BUTTON DISCOVERS SPIES IN THE HAYMOW
When Button got back where he had left Billy and the dogs, he found
them all gone.
“I guess Billy thought they better hide somewhere until I came back. I
can soon find them, however, by running up a tall tree and looking over
the place, for even in this twilight I can see Billy’s white coat. Yes,
there is a white object about his size moving toward the woods. I will
follow it and I bet it will turn out to be Billy. It is too big for a
dog, and too small for a cow.” So Button ran after the white object and
soon came up to Billy and the dogs.
“There, didn’t I tell you dogs he would find us?” said Billy. “Button,
our friends here did not want to leave until you came back. They were
afraid you could not find us, and that you would feel hurt at our going
off when you had gone to get information for me. They do not know us,
do they? That we always understand one another and know that every move
we make is for the best and our safety. Well, what did you find out?”
“That the two are at this very minute plotting to capture you so they
can get the reward offered by the General,” and Button began to laugh.
“What are you laughing at? Tell us,” said Pinky.
[Illustration]
“It is at what those two said. They have you down fine, Billy, and
think you are a foxy old rascal with brains. So the two are going to
lay a deep plot and are not going at it hastily so as to be sure to
catch you. The chauffeur has promised to eat his shirt if he can’t
catch you in three days.”
“They better lay a deep, dark plot and keep it under their hats if they
intend to catch me within three days, for I am leaving in about fifteen
minutes,” answered Billy.
“Oh, Mr. Whiskers, you don’t mean that! You surely don’t mean to leave
us so soon. Besides, if I am to go with you to Paris, I can’t possibly
get ready in that time. Why, I have all the chickens, ducks, pigs and
the other fowls and animals on the place to say good-by to, let alone
all my friends in the hospital!”
“Then you can’t travel with me, Miss Rosie de la France, as we three
never know ten minutes ahead where we will be next, or what our next
move will be. My being alive now is all due to my being able to think
and act quickly. And I must leave here before those two plotting my
capture set eyes on me again. Now here are my plans. I made them while
walking over here. I will go ahead to the outskirts of the next town.
There I will wait for Stubby, Button, Duke and yourself, if you still
feel like risking your life with us, and taking all the hardships that
come along without a whimper or complaint. For it is our motto never
to complain or cry over spilt milk. What is done is past and gone; why
spoil the present and becloud the future by dwelling on it?”
“Thank you, Mr. Whiskers, but I think probably I better stay here until
my mistress comes for me. My surprising her might turn out not to be
pleasant after all.”
“I think you are wise in your decision, for these are troublous times
to be running around loose without a particular friend, and I think
you are not enough accustomed to hard knocks to travel with three such
hardened travelers as we are.”
“I am glad that sniffly-nosed, red-eyed little poodle is not going with
us,” mused Button to himself. “I never _could_ abide poodles, anyway,
and this one seems to be a sentimental fuss-and-feathers kind of one.”
“Time’s up, boys! Glad to have met you all, and hope if any of you ever
come to America that I shall have the good luck to run into you and the
chance of returning some of the hospitality you have extended to me as
well as that I may show you some of our beautiful country. Remember,
Button, as soon as Stubby is able to travel to meet me on the outskirts
of the next town. Good-by, good-by, kind friends!” and Billy was off.
He had scarcely disappeared in the darkness when the dogs heard the
chauffeur and the cook coming toward the woods. They were sneaking
along, looking carefully under every bush and behind every pile of
stones for Billy.
“I tell you,” said the cook, “I saw him running in this direction after
we had the mix-up with the bees.”
“Skedaddle, all of you!” mewed Button. “Don’t let them find us all
together.”
[Illustration]
“How long ago did you see him coming in this direction?” asked the
chauffeur.
“Oh, about three hours.”
“Three _hours_! Oh, the dickens! In that time he might be half way to
Paris. I thought you had seen him just before I came.”
“Well, he is somewhere around here, I bet.”
“If he is, he is probably laughing inside himself at the spectacle we
make creeping along in the dark looking for him.”
Button went right back to the hospital and climbed up the rope that was
still hanging from the window of Stubby’s ward. He thought he better
go tell Stubby the latest plans while the rope was still there. He had
very good luck indeed, and succeeded in getting to Stubby without being
seen and in telling him what he had heard the men say and of Billy’s
plans for them to join him as soon as he, Stubby, was able to use his
leg.
“Isn’t it too provoking that I have to be laid up with a broken leg?
Why couldn’t it have been my tail or an ear that got hurt? Then I could
have traveled.”
