Wait, hold everything! A Three-Toed Tree Toad has three toes, and so does a chicken’s foot. Was this some kind of clue that I’d been missing? Notice that in both examples, we have a common theme: THREE TOES.

  I leaned closer and listened, memorizing every tiny detail. J.T. was scratching himself and said, “That old biddy gave me her bugs! I knew this was going to happen!”

  Forget the three toes on a chicken’s foot. It wasn’t a clue and I was one breath away from blowing up, but had to muster the patience to drag some facts out of the witness.

  “J.T., stop scratching and finish the story. Think. Concentrate. What kind of creature did Elsa see in the dark?”

  He stopped scratching and stared at several feathers floating around in the air. “Well, here’s what she told me, pooch, and these were her very words. She said this strange creature looked like a beaver with a bad haircut.”

  Those words sent a shock wave down my back. “A beaver with a bad haircut?”

  “That’s what she said. It wasn’t exactly a beaver, and it had a crazy hairdo.”

  I began pacing in front of him, as I often do when a case is coming together. “J.T., I’ve been working this case for weeks and I think we’re finally onto something. Question.” I stopped and whirled around. “Is it possible that she saw a Three-Footed Tree Sloth?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “That wasn’t the question. This court doesn’t care whether you’ve heard of it or not. The question was, could it have been a Slew-Footed Tree Sloth?”

  “Well…”

  “Yes or no?”

  “You’re too pushy.”

  “Yes or no?”

  “Well, it could have been anything, so…yes.”

  “Bingo! Last question. Was this creature eating trees?”

  “Huh? Trees? No, she seen him in front of the barn, there wasn’t any trees.”

  “Perfect! Just as I suspected. He wasn’t eating trees, which proves that he was looking for trees to eat.” I marched over to him and laid a paw upon his shoulder. “We’ve blown this case wide open, and I’ll see that you get a little badge for this.”

  “A what?”

  “A badge. We’ll make you an Honorary Agent of the Security Division.”

  “Well, hoop-tee-doo.” He patted his chest and let out another little chicken-burp. “I’d rather have a teaspoon of baking soda. That squash bug is burning me up.”

  I left him there, boiling in his own gastric juices and muttering about squash bugs. What a birdbrain. He had almost bored me into a coma, but I had managed to wring some very important information out of him.

  Let me go over it again, just to make sure you’re up to speed. I now had a second eyewitness account, claiming that ranch headquarters had been penetrated by some shadowy, dreaded, mysterious creature. In other words, I had to face the possibility that there might have been a speck of truth in Pete’s pack-of-lies story.

  That was good news and bad news. First, the case was really coming together, but second, I would have to go back to the yard and do business with the cat, and the very thought of it made me ill. You already know my Position on Cats, so I won’t repeat that I don’t like Sally May’s rotten little cat and absolutely hate doing business with him. But it had to be done.

  Why? To protect our trees. Trees are scarce in the Texas Panhandle, but we’ve got some nice ones on my ranch: cottonwoods, native elms, hackberries, and chinaberries.

  And guess who’s in charge of protecting them. Me, the Head of Ranch Security.

  I’m pretty fussy about who uses my trees and what they do with them. Take birds as an example. During the summer months, we’ve got a million noisy unemployed birds on this ranch, and I spend half my time barking them away from my trees.

  Turn your back on birds for half an hour and they’ll take over. They never ask permission and they seem to think the trees belong to them. Well, they don’t. Those are MY trees and uninvited birds aren’t welcome.

  And neither are creatures that eat them, such as your Toad-Footed Tree Slippers. I’d never seen one with my own eyes, but if they ate trees, we were going to have problems. I hated to build a case on the testimony of a rooster and a cat, but those were the cards Life had dealt me.

  In other words, I had to find out what else Pete knew about the creature. If that meant being nice to the little snot…well, it had to be done.

