“Come in!” shouted the Colonel, springing up to open the door. Two expressmen stood grinning out in the snow, holding between them a long, heavy crate. The leader proffered a thumbed and dogeared book for the Colonel to sign.
“Bring ’em right in and set her down, men,” ordered the Colonel, after paying out a bill and some change. The expressmen crowded into the Den, setting down the crate with a big sigh of relief. “I think you’ll find ’em all right, sir,” grinned the man of the official cap. “Nice pups, eh?”
Sid jumped for the crate, and a tingle of joy thrilled through him. Pups, eh! Why, then——
“Beauties!” chortled the Colonel, replying to the man. “Three Redbone pups, by Ruler out of Music, sir. Reg’lar old-fashioned Southern cold-trailers from Arkansas.”
The expressman evidently owned some rabbit beagles himself, for he looked over the dogs with renewed interest. “What breed of houn’ dogs might these be, Colonel, if I might ask?”
“Coon hounds, man! The old pioneer’s hound—best bear and lion dogs in the world,” explained the Colonel enthusiastically, while Sid winked blissfully over at Scotty.
The very smell of their lithe, active bodies seemed to bring the tang of mighty mountain ranges into the Den again. Watching the dogs, the Colonel’s age fell away from him as a mantle; his eyes sparkled, he moved about the crate, eying the pups like a boy, and then sent Sid into the main house for tools. The log-walled Den, hung with game heads, rifles and saddles, was a replica of the Colonel’s western log cabin of his younger days. Built as a wing on to their great town house, there was an entrance direct into the house from it. The expressmen departed, with many a comradely grin, while the Colonel and Scotty waited impatiently for Sid to return with his hammer and cold chisel. Then two upper slats of the crate were lifted, and out jumped the pups, one after another, to range about the room on long, skinny legs. Never were such long-eared, rat-tailed smell-dogs, it seemed to Sid and Scotty, as they watched them delightedly, while the Colonel dug up a set of new collars and chains out of a drawer in his desk. Evidently he had known all about those dogs in advance, reasoned Sid, as he watched this proceeding. And, as they could not possibly be used anywhere in the eastern states, there was more to this than appeared on the surface!
They took them out into the snow for a brief airing. Once back in the Den again, Sid nailed the Colonel imperatively.
“You’ve got something up your sleeve, Father,—don’t tell me!” he laughed, “Where are we going, and when is it coming off?”
The Colonel grinned indulgently. “I tried my level best to buy Ruler, the father of these pups; but Judge Hawkes would rather part with his own right hand than with Ruler!” he remarked, irrelevantly.