*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65898 ***

[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.




CHAPTER II

BILLY UNEXPECTEDLY MEETS A FRIEND


“Good-morning, friends!” baaed Billy. “Would you allow a tired traveler
to rest under the shade of your trees, and give him a drink of water?
For I am a stranger in a strange land, and have traveled far. I am an
American.”

“You an _American_?” exclaimed the dogs in chorus.

“Now we surely are glad to meet you!” barked the big Dane. “For if
there is any place on earth we dogs have longed to see, it is America.
Probably you will tell us about it?”

“Yes,” said another dog. “We have heard that every dog has his day over
there and many of them two or three.”

“We have also heard,” added a French poodle, “that all dogs are free
over there, and can go and come as they like, and that they are never
tied up, shut in a house or muzzled. Is that true?”

“Yes and no,” replied Billy. “It depends on where you live and who your
master or mistress is.”

“Why, we have heard,” piped up a little black and tan, “that any dog
can choose his own master or mistress, and that all he has to do if he
doesn’t like them or isn’t pleased with the way they treat him is to
walk off and follow the first person he sees that he thinks he would
like to live with, and that they will take him home with them and feed
and house him.”

[Illustration]

“Again you are partly right and partly wrong,” replied Billy. “It
depends on whom you run away from and whom you pick out to be your new
master or mistress. You might happen to belong to some one who was very
fond of you, though you might not be fond of them. In that case if you
ran away they would advertise and try to get you back, but if you had
proved yourself to be a good-for-nothing dog, they would let you go and
say ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish!’ and never bother their heads about
you.

“Then again you might show poor judgment in selecting a new master and
choose one who did not care for dogs, and when he found you following
him he might throw sticks and stones at you. So you see you can’t
always be sure of changing masters successfully.”

“Did you just come from America?” asked a fourth.

“Oh, no! I have been over here nearly a year now, with the army.”

“You don’t mean to tell us that you have really and truly been with the
army?”

“Surely not at the front!” added another in amazement.

“But I have!” Billy assured them. “I have crossed No-Man’s-Land many
times, and been shot at and blown up once besides. See where a piece of
my tail is gone? Well, I lost it at Verdun. A bomb exploded and threw
me up in the air and also blew off part of my tail. I consider myself
very lucky that it decided to blow a piece off that end of my body
instead of the other, for if it had been my head in place of my tail,
it would have killed me. I can’t get along without a head, but I can
without a tail.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” laughed the dogs.

“You surely are a funny fellow!” said one. “Come on in and we will find
something for you to eat and drink and also a place to rest. Then after
you have rested, I hope you will tell us more of your experiences at
the front. If you will do that, we will tell you our experiences in
Paris before we left there, and we will introduce you to some of our
celebrated police and Red Cross dogs who have been in the war and
been wounded or gassed. They will relate some thrilling adventures and
hairbreadth escapes. To-night will be a good time, after our keepers
have gone to bed. Then we can sneak out under the trees in the little
patch of woods behind the big stables and while you brave soldiers swap
tales of the war we who have never been near the war can listen.

“There goes one of our heroes now. See that dog crossing the lawn,
wearing a Red Cross bandage on his chest?”

Billy turned and took one long look at the dog. Then without a word
of warning he put down his head and bounded toward him, taking ten or
twelve feet at a single bound.

The dogs stood spellbound. What was the big goat going to do? Butt
their wounded hero? If so, why should he wish to butt a perfectly
harmless dog he had never seen before? But had he never seen him
before? Perhaps they had met and fought on the battlefield and were
enemies. If so, they must all run and protect their hero from the long
horns of the strange goat.

But when the dogs arrived within speaking distance they were overjoyed
to hear the goat baa out, “Hello, old chum! How in all that is
wonderful did you get here? I heard you were dead; that you had been
seen with a Red Cross ambulance which had first been gassed and then
blown up by a shell. One of your friends said he saw you with his own
eyes sitting in the back of the ambulance when the shell struck it,
and the next thing he saw was the whole ambulance flying up in the air
and then coming down in small pieces.”

[Illustration]

“What he saw all happened. I was there and sitting in the back of the
ambulance with my gas mask on, for the signal had been given for all
to put on their masks, and one of the doctors with the ambulance corps
had just stopped and strapped mine in place when a shell hit us, and I
found myself going up in the air at the rate of about a hundred miles
a minute. When I came down, my mask had been blown off my face. How it
ever was done without killing me or blowing my head off I don’t know,
but it was. I thought I was all right until I began to see red, and I
had a queer sensation in my head as if my brain were going round and
round like a cat runs after its tail. Then I could not get my breath
and I fell over, giving myself up for dead. But if you will believe it,
the next thing I knew I opened my eyes and found myself in a long room
with two rows of beds in it, all just like baby cribs. And bending
over me was a sweet-faced lady nurse. I found myself all bound up in
splints and cotton batting. You see an interne to another Red Cross
ambulance who had come to look for the wounded, if any had possibly
survived the blow-up, had found me senseless on the ground. So he
picked me up and brought me here as this hospital for dogs was on the
way to the hospital where he was stationed. This is now my fourth week
here, and I want to tell you that only angels in human form live here.
They are so good to one! They have nursed me back to life. I was only
slightly gassed and so my lungs are all healed and I am also over my
shell shock. I shall likely go back to the front in another week.”

“You don’t mean that you are going back to the fighting line, do you?”
asked a long white-haired collie that had fallen very much in love with
the brave Red Cross dog. “Oh, why do you risk your life again?”

“Why do I risk my life?” in astonishment. “To try to save some brave
soldier, whose life is a thousand times more valuable than any dog’s
ever will be. Yes, I am going back and back and back as long as I have
eyes, teeth or claws to go back with, until this cruel war is over.”

“Bully for you!” exclaimed Billy. “You make me feel like a slacker,
getting homesick and running away from the army.”

“Well, it is not too late yet to go back. I propose that you stay here
and rest until next week and then go back with me.”

“I’ll do it!” said Billy, and they rubbed noses together to seal the
bargain. “I hear a bugle. What is that call for?”

“Oh, that is our supper call,” said the Red Cross dog. “When they blow
the bugle all the dogs that are running loose are supposed to go to
the back kitchen door. There are long troughs there in which they put
our suppers. Come ahead with us, and we will give you some food. There
will be plenty for all of us and for you too, for they serve very
bountifully here,” and all the dogs and Billy too moved off in the
direction of the kitchen.




CHAPTER III

AN INOPPORTUNE SNEEZE


“Well, well, well! Whom have we with us?” exclaimed the cook at the
dog hospital as he stood in the kitchen door in apron and cap ready to
throw some more food in the dogs’ trough. “Bless my soul, I believe it
is Billy Whiskers!”

Billy hearing his name spoken looked up, only to find himself gazing
into the eyes of the cook who had once served the old General who had
issued the strict orders for Billy not to be allowed to leave camp.

“Billy, you old rascal, come here and let me pull your beard for luck
and old times’ sake! I will bet my whole month’s wages that you have
run away from camp.”

All the time the cook was talking, he was walking toward Billy, wishing
to get near enough to discover if the goat really wore around his neck
a collar from which hung a medal engraved with his name.

“Here, Billy, is a nice big carrot for you. Don’t jerk back. I am
not going to hurt you. I am only going to pat your head. Don’t you
remember the good old times in camp when I used to give you nice juicy
apples and crisp lettuce heads?”

By this time the cook was standing close by Billy, pretending to pat
his head, but every time he put his fingers through his hair, he tried
to feel for the collar and Billy would jerk his head away. He was
afraid the cook was going to try to take off his collar and Billy had
made up his mind many moons before this that if ever any one tried to
take it off he would fight them to the death. Just then a little breeze
blew Billy’s hair up so that it showed the medal with some engraving on
it, and the cook saw it read:

“This collar was presented to Billy Whiskers by the --th New York
Regiment for his bravery in battle.”

