“You got that right, cat. I’m a very busy dog and the nickel-and-dime stuff doesn’t interest me.”

  “Well, let me think. I’ll bet you tonight’s supper scraps.”

  “Not enough.”

  “Well, then I’ll throw in tomorrow’s breakfast scraps too.”

  “To be real blunt about it, Pete, scraps don’t excite me right now. If we’re going to bet, I want to bet something that really matters—something that, if lost, will hurt BAD.”

  “Ummm! That kind of bet!”

  I smirked and gave him a worldly, sideways glance. “Now you understand, Pete. No penny ante here. This is go-for-broke. Do you want into the deal or do you want out?”

  He studied his claws for a moment, I mean, the cat was obviously scared and stalling for time. “All right, Hankie, if that’s the way you want it.”

  “That’s the way I want it.”

  His eyes came up. “I’ll bet you your job as Head of Ranch Security.”

  “HUH? My job as . . . now wait just a minute.”

  “You wanted big stakes, right? You wanted to go for broke, right?”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “There’s the bet,” he grinned, “if you’re dog enough to take it.”

  My eyes narrowed and a growl began to rumble deep in my throat. “Watch what you say, cat. Your words could come back to honk you. And if your words don’t honk you loud enough, I might consider doing a little honking of my own. Repeat the bet.”

  “I’m betting your job as Head of Ranch Security that you can’t catch that rabbit.”

  My data banks whirred. “Let me get this straight. If I lose, you get my job as Head of Ranch Security. But what are you putting up? What happens if you lose?”

  “Well, if I lose, you win the job as Head of Ranch Security. We’ll both be playing for the same prize, and if the prize is the same for both of us, it has to be a fair bet.”

  I didn’t like the way he was grinning, so I took the time to study the deal from every possible angle. It checked out. For the first time in years, this cat had offered a deal that was equal, fair, square, level, and plumb.

  “All right, cat, you’ve got yourself a bet. It’s a done deal and there will be no backing out.”

  “You only get three tries.”

  “Sure, fine, don’t bore me with details.”

  “But what if you lose, Hankie? Will you pay off?”

  I laughed. “That’s not likely to happen, Kitty, but if it does, I’ll pay off. You’ve got my Solemn Cowdog Oath on it.”

  “Mmmm. And a cowdog never goes against his oath, right?”

  “Exactly. And now that you’ve committed yourself to the deal, I can reveal that you’ve made a very foolish blunder. Pete, old buddy, old pal, you’re fixing to lose it all on one roll of the dice.”

  He gasped! Yes, he tried to hide it but I saw him gasp. Hey, that cat was beginning to feel the jaws of my trap closing around him.

  All that remained was for me to lumber down and catch the rabbit, which would be a piece of cake for this old dog. I mean, catching rabbits was no big deal for me—just by George run ’em down and snatch ’em up in the old iron jaws.

  Yes sir, and when that happened, fellers, Pete the Barncat would be out of luck and out of business.

  Chapter Three: The Case of the Lumber-Pile Bunny

  As you might expect, old Pete was shaking in his tracks, and we’re talking about worried sick and scared to death.

  I guess he’d finally figgered out that he’d bet his entire future on this deal and that his chances of winning had come down to Slim and None.

  Slim Chances, not Slim the Cowboy. There are several Slims around here, don’t you see.

  Anyways, I headed down to the gas tanks to find the Lumber-Pile Bunny.

  Did I mention where he got his name? Maybe not. Okay, here we go.

  One of my jobs on the ranch was to identify and track the movements of every rabbit within the perimeter of ranch headquarters. At that particular time, I was following the movements of three alleged rabbits: the one we called the Cake-House Bunny, who stayed under the cake house; the Cattle-Guard Bunny, who lived in the cattle guard just north of headquarters; and the Lumber-Pile Bunny.

  I knew them all on sight, had memorized their markings and habits, and had been keeping all of them under pretty close surveillance for months and months.

