[Illustration: “I ran straight on, regardless of bombs dropping all
around me.” (Page 124)]
BILLY WHISKERS
IN FRANCE
BY
FRANCES TREGO MONTGOMERY
AUTHOR OF “BILLY WHISKERS,” “BILLY WHISKERS’ KIDS,” “BILLY
WHISKERS IN THE SOUTH,” “BILLY WHISKERS IN CAMP,”
“ZIP, THE ADVENTURES OF A FRISKY FOX TERRIER,” ETC.
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATED BY FLORENCE WHITE WILLIAMS
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK
Copyright 1919,
by
The Saalfield Publishing Co.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I BILLY WHISKERS GROWS HOMESICK 7
II BILLY UNEXPECTEDLY MEETS A FRIEND 15
III AN INOPPORTUNE SNEEZE 23
IV THE GENERAL RECAPTURES BILLY 35
V BILLY NEARLY KILLS THE COOK 47
VI BILLY RELATES SOME OF HIS ADVENTURES 59
VII BUTTON FRIGHTENS TWO NURSES 75
VIII BILLY MAKES PLANS TO LEAVE FRANCE 83
IX BUTTON DISCOVERS SPIES IN THE HAYMOW 95
X BUTTON MAKES THE FARMER FIGHTING MAD 109
XI THE CHUMS ON A CANAL BOAT 123
XII BUTTON HAS A FIGHT WITH A WHARF RAT 135
XIII A DOG CEMETERY IN PARIS 143
XIV WHAT THE CHUMS DID IN PARIS 153
XV BLOWN UP BY A SUBMARINE 165
ILLUSTRATIONS
“I ran straight on, regardless of bombs dropping all
around me” _Frontispiece_
PAGE
Every man of them jumped as if shot 30
Billy gave one long, loud baa that resounded down the big, bare
room 66
Away went Billy, jerking the cook around trees, over stumps and
beehives 92
One thing Billy butted was a basket full of clothes 118
The first thing Billy knew, he was rolling over something soft
that squealed like a stuck pig and that kicked like a calf 148
_Billy Whiskers in France_
CHAPTER I
BILLY WHISKERS GROWS HOMESICK
As Billy Whiskers lay in an American camp somewhere over in France,
he became very restless and soon had the blues from thinking of his
dear Nannie so far away--away over in America, with that deep, deep,
wide, blue ocean between them, infested not only with huge sea monsters
belonging to the finny tribe, but also with death-dealing, quickly
moving submarines and torpedo boats belonging to the German Kaiser.
“I want dreadfully to go home! Still I hate to risk my life on any
ship that sails the seas these days, for it may be blown sky high at
any moment, or sunk to the nethermost depths of the ocean. There is no
way to walk around, and I don’t suppose I could get any one to let me
go with them in an airship. So here I must remain, or trust my life
to some troop ship returning to America for more soldiers. I just
believe I will do it! I have lost all interest in the War over here
since my master was wounded and was invalided home. Home! The very word
makes me so homesick I can’t see for tears. Well, I’ll just fix this
homesickness, so I will! I start for there this very minute. It is a
good dark night and I think I can slip out of camp easily as they have
not been watching me so closely since my master was sent away.”
Suiting the action to the words, Billy jumped up, shook himself, took
a long breath and said to himself, “Here’s luck to you, old fellow, on
your long, long, perilous journey! And may you reach the other side and
once more see your loving little wife Nannie and all your children and
grandchildren!”
Then he gave a flick of his tail and started on a brisk run for the
least guarded entrance to the camp, to try to sneak through.
“My, but it is lonesome traveling by myself!” he thought. “I do wish
Stubby and Button were here to accompany me on this journey.”
Billy was so busy thinking of his old friends Stubby, the little yellow
dog with a stubby tail, and Button, the big black cat with blazing eyes
like buttons, that he reached the entrance to the camp before he knew
it, and he managed to slip out without being stopped, for there was a
jam at the gate caused by many big ambulances going out and army trucks
coming in.
“Humph!” said Billy to himself. “If I get over all my difficulties as
easily as I got through that gate and past the guards, my journey will
be a smooth and pleasant one.”
He had been traveling some time when he heard some one say, “Hi, there,
Billy Whiskers! What are you doing outside of camp? Looks to me as if
you were trying to run away.” This from a driver of an ambulance who
knew Billy was not to be allowed to escape from the camp. “Come here
and I will give you a nice red apple.”
“See anything green in my eye?” winked back Billy. “I know you! You
would give me an apple with one hand and slip a rope around my neck
with the other. Anyway, where’s your apple? _I_ don’t see any!”
“Here, Billy! Stop, I tell you, and come here! If you don’t like
apples, here is a handful of salt,” and the soldier held his hand out
as if he had it full of salt.
But Billy was too keen for him. He had seen him close his hand over
nothing before offering it to him. So he kept right on walking as if he
had not heard the soldier.
