LITMIR.BIZ

      It was beautiful, delicious. Poetry in motion. A magnificent symphony of Pure Dogness. I’m not sure the Security Division has ever known triumph on such a grand scale.

      Standing at the base of the tree, I looked up and yelled, “And let that be a lesson to you!”

      “Enjoy the roundup, Hankie.”

      “I will, and you enjoy the tree.”

      And with that stinging reply, I marched away from the tree, leaving Kitty Kitty sitting in the rubble of his own shubbles. Shambles. Sitting in the ramble of his own shambles. Sitting in the rubble of his own . . . phooey.

      The point is that I had delivered the cat another humiliating defeat, and no dog could have been prouder. I held my head at a triumphant angle and . . . my nose was killing me! I sat down near the saddle shed and felt a cloud of gloom moving across my mind. Not only had I been cut out of the roundup work, but the cat had almost cut off my nose. Things had gone from bad to awful.

      Just then, Drover walked up. “I heard a bunch of noise. What . . .” He stared at the wounds on my nose. “Gosh, what happened?”

      I told him the whole miserable story. “The cowboys have lost confidence in me, Drover, and now I feel worthless and useless. I thought that thrashing the cat might brighten my day, but . . . well, you can see how that turned out.”

      “Yeah, he brightened your nose.”

      “Exactly. He brightened my nose with blood and made a gloomy day even gloomier.” I stood up and began pacing. “And now my whole life seems pointless. I just wish there was something I could to do to show the cowboys . . .” I stopped pacing and stared at three mounds of fresh dirt in the middle of the corral gate. “Drover, come here and look at this.”

      He walked over to the dirt piles and sniffed them. “I’ll be derned, gopher mounds. I guess there’s a gopher digging underground. I hope the cows don’t trip when they go through the gate.”

      I stared at him. “What did you just say?”

      “I said, I hope the gophers don’t trip . . . I hope the cows don’t dig . . . oh drat, I can’t remember.”

      “Drover, you may have just come up with a brilliant idea!”

      “I did?”

      “Yes, I know that sounds unlikely, that you’d come up with a brilliant idea, but listen to this.” My mind was soaring by this time and I started pacing. “Where gophers dig, they leave the surface undisturbed, but the ground beneath the surface is a maze of tunnels and shafts, right?”

      “I guess so.”

      “Okay, listen closely. What happens when a herd of large animals walks across that surface?”

      “I don’t know. They step on a gopher?”

      “No. Their hooves break through the surface and they fall into the gopher tunnel.”

      “Yeah, but . . .”

      “Don’t you get it? Nobody knows how deep those tunnels go. Why, they might go for miles and miles, right into some boiling pit at the center of the earth.”

      “Well, I don’t think . . .”

      “Just imagine, Drover, what would happen if all the cattle on this ranch plunged to their deaths in a bottomless gopher tunnel. Loper would be broke. Slim would be out of a job, and so would we.”

      “Yeah, but . . .”

      I marched over to him and whapped him on the back. “Congratulations, son, you’ve just given me a way of redeeming myself!”

      “You mean . . .”

      “Yes. I’ll stand in the gate and make sure that we don’t lose any cattle in the Bottomless Gopher Tunnel.”

      “Yeah, but Loper told you . . .”

      “He didn’t notice the gopher evidence, Drover, and that’s why we’re here, to save Our People from their own errors and mistakes. Loper was careless, his mind was on other things.” I stepped back and gave him a broad smile. “What do you think of that, soldier?”

      “Well, it sounds . . . it sounds a little crazy.”

      “Crazy! Hey, this was your idea and I’m trying to . . .” Just then, I heard the sound of cattle in the distance. “Shhh. Listen. The cowboys are coming in with the herd. We haven’t a moment to spare. Quick, to the corral gate!”

      “See you later!”