"What do you want?"
"I didn't call you," said Rick. "But I guess it's time to go home. Come on over and see Haw-Haw, my crow, to-morrow, Chot."
"I will. I hope he gets to talking."
"So do I!"
Rick and Ruddy raced home together, and soon both were asleep, Rick in his little white bed, and Ruddy out in his kennel, ready to bark if a strange footfall should be heard around the house. For though Ruddy could not see in the dark, even as well as he could in the daytime, which was little enough, his hearing and smelling were perhaps better after dark than in daylight. He would know the moment a stranger came within hearing, or smelling, distance of the house he now called home.
Again and again Ruddy sniffed the night air, during the hours of darkness for any trace of the hated man odor he had smelled. But it did not again come to his nose. Perhaps the wind had changed, for dogs, and most animals, can not smell persons, or other animals, if the wind is blowing away from them. When the wind blows from the animal or person to the dog, then the dog can smell very well indeed.
Or perhaps the ugly-faced man under the bush had gone away after the dog had growled. Ruddy did not know what it was, but he did know that the odor he disliked came to him no more. But he was on the alert for the noise of a strange footstep, or the least whiff of a new smell.
Mr. Dalton came from the office earlier next day, and with the help of Rick and Chot bound up the crow's broken wing. It was wound about with soft strips of cloth close to the glossy, black feathers of the bird's body.
"There," said Rick's father. "I think the wing will mend, even if Haw-Haw can not use it to fly again. Now we'll give him something to eat, and fresh water, and leave him alone. He's frightened half to death, for he doesn't know yet that we are trying to be kind to him."
Some scraps of meat were given Haw-Haw and he seemed to like them. He nestled down in his box, and there he had to stay for many days, until his broken wing healed, as it did after a while, though not so he could fly with it. He could only flutter lamely about the yard.