The dog wasn’t through, though. He took two more licks at Jiggins before the fat man could clamber onto the shed, and then sat down and scowled at us. If he couldn’t get us he was going to see we didn’t get away.
It was sort of funny. I looked over at Mark and says, “How d’you like the pie?”
He grinned. “Guess they p-put p-p-pepper in it by mistake,” says he.
“Doesn’t look as if anybody was home,” says Collins, who had been looking at the house.
We all looked then, and, sure enough, the house was all closed up. Most likely everybody had gone to town and left the dog to look after things. They picked the right one to leave, all right. There wasn’t anybody who could have done better.
Well, there we were, four of us on a roof, with the sun beating down like sixty, with nothing to drink and nothing to eat, and no chance that we could see of getting down before the folks who lived there got home. That’s what comes of thinking about your stomach all the time. If appetites hadn’t been invented we never would have met that dog, and he was an acquaintance I would have been perfectly willing not to have known.
Ten minnits before that Jiggins and Collins were our enemies. If ever you have one you want to make an ally of, I recommend a bulldog and the hot top of a shed. We were partners in a second. We might be enemies again after we got down, but while we were there we were one tight combination. All we thought was bulldog, and what to say to him to persuade him we weren’t meant for food. He was stubborn, though. It didn’t matter what we said or how kindly we spoke to him or argued with him, he wouldn’t change his mind. If we couldn’t be inside him he had it figgered out we were in the next best place, and he’d keep us there. He was unreasonable about it.
“Let’s holler,” I says.
“N-no use,” says Mark. “Nobody to hear you. There hain’t another house in sight.”
“Wish we had a gun,” says Collins, with one eye on the bulldog.