Ruddy, one night, found himself tossed into a box with such force that he lay there stunned. If he had been able to listen to, and understand talk, as, later he came to be able to do, he would have heard someone growl:
"What you got there?"
"Oh, a red pup I picked up," was the answer. "The old ship needs a mascot and I brought this one along. I always wanted a dog."
"You don't act as if you cared much for this one," spoke the first man.
"Oh, I didn't hurt him," was the reply. But Ruddy was hurt, and from then on he feared that man.
He did not remember much—but there was a confused memory of being on a floor that heaved up and down, and slid this way and that as the floors, or decks of boats always do. And then came a great storm wave—Ruddy felt himself washed overboard and into the sea.
It was not the first time he had been in water, so he knew how to swim. But he had never tried before to swim in such a smother and swirl of salty waves, where the wind seemed to blow away his gasping breath. Still he swam on, until he was cast up on the beach and he met the coast guard.
And even the guard had seemed to drive Ruddy away. Of course poor Ruddy was mistaken, but that was his thought. He slunk up among the sand dunes.
That little bit of bread and meat meant much to him, for he was starving. It gave him a little courage. In the storm and darkness he wandered among the dunes, or little sand hills, until presently he found himself down on the beach again, where the wind and rain and salty spume were worse than ever.
"Oh, if I only had a home—some warm place into which I could crawl!"