This was looking more and more like . . . well, a genuine stampede. Gee, what had gotten the cattle so . . .

  HUH?

  Suddenly, in a flash of blinding light, I realized that I was . . . oh brother . . . standing right in the middle of the gate, the very place I had been warned not to stand. And even worse, it appeared that my actions had caused . . .

  Gulp.

  How had this happened? I hadn’t tried to cause problems. I’d been trying to help, for crying out loud! An ordinary mutt would have slept through the whole thing, but me, I had volunteered for extra duty, I’d walked the Extra Mile to help the cowboys and to save the cattle from . . .

  Gulp.

  Okay, we had big problems here. BIG PROBLEMS.

  Damage Control. I began rehearsing my story. “Slim, Loper . . . I know this looks pretty bad, and I know what you’re thinking. You gave me strict orders to stay out of the gate and not to bark at the cattle, and before we go any further, let me state for the record that I agreed 100 percent with those orders. Honest. No kidding.

  “But what you didn’t see and couldn’t have known was that . . . see, there were these gopher mounds right in the middle of the gate, three of them, to be exact, I just thought . . .”

  Oh brother. I would never be able sell that story. I was cooked. Fried. Toasted. They would kill me. The only question was, would they use a firing squad, a hangman’s rope, or strangle me with their bare hands?

  Fellers, it was time for me to lay low and wait for the storm to pass.

  Chapter Five: Laying Low

  Who said I had to stick around for the scary part? I mean, what kind of dunce would hang around to be screeched at and possibly amputated from the face of the earth? Why couldn’t I just vanish? Drover did it all the time, so why not me?

  Yes, by George, there’s a time to stand your ground and take your medicine, and there’s a time to leave the medicine for the dogs who are too sick to run. Me? I could run, fellers, and that’s just what I did. I whirled around, threw all engines into Turbo Five, sprayed sand with all four feet, and went streaking away on a course that would take me straight to the feed barn.

  Remember the feed barn? It was a small structure made of cedar posts, old lumber, and roofing tin, located at the west end of the corrals. The cowboys used it for storing horse feed and bales of alfalfa hay. I often used it as a hiding place when . . . well, when Sally May got mad at me. It’s hard to believe that a ranch wife would ever get mad at her very own Head of Ranch Security, but she did. And fairly often too.

  The feed barn was a great place to hide because, if you’ll recall, the door into the barn was warped at the bottom, just enough so that a desperate dog could wiggle and squeeze himself inside.

  And that’s just what I did, swiggled and wheezed myself through the crack, and took refuge behind a stack of hay bales. There, I spent an incredibly boring four hours, snapping at flies and listening to every sound and noise from the world outside.

  Here’s a recap of what I heard. It took the cowboys about forty-five minutes to make another sweep of the pasture, and they finally succeeded in penning the cattle in the corral. It saddens me to report that the cattle entered the corrals through the Gopher-Trapped Gate. I peeked out the door to confirm this, because . . . well, I fully expected to see the first ten cows plunge into a bottomless tunnel.

  They didn’t even stumble, which really burned me up, and it even suggested that maybe I had, uh, overestimated the danger of . . . they got lucky. What else can you say? On another day, that same bunch of cattle might have . . .

  Let’s talk about something else. There isn’t a dog alive who enjoys admitting that he was wrong, and I enjoy it even less than most. In fact, I hate it.

  The point is that, after all their yelling and screeching about me standing in the gate, the cowboys penned the herd and started branding. With two cowboys using their ropes to heel and drag the calves to the branding fire, they finished the work in about three hours.

  Sometime around eleven-thirty, I heard the neighbors saying good-bye and loading their horses into the trailers. As the hum of the pickups faded into the distance, I crept out from behind the hay­stack and slithered myself through the crack in the door. Slim and Loper would be in a better humor now that the work was done, so this seemed a good time for me to . . . well, patch up old relationships, relationships that had been bruised and damaged by recent events.