“Well, Billy, I certainly am glad to see you! But I bet you have left
many sad hearts behind you. I am homesick to be back with my old
regiment, but I can’t go. Perhaps you haven’t noticed that I have a
wooden leg and that part of my right arm is gone. If it was only my leg
that was gone, I would be back, leg or no leg. But without my arm, I
can’t shoot or carry a bayonet. It breaks my heart to be near enough
to hear the roar of battle as I am here, and know I can’t be in it,
killing off those pigs of Germans!”

Just then from down the road came the sound of a high powered motor
car, and the cook, stepping on a big stone to see the better,
exclaimed, “It is the General, by hookey! And I bet he is coming in
here for a cup of coffee and a bite to eat, as he knows I can get it
for him quicker than if he went on to the village restaurant, and
better, too. He always said no one could make coffee like I can.”

Billy waited to hear no more, but started to find a place to hide, well
knowing the General would carry him back to camp if he saw him, even if
he had to take him in the auto with him.

[Illustration]

The cook had forgotten all about Billy in his excitement at seeing the
General. Billy took advantage of this to whisper to the dogs, telling
them what was up and they all followed him as he ran toward the stable
to try to find a place to hide. Just as Billy was about to turn the
corner of the stable, he saw the General’s big touring car turn in the
lane.

“Gee, fellows, I’m lost if that cook even mentions my being here! For
the General is equal to sending a whole squad of soldiers to find me
and bring me back to camp. It would not be the first time he has done
it, either!”

By this time Billy and the dogs had run into the little grove of trees
spoken of before, but they stayed near enough the edge to be able to
see if any one started to hunt for Billy.

“I tell you what I think would be a good plan,” said the Red Cross
dog. “Have one of the dogs go back and hang around where he could hear
everything the cook says to the General. In that way we will know
whether or not he tells the General that you are here.”

“Excellent idea, that!” agreed Billy.

“Pinky, you would be the best one to go. You are so small that you can
squeeze in anywhere out of sight under a chair or sofa, and listen to
all that is said.”

“Oh, I don’t want to go! I am afraid they will kick me out if they
should catch me listening. Besides, I want to stay here and hear Mr.
Billy Whiskers relate his experiences. It is so dull here after Paris
that I just long for some excitement, and I am sure Mr. Whiskers’ tales
will be all that.”

“You run along, Miss Pinky, and I’ll tell you just what I tell them
some other time all by yourself. Besides, you won’t miss much as our
friend here, the Red Cross dog, can tell you adventures a hundred times
more exciting than I can.”

“Oh, no, he can’t. But I will go if you promise to repeat word for word
to me all you tell them when we are alone some time.”

[Illustration]

“Thank you very much, Miss Pinky.”

“Don’t call me Pinky! That is not my name! It is only a nasty, mean
nickname the dogs have given me because I am afflicted with pink lids
to my eyes, the same as many poodle dogs. I just _hate_ that name! But
I can’t stop them from using it.”

“And pray what is your real name?” asked Billy.

“Rosie de la France. And it is such a pretty one I like to be called by
it.”

“Well, hereafter I will call you Mademoiselle Rosie de la France. But
I cannot see much difference between Rosie and Pinky, as they are both
pretty much the same color.”

“Yes, if you look at it in that way. But it is the meaning hidden under
it that I hate.”

“Never mind now what you are called, but run along or you will be too
late to hear all the cook says to the General,” said the Red Cross dog.

The dogs then all lay down under the trees in a semi-circle around
Billy and the Red Cross dog, so they could hear every word that was
said by either of them, but every one of them kept an eye open for
any one who might round the corner of the stable. Billy and the Red
Cross dog had told them their most exciting experiences in the war,
interposed by stories from the other dogs, when they heard the hum and
buzz of the big motor as it drove out of the lane, and at the same time
they saw Pinky running toward them so fast one could scarcely see her
for dust.

She ran into their midst panting and all out of breath, and between
gasps tried to tell them that she had slipped into the sitting-room and
sneaked under a big davenport with a cover thrown over it that hid her
completely, but where she could hear every word that was spoken in the
room. The General was sitting at a little table only a few feet from
her, eating the good things the cook had brought to him on a tray.

“He seemed in a very good humor,” she said, “and was laughing and
joking with two officers who were with him when I had the misfortune to
sneeze. You would have thought I had thrown a bomb the way those three
men jumped to their feet and reached for their swords!

“‘Who sneezed?’ thundered the General.

“‘There is some one hiding in this room!’ exclaimed one of his staff.

“‘Come out of the closet or from behind those curtains or wherever you
are before I shoot!’ commanded the General.

“Of course no one came out, and I crouched down nearer the floor than
ever and prayed that they would not lift the cover of that davenport
and see me. I could see through the thin ruffle of the davenport cover
and there they all stood stock still, with eyes searching every nook
and corner of the room. Then what do you think happened? I sneezed
again, and expected to be killed on the spot, but I could not help it
as there was a lot of moth balls right under my nose, put there to keep
the moths from eating the carpet. Well, if you will believe it, every
man of them jumped again as if shot. I could see their feet leave the
floor. And one of the staff said in a stage whisper, ‘Spies behind that
curtain!’ Then he marched toward it with sword in hand, and brushed the
curtain aside. Of course there was no one there. Then the other staff
officer flung open the closet door. No one there! Still they had heard
two distinct sneezes. The General stalked to the window and looked
out as it opened on the ground. I expect he thought some one might be
hiding under the window, listening. No one there! Only a flower bed
with bees droning and buzzing over it. And horror of horrors! As he
leaned out of the window and the staff officers were looking behind
chairs and under tables and even up to the ceiling I gave another big
sneeze. I sneezed so hard it nearly blew my head off. I expect it was
because of holding it in so long.

“This of course was my undoing. One of the staff dropped on one knee to
look under the davenport. The General jerked his head back through the
window, and heard the staff officer exclaim in a loud voice, ‘Only a
measley, sneaking little poodle dog!’ and with that he stuck his sword
under the davenport to prod me out. It would have cut my leg off, or
run right through me, I am sure, but just then the cook opened the
door to come in to remove the dishes and I jumped over the sword and
ran between the legs of the staff officer who was standing between the
davenport and the door, and simply flew back here.

[Illustration: Every man of them jumped as if shot.]

“When I got outside I did sneak around under the window, and heard
them all laughing over the fact that a little dog’s sneeze had given
them such a fright. The General said ‘Better be on the right side than
on the wrong, and many a warning as small as a sneeze gone unheeded
has cost many lives. I would rather be too careful than not careful
enough,’ You see they all thought I was a spy hidden in the room
somewhere. Then I heard the cook say, ‘General, has the Regiment still
got the big white goat they used to have as a mascot?’

“‘No, I am sorry to say he has been missing since a week ago to-day,
and we cannot get any trace of him. One of our ambulance drivers saw
him on the road to Paris, and tried to catch him, but he could not. He
nearly had him when a friend fell off a bridge into a creek, and would
have drowned had he not left the goat and gone to his assistance. I
would not have lost that goat for a thousand dollars. He knows more
than most men.’

“‘Well, General, you have lost your thousand dollars. I know where your
goat is at this minute.’

“‘You do? Well, produce him and the money is yours. You know Billy
is like the proverbial flea. Now you have him and now you don’t. If
you will show me that goat now, we’ll have him in my office at camp
headquarters to-morrow. I’ll give you a check for one thousand dollars,
too.’

“‘I’ll do it for you gladly, General, as you have done me many a good
turn, but I cannot accept your money. And now if you will step to the
door, I will show you Billy, the Mascot of the Regiment, quietly eating
out of a trough at the back kitchen door.’

“The General and his staff picked up their caps and swords and followed
the cook around the house to the dogs’ trough, but as you know, no goat
was there.

“The General had to laugh at the blank look on the cook’s face when
he turned the corner of the hospital and saw that the goat and all
his dogs too had disappeared as completely as if swallowed up by an
earthquake.

“‘Well, that beats everything I ever saw! He was here a few minutes
ago. In fact, just when you drove in eight or ten of our dogs with
Billy in their midst were all standing here eating and now not an
animal is in sight anywhere. It beats all! I can’t explain it!’

