LITMIR.BIZ

      It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. I’m still not sure how the corncobs fit into the overall case, or for that matter what part Pete the Barncat played in the mystery, but on the morning of September 7, at approximately ten o’clock, the cowboys roared into headquarters and called me up for Special Emergency Duty.

      Little did I know what danger lay in store for me or that my very life would be hanging in the balance before the day was done. But then, that’s getting the cart before the wagon.

      Let’s back up and take first things first. In the security business, you can get yourself in a mess trying to take first things second or second things first. First things should always be taken first.

      Okay. Let’s start with the corncobs.

      On the evening of the morning before the day of which I speak . . . Let’s try that again. On the evening before the morning of the day of which . . .

      Might be simpler just to say, “On the evening of September 6.” Okay, on the evening of September 6, Drover and I were down in the vicinity of the gas tanks, taking it easy and catching a few winks of sleep before we had to go out on night patrol.

      As I recall the scene, I was reclined on my gunnysack bed, hovering in the twilight zone between watchfulness and more or less complete oblivion. In other words, although my more critical faculties were pretty muchly in neutral, I continued to monitor all sounds and earatory data in the Ready Room of my mind.

      This is a trick of the trade, so to speak, that a guy builds up over a period of years. When you’re on call twenty-four hours a day, when the safety of the ranch and all its inhabitants depends on your ability to scramble at the first sign of danger, you learn to grab your sleep when it comes and to remain alert even while sleeping.

      Hencely, even though an outside observer would have pronounced me asleep, the inner recesses of my mind continued to monitor incoming signals. A high percentage of those signals were coming from Drover, my associate, who sat nearby, staring up at the sky and composing dumb questions.

      “Hank?”

      My eyelids twitched but I tried to ignore him.

      “Hank?”

      “Um.”

      “You awake, Hank?”

      I cracked my left eye and snapped a visual update for my data base, but this procedure met with only partial success since my left eye was still rolling around in its sprocket. Again, I tried to ignore him.

      “Hank?”

      “What!”

      “You awake?”

      “Of course it will! If it weren’t for that, what else could it be?”

      “What?”

      “You heard what I said. Don’t sit there pretending . . . what did I say?”

      “I’m not sure.”

      “Well, if you’re not sure, Drover, who is?”

      “You got me.”

      “Then I’ve got very little. The question is, what is the meaning of this conversation?”

      “I’m not sure, Hank. I just asked if you were awake.”

      “And what did I say?”

      “That was the part I didn’t understand.”

      That did it. I had no choice but to cancel the Sleep Mode and go back on duty. I opened both eyes and sat up.

      “Drover, do you have any idea what you’re talking about?”

      “Not really. I was just trying to make conversation. I get bored sometimes.”

      “If I had to live with that tiny brain of yours,

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