  For sure I would have to look sad and sorry, very sorry, for whatever small part I had played in the, uh, tragedy.

  They had unsaddled their horses and were standing just outside the saddle shed. As I walked toward them, looking very sad and sorry, I overheard their conversation.

  Slim: “If you’d tied him up, it never would have happened.”

  Loper: “Hindsight’s twenty-twenty, and yours may even be better than that.”

  Slim: “Well, I could have told you. Give a dingbat a chance to prove that he’s a dingbat, and he’ll do it every time.”

  Loper: “If you’re so smart, why didn’t you say something about it?”

  Slim hitched up his jeans. “Loper, you take suggestions about as well as a rock. Besides, you’re the boss around here. I ain’t paid for thinking.”

  “Huh. Good thing too.” Loper scowled up at the sky. “I hate to tie up a dog and it shouldn’t be necessary. If we’re going to keep dogs on the ranch, they ought to be taught to obey a command.”

  Slim’s mouth dropped open. “Obey a command. Now, that’s a real new idea. Who’s going to be the teacher?”

  “I had you in mind.”

  “That’s what I figured, but since I have to do all the work on this place, that don’t leave much time for schooling dogs. And you sure wouldn’t qualify.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  Slim slouched against the door. “Loper, I’d like to meet the dog you trained. After you got through with him, he’d need to spend six weeks with a psychiatrist, and you know why? ’Cause you ain’t got enough patience to boil an egg, much less train a dog.”

  Loper glared at him. “So what do you suggest?”

  “Well, the easiest thing would be to sell the ranch and throw in the dog as a bonus.”

  Loper barked a laugh. “Well, I hadn’t thought of that. What else?”

  Slim brought out his pocketknife and started cleaning his fingernails. “I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard an ad. Some feller’s coming to town to hold an Obedience School for dogs. It starts tomorrow morning, but you have to register your dog this afternoon at the courthouse.”

  “Keep talking.”

  “Well, my first thought was that we might try to enroll you, but I don’t think they’d drop their standards that low.” Slim chuckled at his joke.

  Loper heaved a sigh. “Slim, hurry up.”

  “Well, here’s a guy who knows something about training dogs and he’s coming to Twitchell. You could load up Birdbrain and take him to school. It only costs twenty-five bucks.”

  Loper thought it over. “Okay, it’s worth a try. Only I’ll be busy.”

  Slim’s eyes came up. “Busy doing what?”

  “I’ll be busy being busy. This was your big idea, buddy, you take the dog. Oh, and don’t go dropping him off and slipping away to the pool hall. You stay and watch. Maybe it’s not too late for you to learn something too.” Loper’s face lit up with a grin. “Like I’ve said before, being the boss has a few advantages.”

  “Loper, I’ve got fifteen thousand things to do!”

  “Get him enrolled this afternoon—take him with you so he doesn’t try to hide. And don’t forget to wash out the vaccine guns.”

  Loper gave him a wink and walked away, leaving Slim alone with a stunned expression on his face. Slim closed up his knife and started muttering to himself.

  “Well, that’ll teach me to come up with an idea. By grabs, next time I’ll just keep my trap shut.” He cupped his hand around his mouth and yelled, “It sure don’t pay to use your brain on this outfit!”

  Loper walked on to the house.

  That was a pretty interesting conversation, don’t you think? I thought it was very interesting, because it revealed that the cowboys had gotten fed up with Drover’s careless behavior and were going to send him off to school. Did you notice that they’d called him “dingbat” and “Birdbrain”? I had called him those names many times myself, and we’re talking about dozens or hundreds of times, and yes, it was high time that somebody tried to teach him something.

  Hey, this was great news, the best news of the week. If there was any dog in Texas who needed to go to a school for dingbats and birdbrains, it was Drover. I put all thoughts of sadness and remorse behind me, held my head at a proud angle, and marched up to Slim. I wanted him to know that I supported his decision 100 percent.

  When he saw me, his eyebrows lifted. “Well, speak of the devil and here he comes.”