“‘I can,’ said the General. ‘That goat recognized my car, thought I was
after him and lit out. He has done it before, and I doubt if any of us
will ever see him again. I tell you he is sharper than the devil, whose
cloven hoof he has!’

“‘General, will you kindly do me the favor to wait till I blow my dog
whistle? That is the signal for all the dogs to gather here. We will
see if Billy does not come running with them.’

“The General waited. The cook blew his whistle repeatedly but no dogs
showed up. Then the cook ran to the barn and around it, looking in
every known hiding place the dogs had, but no goat or dog did he see.
And he came back to the General and said, ‘Well, General, I shall have
to give up beaten. He has gone and, what is more, he has taken every
dog with him that is not confined to a hospital bed. I can’t find hide
or hair of any of them, but I am so mad that I am ready to devote
months, if need be, to finding that tricky goat. And when I do I will
return him to you even if I bring only his hide, horns and tail!’

“‘Well, here is luck to you, but I hope you will bring him alive, and
not in pieces for I could make use of a live goat, but I would be hard
pressed to know what to do with a dead one!’

“Then with a hearty laugh all around, the General and his staff got
into their auto and whizzed out of the lane, and I scurried back here
to tell you all this.”




CHAPTER IV

THE GENERAL RECAPTURES BILLY


“Thank you, Miss Rosie de la France, for finding out so much for me.
You certainly did have a narrow escape when under that davenport and
you sneezed for you might have had your legs cut off by that officer’s
sword. So the cook is going to catch me and bring me to the General,
alive or dead, is he? I can tell him right now that he will never be
able to give so much as one hair of my beard to him!”

“Here comes the cook now!” exclaimed one of the dogs. “We better scoot!”

With that they all jumped up and ran in different directions, Billy
choosing a long, circuitous course that would bring him out on the
Paris road. Then and there he gave up the idea of returning to the war
and entering the army again with the Red Cross dog.

He soon reached the road, and once on it he put his head down like a
race horse to resist the wind, and ran as he had never run before,
jumping stones, ditches and uneven places on the roadway until he was
completely winded. As it took a great deal to wind Billy Whiskers, you
may know he traveled many, many miles and left the dogs’ hospital far
behind.

“I shall stop running when I come to the next stream, get a drink, take
a bath, and eat whatever I can find by the roadside. Then after a good
rest I shall start on again,” he planned.

[Illustration]

All of this he did, and he was hidden behind a big bush beside the road
down by a stream, watching the big ambulances and high powered touring
cars go thundering by in endless procession when, all plans to the
contrary, he dropped asleep. It seemed but a minute to him after his
eyes had closed when he felt something tight around his neck. He tried
two or three times to loosen it by stretching his neck without taking
the bother to open his eyes, but when at last he did open them, he saw
standing around him three officers with broad grins on their faces. And
behind them was the old General in his touring car, waiting for his
officers to bring Billy to him!

“I certainly was caught napping that time!” thought Billy to himself.
“And they have me all right enough now with this strong rope around my
neck. It is queer I did not hear them coming! It must have been I was
so tired that it made me sleep like the dead.”

“Come, get up, Billy, you old rascal, and come along without any fuss!
For you are a smart enough goat to see that there is no use resisting
with a rope around your neck and five men against you--we three
officers with the General and his chauffeur.”

Yes, Billy saw all this and as he walked along quietly behind them he
wondered where they were going to put him. They could not mean to tie
him behind the car as no goat, even if fitted out with twenty league
boots, could keep up with the General’s car at the rate he drove. And
with three staff officers, the General and the chauffeur he could not
see where there would be room inside the car.

“Well, Master Billy, you thought you had escaped from me for good,
didn’t you? But you see you haven’t. And, what is more, you won’t
escape in a hurry again, for I propose taking you right along with us,
though it will crowd us some. Here I was blustering about and scolding
the chauffeur for his carelessness in not seeing that we had water
enough in the car to carry us through when the very lack of it led us
to finding you. He got out to carry a bucket of water from the stream
and found you so fast asleep behind the bush that you had not heard our
approach in the car or even the chauffeur’s steps when within three or
four feet of you. He had time to come back to the car and tell us what
he had found, get a rope and the three officers to help me capture you
while you slept on. Now, my dear Billy, you are my prisoner. If you
behave, you shall have every care and comfort, but try to escape, and
I shall send a bullet through you, for I shall stand no nonsense. Hear
that?” and the General pulled Billy’s beard in a joking manner. But
Billy knew he would do as he said if he tried to escape or cut up any
monkeyshines. So he quietly let them help him into the car, where he
stood between the two seats in the tonneau while they tied him to the
rod at the back of the front seat on which the extra robes hung.

Billy was experiencing one of his rare moments of dejection and
discouragement, for he knew if they once succeeded in getting him back
in camp it would be very difficult indeed to escape as they would use
every precaution to keep him there and they might even put him inside
the electrically charged barbed wire fence where they kept the German
prisoners. That would be horrible indeed!

“I must think up some way to escape before we reach camp or I am lost,”
thought Billy. “How I ever can unless we have a breakdown is more than
I can tell!”

Presently they came to the dogs’ hospital and whizzed by it at full
speed, but not too fast for Billy to see standing at the gate the cook,
or for him to get the cook’s expression of surprise and wonder when he
saw Billy in the General’s car. Billy also saw the Red Cross dog close
at the cook’s heels.

“I am glad they saw me for now the dog will know what has become of
me,” thought Billy.

Presently the big car slowed down and went bumping and sliding over a
terrible piece of road that was being repaired.

“Now would be my chance to jump out while they are going slower if I
only were not tied. And I can’t chew the rope loose right under these
men’s noses, either. Perhaps when they stop for supper I may get a
chance.”

Just then there was a terrible explosion as one of the tires blew out,
and at the same time the car slipped on the soft, shifting gravel with
which they were repairing the roadway and slid down into the ditch.

“Now we are ditched and in for a long delay!” exclaimed the General. “I
simply must get to camp with these plans within the next three hours.
Stop the first car that passes here and I will make whoever is in it
take me to camp while you officers stay here and help the chauffeur
repair the damages and get the car out of the ditch. That should not be
a hard job but only a tedious one for the men working on the highway
can help you out of the ditch and the chauffeur can mend the tire for I
expect the explosion was due to a bursted tube.”

It was one thing to say get the men on the road to help but where were
those men? Nowhere in sight, but several miles down the road working on
another bad stretch.

“I hear a car coming!” exclaimed the General. “Make ready to stop it,
Lieutenant Strong!”

In less time that it takes to tell it, the car had come, stopped and
taken the General aboard. As the General waved good-by to them, he
called back, “I wish you luck, gentlemen! I will keep your supper hot
for you!” to which Billy replied with a loud baa. This made the staff
officers laugh, for his voice sounded exactly like a cross old man
saying “Bah!” in derision to the General’s joking remark.

As soon as the General was out of sight, the officers fell to and tried
to lift and push the car up into the road. But they might as well have
tried to move a huge rock for it did not so much as budge an inch. It
was embedded too deep in the sand and loose gravel.

“This is most provoking!” said one of the officers. “It means that we
must try to stop some passing car and get them to help us. When they
see it is the General’s car that is in trouble they will feel in duty
bound to aid us, no matter whether they really want to or not. But I
just hate the job of stopping any one for that purpose as it always
makes any one provoked to be so hailed on the road.”

“Here comes a farmer driving a pair of horses hitched to an old wagon.
Let us stop him. I think his horses can pull us out if we all push,”
suggested another of the officers.

“Now is my chance!” thought Billy, and he was just about to chew at the
rope around his neck when the farmer came up and stopped opposite them
to see if he could help them any.

“Yes,” replied one of the officers. “You are just the man we have been
looking for to give us a lift out of this ditch.”

“Wal, that is a purty durn big car of your’n. But I guess my hosses kin
pull her out. That is, if I only had a rope to tie to the back of my
wagon, but I can’t get hide nor hair of any rope or chain or nothin’.”

