"Don't worry, little master, I've been lost lots of times, and I always found myself. Leave it to me! I'll get you home all right!"
But Rick did not know this, and, for a time, Ruddy did not really think that Rick was worried or frightened. The dog had had such fun in the woods, playing with the boy, that he wanted to keep it up. Ruddy wanted to rustle through the dried leaves. He liked to hear the rattling sound they made. He wanted to chase more sticks, but Rick did not throw any.
"Ruddy, which way is home?" asked Rick, as he stood in the woods, and looked about him. "Where do we live?"
Ruddy could not quite get this thought. He looked at Rick, and he saw that his master was now beginning to be troubled. Dogs know when a person is in trouble more often than you think, and they can sympathize, or be sorry, for their master and others. But Ruddy was only a puppy and his thinking-out of things was not as clear as it became afterward. Just now he reasoned perhaps his master wanted to have some fun in a new way.
"Well, if he does," thought Ruddy to himself, "there are lots of games I haven't played with him yet. He doesn't care for chasing cats, so I'll find something else to chase. There are birds in these woods, I'll chase some of them!"
Giving a few short barks, and scrabbling about in the leaves, Ruddy leaped up and down in front of Rick. This was an invitation to come and play tag. Ruddy knew how to give that invitation, and he had often done it. That was one of the first games he had learned to play when he lived in the stable with his father and mother and the other little puppies.
"No, Ruddy," said Rick, as he saw his dog leaping about. "I don't want to do that now. Let's go home, Ruddy! Let's go home! I don't know the way, but maybe you do! Let's go home!"
Ruddy knew what that word "home" meant. Once or twice, when he had been tied up, as Rick and Mazie were about to start for school, the dog had broken loose and run after the master he loved so well. Then Rick would turn about and say, very sternly:
"Go home, Ruddy! Go back home!"
He would point to the house, and, with a sad look and with drooping tail, the red-brown puppy would slink back. He was a good dog to mind, was Ruddy.