“You two do think of the most outlandish things I ever heard of,” said Duke. “Any one could tell you were from the United States of America. You are so clever and original. Now a European would be too staid and too conventional to think of a thing like that.”
While they were talking, not one of them had taken his eyes off the farmer who had been lying on the sofa to take his nap. But to-day he was slower than ever in dropping off to sleep, due, I suppose, to the excitement of the reward he was thinking of getting. But presently habit was too much for him and he fell fast asleep. At the first snore he made the three chums crept out of the office and sneaked away toward the garden. One by one they squeezed themselves through a hole under the fence and came out in the garden, right under the noses of the farmer’s wife and son who were picking raspberries.
“Why, what are you doing here? Trying to escape us?” and with that the woman stooped and grabbed Stubby up in her arms while her son grasped Duke, but Button escaped them.
“You naughty, naughty dogs and cat to try to run away from us when we have been so good to you!” Then she turned to her son and said, “I think they heard your father and me talking of taking them back to the army and probably they don’t want to go back, and that is why they were trying to run away.”
“Bet you that is it!” replied the son. “They are so smart they can understand every word that is said.”
“I told your father not to trust them out alone, but he said he was feeding them so well that they would not try to run away. It is a good thing that I decided to pick those raspberries to take to your Aunt to-morrow, or we would not have caught them. And then I hate to think of how it would have affected your father.”
When they reached the office, the farmer was still asleep and from the smile on his face he was probably dreaming he was buying things with the reward money. Just as they opened the door he called out, “Thieves! Thieves!” and jumped up from the sofa. He was dreaming that some thieves had stolen his pocketbook. “Why, what are you doing here with the dogs in your arms? They haven’t been hurt, have they?” he asked at last.
“No; worse than that. We caught them trying to run away,” said his wife.
“You don’t say so! That would have been a calamity.”
And then his wife explained to him how she and her son had caught Stubby and Duke.