“Oh good, then why don’t you take it?”

  “Because you need the experience. Now go.”

  I gave him a shove with my nose and he went creeping toward the whatever-it-was in the weeds. He took ten steps, froze, spun around, and came trotting back.

  “I did it, Hank, I checked it out and I wasn’t even scared.”

  “See? I knew you could do it. Did you get a positive identification?”

  Oh yeah. It’s only J. T. Cluck, and I’m so proud of myself!”

  “Nice work, son, I’ll take it from here.” I went swaggering over to the weeds. “All right, J.T., you can come out now. We’ve recaptured this area and it’s safe to return to your home.”

  J.T. poked his head out of the weeds and looked from side to side. “Where’d the rascal go?”

  “He’s gone back to where he came from, J.T., and I doubt that we’ll ever see him around here again.”

  “You say you ran him off?”

  “That’s correct, and we did it without much effort.”

  “Huh. You must know something I don’t know, ’cause that was the meanest darn guy I ever ran into. And he sure did stink.”

  “I’ll need to ask you some questions, J.T.”

  “Sure, ask me anything. Ask Elsa, she saw the whole thing. I was just peckin’ around for bugs, see, little black bugs, found a whole bunch of ’em up there by the water well, and Elsa, she seen this guy coming up behind me, and she said . . .”

  “Can you give me a description?”

  “Huh? Sure I can. They’re little black bugs with six legs, and they’re pretty tasty.”

  “I don’t care about the bugs. Describe your assailant.”

  He stared at me and blinked his eyes. “Naw, I wasn’t sailing. I was pecking for bugs, when all at once this guy . . .”

  “Did you get a good look at him?”

  “Get a look at him? Naw, my head was down. Who can see with his head down? Naw, I didn’t get a look at the rascal, but I smelled him, and boy, did he stink!”

  I studied the rooster with hard, cold eyes. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned the smell of the Phantom Dog of the Mirror. It makes me curious.”

  “That’s good. Every ranch mutt ought to be curious about something.”

  “There’s only one problem with your testimony, J.T.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s the problem? I want to hear about it.”

  “You will, if you’ll shut your beak.”

  “Elsa wouldn’t approve of you talkin’ to me like that, mister.”

  “Too bad for Elsa. The problem is that I met the same Phantom Dog myself, this very afternoon, and I didn’t notice any smell whatsoever.”

  J.T. looked at me with those weird rooster eyes. “Oh yeah? Well, maybe that’s because the guy I ran into was a SKUNK.”

  The word went through me like a bolt of cloth. Suddenly the investigation had taken on a new and sinister dimension which would lead to . . .

  Well, you’ll see.

  Chapter Seven: J.T.’s Shocking Revelation

  J. T. Cluck, the head rooster, had just made a shocking revelation. It took me a moment to adjust to the news, then:

  “What? A skunk in the machine shed? Why wasn’t I informed of this?”

  “You was probably sleeping your life away on that gunnysack, would be my guess, and besides that, no rooster worth his salt needs to go running to a fool ranch dog every time there’s a little danger lurking on the place. I can take care of my own business, pooch.”

  “Maybe you can and maybe you can’t, but the fact remains that you failed to report the unauthorized entry of a skunk on MY ranch.”

  “That’s right, mister, and what do you aim to do about it?”

  What I aimed to do about it was remove about five pounds of feathers from his tail section, which I did. I mean, who did that bird think he was talking to?

  The Head of Ranch Security does not take trash off the cats or the chickens, period. It cost J.T. a bundle of feathers but he learned a valuable lesson about mouthing off to the wrong dog.

  My goodness, you should have seen him jump and heard him squawk! It was very satisfying, just by George made my whole day better and brighter.

  Of course, it brought my interrogation to a sud­den stop, since J.T. went highballing back to the chicken house, but that was okay because I’d learned all I needed to know anyway.

  Spitting feathers, I returned to the spot where my assistant was waiting. “Well, Drover, this tooey case has taken an interesting patooey twist.”

  “What?”

  “I said, this feather has taken an interesting patooey.”

  “Oh.”

  “Twist.”

  “Twist what?”

  “No, no. I said, this patooey has taken an interesting . . . I seem to have a mouthful of patooeys.”

  He stared at me. “Did you know that you’ve got a mouthful of feathers?”

  “That’s what I just said, Drover. Could it be that you weren’t paying attoey?”

  “I thought you said you had a mouthful of petunias.”

  “No, I did not say that. I said ‘patooey,’ not ‘petunias.’”

  “I’ll be derned. What’s a patooey?”

  The runt was beginning to strain my patience. “Patooey is the sound one makes when one is spitting feathers.”

  “Oh. Well, that makes sense ’cause you’ve got feathers all over your mouth. Maybe that’s why you were spitting feathers.”

  “I know that, you brick. Once again, you’re repeating the obvious and beating a dead plow.”

  “Horse.”

  “What?”

  “A dead horse.”

  “A dead horse? Where?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Hurry, Drover, we don’t have a second to spare! Where’s the horse?”

  “Well . . . you said ‘dead plow’ and I think you meant ‘dead horse.’”