  What was that supposed to mean? Well, it didn’t matter because I already understood the overall plan for the afternoon. Drover would get trapped and captured and hauled off to town, and guess who would lead Slim to Drover’s secret hiding place.

  Heh heh. Me. Because I knew exactly where to find the little weenie. Heh heh. He should have known better than to sneak off in the middle of an important job.

  Slim scratched me behind the ears. “Pooch, stick with me. We’ve got things to do.”

  You bet I’d stick with him. Routing Drover out of the machine shed would be a real pleasure.

  I followed Slim to the stock tank and waited for him to wash out the vaccine guns. This was terrific. I could almost hear Drover’s reaction. He would moan and cry, plead and beg, and then I would have the pleasure of saying, “Drover, I’ve warned you and warned you about this disobedience thing, but you didn’t listen. It’s gone far enough and now they’re finally taking some action.”

  Have we ever discussed the Four Most Delicious Words in the world? Maybe not, so here they are: “I told you so.”

  Slim washed out the vaccine guns and put them away in the saddle shed. He gave the horses some grain and hay, and together we walked to his pickup, which was parked in the shade near the gas tanks. At first, I was a little surprised that he wanted to drive around to the machine shed, but then it made sense. He didn’t want to carry the hysterical Drover a hundred yards to the pickup, so yes, parking the pickup right beside the machine shed doors was a shrewd decision.

  He opened the pickup door and told me to load up. No problem there. With a mighty leap, I sprang up on the seat and took the Shotgun Position beside the open window. Slim got in and we drove around the front of the house. Loper was standing out on the porch.

  Slim yelled out, “I ain’t done with this. I plan to file a protest!”

  Loper grinned and waved good-bye.

  We drove past the house and up a little hill to the place where the road forks, with the left fork leading to the machine shed. Slim stopped the pickup and studied me with narrowed eyes. “I think I’ll roll up that window, Hankie. I’d hate for you to fall out.”

  Well . . . sure, fine. I mean, it was a short drive to the machine shed, but if he was worried about my safety . . . you know, sometimes a guy gets to thinking that the cowboys don’t care about their dogs, but then they do some little thing that lets you know that they really do. I found it very sweet and touching that Slim was so worried about me falling out the window that he took the time to roll it up. I mean, there for a second, it almost brought tears to my eyes.

  He leaned across the seat and rolled up the window, and I was so overcome with emotion that I licked him on the ear.

  “Quit it!”

  Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have licked his ear, but sometimes a guy just has to express his feelings.

  Slim put the pickup in first gear and let out on the clutch. I waited for him to steer the pickup to the left, toward the machine shed, but . . . hmmm. He kept driving north, toward the mailbox. Okay, before we got involved with capturing Mister Half-Stepper, Slim wanted to check the mail, right?

  That made sense. Another good decision.

  We drove to the mailbox and . . . huh? Turned left? And started driving west on the county road?

  Hey, what was going on around here? I barked and tried to communicate a very important message: “Drover’s in the machine shed. I know, I saw him myself. I can lead you right to him. This road doesn’t lead to the machine shed. It goes . . .”

  HUH?

  This was the road . . . to town!

  Chapter Six: The Dead Squirrel Mystery

  Oh treachery! Oh twisted lies and false promises and half-truths!

  Do you see what he was doing? After recruiting me to rat on Drover, after using all kinds of trickery and underhanded methods, he . . . this was an outrage!

  Are you shocked? I was shocked. The magnitude of this swindle left me breathless. Slim and Loper had planned it this way all along, only they had used secret code words (Birdbrain and dingbat, remember?) to fool me into thinking that Drover would be the victim.

  Well, if he thought I was just going to sit there while he kidnapped me and hauled me off to town, he didn’t understand the resourceful mind of a dog. I turned to the window and prepared to launch myself . . .

  Huh?