  I found him with Drover near the yard gate, just where I had left them. I walked into the path of Kitty’s scheming yellow gaze. He smirked and said, “Well, well! You’re back.”

  “I’m back, but it has nothing to do with you.”

  He fluttered his eyelids. “Then I wonder what it could be.”

  “That’s none of your business, but if you must know, I’m here to speak to Drover.” I turned to the runt. “You need to find something else to do with your life. Why don’t you go get a drink?”

  “Well, I’m not thirsty.”

  “Go eat some dog food.”

  “It hurts my teeth.”

  “Then take a hike, get some exercise.”

  “Well, this old leg’s been acting up.”

  “Drover, when you spend hours and hours talking to the cat, it reflects badly on all of us in the Security Division. Go find something else to do.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Scram! Buzz off.

  He hung his head and went slinking away. “You don’t need to screech. I hate being yelled at in the morning.”

  When he was gone, I turned back to the cat. I was ready to give him the interrogation of his life.

  Chapter Five: The Funnel of Logic

  Are you still with me? Good, because I had Pete the Barncat in the witness stand and was fixing to rip his testimony apart, bit by bit.

  He was staring at me and said, “You’re back and it has nothing to do with me, but here we are, alone. I’m wondering what it means.”

  I turned away from him and tried to collect my thoughts. “Pete, let me begin by saying that I would rather be anywhere else but here.”

  “And?”

  “Doing business with you is very painful.”

  “Poor doggie!”

  “And it doesn’t help when you say, ‘Poor doggie.’”

  “What’s the business, Hankie?”

  This was going to be a difficult interrogation. First, he had something I needed and he knew it. Second, cats love to waste time. They don’t have anything to do and they’re experts at loafing. Third, Pete was dumber than a box of rocks. I hate to put it that way, but it’s the truth.

  Hencely, getting information out of Pete is always an ordeal, but it had to be done. I began pacing back and forth in front of him, as I often do when my mind has shifted into a higher level of performance.

  “Pete, I need your help on this case.”

  Silence. Then, “Oh really? Which case would that be?”

  “The Toad-Footed Tree Slipper.”

  “Oh that case! Yes, the Three-Toed Tree Sloth. It’s hard to say, isn’t it?”

  “No. Okay, it’s hard to say, but here’s the point: I need to nail down the facts. One of our hens turned in a report. She saw a strange creature walking around ranch headquarters.”

  He stared at me for a moment, and a smirk twitched at his mouth. “Did she! My, how exciting.”

  “Skip the dramatics. Tell me more.”

  As you might expect, he took his sweet time in answering. It was typical cat behavior. If we say hurry up, they slow down. If we say slow down, they slow down even more.

  He rolled his eyes up to the sky and flicked the end of his tail back and forth. “Well, let me think, Hankie. It must have been this morning. Or was it yesterday?”

  “Quit stalling.”

  “It was this morning, Hankie. I was sitting in the iris patch.”

  “Loafing, I’m sure. Go on.”

  “I was sitting in the iris patch and heard a sound coming from those trees.”

  “Which trees? Be precise.”

  He pointed a paw toward a line of trees north of the house, which we often refer to as the “shelter belt.” It’s a belt of trees, don’t you see, that shelters the house from cold winter winds, which is why we call it...

  Maybe this is obvious.

  He pointed toward the shelter belt, the cat did, and continued talking in his nerve-grating voice. “I climbed over the fence and went to investigate, Hankie, and that’s when I saw...” He dropped his voice to a spooky whisper. “…the creature!”

  “Okay, you saw a creature, a strange animal. What made you think it was a…whatever you called it.”

  “A Three-Toed Tree Sloth.”

  “That’s correct. Go on.”

  “Well, Hankie, he had three toes and was eating our precious trees.”

  I stopped pacing and whirled around to face the cat. “Hold it right there. Already I’ve found a hole in your story.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yes. Check this out. If the creature had four feet, how could it have only three toes? You’re one toe short, Kitty. Your math is totally messed up. What happened to that other toe?”

