Rick and Ruddy Part 21

Ruddy was too surprised and frightened to leap back over the hedge and take refuge in the house of Rick. As soon as he saw the man he remembered, with pain and fear, the days he had spent in the company of the ragged sailor--for this is who the man was.

Ruddy crouched down, growled as was natural at the sight of an enemy, and then he whined, for he saw the man raise his hand and the dog knew what happened when the heavy hand fell.

But this time, for some reason or other, the sailor did not strike the dog. Perhaps he saw that Ruddy was crouching down and was afraid, and thus he knew that he had mastered the poor animal.

"'Tisn't as if you ran away from me!" growled the man. "You didn't do that. A wave carried you overboard, same as it might me. You didn't run away, but now I have you back. I guess I'll have luck from now on, for I'm going to keep you."

Of course Ruddy did not understand this talk. All he knew was that there was the man he had grown, even in a short time, to fear and hate. The very smell of the man was hateful to the dog, for it is by the smell, or personal odor, that a dog remembers his friends and enemies.

After the first fear, the first crouching, growling and then whining Ruddy might have leaped up and gotten away. But a setter is not like many dogs. Ruddy did not have the fierceness of the bulldog, nor the suspicion of a collie. He was an affectionate, loving dog, ready and willing to make friends with everyone who was kind to him, and fearing those who were unkind to him. And that is why, being afraid, he crouched down, and waited for what was to happen, instead of running away.

And, a moment later, the sailor reached down and caught Ruddy up in powerful arms, held one hand around the dog's nose, or muzzle, and hurried with him toward a waiting wagon.

It was a junk wagon, and on the seat was a dirty, ragged man with a straggly black beard. He seemed to be waiting for the sailor, who had jumped off the wagon to take Ruddy.

"I got him!" cried the sailor, as he hastened back to the wagon. "I got him. Maybe, now, I'll have some luck!"

"Um!" was all the junk man answered.

The sailor took a bag from among the bundles of papers, and quickly tied it around Ruddy's head. The poor dog struggled and howled faintly, and even tried to bite the man, as was natural. But he could not get away, and his howls, rather faint as they were, effectually were m.u.f.fled in the bag.

"There you are!" growled the sailor, as he finished tying the bag around Ruddy's head. "I guess you won't get away! But I'll make sure!"

With some bits of rope, of which there were many in the junk wagon, the sailor tied Ruddy's legs. Then he let the dog stretch out among the old pieces of iron, burst automobile tires, paper and other trash in the junk wagon.

"You won't get away now!" growled the sailor. "Come on! Drive along that old bundle of bones you call a horse!" he ordered the junk man. "We got to get out of here! That boy may be along any minute, and I don't want him to see me!"

"You goin' t' sell de dog?" asked the junk man, who had agreed to help the sailor. On his part the ragged old man of the sea had promised to help the junk man unload his wagon that night. "You goin' t' sell him?"

"Sell him? No, I guess not! Think I want to sell my luck? I never had any luck since this pup was washed overboard! That's why I wanted him back. Now I got him."

"But what good is he if you can't sell him?" asked the junk man. To him everything was measured in value by how cheaply he could buy it and how dearly he could sell.

"Oh, a dog's good for something else than selling," declared the sailor.

"They bring you luck! I'm going to keep this one. Course I'll have to watch him that he don't run away, but when I get him on a s.h.i.+p he can't run off. I've got him all right now!"

And, surely enough, the ragged sailor did have Ruddy. It had all happened so quickly--the stopping of the junk wagon outside the Dalton house, the whistling of the sailor, the carrying off of the dog--it had all happened so quickly that Ruddy himself hardly knew all the details.

Mrs. Dalton had not seen Ruddy leap the hedge. She had heard a low whistle, just before Rick came racing home from school, but she had not thought much about it, and she certainly did not know that Ruddy had left the porch, in answer to the call, and had been captured by his enemy.

And now Ruddy was being taken away in the junk wagon.