“We have a rope,” answered one of the officers. “We always carry a good
strong rope for just such purposes under one of the seats. Here, Jean,
get it out and we will see how soon these horses can pull us out.”

Jean, the chauffeur, stopped working on the tire to get the rope, but
alas! when he looked under the seat no rope was there. From the fury
into which the officers flew, Billy thought they were going to kill the
fellow on the spot for his carelessness, first running out of water and
now finding no rope.

“You are discharged the minute you get us to camp!” roared the superior
officer. “And what is more, I shall see that the General has you
severely punished. What if the enemy were at our heels and we were
trying to escape from them, or we had important dispatches that must
get to Headquarters to change some movement of the army that would mean
the saving of hundreds and thousands of lives?”

At last the chauffeur managed to say, “Could we not use the rope that
is around the goat’s neck to pull the car out of the sand? It is a very
long one. In fact, it is the rope that belongs under the seat. In my
excitement I forgot I had used it to tie the goat.”

“Of course we can! And to keep him from escaping we can tie him with
one of the farmer’s reins.”

“Here, you Billy, stand still while I take this rope off your neck.”
The chauffeur stood on the step, leaning through the open door of the
tonneau as he untied the rope that was around Billy’s neck, with the
farmer standing behind him ready to hand him one of his reins to secure
Billy again.

“Here is a good chance to escape,” thought Billy. “To be sure, I will
have to run the chance of one of the officers shooting me, but I will
take it. For I would rather be shot than carried back to camp and shut
up with a lot of German prisoners.”

At the moment Billy was forming his plan of escape, all the officers
were fussing on the car at one place or another trying to dig out the
wheels by shoveling a path for them in the sand.

[Illustration]

Seeing all this, Billy made up his mind he would butt the chauffeur
so hard he would knock all the breath out of him so he could not cry
out and give the alarm. So just as the farmer stepped close behind the
chauffeur to hand him the rein, and the rope was off Billy’s neck,
Billy gave a plunge forward and planted his head in the middle of the
chauffeur’s stomach, sending him backward with all the breath knocked
out of his body and with such force that he hit the farmer and sent him
sprawling on his back, with his head hanging over the ditch. Now just
as his head hit the ditch, the officer who was shoveling a path for the
car raised up and the farmer in turn hit him and sent him flying into
the ditch. There were three men disposed of in one butt. That left only
two to shoot or pursue him, and both of these were on the far side of
the auto and had not noticed anything as their heads were down and they
were busy tugging big stones out of the way of the wheels. So Billy had
a good start of a hundred yards or more before the officer who had been
sent rolling into the ditch could right himself and give the alarm. By
the time he found out what really had hit him, Billy had run to the
side of the road, jumped a fence and disappeared in a thick woods. The
officer’s anger knew no bounds, and he swore a blue streak and fired
two shots after Billy.

“Thunder and lightning, I would not have had that goat escape for a
million dollars,” he exclaimed.

“Bet your small change first,” counseled another.

“Yes; his escape puts us in a pretty light, doesn’t it? Five
able-bodied men not able to keep one goat in an auto! To be sure, one
man was not a man, only an idiot of a chauffeur,” he stormed.

“Say, Jean, you better stop working on that tire and go hang yourself
with the rope in your hand!” scoffed the third, “for you are likely to
be hung in earnest when you get to camp for all the mistakes you have
made to-day, to say nothing of losing the goat besides.”

But poor Jean heard this not at all for he was still unconscious from
Billy’s terrific butt.

“Some goat, that, misters!” said the farmer in a dry way.

“I guess you would think so if you knew just a little of his history!”

“You don’t mean to tell me that that there goat is the one they call
the --th Regiment’s mascot, and the one the papers are always telling
about?”

“Same goat!”

“Wal, I’ll be gosh darned!” in astonishment.

Jean did not come to and one of the officers had to run to the auto for
restoratives while Jean was stretched out on the back seat with his
head in a second officer’s lap. In falling he had hit his head on a
stone and the wound was now bleeding profusely. The soldiers tied their
handkerchiefs around his head and tried to stop the flow of blood as
best they could and after the car was out of the ditch they drove so
fast they were in danger of breaking their necks or having the car turn
turtle at every turn.

When at last they did reach camp and got the chauffeur into the
hospital and reported to the General for duty, they were in a pretty
mess and looked as if they had been in a pitched battle with the enemy
for they were covered with dirt and blood from their heads to their
heels, which made the General exclaim when he saw them, “Well, bless my
soul, you are a nice looking crowd! Whatever has happened to you?”




CHAPTER V

BILLY NEARLY KILLS THE COOK


When Billy was sure he was not being followed, he went a circuitous
way back to the dogs’ hospital that he might stop and have the fun of
telling them how he escaped from the old General.

When at last he approached the hospital from the back, he saw no one
about, not even a dog or cat. But all the windows and doors were open
so he knew they were at home and around somewhere. He cautiously
approached, keeping a sharp lookout for the cook, for he did not want
him to catch him and deliver him into the old General’s hands. He was
just rounding the pig pen when he saw driving into the lane one of the
field hospital ambulances.

“I expect it has come with a load of wounded dogs. I’ll just stay here
and watch,” pondered Billy.

The hum of the ambulance motor was heard in the hospital and presently
a young doctor and two trained nurses appeared at the door ready to
receive the new patients. Billy could hear the low groans and yelps
of pain from the dogs as the stretchers were lifted and the dogs were
carried inside. Several dogs tagged in after the stretcher bearers and
as Billy had always wanted to have a look about the hospital wards, he
determined to follow.

Presently he found himself standing in the doorway of a long ward with
tiny beds like babies’ cribs lining the wall all the way around, and in
each bed was a dog, either curled up asleep or sitting upon its hind
quarters watching the newcomers.

Some of the dogs had their legs in slings; others had bandages over
their eyes, while others were in plaster casts. Beside each cot was a
little stand on which had been placed the medicine for that particular
dog, along with a bowl of drinking water.

“Gee!” exclaimed Billy. “A dog would not mind being sick in these
quarters with all this comfort and the pretty nurses and the kind
doctors to wait upon him. But what is that? Do my eyes deceive me, or
am I seeing things? If so, I am a sick goat and I shall crawl into the
first cot I find that is big enough to hold me. If I am not seeing
things, then that big, black cat on the window sill is my dear old
friend Button from the United States of America. Such being the case,
Stubby, the other member of our trio, can’t be far off. Perhaps he is
one of these wounded dogs that just came in the ambulance. I know how
I’ll soon find out. I’ll just baa and if it is Button sitting in that
window and Stubby is in one of these beds, I bet it will surprise them
so that even if they are half dead they will come to life long enough
to answer my baa.”

Billy gave one long, loud baa that resounded down the big, bare room
like a loud clanging bell. Every person and dog in the long hospital
ward jumped as if a bomb had exploded in the room, and some of the
weaker and more timid dogs fainted dead away from the shock. They were
weak from loss of blood, and fatigued from their hard work on the
battlefield, having been without anything to eat or drink for many
hours. And I am sorry to say that Stubby was among them. Billy listened
in vain for a familiar bark, but he was going forward to speak to the
cat which meowed with joy in response to his baa when a doctor picked
up a window pole and made towards Billy, while another grabbed the cat
and threw it out of the window before the cat knew what was taking
place. He had been so delighted to hear Billy’s familiar baa that he
did not even see the man approaching.

[Illustration]

The doctor chased out Billy and all the dogs that had tagged in, and
shut the door behind them.

Now Billy had not heard the answering meow, and so was still in some
doubt as to whether or not the cat was Button, or if his old friend
Stubby was one of the wounded dogs. As he thought of this he walked
toward the back of the hospital into the yard. All the dogs which had
been driven out with him were following him and telling him how they
had enjoyed the commotion he had caused, and were plying him with
questions as to how he got away from the General and back so soon, and
how far he had gotten on the journey before he was caught. Billy paid
not the slightest attention to any of them. In fact, he did not even
hear what they were saying, he was so busy thinking of his two friends
and wondering how they ever got to France for when he had last seen
them they were in New York state.

