Rick and Ruddy: The Story of a Boy and His Dog

by Howard Roger Garis

The sailor took a bag from among the bundles of papers, and quickly tied it around Ruddy's head. The poor dog struggled and howled faintly, and even tried to bite the man, as was natural. But he could not get away, and his howls, rather faint as they were, effectually were muffled in the bag.

"There you are!" growled the sailor, as he finished tying the bag around Ruddy's head. "I guess you won't get away! But I'll make sure!"

With some bits of rope, of which there were many in the junk wagon, the sailor tied Ruddy's legs. Then he let the dog stretch out among the old pieces of iron, burst automobile tires, paper and other trash in the junk wagon.

"You won't get away now!" growled the sailor. "Come on! Drive along that old bundle of bones you call a horse!" he ordered the junk man. "We got to get out of here! That boy may be along any minute, and I don't want him to see me!"

"You goin' t' sell de dog?" asked the junk man, who had agreed to help the sailor. On his part the ragged old man of the sea had promised to help the junk man unload his wagon that night. "You goin' t' sell him?"

"Sell him? No, I guess not! Think I want to sell my luck? I never had any luck since this pup was washed overboard! That's why I wanted him back. Now I got him."

"But what good is he if you can't sell him?" asked the junk man. To him everything was measured in value by how cheaply he could buy it and how dearly he could sell.

"Oh, a dog's good for something else than selling," declared the sailor. "They bring you luck! I'm going to keep this one. Course I'll have to watch him that he don't run away, but when I get him on a ship he can't run off. I've got him all right now!"

And, surely enough, the ragged sailor did have Ruddy. It had all happened so quickly—the stopping of the junk wagon outside the Dalton house, the whistling of the sailor, the carrying off of the dog—it had all happened so quickly that Ruddy himself hardly knew all the details.

Mrs. Dalton had not seen Ruddy leap the hedge. She had heard a low whistle, just before Rick came racing home from school, but she had not thought much about it, and she certainly did not know that Ruddy had left the porch, in answer to the call, and had been captured by his enemy.