The Case of the Haystack Kitties. John R. Erickson

      It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. The day began just as many other days had started. I barked up the sun exactly at daylight, barked at a mockingbird that was making a nuisance of himself in one of those elm trees near the gas tanks, and did a routine patrol of the corrals.

      Little did I know or suspect that before the day was done, I would be trapped in a runaway pickup or that I would discover a nest of trespassing stray cats in the haystack. Or that I would do battle with a raging bull.

      Pretty busy day, huh? But I didn’t know any of that, and you’re not supposed to know it either, so just forget that I mentioned it.

      In every way, it appeared to be just another day on the ranch, a normal day in other words, in the late spring or early summer. The first of May, I guess it was. Yes, because Sally May had planted her garden, and the chinaberry trees were beginning to bloom, and the cottonwoods along the creek had begun putting out cotton.

      Have we discussed cottonwoods and cotton? Maybe not. Cottonwood trees are called cottonwood trees for three reasons. Number One, they are trees. Number Two, their trunks contain wood. And Number Three, the leafy portion of the tree produces little seeds that resemble puffs of cotton, and in the springtime the air is filled with them.

      Hencely, if you put those three elements together—tree, wood, and cotton—you come up with the name of the tree. No, wait a minute. If you put them together, you’d come up with . . . hang on just a second whilst I do some figuring . . . you’d come up with “treewood cotton,” which is not the name of the tree. It’s not the name of anything. It’s gibberish.

      So what we have to do is take those same three elements—tree, wood, and cotton—and reverse the order, see, and that gives us the correct answer, which is “cottonwood tree.”

      Pretty slick, huh? You bet it is. How many dogs can tell you everything about trees? Not many. Very few. Most of your ordinary ranch mutts have only one use for a tree and couldn’t care less about where the name comes from.

      You might be wondering what this discussion of cottonwood trees has to do with the mysteries that were about to unfold on that particular day. Well . . . not much, actually, except that when I returned to my office around eight o’clock that morning, I caught Drover in the act of . . . you won’t believe this. Even I found it hard to believe.

      I mean, I’ve served on this ranch with Drover for . . . how many years? A lot. We’ve shared the same bedroom-office under the gas tanks, worked many cases together, solved many mysteries, shared the same bowl of Co-op dog food, and you’d think that after all that, I would have seen every dumb stunt that Drover could come up with.

      Nope. On that particular morning, I caught the little mutt . . . chasing puffs of cottonwood cotton. That was a new one. I’d watched him chase butter­flies, grasshoppers, frogs, and crickets. I’d seen him snap at snowflakes and cinders from burning garbage. But I had never supposed that I would . . . so forth, but I did.

      I sat down on my gunnysack bed and watched. He was so wrapped up in his little adventure, he didn’t even notice me.

      Here came a puff of cotton floating through the air. Drover spotted it and crouched down.

      He watched it coming. His ears were up, and his eyes were locked on the target. When it passed over­head, he sprang into the air and snapped at it. He missed, of course, and hurled himself at it again and snapped again, and landed on his back in the dirt.