"There"s my dog!" cried Rick, pointing to Ruddy, who was leaping and jumping, trying to get as close as possible to his new master.
"Say, he"s a good one all right!" declared Chot, after looking Ruddy over. "He"s a hunting dog!"
"Is he?" asked Rick.
"Sure! You can tell by his ears. He"s got almost regular hound dog ears, and hounds are hunting dogs." Chot was a bit wrong about Ruddy"s ears, however. They were not those of a hound.
"He"s a nice dog, and I like him!" declared Mazie. "Look how funny he"s smelling of you, Chot."
Ruddy was, indeed, sniffing around the legs of the new boy. But that was so Ruddy would know Rick"s friend again. Ruddy could not depend on his eyes. He might not see Chot some day when he pa.s.sed his master"s chum, and Ruddy wanted to know, and be known, by all Rick"s friends. So, now, in the back part of his head, where he could always get at it with his nose, Ruddy was putting away, so he could remember it, a little part of the mysterious man-smell that made Chot different from every other boy.
It was as if you should write on a paper the names of your different friends, so you would not forget them when you met them again. But, as dogs can not write, they have to carry in their heads and noses the memory of the smell of their friends. So Ruddy was getting to know Chot.
Rick loosed the rope from his pet"s neck, and now Ruddy could frisk about as much as he pleased. He was leaping around the two boys, while Mazie went in the house to change her dress, when, all at once, Ruddy caught a whiff of something that always set him half wild. It was the smell of cat, and he, like all dogs, was always ready to chase a cat.
A gray tabby, who lived next door to the Dalton family, had jumped over the fence. Very often this cat found bits of good things to eat in the Dalton garbage can. So Sallie, as the cat was called, came to get something to eat. She did not know Ruddy was there. Never before had the Daltons kept a dog.
But, in an instant, Ruddy was ready for his first real hunt. He had never chased a cat before, though once one had chased him. And now, with a joyful yelp and bark, Ruddy started running after Sallie.
CHAPTER V
RICK GETS LOST
"Look at him go! Look at him go! Oh, he"s a hunting dog all right!"
yelled Chot, as he saw Rick"s pet leap after the cat. "Oh, look at him go! Sic her, old boy! Sic her!"
Neither Rick nor Chot were cruel boys. They would not have harmed Sallie for anything, and they would not have let Ruddy hurt the gray cat. But they could not help wanting to see whether the cat would get to the fence first, or whether Ruddy would win the race. If Ruddy should happen to catch the cat--well, then Rick and Chot were ready to stop the puppy from doing her any harm. But if he should not--why, then it was a good race between a dog and a cat--that was all.
You may well believe that Sallie ran as fast as she could. She knew a lot about dogs--she knew that dogs, almost always, chased cats as they probably always will--just why I do not know. And Sallie ran as fast as she could.
It is not very hard for a cat to get away from a dog. Fear seems to give the cat greater speed and then, too, there is always a chance of climbing a fence or a tree. A cat can easily get up in a tree, though it can not always so easily get down again. And very few dogs can climb trees. I have seen moving pictures of African hunting dogs getting up in low trees after panthers, but these trees were covered with branches close to the ground, so a dog could really leap up among them. No dog can climb a straight tree trunk, but a cat easily does this.
And the reason for this is that a cat"s claws are sharper than a dog"s, and they are what are called "retractile." That is they can be pushed out and drawn in again. If you have ever taken p.u.s.s.y"s paw, and gently pressed it, you have seen her claws come out from the little sheaths, or pockets of skin, in which they are kept under her fur. Sometimes you can press them out, and sometimes, especially after p.u.s.s.y awakens after a nap, you may see her stick out her claws herself and pull them in again.
Because of this, and because her claws are sharp, a cat can really climb a tree, just as the telephone lineman climbs a pole by sticking his sharp iron spurs in it. The cat sticks her claws in the soft bark of a tree.
If a dog"s claws were sharp he might climb a tree, but they are not. A dog"s claws always stick out; he can not put them out when he pleases and pull them back again, as p.u.s.s.y can. And because a dog"s claws are always out they get worn off, and dull, as he runs around on the ground.
On raced Sallie and Ruddy raced after her, and soon, coming to a tree, up the cat shot like a flash of light. She reached a limb and sat down on it, her tail big and fluffy, her back arched and her heart beating fast.
