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

by Howard Roger Garis

"Tie him up and I'll feed him after I feed you," promised Mrs. Dalton with a laugh. Though not very fond of dogs she was beginning to love Rick's pet that had come to him out of the ocean, and Ruddy knew how to appreciate the kindness of his master's mother in giving him clean food and water, and choice bones to gnaw when he had nothing else to do.

The crow was put in a box filled with soft, dried grass. A tin can of water was hung on the side, so Haw-Haw could reach it without knocking it over. And then he was left to himself in the woodshed. Ruddy was tied in his kennel, and he stretched out with his muzzle between his forepaws, thinking over what had happened that day. It had been one filled with delight and adventures, and Ruddy was wishing, with all his warm, dog's heart, for another day like it.

To Rick the great adventure had been getting lost, but this, to Ruddy, was nothing. The dog had not been lost at all. He knew his way back home all the while.

While Rick, Mazie and the others were eating supper, and Rick was telling all that had happened, and how he found Haw-Haw, his dog lay out in the kennel. It was a soft, warm evening, one of the sort that come in Indian Summer, and Ruddy was sniffing many odors that reached his sharp nose.

Suddenly he smelled—cat. Quickly his head was raised. Yes, there was a cat who had leaped up on the back fence. It was Sallie from next door. For a moment Ruddy had a wild notion of springing up and chasing after Sallie as he had done that first day he came to live with Rick. Then, as the dog felt the collar about his neck, and as the chain by which he was fastened to the kennel gave a rattle, he knew that it would have been of no use to get up. The chain would stop him after he had gone a few feet.

Ruddy settled back on the ground. The cat—having heard the dog's chain rattle, and knowing the setter could not get her (for Sallie was a wise cat)—did not run away as fast as she had run the other time. Nor did she climb a tree.

Sallie just walked along the fence, to see another cat perhaps, and Ruddy stretched out, sniffing the many odors that came to his fine, sharply-pointed nose. The cat smell passed away with the night wind.

Suddenly, as it grew darker, to the nose of the dog came another smell. It was a smell that made him leap up with a deep growl in his throat. It was the smell Ruddy did not like, for it brought back to him the memory of a man who had been cruel to him—a man who had beaten and kicked him—who had filled his puppy days with misery.

And now, on the soft airs of the autumn night that terrible man-smell came to Ruddy. He stood up, sniffed again and again, and the growl in his throat became deeper. And to Ruddy there also came the sound of someone walking softly around the yard fence—the footsteps of a man who did not want to be discovered.

The setter leaped to the length of his chain and his growl became a bark. Rick, who was coming out of the house after supper, heard this, and hastened to his dog's kennel. He heard Ruddy rumbling in his throat.