The Case of the Raging Rottweiler. John R. Erickson

      It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. The mystery began one evening toward the end of May, as I recall. Yes, it was May. I’m sure it was, because “May” is a three-letter word that if spelled backward comes out “yam.” A yam is a sweet potato, don’t you see, and is similar to a regular Irish potato.

      What does all this have to do with the Case of the Raging Rottweiler? Be patient, I’m getting there.

      See, in the Security Business, we often employ little memory tricks to help us recall the many facts and clues we encounter in our work. Example: “May” spelled backward comes out “yam.” A yam is a form of potato, right? You will be shocked to know that the night this adventure began, Slim cooked himself a baked potato for supper.

      You see the connection now? It all fits together—May, yam, Irish potato, and baked potato—and that’s how I remember that this case began in May. Pretty clever, huh? You bet. In the Security Busi­ness, we often employ . . . I’ve already said that.

      Where were we? We were at the beginning, and that happens to be the point at which most of these mysteries begin. It all began, as I recall, around the middle of June. We were in the grip of a heat wave, day after day of temperatures over a hundred degrees. Terrible heat, and also very dry.

      No rain. Our spring grass had turned brown. The buffalo grass had stopped growing. Stock ponds were drying up and turning into mudholes. Slim was keeping a close watch on our windmills, checking them every other day instead of the usual twice a week.

      Have we discussed the importance of windmills on a cattle ranch? Maybe not, but I guess we should. On a ranching operation such as this one, most of our water for the livestock is pumped out of the ground by windmills. Nothing is more important in the summertime than a supply of fresh water. If cattle run out of water, fellers, we have big problems. We either have to haul water to the cattle in a water trailer or move the cattle to another pasture.

      What makes the water situation especially scary is that if the wind quits blowing, the windmills quit turning—all of them. And then we have water problems everywhere at once. Our situation wasn’t quite that serious. It was hot and dry, but the wind was still blowing and turning those wind­mills, and for that we were grateful.

      It’s kind of impressive that a dog would know so much about ranch management, isn’t it? Most of your ordinary mutts (Drover comes to mind here) pay no attention to such matters. They eat, lie around in the shade, scratch a few fleas, and maybe bark at a cat every once in a while, but they pay no attention to the Larger Issues.

      Me? I have to stay on top of things. Have I mentioned that I’m Head of Ranch Security? I am, which means I’m not only in charge of Surveillance and Investigations, but I have to keep a close eye on these other matters, too.

      Anyways, it was July and hot. Drover and I had spent the day checking cattle and windmills with Slim Chance, the cowboy. It was around eight o’clock in the evening, just before sundown, when we returned to Slim’s shack, some two miles east of ranch headquarters. Slim got out of the pickup and stretched a kink out of his back. Whilst he was involved in that, Drover and I left our spots on the pickup seat and jumped out.

      I noticed that a scowl moved across Slim’s face and that his eyes seemed to have locked on . . . something, something inside the pickup. The seat perhaps? It was hard to tell, but Slim was giving it a close inspection.

      “Is there some reason why you mutts have to shed hair all over my pickup seat?”

      Well, I . . . I didn’t know how to respond to that. Had we shed a few hairs?

      He pointed toward the evidence. “Look at that. I let you bozos ride up front with the executives, and that’s the thanks I get.”

      I looked closer. You know, he was right. Even at a distance, I could see that certain unnamed suspects had deposited ugly dog hairs on the back of his pickup seat.

      I whirled around and stabbed Drover with a glare of steel. “You see what you’ve done?”

      He blinked his eyes and grinned. “Oh, hi. Are we home already? Gosh, I must have dozed off.”

      “Of course you dozed off. You always doze off, but that’s not the problem.”

      “Oh good. I sure love sleep. What’s the problem?”

      I pointed my nose toward the inside of the pickup. “Check that out, Drover. Study the evidence.”

      He studied the evidence. “Well, let’s see here. I don’t see anything.”

      “Dog hairs. Hundreds of ’em, thousands of ’em. They’re all over Slim’s pickup seat. Can you guess where they came from?”

      He sat down and squinted one eye. “Well, let me think. Uh . . . a dog?”

      “Very good. Cat hair comes from cats. Hog hair comes from hogs. Dog hair comes from dogs.”

      “I’ll be derned.