Ruddy reached the foot of the tree and there he had to stop. He could not climb. He just sat there, looking up at Sallie and barked. And the cat knew the dog could not get her. She was safe as long as she stayed in the tree.
"He sure is a hunting dog all right!" exclaimed Chot, as he and Rick ran along after Ruddy.
"He can run pretty fast, but Sallie beat him," spoke Rick.
"Some day we"ll take your dog out in the woods and have him chase rabbits," went on Chot. "If he"s a hunting dog, and I guess he is, he can catch rabbits."
"I wouldn"t want him to hurt any rabbits," spoke Rick. "I used to have some rabbits, once, but I let "em loose in the woods back of the lake, and maybe they"re living there yet. I wouldn"t want Ruddy to chase any of the rabbits that I used to have for pets."
"No, course we wouldn"t "zactly want Ruddy to _hurt_ any rabbits,"
agreed Chot. "But we could just watch him run after "em, same as he ran after Sallie. Your dog"ll be a good hunter when he grows up. Where"d you get him?"
"Oh, he just sort of came," answered Rick. "Mr. Bailey saw him swim ash.o.r.e in the storm last night."
"Well, he"s a good dog," declared Chot, patting Ruddy on the head. The dog was dividing his time, now, between barking at the cat and leaping about the boys. He had made friends with Chot almost at once.
"Come on," said Chot, after a while. "This is no fun. That cat won"t come down as long as we stay here."
"What"ll we do?" asked Rick, who, to tell the truth, was glad his dog had not caught Sallie.
"Let"s have your dog chase sticks," suggested Chot.
"Yes, that"ll be fun!" agreed Rick.
The boys raced off across the yard, with the reddish-brown setter leaping and barking after them. Ruddy was the kind of a dog known as a "setter"; that is a sort of bird, or hunting, dog.
Rick found a stick, held it up so Ruddy could see it, and then threw it as far as he could, off in the gra.s.s.
"Hi! Fetch it back, Ruddy!" called the boy. Ruddy"s legs seemed to work on springs as he raced across the yard. It took him only a moment to discover the stick. He located it by smelling, for he could not see it in the deep gra.s.s. The stick had a bark smell of its own, but it also had the smell of Rick"s hands--the boy-smell that Ruddy had soon come to know so well. Once Ruddy had this smell of his young master well fixed in his wonderful dog"s nose, Ruddy never forgot it. And anything that Rick touched, even the sticks and stones that he threw, had, for Ruddy, that wonderful individual smell by which he could tell his master even without seeing him.
And so, throwing sticks for Ruddy to run after and bring back to them, Rick, Ruddy and Chot had fun together.
Not far from Rick"s house ran a little stream called Weed River. It really was almost too small for a river, but that is what it was called.
There were so many weeds in it, at certain times of the year, that it had been given this name. And, because of the weeds, ducks liked to swim in the river, for ducks eat weeds, and also snails and other small creatures that live on, or among, the gra.s.ses under water.
Weed River ran into Silver Lake, on which there were swans, which were like big white geese. And farther off, back of Silver Lake, was a patch of woods. It was in these woods that Rick had let his pet rabbits run away when he grew tired of keeping them.
"We"ll throw sticks in the water and Ruddy will bring "em back to us,"
proposed Rick.
"Yes," agreed Chot, "and maybe, some day, we can build a raft, and go sailing down the river and into the lake and we can take your dog with us and make believe we"re looking for a new land, like it tells about in our school history books."
"I guess there aren"t any new lands," said Rick. "They all have been discovered."
"Well, we can make believe to find some, and anyhow it will be fun with your dog," went on Chot. "Come on!"
Ruddy was as ready as anyone to have fun, and now he ran along after the boys, leaping and barking. He had forgotten all about Sallie, the gray cat.
"I can chase her some other time," he said to himself. "That is if I want to. Maybe I"ll be friends with her and not chase her. But I guess all dogs have to chase cats."
There was one cat, though, at the place where Ruddy first lived, that neither his father nor his mother had chased. She was quite an old cat, and she would lie down and go to sleep in one of the horse stalls, near the dog"s kennel.
"But she was a very old cat, and maybe that"s why my father or mother didn"t chase her," thought Ruddy. "They used to chase other cats I remember, so I guess I"d better chase Sallie if I get a chance, until she gets a little older, or until I get to know her better. But I won"t hurt her."