LITMIR.BIZ

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but a dog can never go wrong by barking.”

      And so we barked. We threw ourselves into the . . .

      Okay, in my original analysis, I had more or less forgotten that Slim had a telephone in his house and that telephones make a ringing sound—but not all the time. That’s the crucial point.

      See, those telephones will lurk in silence for hours and sometimes even days, and just about the time you’ve forgotten about ’em, they’ll stop lurking and start ringing.

      And for that reason, I’ve never trusted a telephone. There’s something just a little sneaky . . . I don’t like ’em, is the point.

      It took Slim a couple of minutes to find the phone. It had gotten lost beneath the shifting whispering sands, so to speak, of his living room—meaning that it had been buried beneath back issues of Livestock Weekly, dirty socks and old shirts, picture-show calendars, and other items too numerous to mention.

      It rang and rang, and we barked and barked. On the fifth ring, Slim found the cord and pulled on it until the phone appeared out of the rubble.

      He gave me a wink and said, “They can’t fool me.” He put the phone to his ear. “Hello. Yes. Yes. No, I wasn’t in bed. I couldn’t find the derned phone. Hold on a second.” He scowled at me. “Hank, dry up, will you?”

      At that point I figgered that I had barked just about enough, so I quit. I mean, I’d kept the phone from running out of the room, right? And I’d helped Slim find it, right? So I called off the Code Three and . . .

      Was that a mouse sitting on the toe of Slim’s boot?

      I narrowed my eyes and studied the object on the toe of his . . . yes, it certainly appeared to be a mouse. I shot a glance at Slim.

      He didn’t see it.

      “What? No, I’m baby-sittin’ Loper’s dogs tonight and they were barkin’ at the telephone. No, I have no idea why a dog would bark at the telephone, but they did.” He chuckled. “Yes, I’m very proud. Would you like to buy one of ’em?”

      I wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation. By that time I had gone into Stealthy Crouch Mode and was moving on silent paws and weaving my way through the clutter—closing the distance between me and the alleged mouse.

      Five feet away from the target, I stopped—froze, actually—and asked Data Control for a confirmation of my original sighting. It came back in a matter of seconds: yes indeed, we had us a live mouse at 0205.

      Not only was this mouse alive and sitting on the toe of Slim’s boot, but he was staring at me and wiggling his whiskers.

      Have we discussed mice? I am the sworn enemy of all mice, especially those that stare and wiggle their whiskers.

      I mean, you’d think a mouse would have sense enough to run at the approach of a Head of Ranch Security, but this one seemed to think that he owned the place.

      Well, he didn’t own the place, and I was fixing to send that little feller a message from the School of Hard Knots.

      I trimmed out my ears in the Full Alert Position, punched in Manual Lift-Up on the hackles circuit, switched all guidance systems over to Smelloradar Control, and began the approach procedure.

      Sounds pretty complicated, huh? You bet it is. A lot of your ordinary dogs just go blundering into a combat situation and won’t take the time to use their instruments. I mean, they’d probably say that a little mouse wasn’t worth all the effort.

      Me? I figger that combat is combat, whether you’re going up against a Silver Monster Bird or a sneaky little mouse. On my ranch, we take this stuff pretty serious.

      Okay, I eased forward two steps—nose out, ears up, eyes narrowed, hackles raised, tail thrust outward and locked in at the proper angle. (We like to run that tail at about a 20 degree angle on deals like this, although I’ve gone as high as 25 degrees on a few occasions.)

      I stopped and rolled my eyes toward Slim. He wasn’t paying any attention to me, which meant that he was unaware of the trespasser on the toe of his boot.

      I went to a Manual Eyeball Shift and turned my gaze back to the mouse. He was sitting on his back legs now, staring at me with his beady little eyes and . . . I don’t know, biting his fingernails, sucking his thumb, picking his teeth, whatever it is that mice do when they put their paws in their mouth.

      That’s what he was doing, which was serious enough in itself. But it also appeared that he was smirking at me. That little mouse had just made a foolish mistake. No smirk mouses at Hank the Cowdog and tells to live about it.

      Slim was talking again. “Yes, the lights went off about five minutes ago, wind must be blowing the lines around. Coal oil? Sure, I’ve got a gallon of it somewhere, if I can find it. You bet, come on over.”

      I eased forward another step. The target had not moved. I was now within range. I prepared all systems for launch and punched in the commands to raise lip-shields and arm all tooth-cannons.

      All systems were ready. I entered the countdown: five, four, three, two, one, charge, bonzai!

      Mice are quicker than you might suppose, which probably explains why I missed the stupid mouse and sank my teeth into Slim’s boot and set off a very strange chain of events.

      Chapter Two: Hickory Dickory Dock: The Mouse Ran up Slim’s Leg

      I think Slim was startled when I snapped his boot, but that was a small surprise compared to the one that followed when he felt the mouse running up his leg—inside his pants.

      His eyes grew as wide as the lenses of his glasses. His eyebrows shot straight up. “Holy smokes, Billy, I think a mouse just ran up my pant leg!”

      Fellers, in my long and glorious career as Head of Ranch Security, I had witnessed my share of crazy things, but this deal promised to top them all.

      Slim dropped the phone and grabbed his left thigh with both hands. Then he jumped two feet into the air and said—and this is a direct quote—he said, “EEEEEE-YOW! Ow, oh, ee, yipes, stop that, help!”

      When he lit back on the floor, he was dancing. I never dreamed he could move so fast. I mean, on an average ranch day, Slim moves around with something short of lightning speed, but he was sure moving now.

      He danced. He stamped his feet. He slapped at his legs. He hollered and bellered and made some very odd squeaking sounds. Hopping around the room on his left leg, he tried to pull off his right boot. Then he hopped around on his right leg and tried to pull off his left boot.

      No luck there, so he sat down in the middle of the floor and tugged until the left boot came off.

      He cut his eyes from side to side. “Where’d he go?” He peeked into the boot. “Maybe . . . EEEEEEEEE-YOW!”

      He was on his feet again, but now his hands were tearing at his belt buckle and zipper. He got his left leg out of the jeans and something small and brown hit the floor.

      By George, it was the mouse. Slim had finally flushed him out and now it was time for me to go back into action.

      “Get ’im, Hank!”

      Well, the mouse went bouncing across the room, just as though he had little springs on his legs—funny how a mouse can do that—and I went tearing after him.

      Slim fell in behind me, wearing one boot and one sock, dragging his blue jeans that were still attached to his right leg, and swinging a pool cue.

      I chased

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