It seems a far cry from that shed to a little black cat in New York, more than two years before, but it wasn’t.
The Lady Gay cat that I had befriended, and who belonged to the good old widow Gorman, was named Mollie. In common with all pussies, she had a habit of night-prowling. She was a cautious cat, and after her New York experience never went far from home, but on this particular night, she told me afterward, something had prompted her to wander further than usual.
She was just getting home, for it was near morning, when in crossing the field near the cottage, she heard the sound of my digging. It aroused her curiosity, and she came smelling round the shed. She soon caught a suggestion of me, and she mewed excitedly, for she had heard the widow tell about my being stolen from the kind gentleman who used to come sometimes to the cottage. Her voice was the stimulus I needed. I put my muzzle close to a crack in the board wall, and squealed gently, “Here I am, Mollie.”
“Are you with the black dog of the sick man?” she mewed.
“I am the black dog, Mollie,” I said. “I’m trying to dig myself out. I’m most dead.”
“Oh! Boy,” she said, “how I wish I could help you.”
“You can,” I replied, “run and get your German police dog. I heard your Granny tell the two young men that her sons had sent her one to guard her, for they were afraid something might happen to her in your lonely cottage.”
“Of course,” she said, “good Oscar, he’s very intelligent.”
“Fly,” I begged her. “They may wake any time.”