The Case of the Kidnapped Collie by John R. Erickson Read Free Book Online

to me and smiled.
    â€œAs you were saying?”
    â€œBeulah, I don’t think those were actually quail. They looked more like, uh, blackbirds or starlings. Really.”
    â€œThey were quail.”
    â€œOkay, maybe they were quail, but they were stupid quail. A smart quail would be up in the sand draws, where it belongs.”
    â€œA quail is a quail.”
    â€œI never denied that.”
    â€œAnd Plato found them. It won’t hurt you to admit that he’s good at his work.”
    â€œOkay, fine. I’ll admit that he’s one lucky bird dog.”
    â€œHank.”
    â€œAnd he’s pretty good at his line of work, although . . .”
    â€œHank, shh. Let’s watch.”
    We turned our respective eyes to the south and watched The Hero at work. He was running again, sniffing out every bush and clump of grass.
    Hadn’t we seen all this before?
    I was getting restless. My time with Beulah was slipping away. I decided to make my move.
    I scootched myself closer, ever closer, to her warm wonderful side and . . . my goodness, we must have run out of room on her side of the . . . she more or less fell out of the back of the . . . uh, pickup, you might say.
    â€œOh dear,” I said, looking down at her as she picked herself up off the ground. “You fell out . . . I guess.”

    She beamed a rather hostile gaze in my direction. “You pushed me out!”
    â€œIt was an accident, Beulah, honest. I just wanted . . .”
    â€œYou wanted my attention, but you can’t have it. Don’t you understand? I want to watch Plato at work.”
    â€œNo, I don’t understand that. You have a cowdog right here beside you, so how could you have any interest in a bird dog? It doesn’t make sense, Beulah.”
    She sighed and shook her head. “I can’t explain it, and even if I could, you wouldn’t accept it.”
    â€œWould you like me better if I ran around chasing birds? Okay, if that’s what it takes, that’s what I’ll do. Good-bye, Beulah, I’m going away to prove that I’m a better bird dog than Plato. When I return, you’ll see the truth at last.”
    â€œOh Hank, honestly!”
    I leaped out of the pickup and stormed away. She tried to call me back but by then my heart had turned to purest stone.
    I left her alone with her tears and memories, and went in search of Pete the Barncat.

Chapter Eight: A Major Theft on the Ranch

    W hy would I go looking for Pete? Good question. Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn’t have, but it just happened that in my last conversation with the little sneak, he had said something about “impressing Beulah the Collie,” if I recalled his words exactly.
    I had to find out what he meant by that.
    Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t in the habit of seeking the advice of cats, but Pete was an expert on sneaky plans and I needed some kind of special sneaky plan to take Beulah’s mind off her bird dog friend.
    It was for her own good, don’t you see. She needed the help of a true friend.
    I knew where to find the cat. In the middle of the day, he hung out on the shady side of the house, in the iris patch, to be exact. There, he lurked and waited and stared out at the rest of the world with his big yellow eyes.
    What was he waiting and lurking for? Scraps. A helpless bird. A leg to rub on. Who knows why cats spend so much of their time lurking? It’s just their nature to lurk in sneaky places.
    I felt very uncomfortable as I made my way past the gas tanks and up the hill behind the house, as though I were going into a den of thieves. I found myself glancing over both shoulders, and hoping that no one was watching.
    If word ever got out that I had gone to Pete for advice, my career would be finished.
    I didn’t leap over the fence and enter Sally May’s precious yard, for obvious reasons. Dogs were forbidden and I had no wish to tangle with the lady of the house.