  “How could one dog keep track of three rabbits at the same time?” you ask. Good question. All I can say is that I did it. A lot of dogs would have found it difficult, if not impossible, but for me, it was just part of the job.

  The next thing you’re probably asking yourself is, “Where did the Lumber-Pile Bunny get his name?” Another good question.

  I had assigned the code name “Lumber-Pile Bunny” to this particular rabbit because . . . well, because he lived in a lumber pile, and maybe that was fairly obvious. But there was nothing obvious about where the lumber pile came from.

  Here’s the scoop on that. Back in the spring, the cowboys became so embarrassed by the appearance of their corral fence that they took the drastic step of replacing twenty or thirty rotten, warped, moth-eaten boards with new lumber.

  Any time those guys give up on using a baling wire patch the action can be regarded as drastic. Yes, they did in fact replace the old boards with new boards, but did they haul off the old boards?

  No sir. Throwed ’em in a pile on the west side and drove away, saying, “We’ll haul that lumber off when we get caught up with some of this other work.” But did they? No sir.

  That’s a pretty sorry way to run a ranch, seems to me, but did anyone ask the opinion of the Head of Ranch Security? Again, NO. I’ll say no more about it.

  Except that lumber piles attract rattlesnakes and skunks and provide a place of refuse for sniveling little rabbits, speaking of whom . . .

  Would you care to guess who took up residence in the lumber pile? That’s correct, a certain cottontail rabbit, to who or whom I assigned the code name “Lumber-Pile Bunny.” This was the guy I was after.

  Okay. Some ten feet north of the gas tanks, I throttled back to a slow gliding walk, switched my ears over to Manual Liftup, began testing the air with full nosetory equipment, and directed my VSD’s (Visual Scanning Devices; in ordinary dogs also referred to as “eyes”) toward a patch of grass directly west of the gas tanks.

  This procedure soon bored fruit . . . bared fruit . . . produced results, as my instruments began picking up the telltale sounds of a rabbit munching grass.

  It was the Lumber-Pile Bunny.

  He was munching tender shoots of grass some 25 or 30 feet to the west of my bedroom. The foolish rabbit seemed unaware that he had entered a Secured Area and that the Dark Shadow of Doom was slipping toward him like a dark shadow in the night.

  Well, maybe not in the night. You wouldn’t be able to see a dark shadow in the . . .

  Even though I had switched over to Silent Mode, the bunny heard me coming. They have pretty good ears, don’t you know, and it’s hard to slip up on one.

  But get this. Instead of running away, he stood up on his back legs, looked straight at me, and wiggled his nose in what I would describe as “a provocatory gesture.”

  Okay, what we had here was a rabbit who had never been taught his place on the ranch. Or else one that had lost his mind. He wanted to play with fire, so he was fixing to learn about fire.

  Well, this was it. I glanced back to be sure that Pete was watching (he was), took a deep breath, and rolled my shoulders several times to loosen up the enormous muscles that would soon propel me at speeds unknown to ordinary dogs.

  I turned back to the rabbit, locked in all guidance systems, and began the countdown procedure, which goes something like this, in case you’re not familiar with technical stuff:

  “Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Launch, liftoff, charge, bonzai!!”

  And in a puff of smoke and a cloud of dust, I went streaking toward the target.

  Rabbits are famous for their speed, right? What many people don’t know is that your better grades of cowdog are every bit as fast as a rabbit, and in a few rare cases (me, for example) are even faster.

  I’m not one to boast, but speed was just built into my bloodline.

  In other words, the Lumber-Pile Bunny was in big trouble from the very beginning. I closed in on him fast and was only inches away from snapping him up in my jaws when . . .

  Let’s call it luck. He got lucky, that’s all. And why not? After all, he was carrying around four lucky rabbit’s feet.

  Luck kept him a couple of feet ahead of me as we went streaking out into the home pasture. Inches, actually. We made a wide loop, some 25 yards in front of the corrals, and then I realized that Bunny had changed directions and was high-balling it straight to the lumber pile.

