Billy Whiskers Out for Fun

by Frances Trego Montgomery

“But all of a sudden he seemed to be running and taking long bounds, for he could not possibly have taken such long steps as I found he was taking. It made it very hard to keep on his trail. Once when I lost it completely and was sniffing round for it I came upon the scent of a Russian police dog. And I knew immediately what had caused my master to use long steps and jumps. He was in flight. Probably he had found he was discovered and followed, or else a soldier and his dog had passed along the same trail, not knowing a man was fleeing before them. But I should soon find out. With my heart in my mouth, I started to trail the police dog, fearful of coming upon my dead master at every bend in the trail. Suddenly I came upon a big tree and there lying at its foot was a Russian soldier and his police dog, both dead but still warm. I knew from that that they had just been killed. And I thanked God that it was they and not my master that was dead.

“I did not waste much time on them but began to hunt around to see in which direction my master had gone. But though I sniffed and sniffed and ran around like mad, I could not pick up the scent. Every scent led to the big tree where I had found the dead soldier and dog. All of a sudden, chancing to look up in the tree, what should I see but a firefly in the midst of a thick bunch of leaves! And of course I knew it was no firefly but my master’s little electric searchlight. He must have seen me at the same time I spied him, for in a second he came climbing down the tree and when he was down he patted me on the head and whispered in my ear: ‘Stubby, I thank God it is you! I heard you running around in the dead leaves under the tree and I thought you were another Russian or a police dog.’

“Just then he went white and nearly fell over in a faint. At the same time I smelled fresh blood and on looking down I saw a bullet hole in his boot-leg from which the blood was oozing. The next second I licked his face and jingled my collar on his nose. He felt the cold contact of the bottle that was around my neck and raised himself enough to unfasten it and take a drink. This revived him enough for him to detach the adhesive plaster and sterilized cotton he had carefully rolled up in a tin box and fastened to my collar alongside the flask of brandy I always wore when out on scout duty for just such emergencies. My master had fixed it all up himself but had never had occasion to use it before. And my! but wasn’t I thankful that he had, and also thankful that I had insisted on following him?

“With the brandy and the stopping of the flow of blood he soon was himself and he began to search the Russian soldier for any valuable papers he might have on him. To his joy, he found the man was not a common soldier but one of their most valued spies. For hidden in his helmet which had a false top, he found exceedingly valuable papers telling of the movement of the very division of the army that his division was now fighting. And just as he was finishing searching the spy, he chanced to look at the police dog and saw under his long bushy hair a leather collar fastened round his neck. For some reason he took it off and examined it. And lo and behold! folded between the lining and the outside he found other dispatches but they were in cipher.

“At this moment I heard stealthy footsteps approaching and we just had time to sneak farther into the woods when another Russian soldier appeared and close on his heels was another police dog. The soldier passed us unheeded, taking my master for a bush. Not so the dog. He smelled me and also my master, and in the twinkling of an eye was upon me. He was three times my size and one of those long, wire-haired dogs with short, pointed ears, sharp nose and sharper teeth. He should have been named Sharp, for of all the dogs I ever came in contact with, this breed of dog is the sharpest witted for police service.

“But luckily for me, when he flew at my throat, his teeth closed not on my throat, which would have ended my life then and there, but on my metal collar and the tin box. He bit so hard that he broke the points off several of his teeth. And while he was preparing for a second bite and his master was approaching to bayonet me, my master bayoneted him as he was leaning against my master thinking he was a bush. The soldier fell dead. With the next thrust my master killed the dog and then we both hurried back to camp with no more mishaps, where we arrived just as the sun was coming up. And I think that was one of the closest calls to being killed I had while in the war, but of course I had many others.

“I thank you all for caring to hear my story and will now bid you all good-night.”

“My, oh me!” sighed an old cow. “I am all in a quiver from hearing that exciting tale and I don’t believe I have drawn a long breath since he began speaking.”

“Nor I!” replied the cow by her side, while a third one said: “And here they are starting out to cross the continent in quest of new adventures. Wouldn’t you think they had had enough excitement and narrow escapes to last them for the rest of their lives?”