RUDDY WANTS A HOME
Straight out of the north-east blew the wind. It whipped its way across
three thousand miles of open, salty water, growing stronger and fiercer
every mile it traveled, until, when it reached the beach at Belemere, it
was blowing a gale. The ocean waves, which had been small at first, grew
larger and larger, and their white, foamy crests were whipped into spray
that mingled with the whirling sand and made the beach guard shut his
eyes when he felt the stinging in his face.
"This is a regular rip-snorter of a north-easter!" he muttered to
himself as he pulled his oilskin cap closer down over his head. "A
regular rip-snorter, and I can't see a hundred fathoms out!"
He strained his eyes, trying to pierce the rainy, wind-swept and
spume-filled darkness that hovered over the heaving ocean. He wanted to
see--if it were there to be seen--the flickering signal-light of a
vessel in distress.
That is, it was his duty to see it, if such a signal were flashed, and
to hurry to the nearest station and spread the alarm. And yet he hoped
there would be no need of that.
"Mighty hard to see a wreck, even if there is one," the coast guard
murmured. He did not open his mouth to speak aloud, as he sometimes did
other nights, on his lonely patrol. If he had opened his mouth this
night it would have been filled at once with rain and salty spray and
his breath might have been blown down his throat by the wind. So he kept
his lips closed and merely murmured.
"Worst storm for early September I ever see!" was his thought. "Hope
none of the vessels come too close in shore. It'd be a hard job getting
a crew together now for the boat, or breeches buoy."
In July, August, and early in September, on our Eastern coasts, the life
saving force is on vacation, save for a captain and one man at each
station to patrol the beach. The summer months are seldom marked by
storms and wrecks, and there is not often need of the services of the
life-savers. When such occasion arises the station captain, or his one
helper, calls for volunteers.
Stronger blew the wind, and the rain came down harder, mingling with the
salty spume and spray from the ocean. The place where Rick Dalton had
sat on the beach that afternoon, and wished for a dog, was now a
seething caldron of white foam, and the sand dunes were under water.
"High tide and a north-easter!" mused the coast guard. "Shouldn't wonder
but what a lot of bulkheads would be torn loose to-night. Bluefish and
moss bunkers! That was a fierce one!"
A stronger force of the gusty wind fairly stopped him in his tracks, and
he actually had to lean forward to keep his balance. It was hard walking
on the sand. Part of the shore of Belemere was marked by a board walk,
for the place was visited by a small summer population of "city folks,"
and on this walk the going was better. But it did not extend more than
half a mile. Belemere was not well enough known as yet to have a
fashionable board walk, that would be thronged in the evenings.
And now there was not a soul on it, even at the early hour of ten
o'clock. For the wind and spray swept over it, and, in places, the waves
actually washed under it, and partly across the road it bordered.
Trudging along, now and then bringing up to take a view out over the
heaving billows, which showed dimly white in the black night, the coast
guard kept on his beat. He was well protected against the storm, for
there had been ample warning of its coming. But so strongly did the wind
whip the rain along that the drops sought out every opening in his
oilskins and the guard felt the chill of the water.
"It sure is a rip-snorter!" he murmured.
He must walk to the end of his particular section, or beat--almost to
Bay Head--the next station, there to meet the guard from the adjoining
section of coast.
As Sig Bailey, the guard who had been muttering about the storm, swerved
farther up the beach to avoid a far-reaching wave, he saw a dim shape
scurrying among the sand dunes. At first he thought it merely a bunch of
seaweed, blown by the blast, but it did not slump down in a heap as
seaweed naturally would when the gust of wind ceased for a moment.
"Hello there!" cried the coast guard. "Who are you?"
For he saw that it was something alive--something that was seeking a
shelter from the storm.
For a moment he felt a little sensation of fear. There are so many
strange tales of the sea, and that which comes out of the sea. Perhaps
it was some weird creature of the deep, cast up by the churning of the
waves. Sig had heard such stories. Then his common sense came to his
aid.
There followed a moment's lull in the storm and Sig, clearing his eyes
of the rain and the salt spray, looked among the sand dunes for what he
had seen.
Yes, there it was again--some moving shape.
[Illustration: "Why, it's a dog! A puppy!"]
"Might be a man--crawling on his hands and knees," mused the coast
guard. "Too weak to stand up, maybe. Been washed in off some boat. But I
haven't heard anything of a wreck. I wonder----"
The dim shape seemed to come toward him, and for a moment Sig felt
afraid again. Then he thought of the powerful electric flashlight in his
outside pocket. It was the work of a moment to focus its beams on the
subject. Then Sig exclaimed:
"Why, it's a dog! A puppy, and a red one at that! Must be some sort of a
setter! I've seen pictures of 'em--Irish or Gordon setter! Hi, boy!" he
called to the dog.
The creature slunk toward him, almost crawling on its stomach so far
down did it cringe. Rain-soaked, sea-sprayed and frightened it crawled
to the feet of the coast guard, and lay there whimpering.
"Well, old boy! Poor dog! Poor puppy! And you aren't really any more'n a
puppy!" murmured the man in his dripping oilskins as he continued to
shine the light on the cringing dog. "What's the matter, old fellow?"
At the sound of the kind voice the dog looked up and feebly wagged his
tail, thumping it on the wet sand.
"Somebody's been beating you; more shame to 'em!" murmured the guard as
he patted the wet head. "What's the matter, old boy? Hungry?"
A little whine, a look such as only a dog can give, and another wag and
thump of the tail. The animal snuggled closer to the rubber boots of the
guard.
