The Further Adventures of Hank the Cowdog. John R. Erickson
posts turned out to be a little stouter than I thought, and you might say that the wire didn’t break either. The collision shortened my backbone by about six inches and also came close to ruining my nose.
“Gimme that egg, cat, or I’ll . . .”
Pete throwed a hump into his back and hissed, right in my face. That was a serious mistake. No cat does that to Hank the Cowdog and lives to tell about it.
I started barking. I snarled, I snapped, I tore at the fence with my front paws, I clawed the ground. I mean, we had us a little riot going, fellers, and it was only a matter of time until Pete died a horrible death.
And through it all, I could still smell that egg, fried in butter.
The back door flew open and Loper stormed out. He had shaving cream on one side of his face and the other side was bright red.
“HANK, SHUT UP! YOU’RE GONNA WAKE UP THE BABY!”
I stopped barking and stared at him. Me? What had I . . . if it hadn’t been for the cat . . .
I heard the baby squall inside the house. Sally May exploded out the door. “Will you tell your dog to shut up! He just woke the baby.”
“Shut up, Hank!”
Shut up, Hank. Shut up, Hank. That’s all anybody ever says to me. Not “good morning, Hank,” or “thanks for saving the ranch from the silver monster bird, Hank, we really appreciate you risking your life while we were asleep.” Nothing like that, no siree.
Well, I can take a hint. I gave Pete one last glare, just to let him know that his days on this earth were numbered, and I stalked back to the gas tanks.
I met Drover halfway down the hill. He’d just pried himself out of bed. “What’s going on, Hank? I heard some noise.”
I glared at him. “You heard some noise? Well, glory be. It’s kind of a shame you didn’t come a little sooner when you might have made a hand.”
“You need some help?”
I glanced back up the hill. Sally May was still out in the yard, talking to her Kitty-Kitty. “Yeah, I need some help. Go up there and bark at the cat.”
“Just . . . just bark at the cat, that’s all?”
“That’s all. Give it your best shot.”
“Any special reason?”
“General principles, Drover.”
“Well, okay. I’ll see what I can do.”
He went skipping up the hill and I went down to the gas tanks to watch the show.
Maybe it was kind of mean, me sending Drover up there on a suicide mission, when he was too dumb to know better. But look at it this way: I get blamed for everything around here, and most of the time I don’t deserve it. I figgered it wouldn’t hurt Drover to get yelled at once or twice, and it might even do him some good.
Getting yelled at is no fun, but it does build character. Drover needed some character-building. That was one of his mainest problems, a weak character.
So I watched. The little runt padded up to the fence, plopped down, sat up on his back legs, and started yipping. Sally May put her hands on her hips, gave her head a shake, and said, “Well, if that isn’t the cutest thing!”
She pitched him my egg and he caught it in the air and gulped it down.
A minute later, he was down at the gas tanks. “I did what you said, Hank, and I won a free egg. Are you proud of me?”
I was so proud of him, I thought about blacking both his eyes. But I was too disgusted. I just went to sleep.
That seems to be the only thing I can do around here without getting yelled at: sleep.
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