  He heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes toward the sky. “Three toes on each foot, Hankie.”

  I stuck my nose in his face. “Oh yeah? Then try this on for size. Four feet multiplied by three toes equals fourteen toes.”

  “Twelve toes, Hankie.”

  “That’s what I said, twelve toes. If he’s got twelve toes, why are you calling him a Three-Toed Tree Chopper, huh? What are you hiding?”

  The cat drummed his claws on the ground. “Hankie, if you want to change the name to Twelve-Toed Tree Sloth, that’s fine with me. Whatever makes you happy.”

  Was this some kind of trick? Maybe not.

  “Never mind. We’ll stick with the original name, but you should remember that I’m checking every little detail of your clackulations.”

  “Calculations, Hankie. Shall we continue?”

  “We’ll continue when I’m ready to continue.” I began pacing again. “Let’s continue. Before I commit troops to this deal, I need to know more about the enemy. How tough is he? What’s his fighting style? Does he eat dogs?”

  “Oh no, Hankie, not at all. Sloths are slothful.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They’re docile.”

  I marched over to him and glared down into his face. “You’re using big words and that really annoys me.”

  “But Hankie, ‘docile’ has only two syllables.”

  “Yeah? Well, check out this one-syllabus word.” I drew in a huge gulp of air and roared a bark in his ear. ROOF! Heh heh. He jumped three feet straight up. I love doing that. “It means ‘get to the point.’ Are they dangerous or not? In other words, can I whip this guy?”

  He gave me a hateful glare but didn’t use any more big words on me. “Tree Sloths don’t run, kick, bite, scratch, or claw. They’re lazy and not very smart.”

  “Ha! Maybe he’s a cat.”

  I thought that was pretty funny but Pete didn’t even crack a smile. No surprise there. Cats have no sense of humor, none.

  “Lighten up, Kitty, you take yourself way too seriously. By the way, I’m finished with my interrogation. Thanks for the information. One of these days, maybe I’ll find you a little job with the Security Division…” I gave him a wink, “…hauling trash. Ha ha.”

  I whirled around and marched away, leaving Kitty Precious to sulk and play with his tail. He looked irritated, even mad, but did I care? No. Pleasing cats isn’t part of my job. In fact, there’s an ancient piece of Cowdog Wisdom that says, “If the cats are happy, something’s wrong.”

  If Pete was in a sulky mood, that meant that the rest of us were having a great day.

  I was a proud dog when I marched away from the Interrogation Room, and why not? Hey, using my heartless interrogation techniques, I had broken down the scheming little wretch and dragged some very important information out of him. Here, let’s review the Clue List. I guess we have time.

  First Important Clue: We had two independent witnesses claiming that our ranch had been invaded by an unauthorized creature, a Three-Toed Tree Slipper…unless you multiply toes times feet and then it becomes a Twelve-Toed Whatever. Use your own judgment here. I don’t care what we call him.

  Second Important Clue: Regardless of how many toes they have, Tree Slobs eat trees, and we’re talking about eating them right down to the ground. Sawdust. Total destruction.

  Third Important Clue: They tend to be lazy and dumb, therefore…

  Fourth and Most Important Clue: I could whip him!

  Heh heh. This would be an in-and-out job with no major bloodshed, and that was crucial information, because…well, a dog should always try to avoid a fair fight. Studies have shown that fair fights can cause facial swelling and aching muscles, so we try to avoid them.

  Pretty impressive, huh? You bet. I had won a huge moral victory over Sally May’s rotten little cat and had gathered the kind of information that would give my career a tremendle boots….a tremendous boost, let us say. When I thrashed the Tree Sloth and saved ranch trees from destruction, my people would be thrilled. I would win gasps of delight, pats on the head, and maybe even a few steak dinners.

