"Oh! Oh, dear!"
Instantly Ruddy was at his master's side. The dog had been nosing around among the leaves. He had caught the scent of a wild rabbit, and he was jumping about for joy, getting ready to follow the trail of the little creature to its burrow. And let me tell you that Ruddy could, by merely smelling on the ground, over which the rabbit had walked, tell which path the rabbit had gone, whether away from its underground home or toward it.
And Ruddy would not follow the trail away from the rabbit's home. He would nose his way along, getting nearer and nearer to the bunny's burrow at each step until, at last, he might catch the furry little fellow.
It was not that Ruddy was cruel, or liked to hurt rabbits. It was just his nature to want to hunt them. And so it was as he nosed around among the leaves, the wild smell of the rabbit coming more and more strongly to him, that Ruddy heard his master's cry of pain.
Instantly the wild rabbit was forgotten, and Ruddy bounded to the side of Rick—poor Rick who was lying on the ground, one foot caught in the crotch of a tree from which he had fallen as he tried to climb up and get the chestnuts.
"Oh! Oh, dear!" exclaimed Rick again, for he was in pain, his ankle being turned on one side. He hoped it wasn't broken.
"Bow, wow!" barked Ruddy. That was all Rick heard his dog say, and he almost knew it meant: "Dear me! I'm sorry about this!"
But Ruddy said a good deal more than this, or, at least, he thought it, in the strange, mysterious way dogs have of thinking.
"Well, well!" thought Ruddy to himself, dog fashion. "You surely are in trouble, Master! In almost as much trouble as Sallie was! I wonder if I can help you?"
Ruddy sniffed at Rick, walked around him and sniffed again. Ruddy did not exactly understand what had happened. But he knew his master was held fast as the cat had been, though in a different way.