CHAPTER IX

DON AND THE DOG CATCHER

“Look at him run!” cried one of the boys who had tied the tin can on Don’s tail, when the dog was asleep. “Look!”

“He certainly can go!” shouted the other boy. “Let’s see if we can’t catch him!”

But Don was running too fast for any small boy to get hold of him, and those boys were not very large. Don was running as he had never run before, because he was so frightened. Never before had he had a can tied to his tail, and it bumped along after him, making such a noise, and the rope pinched him so that, altogether, Don was very much frightened.

But it was only “fun” for the boys. They laughed and shouted to see Don try to get rid of the tin can.

For, after the first few minutes, Don did try to get rid of that bouncing, rattlety-bang thing that seemed to follow him so closely. The dog sat down, and, turning around, tried to pull the rope off his tail by his teeth. But the boys had tied it on too tightly to allow Don to get rid of it easily.

“Come on! Now we can catch him!” cried one of the boys, as he saw Don sitting down near a pile of shingles.

The two boys went softly up toward the dog. I do not know what they would have done with him if they had caught him, but they did not get their hands on Don.

He stopped gnawing at the rope long enough to look up, and he saw the boys. With a yelp, a growl and whine, all together, Don sprang up and ran on again.

“There he goes!” cried one of the boys.

“Yes. Head him off! You go one way, and I’ll go the other,” shouted the second boy. “Then we’ll get him, sure.”

“Oh, what a lot of trouble I’m having!” thought poor Don. “How I wish I were back on the farm! And I wish Jack, that shaggy dog, was here to help me. I wonder where he went to?”

But Jack was far away, and Don had to fight his battle alone. Finally, as he was running around with the can on his tail, Don saw a little hole in the pile of lumber.

“If I can only crawl in there,” he said, “I’ll hide from those boys. They can’t get at me in there.”

Don made a dive for the hole. It was just large enough to let him crawl in. He hoped the tin can might catch on something and be pulled off his tail. But it did not. Inside his hiding place the can followed poor Don.

“Never mind,” thought the tired and panting dog, “if the can had caught on something, and if I pulled too hard, I might pull my tail off also, and that would be too bad.” And of course it would. You know that, as well as I do, without me telling you.

“But maybe when Jack comes back, and these boys go away, I’ll be able to get rid of this old tin can,” thought Don. “Maybe Jack can help me gnaw it off.”

So Don crept farther back into the hole, under the lumber and the boys could not get at him. They tried to, but they could not. They even poked sticks in the hole, and threw stones in, but none of them hit Don.

Finally, one of the men who owned the lumber yard came out of his office, and saw the boys bothering Don. The man called to them:

“Hi there, you little fellows! Run away, and play somewhere else.”

Then the boys ran away, and left Don alone. The man did not know there was a dog hiding under his lumber pile. But Don felt very kindly toward the man who had driven away the boys.

“Now if he would only help me get rid of this can on my tail I’d be all right,” thought Don. “I wonder where Jack is?”

For some time Don stayed hiding under the lumber pile. His heart was not beating so fast now, though his tail still hurt him, where the can was tied on. And he was hungry and thirsty, for he had eaten nothing since the night before. Don was just thinking it would be safe to come out of his hiding place, when he heard a dog barking. And he knew, at once, that it was his shaggy friend Jack.

Though Jack’s voice would have sounded to you and me only like: “Bow wow wow!” to Don it said:

“Where are you? What has happened? Where are you hiding?”

“Bow wow!” answered Don. “Here I am. Oh, where have you been? Such a lot has happened since you went away, and left me sleeping. There is a can tied to my tail.”

“Poor fellow!” said Jack to Don, as the latter crawled out. “You have had a lot of trouble, haven’t you? Never mind, I’ll soon have that off your tail.” And he did, gnawing the rope with his sharp teeth.

“Now I have a bone for you,” went on Jack. “I left it in the place where we slept. It isn’t a very good one, but it’s the best one I could find this morning.”

“Oh, that’s a fine bone,” said Don, when he was hungrily gnawing it. At home he would hardly have looked twice at such a bone, for it had very little meat on it. But since he had run away he was glad enough to get almost anything.

