Chapter Ten: I Solve the Mystery of Mrs. Murphy, the Spy

That voice sounded very familiar, almost like . . .well, almost like Slim’s voice, yet I had ob­served the intruder myself and had been pretty sure . . .

I summoned up the courage to lift the sheet with my nose, just enough so that I could peek out with one eye. Hmmm. It certainly appeared to be Slim, I mean, right down to the smallest details: the long pointed nose, the glasses, the belt buckle, the faded jeans that bagged in the seat.

“Get out of my bed.”

Sure, okay, but . . . I slithered myself out of the sheets and off the bed and approached him in a stealthy manner. See, we still had a lot of loose ends in this case, and I wasn’t convinced that this was actually Slim. Sometimes they’ll use disguises, you know, your spies and your enemy agents, and they’re very clever about it.

The last thing I wanted was to come out of this deal looking foolish. I wouldn’t be convinced that this was actually Slim until I got close enough to give him a thorough sniffing. I moved toward him one step at a time. I watched his face very carefully and raised the hair on my back, just in case this turned out to be a truck.

A trick, I should say.

Sniff. Sniff. Sniff.

Okay, chicken manure. You can relax. We, uh, cancelled the alert. False alarm, in other words, but let me hasten to point out that he hadn’t been wearing his cowboy hat. That had changed his appearance entirely. I mean, what’s a cowboy without a cowboy hat? They never go anywhere without a hat, and when they do . . . well, they run the risk of being mistaken for somebody else.

And if he didn’t want his dogs going into a panic, he should have . . .

Never mind, just skip it.

I tapped my tail on the floor and rolled my eyes up to his face. He was shaking his head. “Good honk, I make one trip to the outhouse and you geniuses forget who I am. And stay off of my bed.”

Sure, you bet, but who’d said anything about an outhouse? I thought he’d gone somewhere to hold a secret meeting with . . .

Okay, the pieces of the peezle had begun falling into place, the pieces of the puzzle. Slim was a cowboy, right? And they have their own peculiar way of communicating, right? Which always seems to involve some kind of joke, right? So instead of just making a simple statement, such as, “I’m going to visit the outhouse,” he had mumbled something about “Mrs. Murphy.”

Do you get it? He had his own name for the outhouse! Does that make sense? I think it’s REALLY WEIRD, if you want to know what I think, and I don’t know how these people expect a dog to stay on top of House Security when they’re speaking in codes and leaving the house without their hats. It sure makes you think they don’t take our jobs . . . oh well.

I had a little trouble getting Stub Tail out from under the chair, but finally he came creeping out. But for the rest of the evening, until the lights went out, I noticed that he was giving Slim a close inspection, just in case he turned out to be Mrs. Murphy, the spy.

I can’t say that I blamed him. I mean, once these guys start playing pranks on a dog and joking around all the time, it makes you wonder. I’ll say no more about it.

Well, we spent a great night inside the house, bedded down on Leonard’s cowhide carpet. It was kind of fun, listening to that old north wind whistle and groan outside, whilst we were curled up beside a nice warm . . .

Oh, there was one small problem. Along about five o’clock in the morning, Slim’s last load of wood had pretty muchly burned down to embers, and . . . well, the house started cooling down. See, just before bedtime, he’d loaded the stove with what he’d called his “best all-nighter logs,” big chunks of mesquite and hackberry that were supposed to burn through the night.

Well, they didn’t quite make it, and before day­light that old floor got pretty derned cold. And hard. I awoke from a deep sleep and suddenly felt a . . . a sudden and deep concern that Slim might be getting cold. Especially his feet. See, hot air rises and collects around the headatory region, while cold air falls and gathers around the feet, and the last thing we needed was for Slim to wake up with frostbitten feet.

That frostbite can be very dangerous, and you hear stories all the time about guys who were careless about the weather and got their hands and feet and ears frostbitten. You know what happens then? They have to cut ’em off. That’s right, and since Slim was the breadwinner of the house, I sure as thunder didn’t want to take any chances of him getting his feet sawed off.

I mean, his boots wouldn’t fit anymore, and where would he put his spurs? No sir, we didn’t need any of that, so I took it upon myself to, uh, save his feet from the . . . frostbite hazard.

It wasn’t as easy as you might think. I had to pull myself up on his bed, creep several steps to the east, and lie across his feet—all of that without waking him. See, he never would have approved of my actions. I knew that. Cowboys are proud, right? Maybe even vain. They think of themselves as tough and independent, and they never want to accept help from anyone else.

