UNCLE TOD IS MISSING
Rick and Chot gazed curiously at one another, and even Ruddy seemed a
bit puzzled by the strange behavior of Uncle Tod. The three friends—for
surely the dog was in that class—looked at the retreating form of the
man.
“What do you know about that?” asked Chot. “Do you s’pose—”
“I don’t know what to suppose,” answered Rick, not giving his chum a
chance to completely form his question. “It’s mighty queer. Maybe we’d
better—”
But he, in turn, was interrupted by shouts just beyond the same rear
fence over which the mysterious message had been tossed.
“Ho, Rick!” called the voices of several boys. “Come on for a swim,
Rick!”
Ruddy barked his answer—he was always ready for fun.
“Hey, Whistle Breeches!” shouted Chot, recognizing the tones of a lad
who had been given this nickname because, once upon a time, he wore
corduroy trousers, the ribbed cloth producing a peculiar whistling sound
as the boy’s legs rubbed together.
“Oh, you Chot!” came the answering hail. “Let’s go swimming!”
“Sure!” answered Rick.
They were over the fence in a scramble and bound. Ruddy following in a
magnificent clean leap, and, a few minutes later the lads, half a dozen
of them, were hurrying toward the inlet where the best swimming was to
be had, away from the pounding surf of the salty sea.
With the prospect of invigorating sport ahead of them, in the water,
Chot and Rick forgot, for a time, the incidents of the last half
hour—the unfounded fear of harm to Ruddy and the tossing over the fence
of the mysterious message—something like the rattle-snake skin of powder
and arrows, that, in Colonial days, was thrown into the blockhouse of
the early settlers to indicate that the Indians intended to open war
again.
“Last one in’s a rotten egg!”
“Whoopee—that doesn’t mean me!”
“No fair goin’ in with your clothes on!”
“That’s right—every fellow’s got to put on trunks!”
These shouts, and this decision, rendered while running at full speed,
brought the lads and the dog to the sandy beach of the inlet, where, in
a secluded spot, the lads quickly undressed and slipped on old
trunks—some donned parts of bathing suits and others sections of
cut-down trousers.
“I’m no egg!” declared Rick, as he dived in, disappearing beneath the
blue, salt water.
“Nor I,” added Chot, as he bubbled down beside his chum, while Ruddy
splashed and barked along the shore edge in a frantic ecstasy of delight
and the other boys, eager to escape the laggard designation, followed.
“Tom and George are both rotten eggs!” was the decision of the majority
as they arose, snorting from the water, flipping the drops from their
eyes with quick shakes of their heads. These two lads, the last ones in,
struck the water at the same time.
“I don’t care, as long as it’s a tie,” laughed George, and then the
water fun began. It was only one form of amusement for Rick and Ruddy,
those inseparable boy and dog chums. Though living at the seashore, as
he did, Rick perhaps found more enjoyment in the water than he did on
land.
Some of his adventures, and those of his four-footed chum, I have set
down for you in the first book of this series, called “Rick and Ruddy,”
telling how Ruddy came to his young master literally out of the sea. For
Ruddy was swept overboard from a vessel in a storm, and was rescued by a
coast-guard, the dog later adopting Rick as Rick adopted Ruddy.
The boy and dog grew, loving each other more and more. They went to camp
together, as related in the book of that name, and their last
experiences had been while cruising with Uncle Tod in the _Sallie_, told
of in the volume “Rick and Ruddy Afloat.”
Uncle Tod, after having established his salt industry, had come to stay
for a while with Rick’s mother, whose uncle he was, rather than Rick’s.
But Rick claimed him as his own; and so did Chot and Ruddy, the dog
dividing his affections fairly among all three.
“Well, fellows, this is my last dive,” announced Tom Martin, as he stood
on an old pile and poised.
“Same here,” echoed Rick. “Stump you to do it backward,” he added.
“Right!” answered Tom, and, turning, he went with a clean-cut dive into
the water that way, a feat matched by Rick. None of the other boys would
dare this, though it was comparatively simple. Then, one after another,
they climbed out, raced around in the sun a bit to dry and donned their
regulation clothes, which did not take much longer to put on than had
their swimming trunks. The boys believed in simplicity—especially on hot
days.
“What you going to do to-night, Chot?” asked Rick, as they were about to
part, for their homes were on different streets.
“Oh, nawthin’. What you going to do?”
“Same thing I guess,” chuckled Rick. “Can you come on over?”
“Sure! No lessons now.”
“Oh, boy! That’s right—no lessons now! It’s grand—what?”
“Best ever! All right, I’ll come over. Maybe your uncle’ll tell us
something about that cabbage leaf and bullet.”
“And the stone, too,” added Rick. “I wonder what it was?”
“Maybe some of the fellows did it,” suggested Chot. “I meant to ask ’em
if they chucked it over the fence but I forgot.”