He had gotten just this far in his musings when he turned the corner
of the hospital and saw the black cat sitting on a packing box,
looking up at the window from which he had been thrown. Billy knew in
a second that the black cat was his old friend sure enough. On seeing
Billy, the black cat made one spring and lit squarely on Billy’s back.
Then he jumped off and ran up a tree, then down and over and under a
wheelbarrow that was standing near, then in among the dogs that were
surrounding Billy as if to try to save him from the onslaught of this
crazy acting cat which they all thought was having a fit.

Yes, it was a fit, but not from sickness, but rather from joy at
beholding Billy alive and in the flesh when he had been given up long
ago for dead.

Presently the cat quieted down and came and stood before Billy, and
gazed and gazed and gazed into his eyes without saying a word. And
Billy gazed back, wondering in his own mind what on earth had made the
dignified Button act so crazily. After this long scare, the cat meowed,
“Well, Billy, old fellow, I see it is really you in the flesh and not
some other goat that looks like you. But how you ever managed to keep
from being killed is more than I know. All of us had given you up as
dead and mourned for you for months. Nannie, your poor little wife,
is still bewailing your loss. You see, we thought you were done for
from an item in the newspaper, which I heard my master read aloud one
morning. I can’t give it to you just as it was written, but the gist of
the matter was that the --th Regiment with its celebrated white goat
mascot, Billy Whiskers, had marched to the front on May twenty-first
but that, sad to relate, few returned and those that did were badly
wounded. A great many had been taken prisoners and whether their mascot
had been killed or captured, those returning did not know. Stub and I
did not feel you were killed, and that if you were captured you would
find some way to escape. We then and there made up our minds to cross
the ocean and look for you, for we were bound to find you if you still
lived. And here we two have stumbled into you just when we had given
up all hope of you being alive.” And off went Button, running up one
tree and then another, around in circles and jumping over and through
hedges and flower beds. Once he made the dogs all laugh for by mistake
he ran up an old gardener’s back as he was stooping over digging away,
thinking it was a stump, he was so nearly the color of the trees and
grasses of the garden. The old fellow was so surprised that he fell
headlong into the ditch he was digging.

“You see, Billy, I am so delighted to see you I can’t keep still.”

“I am just as glad to see you, but I can’t jump around like a crazy
loon to show it. Come here until we rub noses in the place of a kiss!”
said Billy.

“I must run and tell Stubby. He will be so delighted it will help him
stand his pain and he will get well sooner. But how am I to get into
this blooming building again? Aren’t there some back stairs, fire
escapes or something of the like I could go up to get to his ward?”

“No, there are no fire escapes on any of these country buildings that
have been turned into hospitals,” replied the Red Cross dog. “What we
need more than fire escapes is a bomb proof cellar large enough to
carry our patients into when we have an air raid.”

“I’ll tell you how you can get in,” spoke up Pinky. “Wait until the
nurses begin to carry suppers up to their patients, and then you can
creep along at their heels and, being black, you can hide in the
shadows until they leave the ward. Only the night nurse will then be on
duty and she will soon fall asleep. Then you can creep out and go to
your friend’s cot and tell him all the news.”

“Splendid idea! Thank you very much! Won’t some one introduce me to
this dog?”

“Goodness gracious me! Do excuse me, Button, for being so impolite, but
joy at seeing you drove all my good manners out of my mind. It is not
too late now, and I wish to introduce you to all my friends you see
standing around us.”

After they had all been presented to Button, they went over to the
grove of trees where the dogs always went when they wished to talk
without interruption, and they agreed to stay there until time for the
patients to have their supper, for they were very curious to hear how
the big, black cat got all the way from the United States of America to
France, and also to hear how Billy got away from the old General.

They were all trotting along as fast as they could through the barnyard
with heads down, thinking what a fine time was in store for them
listening to the goat and cat relate their adventures, when the Red
Cross dog heard a peculiar croak and, looking around, he saw the cook
astride Billy’s back, trying to get a rope around his neck. Now the
rope had just slipped over Billy’s head and the cook gave it a pull
that nearly strangled him and made him make the croaking noise that
caused the Red Cross dog to turn around.

“Gee, that is too bad!” sighed the dog, and Pinky said:

“Just my luck! I never counted on having a good time that _some_thing
did not come along and spoil it! I expect the cook won’t rest now until
he has delivered Billy to the old General.”

“I wonder where the cook is going to put him now he has him,” said one
of the dogs.

“Goodness knows! _I_ don’t!” replied Pinky.

“Why, look! He is going over toward the hospital with him,” said
another.

“Let’s follow and see what he is going to do with him,” suggested the
Red Cross dog. “But keep out of sight and don’t let the cook know we
are following him,” he warned.

So they all separated, slinking along in the shadows, dodging behind
trees, boxes and barrels, their eyes glued to the cook’s back.

Instead of hiding, Pinky walked out in plain sight, and trotted along
at the cook’s heels, and she heard him mutter to himself: “I’ll just
put this foxy old goat in that vacant room in the hospital and lock
him in and _then_ we will see if he is smart enough to butt down the
hospital!”

“He might not try,” whispered Pinky to herself. “But I bet he could
butt down the door if he took it into his head he wanted to do it.”

The cook got Billy to the foot of the stairs leading to the porch of
the hospital. Here the cook went ahead and tried to lead Billy up. But
all of a sudden Billy planted his fore feet straight in front of him
and pulled back. His quick stop accompanied by the jerk nearly cracked
the cook’s head off his shoulders and Billy, giving a second pull just
then, jerked the cook backwards off the steps where he landed at the
bottom, sitting straight up and facing Billy, with their noses not
three inches apart. He looked so comical with his legs spread apart,
cap on one side of his head and his hair standing straight up, that
Billy had to laugh. Surely the cook’s startled expression was a study
as he gazed into Billy’s eyes.

On seeing this, the dogs all laughed out loud. The cook jumped up and
looked around to see who was making sport of him, but of course he saw
no one. So he thought some one must have been leaning out of one of the
upper windows, then quickly ducked after they laughed. Anyway, he would
make Billy pay for his discomfort. He jerked him up the steps and was
about to shove him into the room he had just unlocked when Billy gave
a big, big pull and started to run off the porch. He ran so fast and
was so strong that he jerked the cook along as if he had been a rag.
Along the porch they went until Billy came to one end. Here there were
no steps, so Billy just gave a big leap and landed in the middle of a
flower bed, the cook sailing on behind, hanging on to the rope that was
still around Billy’s neck. And it was a lucky thing for the cook that
there happened to be a nice soft flower bed right there for him to fall
in; otherwise he might have broken his back.

[Illustration]

Billy gave another pull to the rope which brought the cook to his feet,
and away went Billy across the lawn and down the lane, jerking the cook
around trees, over stumps and beehives, upsetting them and causing all
the bees to come out to see what was the matter. For a while the air
seemed to Billy to be black with bees. Then they stung the cook so that
he let go the rope and rolled in the grass to try to keep them off his
face. But they settled on him thick as flies on a molasses covered
paper.

“Run for the watering trough in the barnyard!” called a nurse who saw
all this, and the cook did, diving headfirst into the water to drive
off the bees, which it did effectively.

Billy thought they could not sting up through his long hair, and he
stood enjoying seeing the cook trying to fight them off. But all of a
sudden one bee stung him on the ear. The pain made him frantic and he
started for the watering trough, regardless of the fact that the cook
was still sitting on the edge, rubbing his swollen face and hands and
putting mud on them to take out the burning, stinging pain. Strange as
it may seem, neither the cook nor Billy paid the slightest attention to
each other. They were too much occupied each in trying to stop the pain
of the bee stings.