“Where did you go?” asked Don of Jack, as the bone was finished, and Don began to feel thirsty.

“Oh, seeing that you were soundly asleep, I went out to look for breakfast,” answered Jack. “I did not think the boys would find you asleep. We must look for a new hiding place, since they know where this one is. Now we’ll see if it’s all right to go get a drink, down at the river. It isn’t far.”

Jack looked out, but, almost at once, he drew in his head again.

“What’s the matter?” asked Don.

“There’s a man out there,” explained Jack. “I don’t want him to see us, or he might chase us.”

Don looked, and when he saw the man he exclaimed:

“Why, he’s a good man. He drove away the boys who were throwing stones at me.”

“Then he didn’t know you were there,” said Jack, “for he doesn’t like dogs, and he won’t have them in this lumber yard. We must wait until he goes away.”

So, though Don would have liked to go up to the man, and be patted on the head, he thought perhaps Jack knew best.

“Things are so different in the city from the country,” said Don, with a dog-sigh.

“Indeed they are,” barked Jack.

Pretty soon the man went out of the lumber yard, and then Jack and Don could go down to the edge of the river, near the piles of boards, and get a drink of cool water.

“Oh, that’s fine!” cried Don. “That’s the best water I’ve had since I ran away.”

“Yes, it is good,” agreed Jack. “That’s why I have a place near it. We can’t always get all we want to eat in the city, but water is not so hard to find. Now let’s go and hunt up our dinner.”

“But we just had breakfast,” said Don.

“I know we did,” spoke Jack, as he washed his face with his paw, “but we may have to hunt a long time for something more to eat, and then it will be dinner time.”

Once more Don thought how very different this was from his farm kennel.

There, after he had had his breakfast, he could play around, or perhaps drive in a runaway pig, or go after the sheep or cows. He did not have to worry about his dinner, for he knew Bob, or some one, would bring it to him. But now Don had to go out and look for a bone in an ash can. Oh, it was very different!

This day Don and Jack were lucky. Together, as they ran about the city streets, they found a large piece of meat, which some cook had thrown out at the back door of a house.

“Oh, this will be fine!” cried Jack. “We’ll take this to the lumber yard, and put it in a new hiding place. There will be enough for dinner and supper too.”

It was not a very good piece of meat, being old and tough, but it was just as good to those dogs as roast turkey would be to you.

Jack took the meat in his mouth, and started off with it.

“Keep a watch out for other dogs,” he said to Don. “They may try to take it away from us. And, if they do, drive them off.”

“I will,” said Don. And he had to, several times. But Don was now a big dog, and he was braver and bolder than ever before. So, when two or three dogs ran up, Don growled and showed his sharp teeth, so that the other dogs were glad enough to run away.

Jack picked out a new place under a pile of lumber, and there he and Don ate their dinner. They were feeling much better now, for there was enough meat left for their supper. And they could always get plenty of clean drinking water in the river.

“Oh, running away isn’t so bad, after all,” said Don that night, after the last of the meat had been eaten. “I am beginning to like it, now.”

“Wait,” advised Jack. “This is only the beginning. Not always will we have such good luck as we had to-day.”

Jack was right. The next day they could find nothing to eat until late in the afternoon. Then it was only a small bone which they divided between them.

It rained, too, and the water ran down through the lumber pile and got the dogs wet.

But Don could not find his way home, having traveled so far in the freight car. He tried to get back to Bob, but he could not, and Jack could not help him.

For several weeks Jack and Don lived together in the lumber pile, eating what and when they could. Sometimes other dogs would fight them, and try to take away their bones, but Jack and Don were both strong, and usually they kept what they found.

Don could go off by himself now, to find food, and one day, as he was off thus, searching in different ash cans, he had a sad adventure.

He had just found a nice bone, in some clean ashes, and was wiping it off on the grass, when he saw two men running toward him. One of them had a long net, on a pole, like the net Bob used for catching fish, and Don wondered what this was for. He soon found out.

“There’s a stray dog!” cried one of the men. “Get him, and we’ll take him away!” And the dog-catcher ran straight for Don.