“Never mind, old fellow! You will be all right in a day or two. In
the meantime Billy can amuse himself by getting in more mischief, and
I can pass the time by trying _not_ to get into any here. I think I
better vamoose now or some one will be coming and find me as I see it
is about time they change the night shifts. I’ll see you in the garden
to-morrow. Good-night and pleasant slumbers free from pain!”
Just as Button was on the window sill about to jump for the rope, the
second night nurse who was to relieve the one now on duty came in the
room, and it happened to be the one who had seen Button first and had
been trying to argue herself into believing that she had not seen a
big, black cat sitting on the window sill in the moonlight. On seeing
the same cat again in the same place, she screamed and threw up her
hands to cover her eyes. Her cry startled Button so that he nearly
lost his hold of the rope, for he was just sticking his claws into it
preparatory to climbing down when the nurse opened the door.
When she took her hands from her eyes to look once more and be sure
that the cat was still there, the cat had disappeared, just as it had
done before.
“There is something horrible going to happen to the hospital, I know,”
she said to the other nurse, “for that is twice I have seen the vision
of a big black cat.”
“And I too. I also saw it this evening, just where you did, when I
first came in to take your place. I do hope it is not the forerunner of
a German raid or that the Germans are going to drop bombs on us.”
It amused Button greatly to see how superstitious the nurses were about
a black cat.
“I wonder how I shall pass the time until Stubby is taken out into the
yard to-morrow,” he thought. “I think I will go over to the haymow and
catch a mouse and see if French mice taste like American ones.”
He had crawled through a hole in the side of the barn and was quietly
making his way toward where he thought the haymow would most likely
be when he heard whispering voices. He stopped to listen and made out
that they were speaking in German, not in French. And he immediately
thought, “Spies, or escaped prisoners!”
“I’ll just listen and hear what they have to say,” he decided, “but
I’ll try to get a little closer.”
Being black as a coal, he could not be seen easily unless the light
struck his eyes. So he crept cautiously toward where the sound of the
voices came from, and found it was in the haymow above his head. It
took but a minute for Button to climb the ladder that led up to the
mow, but as he stepped from the ladder onto the hay, it gave way and he
fell into a hole in the hay made by one of the men’s legs when he had
stepped off the ladder.
“What was that noise I heard?” said one of the two voices in a
frightened tone.
“S-s-sh-h-h-h! Keep still and listen!” commanded the other.
“I hope it is not that French colonel who has been on our track for
days,” answered the other.
Button never moved, and in fact he held his breath until the men began
talking again.
“It was probably a rat you heard in the hay,” said the man who had
spoken last. “Don’t you think it is about dark enough for us to get to
our work and blow up this Red Cross hospital, so we can get back to our
line before daylight?”
“So-ho!” thought Button. “You two think because this hospital has a big
red cross on a white ground painted on its roof that it is a regular
hospital for wounded soldiers instead of just one for dogs. And you
have been sent to blow it up! Well, I’ll fix you! I’ll scratch your
eyes out so you can’t see to blow it up.”
Then and there Button began to act as if he had a fit. He flew out of
the hole he had been hiding in and right for the men, whom he could see
plainly with his cat eyes in the dark mow. Before they knew what was
happening, he ran up one’s back, reached around his neck as he sat on
his shoulder and scratched both his eyes out.
“How do you like the feeling? _That_ is for scratching out the eyes of
little Belgian children!”
The man cried out from pain, but what cared Button? He jumped from this
fellow’s shoulders straight into the other’s face and out went his eyes.
“Now you two can sit here and repent of your sins and think how the
little children suffered whose eyes you dug out! And the Germans are
planning to blow up this hospital, are they? Such being the case, I
must get Stubby away from here at the earliest possible moment. I know
what I can do. I can carry him on my back, he is such a little fellow,
and he is so thin now that I can easily do it. Then when we reach
Billy, he can carry him and in this way, by taking turns, we can get
him far away from here before the Germans raid the hospital.”
And this is just what Button did. The very next day when Stubby’s nurse
carried him out of the hospital and placed him on a cushion under a
tree, with the splints off his leg, Button came along and told him what
he had done the night before and that he feared the Germans would blow
up or set fire to the hospital that very night. By first coaxing, then
scolding, he at last persuaded Stubby to consent to ride on his back
and let him take him where Billy was waiting for them on the outskirts
of the town seven miles away. They bade all the dogs good-by and the
Red Cross dog insisted that as he was larger and stronger than Button
he should carry Stubby on his back part of the journey. “Besides,” he
said, “I have a cloth bandage around my body with the Red Cross sewed
on the front. Now this bandage will be an excellent thing for Stubby
to stick his claws in to help him hold on. It will be much easier
trying to do that than trying to stick them into your short hair, more
especially as he has only three legs he can use.”