  “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”

  “I don’t know, I’m all confused and quit yelling at me! I can’t stand to be yelled at.”

  I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and walked several paces away. “All right, patooey, let’s start at the beginning.”

  “My name’s not Patooey.”

  “I KNOW YOUR . . .” I caught myself and lowered my voice. “I know your name, Drover. What concerns me right now is whether or not you’ve gone insane. First you talked about petunias, then you said something about a horse that had been murdered in cold blood. Then there was some nonsense about . . . what was it?”

  “A dead plow?”

  “That’s it. Drover, a plow can’t possibly be dead because it was never alive to start with.”

  “I know but . . .”

  “Let me finish. You see, Drover, death grows out of life, and life is what this life is all about. Is that clear?”

  All at once his eyes seemed to cross. “I’m so confused I think I’ll go back to bed.”

  “No chance of that, son. During my interrogation of J. T. Cluck, I learned that we have a skatooey skunk running wild on the ranch.”

  “Oh my gosh! What’s a skatooey skunk?”

  I looked deeply into the huge vacuum of his eyes. “Are you trying to make a mockery of this investigation? Have you no respect for law and order? Is nothing sacred anymore? Tell me, Drover, because . . .”

  My ears shot up. Operating entirely on their own, they had picked up the sound of the screen door slamming up at the house.

  “. . . because it could very well be scrap time up at the yard gate. In other words, drop everything and go to Red Alert. Unless we hurry, the cat might get some of our scraps!”

  And with that, we went streaking down to the yard gate. We never did get around to finishing our conversation, but that was okay with me. Trying to carry on an intelligent, coherent, meaningful conversation with Drover can be very discouraging.

  Sometimes I even think . . . oh well. There’s no sense in beating a dead plow.

  We went streaking up to the . . . I’ve already said that, but the important thing is that we got there before the cat did. I mean, we beat him BAD, which is one of the best things that can happen to a cat on our outfit.

  Have we discussed cats? Maybe not. I don’t like ’em, not even a little tiny bit, have no use for ’em whatsoever. A cat is a totally worthless creature, and if I were in charge of designing and directing the world . . .

  You know, that’s not such an outrageous thought, me being put in charge of the entire world. Just look at my record as Head of Ranch Security. It’s pretty impressive.

  I mean, any dog who can operate a ranch can operate something bigger. The world is bigger.

  Therefore, it follows from simple logic that . . . well, maybe you get the drift.

  So where were we? Oh yes, at the yard gate. Drover and I had gotten there first and were waiting for Sally May to come outside with our scraps.

  Under Ranch Law, we were entitled to first dibs on the goodies, which on any given day might include roast beef trimmings (which I like very much), fatty ends of bacon (which I love), and several slices of burned toast (which I can live without).

  Pete came slinking up to the gate—purring, holding his tail straight up in the air, and rubbing on everything in sight. He tried to rub on my leg.

  “Get away, cat. That rubbing business drives me nuts.”

  He grinned up at me. “Hi, Hankie. Did you find the Phantom Dog in the machine shed?”

  “I not only found him, Kitty, but also gave him a thrashing and ordered him off my ranch.”

  “How interesting! Did he remind you of yourself?”

  “Not at all. Not even a little bit. He was arrogant, overbearing, pompous, and not very smart.”

  Suddenly the cat choked. At first I thought he was having a seizure but then it appeared that he was only laughing.

  “I’m glad to see that you’re enjoying this, Kitty, but I’m afraid the joke is on you.” The cat screeched with laughter and nodded his head. “Not only did you give an incorrect description of the Phantom Dog, but you neglected to mention that he was traveling with a companion—a smallish white dog who called himself the Handsome Prince.”

  Drover stepped forward. “Yeah, and I saw him myself, didn’t I, Hank?”

  “That’s correct, Drover, and you’ll be rewarded for that.”

  “When?”

  “Later.” The cat went into another fit of laughter. I glared down at him, then turned my gaze on Drover. “This cat seems to have come unhinged, and I haven’t even gotten to the part about the skunk.”

  “Yeah. I’ll bet he won’t laugh about that.”

  Pete stopped laughing, sat up, and wiped his eyes. “Oh my goodness, tell me about the skunk!”

  “I was just about to do that, Kitty. You see, after checking out your garbled report, we learned through our intelligence network that the Phantom Dog and the Handsome Prince released a fully-armed, heat-seeking, infrared, turbo-charged skunk on this ranch, and we have reason to suspect that he will strike at any moment.”

  The cat fell over on his back and howled with laughter. I shook my head. “Drover, did you find anything funny in what I just said?”

  “It sounded pretty serious to me.”

  “I agree. So what’s wrong with this cat?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’s just dumb.”

  “Well, yes, of course. We knew that all along, but there’s more to it than that. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s come down with some terrible disease such as Turkeylabosis.”

  “Gosh, what’s that?”

  “The victim begins to act like a crazed turkey, Drover. It strikes without warning and there’s no cure for it. The disease just has to run its course.”

  Still laughing, the cat struggled to his feet and staggered down the hill toward the gas tanks. We watched and shared a moment of sadness.

