"Well, couldn't you lend me your handkerchief, Carter?" suggested Bobby gently. "I'll wipe him off. There now, he's all right. My handkerchief's so small it wouldn't have done one of his paws."
Carter, minus his handkerchief, started the car and they rounded the curve. The puppy seemed to be all right except that he was wet and shivering, and Bobby and Betty had decided that he was very young but otherwise in perfect health when the car stopped again.
"There's another one of 'em, Miss Bobby," groaned Carter. "You don't want this one, do you?"
The girls thrust out their heads. Sure enough, another black and white puppy lay abandoned in the roadway.
"Certainly, we'll pick it up," said Bobby indignantly. "Do you suppose we're going to go past a dog and let it die in the rain? Bring it here, please, Carter."
The old man got down stiffly and picked up the dog. This time he handed over a second handkerchief with a ludicrous air of "take-it-and-ruin-it."
"That's the last handkerchief I have with me, Miss Bobby," he announced feelingly, watching his young mistress mopping water and mud from the rescued puppy.
"Well, there won't be any more puppies, Carter," Bobby assured him cheerfully.
But they had not gone twenty rods when they found another, and, after that, a few rods further on, a fourth.
"Here's where we use our own handkerchiefs," giggled Bobby. "And what are we going to do with a car full of dogs?"