Billy Whiskers in France

by Frances Trego Montgomery

“Huh!” grunted Billy. “I must have run into Lasso Jake. If this is so, I better be getting a move on me and pushing my leg.”

As luck would have it, right before Billy was a creek, with a temporary bridge across it. Down the bank beside the bridge plunged Billy, for he knew the bank was so high that the cowboy soldier could not throw his lasso so as to catch him. Instead of trying to climb out the other side of the creek, Billy kept on in the middle of the swift-flowing stream, swimming against the current, though he could not make much progress against it. Presently he heard voices and turning his head he saw two soldiers standing on the bridge and one was swinging a lasso over his head. Billy waited to see no more, but ducked. And just as his head disappeared under the water, he heard the splash of the rope as it hit the surface of the water just where his head had been.

“Good thing I ducked! If I hadn’t, they would now be pulling me to shore with a lasso around my neck. Gee, but that was a close call, and that cowboy soldier is some lasso thrower! I never saw his equal, even in a circus. I think he better get a flying machine and fly over the German line and watch his chance to rope the Kaiser or the Crown Prince, some of the Generals and other high monkey-monks.” And Billy laughed to himself at the spectacle of the Kaiser being made to walk into an American camp with a lasso around his neck. Billy forgot he could not open his mouth to laugh under water, and he began to choke so he had to stop swimming under water and come to the surface.

Just as he did so, his eye caught sight of a soldier standing on the bank of the stream with a lasso hanging from his hand ready to throw the moment Billy’s head appeared above the surface of the water. He was about to dive again when he heard a cry for help from the bridge. The soldier turned and ran to rescue a man who had fallen into the water, calling as he went down, “Save me! I can’t swim!”

Billy crawled out of the stream and stood watching the soldier with the lasso trying to save his comrade. He was having a hard time for as the man went down he struck his head on a stone, which stunned him, and now he was being carried downstream by the swift current and knocked against the bowlders over which the water frothed. Try as he would, the cowboy soldier was put to it to catch up to him as the swift current bore his chum’s body ever and still ever ahead of him. But at last his comrade’s body caught between two rocks and was held there until the cowboy soldier overtook it. The cold water had revived the man, so that by the time his soldier chum reached him he was coming to his senses. Billy only waited to see that the man was alive and then he left them sitting in midstream, each on a big rock that raised its head above the water. He thought it wise to cut sticks for safety and ran into a thick woods he saw, which would serve to hide him from the soldiers should they cross the bridge and try to follow him. This, however, they did not do, knowing it would be useless to try to catch Billy when he had such a start.

As soon as he could, Billy found his way out of the woods to the road he had left. After following it for some time he found it led out to the main highway to Paris. This road Billy knew he must follow or he could never find his way back to the seacoast. Once in Paris, he knew he must pass through it and then keep straight on in a westerly direction until he came to the English Channel. Once there, he would follow the coast until he came to a port from which boats were sailing for America. Then he would watch his chance to steal aboard and sail for home. Billy was very good at directions and from the moment he had landed in France he had taken special pains to keep the points of the compass straight in his head, so that if he ever wanted to return home alone he would find his way. Now it proved what a wise old goat he was, for all he had to do was to travel by the sun and North Star in a northeasterly direction until he came to Paris and from there in a westerly until he reached the English Channel, from one of whose ports he had disembarked when he came to France. But it was discouraging to think how very far it was and what privations and hardships he would have to endure and overcome before he reached his destination. But Billy Whiskers was a regular old soldier by this time and well used to hardships and hard knocks of all kinds. So he only heaved a long sigh and then ran all the faster, knowing that every step he took brought him just that much nearer home and Nannie.

“If I tried to count the steps I shall have to take before reaching home, it would be like counting the sands of the sea. I shan’t try, but just push on and I know I shall get there some day.”

“Bow-wow-wow!” barked a big Dane in his deep voice.

“Bow! Wow! Wow!” came the short, sharp, snappy barks from a short-legged Scotch terrier as they bounded out of a gate beside the road, ready to pounce on Billy. They were followed by poodles, collies, St. Bernards, and all manner of dogs, both great and small. Billy thought he had never seen so many dogs of different breeds in one place in all his life. You see he had run into a dog hospital, and these were the convalescent dogs which were allowed to play together in the yard.