  It was an old rabbit trick. I recognized it right away and took appropriate measures. I went to Incredible Speed and . . . like I said, he was carrying four lucky rabbit’s feet.

  I never denied that rabbits are pretty swift and, okay, maybe he beat me to the lumber pile, but not by much. If the chase had gone another ten feet, I would have nailed him.

  I returned to the gas tanks to wait for him to come out again, as I knew he would. Off to the north, I heard a familiar whiny voice say, “Mmmm, that’s one, Hankie.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Kitty, that was just a warm-up.”

  I waited. And waited. The minutes dragged by. Perhaps I dozed. Then . . . the munching of grass reached my ears. He was back, same place. Munching grass right in front of my bedroom. Foolish rabbit.

  Within seconds I had gone through the launch procedure and was back on the chase. You should have seen me! Made that loop out into the pasture and virtually destroyed three acres of good buffalo grass and virtually had that bunny trapped in the deadly vice of my jaws, and if the chase had gone another five feet, that little feller would have been a stasstistic.

  Stasstisstic.

  History.

  Real close race, almost got him, a huge im­provement over the first run, and as long as a guy can see improvement, he knows that he has won a moral victory. And so, with a victory hanging in the trophy room of my mind, I returned, triumphant and victorious, to the gas tanks.

  A little winded, yes, but beneath the huffing and puffing was the warm glow of satisfaction that comes when a dog knows he’s done his job right.

  “Mmmm, that’s two, Hankie,” said the cat. “Only one shot left.”

  I chuckled and didn’t bother to reply. I knew what the cat was trying to do—put pressure on me so that I would choke. What he didn’t know was that some dogs thrive on pressure, I mean, it’s like throwing gasoline into a . . .

  CHOKE! GASP! ARG!

  On the other hand, I was beginning to feel a small amount of . . . I mean, my job, my position, my entire career was riding on the next . . .

  WHEEZE! ARG! GASP!

  Holy smokes, if I didn’t catch the rabbit on the next run, Pete the Barncat would be the next Head of Ranch Security! Not only would that be a personal disaster for me personally, but it would be disaster for the entire ranch.

  Gulp.

  Pressure. It weighs heavy on the mind, smashes creative impulses, crushes the little flowers of courage that try to bloom in the warm soil of . . . something.

  I was curled up in a ball, in the process of pretending that I was a puppy again, back in the sweet days before I had assumed all the crushing responsibilities of running a ranch, when all of a sudden . . .

  I lifted my eyes and narrowed my head . . . lifted my head and narrowed my eyes, I should say, and there sat the Lumber-Pile Bunny, not ten feet in front of me.

  Okay, this was it. My whole career had come down to this moment, this last chase.

  I arose from my gunnysack bed and prepared myself for what was sure to be the most important mission of my life.

  Chapter Four: The Bunny Cheats and Lies

  “Good luck, Hankie. Is there anything I should be doing to prepare for my new position?”

  That was Pete the Barncat, trying to use under­handed sneaky tricks to shake my confidence. I tried to ignore him, which is the second-best thing you can do with a cat.

  The first-best thing you can do with a cat is to beat the snot out of him and run him up a tree, which I sincerely wanted to do but couldn’t, for the simple reason that I had an appointment with Destiny.

  This was my last chance, fellers, and I had to put everything into it. Hence, instead of rushing off and wasting my last shot, I decided to analyze the two previous attempts and try to learn from my . . .

  I wouldn’t exactly call them mistakes. Errors might be a better word.

  Bad luck.

  Difficulties.

  Unfortunate circumstances.

  Tiny miscalculations.

  Windows of opportunity that had been slammed shut by the winds of Life.

  Circumstances beyond the control of myself or any other dog on earth.

  I decided to learn from the past, shall we say.

  For you see, I had detected a certain pattern in the bunny’s response to my missions against him. Here, look at this map. Oh well, you can’t see it.

  Okay, imagine a map. The gas tanks form Point A, right here. The lumber pile becomes Point B, over here. Point C is the point in the home pasture to which the bunny had run on the two previous encounters.