And thus they started on their journey, keeping close to the road, but
going just inside the fields and orchards that bordered either side of
the highway. They made very good progress, and the Red Cross dog did
not feel the weight of Stubby at all. They rested a little after noon,
and Button and the Red Cross dog left Stubby behind a straw stack in a
barnyard while they sneaked up to the house to see if they could not
find something to eat and to carry back to Stubby.
“Bow wow!” barked a big dog, jumping out at them from his kennel. “Who
are you that comes prowling around here? Oh, I beg your pardon! I did
not notice you wore the badge of a Red Cross dog or I should not have
barked, for all Red Cross dogs are welcome in this place and the farmer
and his family will do all they can for you. Just go up to the house
and when they see you wear a Red Cross badge they will give you a hot
supper and a soft bed to sleep on if you care to stay over night. I
would go up to the house with you, but, as you see, I am chained. They
will bring some dinner to me and I will share it with your friend here,
the black cat.”
“I am sure that is very kind of you,” replied Duke, the Red Cross dog.
“Since you say the family here is kind to Red Cross dogs, I will walk
boldly up to the house.”
“You will find them all I say they are, for my master used to train
dogs to be police dogs, and he sold them to the police in Paris. Then
when the war began he trained them for Red Cross work. But all his
dogs are sold now or gone to war. He was such a good trainer that he
got very high prices for his dogs. I should not wonder but that you may
have met some of the dogs trained by him if you have been at the front
lately, as many of them are in active service there now.”
“Your master’s name could not possibly be Jean Baptiste Frère, could
it?”
“That is just what it is!”
“Well, well, well! I declare! That is too queer! My chum was trained
by him and lots of the dogs I know. My chum’s name is Sharp Ears, or
rather that is what the Red Cross people call him, for he seems to be
able to hear things long before any one else can detect the slightest
noise. For that reason he is kept on police duty with the sentinels
that have to tramp up and down, up and down in the deep woods on guard
all night. He will hear or scent an enemy long before he comes in
sight, and he always gives warning by pricking up his ears and looking
straight into the sentry’s face, but he never barks to betray the
sentry to the enemy. Then he turns his face in the direction from which
the sound comes. If it is one of our soldiers, he will keep perfectly
still. If it is a German, Austrian or any of the enemy soldiers, he
will give a scarcely audible growl. He has saved many a sentry’s life
by warning him in this way that some one was coming.”
“How can he tell whether it is an enemy or a friend coming when he
can’t see them?”
“I asked him that very question, and he said he can always tell a
German by the scent as they smell like pigs, and that he had never made
a mistake yet.”
“I did not know before that the German soldiers have an odor peculiarly
their own.”
“Nor I until he told me! Here they come with my dinner now, and as they
don’t like cats very well, I think your friend better hide in my dog
house. I will stand before the door so they can’t see inside.”
“Hello, Towser!” called out the farmer when he saw Duke. “I see you
have company and most distinguished company at that. Come here and let
me see by your badge to what regiment you belong.”
Duke went up to the farmer who had a very strong but kindly face and
allowed him to read what was engraved on the tag that dangled from his
collar.
“Why, bless my soul! You are from the same regiment that my son is in
and also the one that owns my best trained dog. Oh, if you could only
talk and tell me how they are faring out on that battlefront!” And he
gave a deep sigh. So did Duke for he too wished he could talk and tell
the farmer of some of the noble, brave deeds his son had performed and
also some of the clever, smart things his dog had done.
“Come with me up to the house and I will give you a dinner that will
make your sides stick out and ready to split,” which he certainly did.
Duke ate and ate and still he could not see the bottom of his plate.
There was fried chicken, with mashed potatoes and gravy fit for a king
to eat. He ate all he possibly could for he knew it would be a long
time before he ever was offered such a dinner again. But all the time
he ate he kept thinking of how Stubby would enjoy the big chicken leg
he was going to carry to him in his mouth when the farmer left him and
he could slip away. He was just wondering how he was going to get away
from the farmer when some one in the house called him to say that he
was wanted on the telephone.
He had not disappeared inside the door when Duke picked up the chicken
leg and ran with it to Stubby, and as he rounded the stack from one
side Button did from the other with a second drumstick in his mouth. So
you see Stubby fared pretty well.
“Those people seem to be very kind,” said Stubby, “and I guess it will
be a good while before we meet any one their equal again.”