Presently the cook got up and limped into the kitchen, saying to
himself as he went, “That goat sure has the devil inside of him!
I’ll never try to capture him again for the General. No, not for the
President of the United States himself! I am done! What with having
my head jerked off, my spine driven through the top of my head, and
my legs nearly broken off, to say nothing of running me into stumps,
trees and beehives, I’ve got enough of that goat, even with one
thousand dollars as a reward offered for his return. No! No more at
all, at all, do I ever have anything to do with goats!”




CHAPTER VI

BILLY RELATES SOME OF HIS ADVENTURES


“Oh, Billy, are you hurt?” whined Pinky at his heels.

“Yes. I have a bee sting on my ear that hurts like the very mischief.
And, by Jove, I believe I have another over my eye for it is fast
swelling shut.”

“Come with us,” said the Red Cross dog, “over to the grove before it
closes entirely and you can’t see where to walk. When we get there I’ll
fix you up for I know what is good for stings.”

On the way they had to cross over a little stream with a soft, muddy
bank, and the Red Cross dog stopped there and said, “Now stoop down and
rub your head in the mud so it will cover your eye and get into the lid
where the sting is. As soon as the mud closes over it you will find
that the pain will stop almost instantly. I have seen my master rub mud
on too many stings not to know it is a sure cure.”

“Gee, but I hate to get that nasty mud in my ear and all over my face!”

[Illustration]

“Never mind the dirt! It is clean mud and will dry and fall off itself
so it won’t be hard to get out of your ear or off your face. Should it
be, you can just shut your eyes, hold your breath and dip your head up
and down in the trough until your hair is as white as snow again.”

“Well, I’ve got to do something, dirt or no dirt, for this pain is
setting me crazy. So here goes!”

Billy knelt down and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed one side of his head
up and down in the soft mud until it was as brown as an African’s face.
When at last he stood up all the dogs tried not to laugh, but finally
they went off in a perfect howl of merriment.

“What you laughing at?” asked Billy.

“Just step here where the water is clear and look at yourself,” said
the Red Cross dog.

This Billy did, and then he too began to laugh, for he was a most
comical sight. One side of his face looked twice as large as the other,
and on this side the eye was swollen shut with a bump as big as a hen’s
egg standing out above it. And this whole side of his head was as brown
as could be while the other was white, which made him look exactly as
if his head had been made in two parts and they were misfits.

“Hurry!” said a hound that was with them. “We better get to the woods.
I hear some one coming!” and away scampered the dogs and goat to the
grove, their old trysting place.

I should like to have had a picture of them as they stood beside the
clear stream, with the dogs surrounding the mumpsy looking goat,
laughing at his discomfort.

There was the big St. Bernard, majestic and tall; the long, sleek,
black hound with tan ears and feet; the fluffy white French poodle with
pinkish eyes; and the Red Cross Belgian dog with his short, sharp ears,
wide-awake face and short, glossy black hair, while over his breast was
still the white band with the Red Cross on it.

Once in the woods and comfortably fixed, Billy related to them the
story of his life and how and where he first met the big black cat
they had just seen, and the little yellow dog that was now wounded and
in the hospital.

“Before you begin, Billy,” said the Red Cross dog, “I want to ask if
the pains in your ear and eye are better?”

“Why, bless my soul, they don’t hurt at all! Even the swelling is going
down. You sure are some doctor!”

“Now go on with your story, and excuse me for having interrupted you.”

“Well, to begin with, all three of us--the little yellow dog named
Stubby, the big black cat called Button and myself--were born in the
United States of America. We have known each other for years and been
great chums. Why, we have scarcely been out of sight of one another for
years until I joined the army. My regiment left so unexpectedly for
France that I had no way of letting them know I was going, as they were
away at the time on a vacation. And I bet you we will find out when I
get a chance to talk to them that the minute they got home and found
I was gone they managed to make friends with some of the soldier boys
and made themselves so useful that they brought them along. Why, do you
know that we three have crossed the big American continent twice, and
we have been from Northern Wisconsin away down to the Gulf of Mexico?
Not being satisfied with that, we have crossed the Pacific to Japan
and we all three were in the war between Russia and Japan as mascots.
Before that we crossed the Atlantic Ocean, sailed through the Straits
of Gibraltar and over the Mediterranean Sea to Constantinople. We are
some little globe trotters, don’t you think?”

“Heavens! It makes my head dizzy to even think of it!” said Pinky.

“And you lived to tell the tale!” said the big St. Bernard.

“Yes, as I shall live to tell the tale of this war and about all of you
to my grandchildren when I get home,” replied Billy.

“But you must have had a great many narrow escapes and thrilling
experiences,” suggested the hound.

“I should think so! More than would fill a book the size of Webster’s
dictionary. As for hurts, bruises and scars, I have been wounded so
many times I don’t believe there is a square inch on my body that has
not a scar of some kind on it. It is a good thing I am not a hairless
goat, like those little hairless dogs they have in Mexico, for if I
was, I would look like a tattooed man,” said Billy.

“Tell us of your most thrilling experience,” begged the Red Cross dog.

“Heavens! I have had so many hairbreadth escapes I would not know which
one to pick out.”

“Tell us two or three of them,” said Pinky. “I just love to hear you
tell of your adventures.”

“Yes, do!” exclaimed all the other dogs in chorus.

Just then Billy gave his head a shake and a big clod of dry mud fell
off his eye, leaving it practically well and the swelling gone.

“A mighty quick cure, I should say,” remarked Billy. “I recommend you,
Doctor Red Cross!”

“Turn your head to one side and shake it and I think the rest of the
mud will fall off. Then by holding your head well over on one side, the
mud will fall out of your ear.”

All this Billy did.

“My, but it certainly does feel good to be able to see out of both eyes
and hear with both ears once again! So you all want to hear of some
thrilling adventure I have had? Well, let me see which one I shall
tell first, about being wrecked at sea, falling in the crack of an
earthquake that opened at my feet, or being blown up by a bomb in this
war or--”

“Oh, don’t tell us anything about bombs!” exclaimed Pinky. “They are
too common around here. We want to hear something we don’t know so much
about.”

“Well, then I guess I’ll tell you about the earthquake experience. It
happened when Stubby, Button and myself were in San Francisco.

“One day we were trotting along one of the streets in Chinatown, the
name given to the Chinese quarters of that city. It was about lunch
time, and Button had jumped up into a milk wagon that had stopped
opposite us, to see if he could not find some milk to drink, Stubby
had run into a butcher shop to see if he could find some meat, and I
decided to sneak into some Chinaman’s back yard and see what I could
find to make a meal.

[Illustration]

“Presently I came to a long, narrow, dark passageway that led to a back
yard. I sneaked in quickly, so a Chinaman looking out the window would
not see me. But alas, he did, and I had scarcely gotten half way down
the passage when I heard a door slam shut behind me and a bolt slipped
into place. I knew before I even turned around, when I heard that bolt
slip into place, that I was caught in a trap like as not. But I went
right on pretending I did not hear the Chinaman shut the door.

“The end of the passage opened into the back yard of a Chinese laundry
and there were lines and lines stretched from one side of the yard to
the other, but there were no clothes hanging on them when I went in.
Without paying any attention to me, the Chinaman began to take down the
lines, but instead of taking them all down, he only took a short one,
I noticed. Then he made a slip knot in one end, whistling as he walked
toward the laundry. He went inside, still without looking at me, and I
was beginning to think I had been mistaken and he had not seen me enter
and that the rope was not to tie me up, when out he came with a carrot
in one hand, the rope still in the other.

“He came straight toward me, holding out the carrot in one hand while
he kept the other behind him. As he approached me he kept saying, ‘Nice
little goatee! Nice little goatee! Have a carrot!’

“And I thought to myself, ‘You might as well try to catch a bird by
putting salt on its tail as to try to catch me with a carrot in one
hand and a rope hidden in the other behind your back, especially when
that rope has a slip knot in it. Oh, no, Mr. Chinaman, I was not born
yesterday or the day before! And unless you open that door quickly and
let me out, you are going to be carried out of it on my horns. I am in
no mood for play or jokes!’