“I don’t believe they did, or we’d have heard something,” said Rick.
“Anyhow, if they had, Uncle Tod wouldn’t have acted that way. He seemed
real worried.”
“Scared I’d call it,” was Chot’s opinion.
“Well, maybe he seemed scared, but he really wasn’t,” said Rick, in
defence of his uncle. “You ought to have seen him the time I was with
him last summer.”
“You mean when you went with him on the _Sallie_?”
“Yes, when he had that fight with Bucktooth Slither, and Johnnie Green
and the Indians beat the war drum. Then I thought Uncle Tod was
frightened, but it was only put on. He had a reason for it.”
“Then you think he has a reason now?” asked Chot.
“I reckon so. But still it’s kind of funny—that marked bullet and the
stone and the cabbage leaf. But come on over to-night and maybe he’ll
tell us about it.”
“I will,” promised Chot. “So long!”
“So long! See you later! Here, Ruddy, you let that cat alone!” and Rick
shouted at his dog who showed a desire to chase a lone feline up a tree.
Disappointed, Ruddy turned back to join his master and soon boy and
setter were on their way home in the pleasant afternoon sunshine.
“Hope they have a good supper,” murmured Rick to himself as he trudged
along. “I’m as hungry as a dogfish!”
His exercise in the salt water, the tang of the air that blew in from
the sea and his general hungry condition at this time of day combined to
make Rick aware of a gone feeling in his stomach.
“Hello, Mazie!” he called to his sister as he entered the kitchen and
saw her busy setting the table. “Give us a cookie; will you?” he begged.
“You shouldn’t eat just before supper,” objected Mazie.
“Um!” mumbled Rick, for he had reached over and taken a cookie from a
plate filled with them. “You heard Ma say that!” He tossed the expectant
Ruddy part of a cookie, took another one himself and rushed out again as
Mazie, with uplifted broom, started after him.
“You can’t spoil my appetite with one cookie, nor with half a dozen,”
challenged Rick as he went to his room to “slick up,” before the coming
meal. The faithful dog followed.
“Ruddy, I’ll have to be extra careful of you, now that the dog-days are
coming,” said the boy aloud, talking to his pet as he often did, for
Ruddy seemed to understand. “I’ll have to keep you on a leash or leave
you chained up when I go off without you. Can’t take any chances these
dog-days.”
Rick, like many other boys and grown persons, also, had a mistaken
notion about the so-called “dog-days.” Some of you may have the idea
that “dog-days,” are those hot days in summer when dogs are most likely
to go mad, are apt to be inflicted with rabies, when their bite may
cause human beings, or other animals attacked by a dog so suffering, to
become infected with the germs.
It is true that the “dog-days” come in hot weather, from the beginning
of July to the middle of August, but they are not so named because dogs
go mad on those days. The “dog-days” are so called because during that
period, from the beginning of July to the middle of August, Sirius, the
Dog-Star, in the constellation _Canis Major_ as its Latin name is, rises
and sets with the sun. That is, the sun and the Dog-Star keep pace,
rising and setting together.
That’s why those days are called “dog-days,” and not because dogs suffer
from the heat and go mad then. It is true that more dogs go mad in
summer than in winter, but that is only because of the heat—since all
germs increase with heat and moisture—and not because the days have been
called after a dog.
But Rick, like many other lads, had this notion and he began to worry
lest some of the town officials, thinking of the danger of mad dogs,
might try to get rid of Ruddy.
“I’ll have to look after you pretty sharp,” he said to the dog.
Ruddy wagged his tail, for he knew he was being talked about, and tried
to get up on the bed to lick Rick’s face with his tongue, but was
sternly though laughingly repulsed. For Mrs. Dalton had a strict rule
about Ruddy keeping off the beds.
“Oh, Rick! Supper!” called his mother a little later, when he was trying
to make a refractory lock of hair, or his “cowlick,” remain where he
plastered it down.
“All right!” he answered.
“And call Uncle Tod,” she went on. “He’s in his room.”
“All right,” answered Rick again.
He made his salt-encrusted hair as neat as possible, and walked down the
hall to his uncle’s room. He knocked on the door but, getting no answer,
pushed it open and looked in.
Uncle Tod was not there, a fact which Rick soon discovered. He called
the information down the back stairs to his mother.
“Why he _must_ be there,” she said. “He went up a little while ago.”
“Well, he isn’t here now,” declared Rick. And then, as he looked around
the bedroom—clean and neat after the skipper’s seafaring notions—Rick
discovered something on the bureau. It was an envelope weighted down
with a bit of rock.
“Are you sure he isn’t up there, Rick?”
“Sure! he’s gone and he’s left a note for you! I’ll bring it down!”
With a curious feeling that something strange and mysterious had
happened, Rick picked up the missive and started down stairs.