  Okay, remember when Slim stopped the pickup and rolled up the window? Oh foolish me, I had supposed that he did it out of concern for my safety. What a cruel joke. It was clear now that he had rolled it up as part of a well-planned, wicked plot to steal me away from my ranch and home.

  And you know what? He had pulled it off. I had been completely taken in. He had used my trusting nature against me and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it but sit back and enjoy the ride, only I was determined NOT to enjoy the ride.

  I turned a pair of laser-beam eyes on Slim, and with glares and facial expressions, I said, “You tricked me and I can hardly express the depths of my sense of outrage.”

  He didn’t even look at me. You know what he was doing? He was humming a tune and steering the pickup in a wild pattern from one side of the road to the other. Was he trying to get us killed or something?

  He must have felt my eyes on him, because he turned and gave me a grin. “I’m smashing grass­hoppers, pooch. They’re thick as fleas this year, and a guy might as well do some pest control while he’s driving.”

  Oh, that was brilliant, smashing grasshoppers with his pickup tires.

  You see what I have to put up with on this ranch? We have grown men on the payroll who have nothing better to do than drive like maniacs so they can bump off a few grasshoppers on the county road!

  Oh brother.

  Slim and I had nothing more to say to each other, and a frigid silence moved into the space between us. The trip to town was not a pleasant experience.

  He pulled up to a big brick building on Main Street in Twitchell and shut off the motor. “Well, this is the courthouse. Hankie, you might as well brighten up and try to enjoy this. Who knows, it might turn out to be fun.”

  Okay, I would try to brighten up, not because I was a slave to “fun” but because . . . well, brooding about it wouldn’t do one bit of good. It was perfectly clear that Slim didn’t care about my wounded feelings, so I might as well try to make the best of it. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, this school for dumb dogs.

  He unbuckled his belt and slipped it off his jeans, made a loop out of it and dropped the loop around my neck. “Just to be safe, we’re going to use a little restraining device. I’d hate for you to get lost in the big city.”

  Very funny.

  We walked past a row of tall Chinese elm trees in front of the courthouse. Straining at my leash, I tugged Slim toward the first tree and gave it a good sniffing. Hmmm. Very interesting. The trunk of that tree contained the following message: “This is my tree. MINE, you understand? So shove off, jerk. If I ever catch you around my tree, I’ll wreck your nose. Signed, Muggsie.”

  Oh yeah? Well, I had a little message for Muggsie, but Slim pulled the leash and we continued our walk toward the courthouse. As we drew closer, I began to appreciate the size of this building. It was huge! I mean, we’re talking about three stories high, much bigger than the machine shed or any other building I’d seen in the country. What did they do in that place?

  Even Slim seemed impressed. He craned his skinny neck and looked up at the top row of windows. “It would hold a pretty big bunch of hay, wouldn’t it?” But he didn’t gawk at the building for long. See, without his belt, his jeans started slipping down on his hips and he had to jerk them up.

  Tee hee. Served him right.

  We walked up the steps and went through a pair of heavy doors. The instant we entered that place, I started having bad feelings about it. The air was cool and had an odd smell. I can’t describe it, only to say that it was unnatural. There wasn’t a trace of animals, dirt, trees, wood, wildflowers, none of the smells you’d find on a ranch.

  And those long stony hallways . . . it was so quiet in there, you could hear every sound, every footstep echoing all around you. Fellers, this place was just a little bit spooky.

  Slim paused in front of a plaque on the wall and read several rows of lettering. “There we go. Basement. Come on, pooch.”

  He led me to a stairway that went down about six feet and then turned back to the right. I couldn’t see where the stairs were leading, only that they were going down into some kind of . . . well, dark pit. Sort of like a dungeon. This contributed to my bad feeling and I decided not to go.

  GULK.

  Okay, I would go, but not happily and not willingly. He dragged me down the stairs, is the point, and just as I had feared, this so-called basement was no place a dog would ever choose to spend any time: cold, gloomy, and as silent as a tomb. Slim studied the signs over several doors and headed toward one that said “Coffee Room.”