“Say, Bill, this is no joke! It is the General’s orders that you are
not to escape, but to be made to stay in camp until we go home. You are
too valuable a goat to allow the Germans to make you up into chops and
roasts. Besides, when we get home we want to show the goat that stole
Von Luxemburg’s maps and plans from under his very nose, and also
butted or hooked all his staff into a heap in the corner of his own
little room. If you won’t come back for apples or salt or coaxing, very
well! I’ll have to lasso you, or shoot you in one of your legs so you
cannot run away,” and the soldier turned his back to look for a rope in
the ambulance, as he preferred to lasso Billy rather than shoot him.
He was an expert with the lasso, as he had come from a ranch away out
in Montana to join the army, and was considered the best hand with the
rope in all Montana.
[Illustration]
“Huh!” grunted Billy. “I must have run into Lasso Jake. If this is so,
I better be getting a move on me and pushing my leg.”
As luck would have it, right before Billy was a creek, with a temporary
bridge across it. Down the bank beside the bridge plunged Billy, for he
knew the bank was so high that the cowboy soldier could not throw his
lasso so as to catch him. Instead of trying to climb out the other side
of the creek, Billy kept on in the middle of the swift-flowing stream,
swimming against the current, though he could not make much progress
against it. Presently he heard voices and turning his head he saw two
soldiers standing on the bridge and one was swinging a lasso over his
head. Billy waited to see no more, but ducked. And just as his head
disappeared under the water, he heard the splash of the rope as it hit
the surface of the water just where his head had been.
“Good thing I ducked! If I hadn’t, they would now be pulling me to
shore with a lasso around my neck. Gee, but that was a close call,
and that cowboy soldier is some lasso thrower! I never saw his equal,
even in a circus. I think he better get a flying machine and fly over
the German line and watch his chance to rope the Kaiser or the Crown
Prince, some of the Generals and other high monkey-monks.” And Billy
laughed to himself at the spectacle of the Kaiser being made to walk
into an American camp with a lasso around his neck. Billy forgot he
could not open his mouth to laugh under water, and he began to choke so
he had to stop swimming under water and come to the surface.
Just as he did so, his eye caught sight of a soldier standing on the
bank of the stream with a lasso hanging from his hand ready to throw
the moment Billy’s head appeared above the surface of the water. He
was about to dive again when he heard a cry for help from the bridge.
The soldier turned and ran to rescue a man who had fallen into the
water, calling as he went down, “Save me! I can’t swim!”
Billy crawled out of the stream and stood watching the soldier with the
lasso trying to save his comrade. He was having a hard time for as the
man went down he struck his head on a stone, which stunned him, and
now he was being carried downstream by the swift current and knocked
against the bowlders over which the water frothed. Try as he would, the
cowboy soldier was put to it to catch up to him as the swift current
bore his chum’s body ever and still ever ahead of him. But at last his
comrade’s body caught between two rocks and was held there until the
cowboy soldier overtook it. The cold water had revived the man, so that
by the time his soldier chum reached him he was coming to his senses.
Billy only waited to see that the man was alive and then he left them
sitting in midstream, each on a big rock that raised its head above the
water. He thought it wise to cut sticks for safety and ran into a thick
woods he saw, which would serve to hide him from the soldiers should
they cross the bridge and try to follow him. This, however, they did
not do, knowing it would be useless to try to catch Billy when he had
such a start.
As soon as he could, Billy found his way out of the woods to the road
he had left. After following it for some time he found it led out to
the main highway to Paris. This road Billy knew he must follow or
he could never find his way back to the seacoast. Once in Paris, he
knew he must pass through it and then keep straight on in a westerly
direction until he came to the English Channel. Once there, he would
follow the coast until he came to a port from which boats were sailing
for America. Then he would watch his chance to steal aboard and sail
for home. Billy was very good at directions and from the moment he had
landed in France he had taken special pains to keep the points of the
compass straight in his head, so that if he ever wanted to return home
alone he would find his way. Now it proved what a wise old goat he
was, for all he had to do was to travel by the sun and North Star in
a northeasterly direction until he came to Paris and from there in a
westerly until he reached the English Channel, from one of whose ports
he had disembarked when he came to France. But it was discouraging to
think how very far it was and what privations and hardships he would
have to endure and overcome before he reached his destination. But
Billy Whiskers was a regular old soldier by this time and well used to
hardships and hard knocks of all kinds. So he only heaved a long sigh
and then ran all the faster, knowing that every step he took brought
him just that much nearer home and Nannie.
“If I tried to count the steps I shall have to take before reaching
home, it would be like counting the sands of the sea. I shan’t try, but
just push on and I know I shall get there some day.”
“Bow-wow-wow!” barked a big Dane in his deep voice.
“Bow! Wow! Wow!” came the short, sharp, snappy barks from a
short-legged Scotch terrier as they bounded out of a gate beside the
road, ready to pounce on Billy. They were followed by poodles, collies,
St. Bernards, and all manner of dogs, both great and small. Billy
thought he had never seen so many dogs of different breeds in one place
in all his life. You see he had run into a dog hospital, and these were
the convalescent dogs which were allowed to play together in the yard.
[Illustration]
Not one of these dogs tried to bite Billy, and after they had given up
trying to frighten him by barking in their fiercest way as if about to
eat him alive, they quieted down and became as docile as lambs.