“LOST ? ! !” CHESTER SHRIEKED.
With that, Howie’s whimpering quickened by several rpm’s. I decided the last thing an impressionable young puppy needed at the moment was hysteria.
“Chester,” I said, “calm down. Dawg knows these woods like he knows his own name. Right, Dawg? Dawg. Dawg, I’m talking to you” A whimper started to rise in my throat. “Well,” I said, swallowing it, “at least there’s a full moon, so it should be easy enough to find our way back to camp.”
Just then, a cloud passed over the moon.
“Aw, you guys are so lily-livered,” Dawg said. “You’d think these woods was full of ghosts er something.”
“Er something,” said Chester.
“May-maybe we should go back to camp,” Howie suggested.
Dawg sidled up to Howie. “Whatsa matter?” he said. “You chicken?”
“No, sir!” Howie said. “We’re not chicken, are we, Uncle Harold?”
“Of course not,” I said. “It’s just—”
“We’re not chicken, are we, Pop?” Howie asked Chester.
“Buck-buck-buck-buck!” Chester cackled.
This made Howie laugh. “That was pretty funny,” he said. “You’re a regular Hen-ny Young man, Pop.”
Chester scowled.
“Who’s Henny Youngman?” I asked.
“An old-time comedian,” Chester said. “Howie’s been listening to Mr. Monroe’s nostalgia tapes again.”
“Yep, that was pretty funny,” Howie went on. “Just watch out that your next joke doesn’t lay an egg, though.” He chortled merrily, having forgotten our predicament, it seemed.
Dawg took advantage of the situation. “Come on, Howie,” he said, “what do you say? I’ll show you what I wanted to show you and get you back to camp before you know it.”
“All right!” Howie shouted. “Let’s go!”
“I thought we were lost,” Chester pointed out.
“Well, we are,” Dawg replied. “So at least we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“Makes sense,” I said, as we started off.
“Something else is beginning to make sense,” Chester whispered to me. We were trailing several yards behind Dawg and Howie.
“What?” I asked.
“Dawg wants us lost.”
“Oh, come on, Chester,” I said. “Why would he want that?”
“I don’t know, but there’s something fishy about this whole thing. I think he’s leading us somewhere, Harold. Leading us to our doom.”
“Well, at least we’ve eaten,” I said, trying to humor Chester out of his gloomy thoughts.
“Our last meal, perhaps,” Chester mumbled. And then he stopped dead in his tracks.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.