I understood all that, so I did it quietly—for his own good. I mean, if a loyal cowdog can’t take care of his master’s precious feet, what good is he? But this next part will really surprise you. I didn’t even take credit for it. No sir, it was a selfless act of selfless devotion. At first light, I slithered back down on the floor and, well, shivered until Slim got the fire chunked up.

Is that touching or what? You bet it is, and you know what else? He didn’t lose one foot, not even one toe, to frostbite. That just shows you what a loyal cowdog can do when he sets his mind to it. And what really surprises me is that there are people in this world who don’t even own a dog. And a lot of those people are walking around without feet and toes.

Okay, where were we? Oh yes, morning. At first light Slim crept out of bed and chunked up the stove with fresh wood. Then he jumped back under the covers and grabbed another fifteen minutes of sleep. When the house warmed up, he crawled out of bed, stretched his long arms, and pushed the hair out of his face.

I lifted my head, whapped my tail on the floor, and gave him a big good morning smile. He re­turned it with a yawn and a scowl. “Which reminds me, I’ve got to call Loper and figure some way to get you dogs back to the ranch.”

He made his coffee and fixed himself some break­fast. You probably think he made sausage and eggs, right? Biscuits and gravy? Ha. This guy was no chef. He was the same guy who’d made that Range Fire Jerky.

He opened a can of sardines in mustard sauce and ate it with crackers. Sardines for breakfast! He didn’t offer any of it to me and Drover, and that was fine. I couldn’t imagine looking a sardine in the face first thing in the morning.

We left the house around eight. It had snowed several inches in the night and little flakes were still coming down from the gray sky. Slim fed Leonard’s horse, Billy, and chopped the ice on the water tank, then he opened up the sack of dog food. It was time for us to eat, it appeared, and to celebrate the moment, I went into Joyful Leaps and Vigorous Wags on the tail section.

He dipped the dog food out of the sack with an empty bean can and put it in two separate bowls, ten or fifteen feet apart. What was this? We’d always eaten out of the same bowl before.

I was all set to make a rush for the grub, but then I heard Slim’s voice. “Hank! Sit.”

Huh? Sit? Hey, he’d put out the grub and it was time . . .

“Sit. We’re gonna work on your manners today.”

Manners! Oh brother. It was a pretty boring day when Slim couldn’t think of anything better to do than . . .

Okay, I sat down, but also quivered and licked my chops. Oh, and I shot a glance at Drover, just to make sure he wasn’t trying to cheat. I could stand being mannerly, as long as Drover had to play by the same rules.

You’ve got to watch him, you know. Remember how grabby he’d been over that blanket deal? He had a pretty serious Me-First Problem and no more manners than a hog.

“Drover, sit down and wait for Slim’s signal. We’re doing Manners on this meal.”

“Manners? How come?”

“Slim wants us to show restraint and delayed graffications.”

“I’ll be derned.” He began scratching his ear.

“Don’t scratch while I’m talking to you about manners. Scratching at mealtime is crude and rude.”

“Yeah, but it feels great.”

“Drover, the whole purpose of manners is to make ourselves uncomfortable. It shows a higher order of . . . something. Discipline. Restraint. It shows that we’re not just dogs who eat like hogs.”

“Yeah, but what’s a graffication?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never heard of it.”

“You said something about it just a minute ago.”

“Oh. Yes. That. Well, you’ve heard of graphs, I suppose, and a graffication is similar to a graph, only more so. Is that clear?” His eyes crossed. “Don’t cross your eyes at me. If you don’t understand some­thing, just say so, ask a question. You don’t need to make loony faces.”

“Oh, okay. Can I ask a question?”

“No. If you didn’t get it the first time, there’s no hope that you’ll get it the second or third. Just sit still and wait for the signal.”

Slim finished putting out the dog food, and he noticed us sitting there like . . . well, angels. Perfect dogs. Models of good and mannerly behavior.

“Well, that’s more like it. See, you hammerheads can learn a thing or two. Now, I’m going to work in the Guano Mine, so you mutts stay around the house. Don’t bark at Leonard’s horse, stay out of the garbage barrel, and don’t wander off.” He started for the chicken house, then turned around. “Oh. Y’all may eat.”

He left. Thus far, I still hadn’t moved toward the bowls of food, and Drover was waiting for my signal. I noticed that he was licking his chops.

“All right, Drover, I will now choose which bowl I want.”

“Oh darn. How come you get to pick?”

“Because, Drover, I am older and wiser than you. For these important decisions, we must use our best minds.”

“Well, mine’s the best I’ve ever had.”

“Nevertheless, I will make the choice. I hope you understand that I’m doing this for my own good.”

“Oh, well, that’s different. But I hope you’ll hurry up.”

I had no intention of hurrying up. After all, this was a very important decision.