Rick and Ruddy Part 11

Ruddy was always ready to go anywhere with Rick, and especially over to Chot's house. For next door to Rick's chum lived Tom Martin, whose dog and Ruddy had become great friends. This other dog's name was Peter, and he was a bull terrier, a white dog, with ears like a bat, and queer, sleepy-looking eyes that gave his long face rather a foolish expression.

But Peter was a brave dog, and loved his master as much as Ruddy loved Rick. So the two dogs played together, while Rick and Chot talked on the back steps in the soft, warm, fall darkness.

Ruddy was much larger than Peter, and it was all Peter could do, when Ruddy held his head high, to get hold of one of Ruddy's ears to pull it.

But often Peter did this, and then the two dogs would roll over and over in the gra.s.s, pretending to bite one another, but, of course, not really doing it.

"I'm sorry you got lost," said Chot to Rick. "I didn't know you would go so far in the woods if I wasn't there."

"I didn't mean to," spoke Rick. "But I just kept going. But I'll never get lost, now, with Ruddy. He'll bring me home."

"Yes, Ruddy is a good dog."

Hearing his name spoken Ruddy left his play with Peter, and came running to his master, laying his muzzle, or nose, on the boy's knee, and looking up into his face as if to ask:

"What do you want?"

"I didn't call you," said Rick. "But I guess it's time to go home. Come on over and see Haw-Haw, my crow, to-morrow, Chot."

"I will. I hope he gets to talking."

"So do I!"

Rick and Ruddy raced home together, and soon both were asleep, Rick in his little white bed, and Ruddy out in his kennel, ready to bark if a strange footfall should be heard around the house. For though Ruddy could not see in the dark, even as well as he could in the daytime, which was little enough, his hearing and smelling were perhaps better after dark than in daylight. He would know the moment a stranger came within hearing, or smelling, distance of the house he now called home.

Again and again Ruddy sniffed the night air, during the hours of darkness for any trace of the hated man odor he had smelled. But it did not again come to his nose. Perhaps the wind had changed, for dogs, and most animals, can not smell persons, or other animals, if the wind is blowing away from them. When the wind blows from the animal or person to the dog, then the dog can smell very well indeed.

Or perhaps the ugly-faced man under the bush had gone away after the dog had growled. Ruddy did not know what it was, but he did know that the odor he disliked came to him no more. But he was on the alert for the noise of a strange footstep, or the least whiff of a new smell.

Mr. Dalton came from the office earlier next day, and with the help of Rick and Chot bound up the crow's broken wing. It was wound about with soft strips of cloth close to the glossy, black feathers of the bird's body.

"There," said Rick's father. "I think the wing will mend, even if Haw-Haw can not use it to fly again. Now we'll give him something to eat, and fresh water, and leave him alone. He's frightened half to death, for he doesn't know yet that we are trying to be kind to him."

Some sc.r.a.ps of meat were given Haw-Haw and he seemed to like them. He nestled down in his box, and there he had to stay for many days, until his broken wing healed, as it did after a while, though not so he could fly with it. He could only flutter lamely about the yard.

Meanwhile Rick and Ruddy had many good times. When he did not have to go to school, the boy went on long walks with his dog, sometimes down to the beach, and again back in the woods or along the river or lake.

On Silver Lake were a number of swans. They had been bought by the town of Belemere to make the place attractive for summer visitors, and in winter the birds were put in shelters. But now they were still in the open, swimming about the lake, and sometimes in the river, from which they ate the weeds.

Ruddy did not understand these swans. To him they were a sort of goose.

But a swan is much larger than a goose and it has powerful wings. It is said a swan can break a man's arm with a sweep of the wing, but I am not sure this is so. At any rate swans defend themselves with their bills, which can nip splinters off a wooden plank, and with their strong wings they can deal hard blows.

Whenever Ruddy could slip away from Rick, the dog used to love to chase these swans. He would rush at them barking loudly, if he saw them preening their feathers, or asleep on the bank of the lake. Then, with wild hissings, the big, white birds would dash for the water. Sometimes they would turn on Ruddy, and almost strike him with their wings. But most times Rick called his dog back as soon as Ruddy made a dash for the half-tame water fowls. Thus there never had been a real fight between the swans and the dog.

But one day Rick was called back by his mother after he had started for a romp with Ruddy, and the dog went on alone by himself for a while. He approached the lake and there, asleep on the bank, were two swans.