"Drive along!" ordered the sailor. "I want to get off this street. Too many kids here would know this dog if they saw him; he won't stay covered up!" he exclaimed, for Ruddy was struggling, trying to get his head loose and to work the ropes off his legs, and these struggles disturbed the old sacks the sailor had thrown over the dog to hide him in the bottom of the wagon. "Drive on, fast!" said the sailor.

"But I should must stop and buy things!" declared the junk man. "All right it is for you to say a red dog he brings you luck. He brings no such to me. I of got to buy paper and rags and bottles and old auto tires, and I of got to sell 'em to make money."

"All right, but hurry all you can!" growled the ragged man--in fact they were both ragged men. "I want to get out of town and back to a s.h.i.+p," he added. "Then I'll have some luck!"

And so the ramshackle old wagon rattled down the street, stopping only at Mrs. Blake's candy store, where Rick and his chums received their first clue or information.

Then the junk wagon drove out of Belemere, just as the boys had been told, and as evening was coming on the junk man headed his outfit toward the old log cabin.

"What are you going to do here?" asked the sailor in the gruff, growling voice that seemed natural to him.

"I can leave my horse and wagon here for the night," was the answer. "I do so--lots of times. n.o.body ever here comes along--the place is too lonesome."

"Going to leave your horse and wagon here, eh?" spoke the sailor. "What are you going to do? What am I going to do--and the dog?"

"For me, I should go on a little further to a friend of mine in the same business," said the junk dealer. "I can sleep there for the night, and he will make room for you and the dog--cheap, too. You do not of need to feed the dog."

"Well, if you're going on to a friend's place, why don't you drive there and leave your horse and wagon?" asked the sailor. "What's the use of stopping half way?"

The black bearded man smiled to show how very white his teeth were amid his dark whiskers. Then he said:

"You should not of understand. He is a business rival and he might see what I have bought. Besides, anyhow, he maybe would want to sell me some feed for the horse, and I can let him stay here to eat the gra.s.s where it doesn't cost even a penny! We leave the horse in the cabin, and the wagon outside. Me, I go to my friend's house and buy my supper and a bed. If you want to sell the dog maybe he'll buy--he buys lots of things."

"No, I'll not sell him," was the gruff, growled answer. "I'm not going to sell my luck. I've got a few shots left in the locker. I can pay for my supper and a bed, and a bone for the dog. I'll go with you."

The junk wagon was driven from the road close to the old log cabin, the horse was turned out to graze on the free gra.s.s at the rear of the shack, and the junkman and the sailor started down the road. The sailor took the bag off the dog's head, unbound his legs, and led him along with a cord around his neck. Poor Ruddy slunk along, half dragged by the ragged man. The dog tried to hold back but it was of no use.

CHAPTER XVI

CAMPING OUT

Rick, Chot and Tom--the three boys who were trailing the dog that had been taken away by the ragged sailor--came to a stop as they saw the old log cabin in the lonely hollow just off the road.

"We've found it!" Rick had said, and this was true enough as to the junk wagon. But there was no horse, no men and certainly not a dog. If Ruddy had been there you may well believe he would have been running around, if free. And as soon as the wind had brought to his sensitive nose the scent of his boy master he would have run to Rick with leaps and bounds and joyous barks.

"What'll we do?" asked Tom.

"Let's go up there and get back Rick's dog!" exclaimed Chot.

"But maybe Ruddy isn't there," suggested Tom. "I don't see him, and maybe that isn't the junk wagon we're looking for."

"I'm sure it's the right wagon," spoke Rick. "But I don't see Ruddy. And I don't see any horse."

"Whistle for him!" advised Tom.

"Whistle for the horse?" Rick wanted to know.

"Whistle for the dog, I mean. If he's there he'll come out to you. Maybe he's inside the log cabin. I wonder what it's for, anyhow? I have never been over so far on this road before."

"This is a log cabin that a gun club used to use when they shot at targets," said Chot. "Some of us Boy Scouts stopped here one day and cooked our dinner. The gun club doesn't use the cabin any more."