“Hey! Ketch that dawg!” shouted the grocery man, and the cry was taken up all along the street. Men, boys, and women all turned out to chase or head off the fugitive. Everybody was yelling: “Van! Van! here, you!” for the news of the runaway had been spread abroad in the village before his arrival. Never was dog so enthusiastically greeted by a whole village of entire strangers. Van smelled treachery.
A friendly gate stood open, and he dodged in to avoid a too eager boy. Down to the rear of the lot he raced. Alas! It ended it an open stable door. Here the breathless Stubbs pounced upon him, and he was captured.
“There, you little rascal, I’ve got you!” panted Stubbs. He was fat, and dog-catching is perspiring work. “You’ve given me a pretty chase, but you’ll be back at Trimble’s by night, I reckon.
“Now what did you run away for? Trimble’s a good fellow, and you hadn’t ought to give him trouble,—not to mention the shaking up you’ve give me. Come on, and we’ll get a chain on you, so we can keep you till Trimble gets here.”
Van kept very still. He was thinking what he should do next. He gave a little shudder when Stubbs said “chain.” He knew that word, and just what it meant.
Stubbs tucked him under his arm. This seemed like a very tractable dog indeed. Stubbs reached up to mop his bald head with his handkerchief.
Van felt the loosened tension, and with a sudden jerk backward, he wriggled out of the man’s arm, and out of his own collar. In a twinkling he was going like Time-on-a-holiday, westward. In a few minutes Main Street and his pretended friends were left far behind, and he was out in the open country.
All day he traveled—now fast, when the fear of capture spurred him; now slow, when his aching legs and muscles cried out to him. He was hungry and thirsty, but he dared not stop and beg a drink, for fear some one might catch him again. The sun was dropping behind the hills when he felt that he could not drag himself another foot. He was passing a tiny farmhouse hidden away in the hills. There was a delicious odor wafted to him, and he heard a suggestive, sizzling sound. He certainly could not resist that. Yet he dared not make a noise. He crouched by the gateway.
A little boy about Pete’s size, with the same blue eyes and tow hair, came up the road, driving a solitary cow. As he turned in at the gate, he almost stumbled over a poor, panting, tired little dog, who lay crumpled in a heap, with mouth agape, and dry tongue lolling from between his teeth. He wore no collar, and with the dust of the road soiling his white coat, no one would ever have suspected him to be a prince.
“Why, hello!” said the boy. “What you doin’ here? You look tired to death. Come here and speak to me.”