"What are we going to do with you, Duckfoot?" he asked.
Duckfoot answered that question by wriggling, rolling sidewise, and jumping to the ground. Harky sighed with relief. If the pup was allied with witches—and how else could duck feet on a dog be explained?—now was the time for him to disappear in a flash of flame and a cloud of smoke and return to the infernal regions from which he had emerged.
He did nothing except sit down, blink solemnly at Harky, and wag his tail. Harky had a fleeting thought that almost frightened him all over again. Duckfoot had certainly been touched by sinister forces that no man ever saw.
Man sometimes heard them when they shrieked on the midnight wind or moaned among the forest trees, and decidedly they were better left alone. But suppose, just suppose, that Duckfoot was more hound than spirit? What if the good, as embodied in the hound, was powerful enough to overcome the bad, which was surely represented in webbed feet on a dog? If Duckfoot gave his allegiance to any man ...
Harky trembled when he considered such possibilities. Old Joe himself, who'd been running the Creeping Hills for all of time, could not run away from a duck-footed hound!
In sudden near panic Harky swooped, caught Duckfoot, clutched him tightly, and raced up Willow Brook. He needed experienced counsel. Mun, who knew far more than he about such matters, was the man to advise him.
It never occurred to Harky that deserved punishment awaited his return. And it never occurred to Mun, who knew the ways of his son, that Harky would even think of coming home until he had enjoyed his full day. The hiding wouldn't be any harder.
Mun's first fleeting thought was that Harky had gone insane. Then he noticed the pup in Harky's arms and came incredulously forward.
"What the blazes?"
"Look!"