“Just then another Chinaman came out of the laundry with a basket
heaped up with clothes to hang on the line, and the Chinaman with the
carrot said, ‘Yum, you watcha me catcha little goatee. Keep little
goatee. Him bring heap money at butcher’s!’

[Illustration: Billy gave one long, loud baa that resounded down the
big, bare room.  (Page 49)]

“‘So-ho! You would sell me for chops and roasts, would you? Well, just
you come a little nearer and see what happens to one little Chinaman!’

“The Chinaman with the clothes began to hang them on the line, singing
a queer, monotonous refrain in his cackling language. By this time the
first Chinaman was within three feet of me, holding the carrot straight
out before him and staring into my eyes. Evidently he was not used to
goats, and felt a little uncertain as to what I would do. While I was
watching him, expecting he would try to throw the rope over my head
every minute, to surprise him I stretched my neck out quickly, grabbed
the carrot out of his hand and ate it up. Then he came boldly up to me,
as this gave him the assurance I was not going to butt him. But when
he tried to put the rope around my neck, I simply lowered my head and
butted him over flat on his back. This infuriated him, and he leaped
up and grabbed a clothes pole to hit me with it. Then the chase began.
Around and around that small back yard we went, upsetting everything,
he trying to hit me all the while and I dodging him but trying to
butt or hook him at every turn. Then I took to butting everything and
anything that came in my way. One thing I butted was the basket full of
clothes the second Chinaman had left, having sought a place of safety
when first the chase began. Now he sat cross-legged on the low roof of
the back porch grinning from ear to ear and watching the sport. When
I butted the basket, it shot straight up in the air, spilling out the
clothes as it soared, which the wind caught and carried over into the
other yards.

“Presently from all the doors and windows of the adjacent buildings one
could see grinning faces. But not one person came to help that Chinaman
I was butting and chasing. He must have been thoroughly disliked by his
neighbors for them to act as they did. Their jeers and calls made him
madder and madder and every time he tried to hit me with the long pole
and missed, they would call:

“‘Try it again! Try it again! Don’t give up!’

“Once the pole just grazed my back, and for this I went to the
clothesline and taking a shirt sleeve in my teeth I jerked it off the
line, stamped on it and then tore it to pieces. He nearly foamed at
the mouth when he saw this. And I was just walking up to get another
when some one slipped up behind me and threw a blanket over my head.
Well, of all the rolling and tumbling that went on then you never saw
the like! First I was on top, then the two Chinamen were. My legs were
loose and you better believe I used them. I kicked and kicked. Then all
of a sudden it seemed as if every Chinaman in all Chinatown was sitting
on top of me. They came from over the fences, from all directions, and
every one that came proceeded to sit on me. At last there were so many
of them I could not move. They tied all four of my feet together and
strung me on a pole, which they suspended over a place where a bonfire
had been made over which to make soap. Some one removed the big kettle
of soap and then they put me right where the kettle had been. Next they
took the blanket off my head and began dancing around me, and spit at
me and jabbed me with sticks, doing everything they could possibly
think of to torture me.

“The blood ran into my head so from being hung upside down that I could
scarcely see, and the ropes binding my feet cut into me until I bled.
But still these heathen Chinese showed no mercy and I was beginning to
wonder if they intended leaving me to die a slow death when the first
Chinaman said, ‘Let’s build a fire under him and cook him alive! Roast
goatee is velly, velly good, me hear.’

“This seemed to please the crowd, and they joined hands and ran around
and around me, chanting some heathen song until the old Chinaman who
had proposed cooking me alive came with some matches and shavings to
start the fire.

“Then for the first time I began to be worried, and thought, ‘Well,
at last I am in a tight place I can’t get out of,’ when I heard howls
of pain and rage and the fierce growl of a dog. Opening my eyes to
see what was taking place, I saw Stubby biting the heels of the
Chinaman as he stooped to light the fire, while Button sat on his back
scratching the very shirt off him. In about two minutes the yard was
cleared of Chinamen, I can tell you! Stubby bit and Button clawed them
until they were glad enough to climb the fences to get away alive.

“They had frightened the Chinamen off and saved me from being roasted
to death. But how were they ever to get me off that pole?

“At last I thought, ‘Perhaps if I wriggle and squirm my weight will
break the pole. Anyway, I am going to try it.’

“And soon I found that by moving my body in a certain way I could start
a certain motion that made me swing up and down and the more I moved
the higher I went and the pole began to creak. Then presently it broke
in two and came down all in a heap. I had scarcely touched the ground
when Stubby and Button began to gnaw the ropes that bound me, and in a
jiffy they had gnawed them through and I was loose.

“Do you think I ran away when I was free once more? No, indeed, I
did not! I stayed right there to get even with Mr. Chinaman who had
proposed to cook me alive. It was very dark in the yard now as night
had closed in while all the fuss was going on. So I proposed to hide
and wait for the Chinaman to show himself in the yard. Well, all I can
say is that if he ever did show himself I had made up my mind to kill
him. Stubby and Button hid too, and then we waited. And as we waited
the earth under our feet began to quiver and shake and low, rumbling
noises were heard like distant thunder. These shakings and tremblings
of the earth continued growing more and more violent until they threw
me off my feet once or twice, while the ripping, roaring noises grew
louder and more frequent. Presently fire bells began to ring and the
night sky was illuminated with vivid red reflections from huge fires.
But still we three watched for those Chinamen to come out of the house.

“‘Come on, Billy!’ Stubby barked in a whisper. ‘Let us get out of here.
We must be having one of those terrible earthquakes they sometimes have
out here in this country.’

“‘Yes, come, Billy,’ urged Button, ‘and leave the Chinaman to the mercy
of the ’quake. Perhaps the earth will open and swallow him!’

“‘Hope it does, but I am going to give him a butt that will break his
back first. I’ll teach him not to torture goats in the future!’

“‘S-s-s-s-h-h-h!’ exclaimed Button. ‘I see him through the window. He
is coming now.’

“Cautiously the door opened a crack, and the Chinaman’s crafty face
peered out. His eyes searched every nook and corner of the yard, but
he saw no goat, dog or cat. Button was so black one could not see him
as he sat on top of the fence. Stubby was hidden under a pile of old
chairs, tables and so on, while I was close against the house behind
the door the Chinaman had just opened. I got there on purpose so that
when once he stepped into the yard he could not go back unless he
passed me for I would be between the man and the house.

“‘What has he in his hand that smokes so?’ I wondered. ‘Why, it is a
dipper of boiling water! Gee, I bet he intended to throw that on me
when he saw me. Well, I’ll just sneak up behind him and give him a butt
in the back and make him spill it on himself and then he can see how he
would like boiling water thrown on him.’

“I did not dare to try to walk up behind him for fear I might stumble
over something and then he would hear me and throw the water, so I made
one big jump from behind the door and butted him squarely in the back.
Well, I made the jump all right, but just as my feet left the earth
it opened under me with a ripping, tearing noise and swallowed the
Chinaman with his dipper of hot water, and closed again so quickly that
when I came down from my jump I lit on solid ground where but half a
second before had been a yawning chasm. Whoo! That was a narrow escape,
for had I stood still the earth would have opened under me or if I
had not happened to jump high enough I would have landed right in the
opening and been crushed or killed as had the Chinaman.

“The ’quake that swallowed the Chinaman had extended far and shaken
down lots of the old rickety buildings in the neighborhood, and
buildings were tottering and falling all around. So Stubby, Button and
I lost no time in getting out of that place, I can tell you. I simply
butted down the door the Chinaman had bolted when I came in, and we all
three ran out and down the street towards the Bay. I won’t stop to tell
you of the destruction of the beautiful city and the fearful, gruesome
sights and sounds we saw and heard, or how the flames licked up the
handsome buildings after the earthquake had shaken them down, for the
destruction of San Francisco has passed into history and any one of you
who wish to hear more of it can listen as some one is reading aloud
about it. This ends the tale of one of my most thrilling adventures.”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you so much, Mr. Whiskers, for telling us this
story,” exclaimed the facile Pinky. “I have enjoyed hearing it so much,
though you did make my skin creep and my hair stand on end when you
were telling of how they proposed to cook you alive.”

