LITMIR.BIZ

      It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. Being Head of Ranch Security is a full-time job and this time the call came in the dead of night. But before we get to that, I must pass along a very important piece of information. Please listen carefully.

      A dog should never fight a raccoon in the water. You know why? Because raccoons are excellent swimmers and pretty good fighters and terrible cheaters, and if they ever catch a dog in the water, they will try to drown him. No kidding. I mention this because it will come up later in the story.

      Just keep it in mind as this mystery unfoils.

      Now, where were we? Oh yes, the call came in the dead of night. I was in my office, as I recall, yes, in my office under the gas tanks. I was going over a stack of . . .

      Okay, I was asleep, might as well admit it, and there’s no shame in that. Most ordinary dogs sleep at night, and while I’ve never thought of myself as ordinary, I do require sleep from time to time. Even your Heads of Ranch Security need sleep.

      So I’ve admitted that I was asleep when Drover turned in the alarm. “Hank? Hank? I hear something out there. You’d better wake up.”

      I’m not in the habit of responding quickly to Drover’s “alarms.” He’s scared of the dark, don’t you see, and if I responded every time he got scared, I would never get any sleep.

      Let’s be blunt. He’s a little fraidy cat. Most of what he sees and hears in the night comes from his own imagination.

      So I said, “Leave me alerp. Go awonk. I’m in the midst of a snorking sassafras.”

      “Yeah, but I hear something out there, honest, and I think you’d better check it out.”

      “You go cherp it out. I’m bonkers . . . uh, busy. We can tonk about it in the honk. Morning. Go away.”

      There was a moment of silence. I thought he had given up. He hadn’t.

      “Hank, there it is again!”

      I raised my head and glared at . . . well, I couldn’t actually see him, it was so dark, but I glared into the darkness. “Drover, is this another one of your falsely phone alarms . . . phony false alarms?”

      “No, this one’s real. Listen.”

      I cranked up Ear Number One and opened the outer doors for Sound Gathering. At first, I heard nothing, but then . . .

      “Okay, Drover, I’m picking it up now. It’s a scratching sound.”

      “I’ll be derned. What I heard was more of a . . . a flapping sound.”

      “I hear scratching, not flapping.”

      “I’ll be derned. Can you hear it now?”

      I listened. “No. It quit.”

      “Oh, okay. That was just me. I was scratching.”

      “Stop scratching! Be still. Silence.”

      I moved Ear Number One back and forth. Sure enough, there it was—an odd flapping sound in the night. I cranked up Ear Number Two, opened outer doors, and set both ears to Maximum Gathering Mode. The sound came in loud and clear.

      “Drover, I don’t want to alarm you, but I’m picking up a sound out there in the darkness.”

      “Yeah, I know. I heard it first.”

      “It doesn’t matter that you heard it first.”

      “Well, that’s why I woke you up.”

      “You didn’t wake me up. I was going over some reports.” I pushed myself up on all fours and peered out into the darkness. “Where are we? What day is this?”

      “Well . . . I think it’s night, and that’s why it’s so dark. And we’re right here under the gas tanks.”

      “Yes, of course. It’s all coming back to me now. Were we just talking about something?”

      “Yeah. Those odd sounds out there in the dark.”

      “Ah, yes.” I cocked my ears and listened. There it was again. “Is that the sound you heard?”

      “Yep, that’s it. Are you proud of me?”

      “Oh yes, of course, very proud. And since you’re the one who turned in the alarm, maybe you’d like to check it out.”

      “Yeah, or maybe not.”

      “What?”

      “I said . . . maybe we could go together. I’d like that better. You know, teamwork and stuff.”

      “Drover, I haven’t slept in days. This job is wearing me down.”

      “Yeah, but I just woke you up, so you must have been asleep.”

      “I

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