Sig looked up the beach. He was due, soon, to meet the other man from
Bay Head. It would not do to be late. But he saw no flicker of light,
such as his partner of the night sometimes showed. The beach was dark,
wave-swept and rain-soaked.
"Poor dog!" murmured the guard, turning his back to the wind so he might
not swallow his words. "Wonder where you came from? Never saw you before
that I know of. Nobody in the village owns a dog like you! Did you come
off some boat? Might have in this blow; you're wet enough, land knows!"
Again he reached over to pat the head and the dog licked his hand. Sig
fumbled inside his oilskin coat. He carried a sandwich or two to eat
for his midnight lunch, and he had not yet opened the packet his wife
had put up. He did so now, not daring to bring it from beneath the
shelter of the yellow garment, for fear of having the bread and meat
rained on and salt-soaked at once. But he broke off a part of the
sandwich in his pocket, tearing the paper in which it was wrapped, and
fed it to the dog.
Eagerly and hungrily the castaway of the night devoured the morsel--it
was small at best.
"Wish I could spare you more, old boy!" murmured the man. "Tell you what
I'll do," he went on, almost as though speaking to a human. "You stay
here. I'll go meet Bill Park, and maybe he's got more of a snack than he
wants. I'll get some for you. Stay here now. If you go up among the
dunes you'll be out of the wind--some."
He pointed to a little range of larger hummocks of sand, which would
keep off the worst of the gale. Sig flashed his light toward them and
waved it to and fro. The dog whined a little and then slunk off, his
tail hanging between his legs.
"Salt mackerel!" exclaimed Sig. "I hope he doesn't think I'm drivin' him
away. It's only for your own good, red-dog!" he went on. "I'll be back
in a little while with something to eat--if Bill has any. You go up
there and wait for me!"
Whether the animal really knew what the man said, or thought he was
being ordered away, Sig could not tell. But the dog slunk on in the rain
and storm and darkness, toward the sand dunes. In a few seconds he was
lost to sight.
"I'd let you follow along after me, but there's no need, and you'd only
get blown away, maybe," mused the man. "Might slip into the inlet, too,
in the dark. Best stay up there until I come back."
He hurried on, his eyes strained, now out to sea again up the beach.
Presently he caught the gleam of a little flash of light and he sent out
a flicker of his own in answer.
"That's Bill!" he murmured.
A little later he and the other coast guard were exchanging brass
disks. These, like the watchman's time clock, proved that the men had
walked their posts.
"Got more grub'n you want to-night, Bill?" asked Sig.
"Might have--why?"
"Oh, met a stray dog back near the broken jetty. Seems like he was 'most
starved. I didn't bring more grub than I needed, but if you've got a bit
of bread and meat you can spare----"
"Sure! Here! Take a sandwich. Wife put me up three to-night. Two's all I
need. Nasty bit of weather!"
"Regular rip-snorter!"
They parted, and as Sig neared the place where he had last seen the dog
he whistled and called. He waited, but no slinking form came from the
wet sand dunes.
"Come on, boy!" called the guard, raising his voice. "I got meat for ye!
Come here!"
He whistled and flashed his light, but the waif did not come.
"Poor little red pup," murmured Sig. "I'd like to get hold of the man
who beat you! Well, I'll put this away for you. I'll be back here in
about two hours."
The "red pup," as Sig had called him, had really thought the big man in
the yellow coat was driving him away. "Ruddy," to give him the name he
was afterward called by, had been driven away often of late. His life
had not been a glad one.
Dimly he remembered some puppy days; brief, happy ones with his mother.
The other, and following days and weeks were spent among boxes and
barrels of refuse on a street in a big city that bordered the river
front--where big ships tied up at the docks.
Then Ruddy had a dim recollection of a big bearded man, with hob nails
in his shoes, who took him away from the yard where the red pup had
spent some of his early and first unhappy days. And the nails in the
shoes of the big bearded man hurt when he used them on Ruddy as he
did--far too often.
Ruddy, one night, found himself tossed into a box with such force that
he lay there stunned. If he had been able to listen to, and understand
talk, as, later he came to be able to do, he would have heard someone
growl:
"What you got there?"
"Oh, a red pup I picked up," was the answer. "The old ship needs a
mascot and I brought this one along. I always wanted a dog."
"You don't act as if you cared much for this one," spoke the first man.
"Oh, I didn't hurt him," was the reply. But Ruddy was hurt, and from
then on he feared that man.
He did not remember much--but there was a confused memory of being on a
floor that heaved up and down, and slid this way and that as the floors,
or decks of boats always do. And then came a great storm wave--Ruddy
felt himself washed overboard and into the sea.
It was not the first time he had been in water, so he knew how to swim.
But he had never tried before to swim in such a smother and swirl of
salty waves, where the wind seemed to blow away his gasping breath.
Still he swam on, until he was cast up on the beach and he met the coast
guard.
And even the guard had seemed to drive Ruddy away. Of course poor Ruddy
was mistaken, but that was his thought. He slunk up among the sand
dunes.
That little bit of bread and meat meant much to him, for he was
starving. It gave him a little courage. In the storm and darkness he
wandered among the dunes, or little sand hills, until presently he found
himself down on the beach again, where the wind and rain and salty spume
were worse than ever.
"Oh, if I only had a home--some warm place into which I could crawl!"
That would have been Ruddy's thought if he could have spoken.
How he did want a home!
And how Rick, sleeping in his little white bed, did want a dog!