After a while Sailor Jed got up and started for the door.
"Where you going?" demanded Matt.
"Out for a breath of fresh air," was the answer. "Too hot in here."
"Take the dog a bone," requested Matt. "I guess he"s hungry. He can have the one I left on my plate," he added quickly, as he saw that Sam was going to object.
"Guess there isn"t much meat on any bone _you_ picked!" was the remark of Jed. "But I"ll give it to him."
He carried the bone out to Ruddy, who cringed low when he dimly saw, and heard, and keenly smelled the man coming toward him.
"Poor fellow!" spoke the sailor in a low, kind voice. "You needn"t be afraid of _me_. I won"t hurt you. I love dogs, and I"m sorry Matt Stanton has you. He won"t exactly kick or beat you, but he won"t be kind to you. And you look as if you had come from a better home than he"ll ever give you."
Jed looked back toward the house where the light dimly glowed. Then he looked down at the cringing dog, tied by a heavy rope.
"I"ll do it!" suddenly whispered the sailor to himself. "I"ll do it!
"Tis a shame to let Matt keep you. I wonder, if I cut you loose, if you can find your way home? I"ll try it."
He whipped out his knife, and, with one sweep, cut through the rope, close to where it was tied around Ruddy"s neck. The dog felt that he was free. He could scarcely believe it.
Pausing only long enough to lick the hand of the sailor who had thus been so good to him, Ruddy, with a low whine of delight, sped away in the darkness of the night.
CHAPTER XIX
A BARK IN THE NIGHT
Ruddy, the brown setter dog, free from the rope which had held him to the cellar door of the old, tumble-down house, ran swiftly off through the night.
"I hope you know which way to go," softly said Sailor Jed, as he turned to go back to the kitchen where the others were. "Yes, I sure do hope you know how to steer a straight course back to your friends. I won"t tell Matt I cut you loose, then he won"t come after you until morning.
Maybe, by then, you"ll be safe at home."
And so, as Ruddy ran on through the darkness, the good sailor went back in the old, ramshackle house.
"Is the dog all right?" asked Matt.
"Yes, he"s all right," and Jed smiled, but not so Matt could see him. "I hope he"ll be more all right than he would be with you," he thought to himself.
And now we must follow Ruddy for a while, until we see what happens to him.
Ruddy"s nose was as keen on the scent as ever, in fact more so, for now he was eager to get back to Rick, the boy master whom he loved so well.
And, though it was dark, Ruddy had hopes of finding Rick.
As I have told you dogs can not see very well, and they can not hear as well as can some other animals. But their sense of smell is wonderful, and it was on this that the setter depended to take him back to home and Rick.
So, in a way, it did not matter much about the dark. It was better for him that it was dark, as the sailor who had taken him from Rick"s house would not see the brown dog running away.
"Ha! This is the path I came! This is where he dragged me with a rope around my neck after he took me out of the wagon," said Ruddy to himself, dog fashion, as he ran along in the darkness, his nose close to the ground. I don"t mean, of course, that Ruddy said that out loud, or that he even thought it, as you or I would think it. But he thought, and he knew, in his own dog way, that he was on the right track back toward the place where he had been taken out of the wagon.
By running with his nose close to the ground Ruddy could smell where his own paws had left a scent on the earth. He could also catch the scent of the junk man and the sailor who had walked along with him. And Ruddy"s nose was so keen that he could tell where the sailor had stepped and where the junk man had left his shoe marks on the roadside path. To Ruddy each person had a different scent, just as to us, even over a telephone when we can not see them, each of our friends has a different voice.
"Yes, this is where they led me along, after they took me out of the wagon," thought Ruddy, dog fashion. "I"ll soon get back to that place.
Then--well, after that, I"ll have to do the best I can."
Ruddy was doing what is called, by hunters, "back-tracking." That is he was following the scent back to the place where it had started from. In running after game birds, and animals, Ruddy, or any other dog used for that kind of sport, generally does just the opposite. That is they follow the scent along until they get to the place where the rabbit, squirrel or bird has _gone_, and not to the place where they have _come from_. Once in a while, though, a hunting dog will make a mistake and "back-track" when he ought to "front-track." A dog that does this is not of much value to a hunter, for the man with the gun wants to go where the game _is_, not where it _isn"t_.
So Ruddy, running through the night, with his nose to the ground, traced his way along the path where he had been led with the rope around his neck. As yet he had caught no scent of his master, for Rick and his friends had not come this far. They had not gone more than a hundred feet beyond the old cabin, after seeing there the junk man"s horse and wagon.
"I certainly want to find Rick," was the thought that kept coming again and again into Ruddy"s mind. "I want to find that Boy!"
Once or twice Ruddy got off the trail. He was a young setter, and they often make mistakes. And the errors Ruddy made were because other dogs and different animals had crossed his tracks since he had made them.
Twice he caught the scent of other dogs. Who they were he did not know, of course, being a stranger in the neighborhood. But they probably were animals living on the farms nearby; and they had crossed Ruddy"s trail, very likely catching a whiff of his scent as he did of theirs.
Once Ruddy caught the odor of a rabbit which had leaped across the road to get a drink of water from a spring that bubbled up under a rock. At any other time Ruddy would have followed this trail of the rabbit, barking joyously to call Rick to follow. That is Ruddy would have done this if his boy master had been with him.
But it was no time, now, to be chasing after rabbits.
And once the brown setter caught the scent of a squirrel that had leaped down out of a tree after a nut it had dropped. For a moment Ruddy stopped, and lifted his nose in the air. He had a notion he would like to trail that squirrel, and find where it had its nest in a hollow tree. True the nest would be high up, out of Ruddy"s reach, for the dog could not climb like a cat. But if Ruddy trailed the squirrel to its tree the dog could bark joyously at the foot, to show he had done his work well.
But it was no time, now, to be chasing after squirrels.
So Ruddy shook his head, sneezed a little as if to get the smell of the rabbit and squirrel out of his delicate nose and ran on. He was hungry, for there had not been much meat, even on the ten cent bone, but Ruddy forgot his hunger in his great desire to get back to Rick.
And he was weary, for he had not been kindly treated after the sailor had tied him in the junk wagon. But he forgot about being tied, also as he hurried on through the night.
Along the silent country road he went, up the hill, still keeping his nose close to the ground so as not to lose his own scent. It was still "warm." That is it had been made within a few hours. And the longer a scent lies on the ground the harder it is for a dog to trace it. That is why dogs are said to be "hot on the scent," the meaning being that the game has pa.s.sed along only a little while before.
It is supposed that rabbits, squirrels and other animals each have a scent of their own, and it clings to the ground for some time, even as the smell of perfume clings to a handkerchief after it has been washed.
Pretty soon Ruddy came within sight of the old log cabin. He knew when he was there even before he could see it, for he could smell it, and smell the place where he had walked near it.
But besides this smell there was another. The smell of boys and a man.
And among the boys" odors was one that made Ruddy"s heart beat faster as he caught it.
It was not the scent of Rick, for the boy master of the dog was inside the cabin, whence the odor did not come out so plainly. But Ruddy caught the smell of Chot, with whom he had played almost as often as he had with Rick.
"Here"s a friend of mine! Here he is!" Ruddy would have said, if he could have talked our language. "I know that smell! It"s almost the same as Rick"s! Oh, I wonder where Rick is?"
And then Ruddy raised his head and gave a bark--a short, sharp joyous bark in the night. A bark that said, as plainly as could be said:
"Here I am, Rick! Where are you! I smell a smell I know--a smell that seems to be a part of you! Where are you, Rick?"