"Bow-wow!" barked Ruddy, making a sudden rush. He expected the white creatures would dash into the water, but they seemed to have made up their minds that they had stood the dog's nonsense long enough. With loud hisses they both turned and with outstretched necks, with open bills, with fluttering and spread wings they flew at Ruddy.

Few dogs would have been brave enough to stand in the face of these strange enemies. Even a bulldog might have turned tail, as Ruddy certainly did.

Away ran the dog and after him ran the swans. The big, white birds could really travel quite fast, even on land, for they used their wings to help themselves along, just as an ostrich half runs and half flies, which makes him as speedy as some horses.

With hisses and flappings of their wings, the swans pursued Ruddy, and if Rick had seen them after his dog he could easily have guessed what the swans were saying to one another.

"We might as well settle this matter once and for all," one swan might have said.

"I agree with you," the mate probably hissed in answer. "We have no peace or quietness at all, with this dog chasing us at unexpected times.

Let's teach him a lesson!"

And that is what they were trying to do--teach Ruddy a lesson. The swans wanted to make Ruddy afraid of them, so he would no longer chase them.

When a cat, I don't mean Sallie, especially, but any cat, wants to teach a dog a lesson, and cause him to fear her, so he will no longer chase her, the cat turns, arches up her back, makes her tail as large as she can, hisses at the dog and scratches his nose if possible. A cat seems to understand that a dog's nose is his most tender spot, as indeed it is. A dog really hates to have his nose scratched as it bothers him, hurts him and prevents him from smelling his best, and on a dog's scent, or sense of smell, nearly everything depends.

But swans can't scratch. They can pinch with their yellow bills, or, if they are black swans, with their red beaks. And they can deal hard blows with their powerful wings.

And as Ruddy raced along the sh.o.r.e, back toward where he had left Rick, the dog tucked his tail between his hind legs to keep it out of the way.

Next to a dog's nose his tail is his most tender part.

Ruddy did not want his tail pinched, or nipped, but that is just what happened. One of the swans managed to get close to the dog, who was running away as fast as he could, and, catching the setter's tail in his strong beak, gave it a hard bite.

My, how Ruddy howled! He howled more than once, and then he ran so fast and hard that he pulled his tail out of the swan's beak. Ruddy was loose. The swan had done what he hoped to do.

Then the first swan, and all the others, stopped chasing Ruddy. They spread wide their wings to act as brakes, just as an airship man pulls down the tail rudder of his aeroplane to make it travel over the ground more slowly when he has made a landing. Birds, too, when they alight after a fly, spread wide their tails. Just watch them some time.

Then, having, as they hoped, taught Ruddy a lesson, so he would not tease them again, the swans waddled back to the lake.

The setter dog had a queer expression on his face. He held his head on one side, one long, silky ear was c.o.c.ked up and Ruddy seemed very much surprised by what had happened. In fact he appeared very much ashamed of himself, and animals can be ashamed just as much as can boys or girls.

If you have ever seen a cat, sleeping on the edge of a chair, and, perhaps while she was dreaming of something, suddenly slip off to the floor, you know what I mean. The cat is ashamed of having fallen out of bed. It was this way with Ruddy. He was ashamed of having run away from the swans.

"I wonder what other dogs would think of me if they knew I had run away from a bird?" mused Ruddy. "But of course they were the largest birds I ever saw. I never knew before that birds chased dogs. I thought dogs always chased birds."

You see Ruddy was learning.

Of course Ruddy did not know all there was to be known about birds--that there are some, like eagles and condors, that can pick a big dog up in their claws, or talons, and fly away with him. And Ruddy did not know that there are some birds, like the ostrich or the emu, who are taller than any dog. Ruddy had much to learn, you see, and, just now, he was a little ashamed of himself.

"I wonder," thought Ruddy, in animal fashion, of course, "I wonder what some of the older dogs who used to live in the stable with me would say if they had seen me now? I ran away from some bird! A queer thing to happen to a dog! I wonder what other dogs would say?"

But I think Ruddy need not have been ashamed. Almost any dog would have run, and turned tail if several big swans had rushed at him. And never after that did the red setter bother the great white birds on the lake.

They had taught him a lesson he never forgot.

The days that followed were happy ones for Rick and Ruddy. The boy and dog grew to love each other more and more, and Mrs. Dalton was not sorry the setter had come to live with them. No dog could be more gentle with Mazie, who loved Ruddy as much as did her brother.

CHAPTER VIII

THE OLD SAILOR