  In other words, I had extracted all the information I needed to pursue the case, and was ready to move into Stage Two. But as I was marching away in triumph, I heard Pete’s voice again, and it stopped me in my tracks. Hang on, you won’t believe this part.

  He said, this is a direct quote, he said, “Oh, one more thing, Hankie. It’s all a fabrication.”

  I did a one-eighty and marched back to him. “What did you say?”

  “It’s all a fabrication, Hankie. That’s a big word, but I’m sure you know what it means.”

  “Of course I do, but do you? What does it mean?”

  “It means…” He fluttered his eyelids, probably because he knew it gets on my nerves. “It’s a joke.”

  “What!”

  “Just a nasty little trick, Hankie. I was bored.”

  BORED? For a moment, I was speechless. “You mean…you mean there was no mysterious creature eating trees?”

  “It was a porcupine, Hankie, just a porcupine. There’s no such thing as a Three-Toed Tree Sloth. Hee hee. Have a nice day.”

  He turned and went slithering back to the iris patch, snickering every step of the way. I was shattered. I felt as though someone had dropped a bomb down the stovepipe of my mind.

  With great difficulty, I made my way up the hill to the machine shed. There, I flopped down in front of the sliding double doors and sifted through the wreckage. It appeared that the case I had spent so much time and effort piecing together had been blown to smithereens. Here, look at this.

  Mysterious creature eating trees.

  Beaver with a bad haircut.

  Three-Toed Tree Sloth.

  Porcupine.

  Huh

  ?

  You see how the clues form the shape of a funnel? That’s the Funnel of Logic, a secret technique we use in Security Work. In fact, come to think about it, it’s so secret, I shouldn’t be talking about it or showing our blueprints to the public. If this information reached the wrong eyes and ears, it could be very bad.

  Tell you what, let’s forget that we ever had this conversation, okay? It’s just too secret. Sorry.

  Chapter Six: The Double-Dirty-Trick Trick

  Tell you what, we’ll go on with this, but please don’t share it with anyone. I’m not kidding, it’s VERY secret.”

  Okay, you’ve gotten a peek at the Funnel of Logic, which is so highly classified that very few people or dogs in the entire world are aware that it even exists. You will notice that the top end is wide, and that the entire structure “funnels down” to the narrow part at the bottom.

  Very clever design. See, we load all our clues into the top end, stir it around, add a pinch of a rare spice whose name I can’t reveal, and let it sit for thirty minutes. When time expires, we’re supposed to get one drop of Pure Truth at the bottom-end of the funnel and it’s supposed to give us the solution to a difficult case.

  This time, what came out the bottom of the Funnel of Logic was a big fat question mark, and it appeared that my case had been destroyed. It lay in ruins all around me.

  How could this have happened? I had worked SO HARD gathering clues and building the case, only to have it all swept away by my worst enemy in the whole world. He had lured me into a dirty trick!

  I wasn’t sure I could carry on with my work. I mean, when we invest heart and soil into a case of this magnetron, then watch it go dripping down the Drain of Life, it’s hard to carry on.

  Sometimes a dog just wants to give up, quit. Go back to bed. Retire from the Force. Go into exile.

  I was in the midst of these gloomy thoughts when I heard footsteps approaching. Oh no, was it the rooster again? I glanced toward the sound and saw little Drover, bouncing along and wearing his usual silly grin.

  “Oh, hi.” He stopped and gave me a closer look. “Gosh, what’s wrong with you?”

  “Oh, nothing much. The world just collapsed on top of me.”

  He glanced around. “I’ll be derned. I don’t see anything.”

  “The wounds are inside, Drover. My irrigation of the cat turned out to be a complete disaster.”

  “Yeah, he hates water.”

  “Of course he hates water. All cats hate water.” There was a moment of silence. “Why did you bring up water?”

  “Well, you said you irrigated the cat, and I thought…”

  “Drover, I interrogated the cat. In-ter-ro-ga-ted. It has nothing to do with water.”

  “Yeah, but…”