  As you can see, the three points, if joined together by imaginary lines A Prime, B Prime, and Prime Rib, would form a triangle.

  Pretty suspicious, huh? How did that rabbit know about triangles? How could he have known that if you connect any three points in the universe with straight lines, you get a triangle?

  I mean, we’re talking about geometry—the kind of heavy duty math we use all the time in the Security Business, but not the sort of thing you’d expect a bunny rabbit to understand.

  This was my first hint that perhaps I had underestimated the intelligence of the alleged rabbit. Not only had he won the first two outings against me, but there appeared to be more than a slim chance that his victories could be traced to something other than dumb luck.

  In other words, I was staring right into the jaws of a conspiracy. This rabbit had been using strategy against me, and to explain what I mean, let’s go back to the map.

  I’m here at Point A. The rabbit is right in front of me. He takes off toward Point B. I follow him, pursuing a course described by line A Prime.

  You still with me? I know this is pretty complicated stuff but just hang on.

  Okay, Bunny reaches Point B in the pasture. What does he do then? He changes directions and goes streaking toward Point C, the lumber pile, following line B Prime.

  Here’s the startling conclusion of all this. It was beginning to appear that the rabbit had led me to Point B, KNOWING ALL THE TIME THAT HE WOULD END UP RUNNING BACK TO THE LUMBER PILE!

  Now, if that’s not cheating, tell me what is. It’s the kind of backhanded, underhanded, lefthanded, sneaking approach you’d expect from a cat—but from an innocent little rabbit? No sir.

  Hey, if you can’t trust a rabbit anymore, what kind of world are we living in? What are we coming to?

  I mean, once the rabbits turn to lying and cheating, who’s next? The kids? Mothers? Baby birds? Puppy dogs and fawns? Apple pie? Christmas carols?

  Is there anything sacred left in a world where bunny rabbits lie and cheat and steal and rob and spit at their grandmothers?

  Just when I think I’ve seen it all, I see something else. Just when I think I’ve hardened myself as hard as I can harden, I find fresh evidence of something new and awful. Just when I think this soiled world has no more shocks and surprises, I see something like this, and it just about breaks my heart.

  Rabbits cheating. Rabbits lying.

  Well . . . a guy can’t just quit or resign from Life or crawl under his gunnysack and hide from all the meanness and ugliness. He’s got to come back and strike a few blows for Honesty and Decency.

  And that’s where I found myself, after going through several minutes of spiritual heartburn and moral agony. I couldn’t change the world, fellers, or put all the bad guys out of business or spare the little children from the mess we’d made of the world.

  All I could do was catch that stupid, stinking, sniveling, sneaking, counterfeit little rabbit who had made a fool out of me, not once but twice, and teach him an important lesson about lying and cheating.

  What a fool I’d been! I’d played the role of Mister Nice Dog and what had it gotten me? Okay, he wanted to play games with me, so we’d play games. But we were fixing to play MY game.

  Here’s the crutch of the whole matter. I’ll reveal it if you promise not to blab it around. See, that rabbit was more devious than I’d ever supposed. He’d made that loop out into the pasture, knowing all along that I would follow him.

  Heh heh, but just suppose that I didn’t follow him. Just suppose that instead of running my legs off out in the pasture, I took a shortcut through the corrals and was standing in front of the lumber pile when he came hopping up. Heh heh.

  Pretty awesome, huh? Let me tell you something. I hadn’t been named Head of Ranch Security strictly on my good looks, although that had been a big factor.

  A dog’s mind is a scary thing, and moral indigestion is a powerful force. Put ’em together and you have something that is truly awesome.

  Okay, here we go. I rose from my gunnysack bed, just as I had done before, and began the Pursuit Phase of the procedure. The bunny ran. I chased. We headed out into the pasture and began the Sucker Phase.

  I was watching the rabbit very carefully this time, don’t you see, and when he stopped looking back over his shoulder, I altered my compass heading, veered off hard to the right, and went zooming straight for the corral fence.