Ruddy, the dog.
CHAPTER XV
RUDDY AND THE SAILOR
Just before it was time for his master, Rick, to come home from school that afternoon, Ruddy had been peacefully sleeping on the side porch, in a place where the sun shone down, making a warm spot. Ruddy liked to sleep in warm places. So did Sallie, the cat. Perhaps Sallie loved warm places even more than Ruddy did, for dogs can better stand the cold than can cats, even though they have warm fur.
And suddenly, when Ruddy was sleeping, and perhaps dreaming, for it is said that dogs do dream, all at once there sounded on the other side of the hedge that separated the Dalton yard from the street, a low whistle.
It was not the kind of a whistle with which Rick had been in the habit of calling his dog, nor was it the kind of a whistle that Haw-Haw, the crow, had learned to imitate.
But Ruddy heard the whistle, and instantly he was awake, sitting up with ears lifted to catch the slightest sound. Ruddy looked toward the hedge, for though he could not see very well he could hear better, and smell best of all. And he could hear well enough to know that the whistle came from the other side of the hedge.
Now if dogs think, and I am beginning to believe more and more that they do something very like thinking, Ruddy must have reasoned something like this:
"h.e.l.lo! Here"s Rick home from school ahead of time! He must have been a good boy and the teacher let him out early. Now for some fun!"
Ruddy knew about the time that Rick came home from school each day.
Ruddy could tell time a little. I mean, by this, that he knew at about what hour each day certain things would happen. He always knew it was meal time, though of course he could not look at the face of the clock and tell at what hour the hands pointed. I doubt if he could have told which were the clock hands and which were the black figures. But Ruddy knew when it was time for his meals, and he had come to know about the time Rick came home from school each day. And now, as he heard the whistle, the dog thought it was his master who had arrived ahead of the usual hour.
Ruddy was not much surprised at hearing the whistle. True Rick, of late, had given up uttering the shrill call from away down the street as he ran from school. It was this call that Haw-Haw had imitated and so often puzzled the dog. This which Ruddy had heard was a different whistle, such as Rick often used to call his dog back, when the two of them were racing over the fields, and the setter would run too far ahead.
"Now for some fun!" thought Ruddy, in the only way dogs can think.
"Rick"s home and we"ll have a grand race!"
Ruddy must have known it was not the crow whistling this time, though whether he recalled seeing Haw-Haw asleep in the warm corner behind the stove I cannot say.
Anyhow, up jumped Ruddy, and, with a joyous bark, he leaped over the hedge, at a low place, and found himself on the other side.
And then came a big disappointment. For Rick was not there at all.
Instead there was a ragged man, a man whose face needed shaving, a man whose scent Ruddy remembered only too well--a man whom the dog feared.
"O ho! You came when I whistled all right; didn"t you?" spoke the man in a low voice. "I thought you would! I thought I"d find you if I sneaked around long enough. Now I"ve got you back, maybe I"ll have some luck!"