  “Poor old Pete!” said Drover.

  “Yes, even a cat deserves better than this. But we must go on with Life’s journey, Drover.”

  And with that, we tore our attention away from Pete and turned to the sad business of eating his share of the scraps.

  Chapter Eight: Fishing Turns Out to Be No Fun for Me

  It wasn’t Sally May with a plate of scraps. It was Little Alfred, her son. He had come out of the house and had started playing in the yard.

  He had taken down the piece of plywood that covered the crawl space under the house, don’t you see, and appeared to be playing Explore the Cavern. I had played that game with him on several occasions. It was a good game, but we had gotten into trouble over it.

  Why? Because Alfred’s dad didn’t want the crawl space open and exposed. It attracted skunks, see, and a skunk under the house is no fun.

  A skunk under the house is real bad.

  Well, right away I saw two things I didn’t like about the situation. The first was that Alfred had opened up the crawl space, and the second was that he didn’t have any scraps.

  I should have known. This was the wrong time of day for Scrap Time.

  Scraps, you see, are composed of what’s left after a meal at the house. At the present moment, we were in that time interval between lunch and supper. Hence, no scraps. Hence, the slamming of the screen door had been a false alarm.

  That was disappointing. I mean, when a guy gets his taste buds all tuned up for some roast beef trimmings and fatty ends of bacon, it’s hard to go back to Life’s dull and monotonous rhythms.

  Life without scraps is bearable, but also pretty boring.

  “Well, Drover, it appears that we answered a false alarm.”

  “Oh drat. I sure was looking forward to some scraps.”

  “Yes, this could very well be a scrapless night for us, but at least we beat the cat to the false alarm. On a scrapless night, when Life loses all meaning, I guess that means something.”

  “It means I’m starving.”

  “It means you complain too much, Drover. Be happy with what you have and don’t worry about what you don’t have. That’s a simple formula for a good and happy life.”

  “But how can life be happy without scraps?”

  I aimed a steely gaze at the runt. “Will you dry up? You’re starting to make ME unhappy. Until you started whining and complaining, I was a happy dog. I was content with my life. I was counting my blessings.”

  “How many did you have?”

  “Hundreds. Thousands. I had thousands of blessings, Drover, but you’ve ruined them all, simply by pointing out that no dog can be happy without scraps. And now I’m just as miserable as you are and I hope that makes you happy.”

  “Well, that’s not what I had in mind.”

  “Good. Great. You’re getting just what you deserve, and we’ll just sit here and be miserable together.”

  Boy, were we miserable! We were probably two of the unhappiest, miserablest dogs in the whole entire world, facing the long, cold winter night without a single scrap. Or even the hope of a single scrap.

  Fellers, things were looking pretty bleak.

  At that moment, Little Alfred saw us and came over to the yard gate. He had gotten tired of Explore the Cavern, it appeared, and was looking for another form of amusement.

  He looked at us through the wire gate. “What’s the matter, Hankie? You wook sad.”

  Sad? Hey, sad didn’t even come close to what I was feeling. On the other hand—I wagged the last three inches of my tail—on the other hand, there was nothing wrong with me that a nice juicy steak bone wouldn’t have fixed.

  Or a strip of steak fat, say three-four inches long. Or some roast beef trimmings. Or, shucks, even a piece of baloney. I mean, we weren’t talking about truckloads of food, just a little token reward to get me through the long winter night.

  Anyways, I wagged my tail and hoped that the boy might get the message: “Hankie needs scraps. Hankie will look very happy when scraps arrive.”

  I guess he didn’t get the message, because he said, “Well, you want to go fishing wiff me?”

  Fishing?

  I ran my gaze across the back yard, searching for a body of water that might be large enough to support a fishing expedition. Just as I had suspected, there was no body of water.

  In other words, no, I didn’t want to go fishing—first, because fishing in a yard without water was impossible, and second, because I was too busy being miserable and unhappy.

  Nix on the fishing.

  “Well” said the boy, “I think I’ll pway fishing.”

  Oh, so that was it. He was going to play fishing. Nope, I still wasn’t interested. I had gone fishing with Slim on several occasions and it had been pretty boring, to tell you the truth.

  I mean, you sit on the bank and watch a cork for hours and hours. Is that fun? Ha. No thanks.

  And besides, I didn’t dare enter Sally May’s Precious Yard. You know how she is about dogs in her precious yard. She would never understand the business about fishing. Never.

  “Well, I’m going to find me a piece of stwing and some bait, and then I’m going to catch me a big old fish.”

  He dashed into the house.

  Fine. He could catch all the “big old fish” he wanted, and he could do it without my help be­cause I had exactly zero interest in fishing.

  I turned to Drover. “Well, are you still un­happy?”

  “Yeah. Life’s pretty awful sometimes. How about you?”

  “Same here. It all seems so pointless without scraps.”

  Little Alfred came bursting out the back door. In one hand he held a piece of string, maybe five feet long. In the other, he held a piece of . . . something. Bait, I supposed, but I really didn’t pay attention because I really didn’t care.