Then all the other dogs thanked him also for relating to them this
wonderful tale.

“I think we better go back to the hospital and look for Button and see
if we cannot find a way for me to slip in and see Stubby,” remarked
Billy.




CHAPTER VII

BUTTON FRIGHTENS TWO NURSES


While Billy had been relating his adventures Button had been lying in a
box under Stubby’s window, trying to think of a way to get to him and
tell him that Billy was here in this very place.

“If there was only a fire escape!” he sighed. “Then I could easily make
it.”

It was getting near supper time but he was still puzzling his brain
over the matter when he saw one of the nurses in Stubby’s room come to
the window and let down a rope with a basket on it. When it reached the
ground she still stood there holding on to the rope as if waiting for
some one to come.

“What in the world can be going on now, I wonder,” mused Button.

Presently from around the corner of the hospital from the kitchen he
saw another nurse appear with a tray loaded down with the dogs’ supper.
There not being an elevator in this old building, the nurses had
thought out this way of saving them climbing the long flight of steps
with the heavy trays on which they carried the dogs’ food to them. One
nurse would go to the kitchen, get the food prepared by the cook,
and then bring it around to this window, place it in the basket, and
the nurse in the window would pull it up. When the dogs had finished
their meal, the dishes were lowered in the basket just as they had been
hauled up, carried back to the kitchen and washed. So you see what a
saving of steps this basket elevator really was.

“My, if I could only manage to get in that basket and have her pull me
up!” thought Button.

The cat watched the nurses raise and lower the basket until presently a
nurse came from the kitchen, put the food in the basket and went off,
forgetting to pull a string which rang a bell, the signal that the
basket was ready to be pulled up.

“Gee, she has forgotten to pull the string and gone off. I can see the
nurse in the window waiting for the signal. She will get tired waiting
pretty soon and pull it up, I believe. I am going over and eat up what
is in that basket and hop in myself, and then I shall be pulled up. If
the basket feels heavy, the nurse will think there must be an extra
amount of dishes in this trip.”

Suiting the action to the thought, Button hurried over to it, lapped
up a cup of milk, ate some cold chicken and potatoes, and then he saw
the basket begin to move. Without a moment’s hesitation he jumped in
and sat on the soiled dishes and the remaining suppers. Up, up he was
slowly drawn, and he heard the nurse mumble to herself, “Wonder what
they have in this basket to-night? It feels like a basket of bricks, it
is so heavy.”

[Illustration]

“Now if she only doesn’t see me until the basket is safely on the
window ledge I shall be lucky. I am afraid if she sees me, it will
frighten her and she will let go the basket and down I will fall with a
dull thud.”

But just as the basket reached the ledge of the window her attention
was called to something inside and she turned her head to look, at the
same time reaching her hand out and pulling the basket on to the window
sill from force of habit. When she turned back to the window, there
on the sill sat a black cat with big, yellow eyes looking at her. It
startled her so she screamed and pulled the basket in off the sill,
and then let go the handle, and it rolled under the bed of one of the
patients, spilling out bottles of milk, biscuits, sliced chicken, and
many other good things.

Taking advantage of the confusion, Button jumped down from the window
and ran under the beds until he came to the one occupied by Stubby.
Then he moved softly so as not to frighten Stubby, and crawled in bed
under the sheets so no one could see him. No one did see him do it for
every dog in the ward was sitting up in bed, straining their eyes to
see what had happened by the window.

“The cat! The cat! Where did it go?” the nurse kept calling in an
excited voice. For when she turned to look for him, the cat she had
seen was gone. After all the nurses had looked under every bed and in
all the corners and in every other conceivable place, they began to
tease her and tell her it was an illusion, that she had only imagined
she saw a cat. After awhile she began to think that perhaps this was
the case. Still what would make her think she saw a cat when she did
not? Especially as she had not even been thinking of cats? The only
thing that looked as if she had seen one was that half the dogs’
suppers had been eaten or at least they were short some food. That
nurse went to bed that night with a headache from trying to decide
whether or not she had seen a cat.

Soon after supper the dogs in the hospital were given their last dose
of medicine, their bandages were straightened, and then they were ready
to be tucked in for the night. The nurses patted the dogs on their
heads and said good-night to them just as if they were people. Then
they turned down the lights and went out, leaving only the night nurse
in charge in one corner of the room where she sat by a shaded light
knitting for the soldiers and dreaming and praying for the safe return
of her brothers and sweetheart after the war was over. Button did not
stir until Stubby stuck his head under the sheet and whispered to him
that he could talk now, as the nurse was so occupied in picking up some
stitches in her knitting that she had dropped that she would not hear
them.

So there the two lay all curled up under the sheet, Button telling
of the finding of Billy and Stubby listening with all his ears. When
Button had finished, Stubby gave a great sigh and said, “Isn’t it
wonderful to think that we should have found him in this big, big
country across the sea? My, I am so glad it will make me well soon. For
life was not half worth living without our dear chum Billy. I know you
agree with me, Button.”

“I surely do!” exclaimed Button. “How is your leg, old fellow? Healing
fast, I hope.”

“Oh, yes. The nurse said they would take the splints off to-morrow, and
she doesn’t think I am going to be lame, it was healed so straight and
fine. Isn’t that grand? For I would hate to be bothered limping along
on a lame leg on our trips. It would be very inconvenient when I wished
to run away when some one was chasing us, too. I hate to hurry you off,
Button, but the night nurse will be coming around soon to straighten
our beds and give us our last drink for the night so I am afraid she
might lift up the sheet and find you. But how are you going to get out
of the door into the hall, as it is shut?”

“Trust me! I will get out as I came--by the window.”

“I did not know there was a fire escape by the window,” said Stubby.

“There isn’t. I came up on the food basket.” And then Button told him
how he had come up in the basket and nearly scared a nurse to death.

“But you can’t go down that way because there is no one here to let the
basket down,” objected Stubby.

“I don’t need any basket to go down in. All I need is the rope, and as
it is fastened to the wall I will just have to slide down it.”

“Oh, Button, but you are a smart cat! You should have been born a man,
not a cat. If you had, the world would have heard of wonderful things
you had done, I am sure.”

“If you wish I had been born a man, I wish the three of us had.
Wouldn’t Billy have made a splendid brigadier general, while you would
have made a dandy lieutenant!”

“S-s-s-s-sh-h-h! I hear the nurse coming. Scoot! Drop out of bed on the
side nearest the wall and run under the beds until you are near the
window,” advised Stubby.

The nurse was walking down the aisle of the ward that faced the window
when the moon came out from under a cloud and shone straight into the
room. And she saw not only the moon, but a big black cat as it jumped
up on the window sill. She shut her eyes, looked again and again, and
the cat had disappeared!

[Illustration]

“It must be the same cat that Nurse Mollie saw, and now it has
disappeared again as completely as it did when she saw it. She got
one glimpse and it was gone. I got another, and it faded in thin air.
Heavens! We must be going to be bombarded for black cats bring bad
luck, they say, and this cat has come to warn us. I’ll just run to the
window and see if I can’t see it. It could not jump out of the window
because it is too high from the ground, and it isn’t in this room, and
cats can’t fly, so where is it?”

The nurse went to the window and looked out. No tree, roof or shed was
near enough for the cat to have jumped to them and then to the ground,
so of course it must have been a spook cat for no cat was in sight. She
never looked close to the building, or she would have seen a rope to
which clung a black cat, hanging on desperately as it lowered itself to
the ground.




CHAPTER VIII

BILLY MAKES PLANS TO LEAVE FRANCE


While Button was hanging on to the rope Billy and the dogs came around
the hospital to look for him.

“There! I told you Button was the smartest cat you ever heard of, and
I bet he would find a way to see Stubby. There he comes now, down that
rope from Stubby’s window!” said Billy.

When nearly to the ground Button jumped from the rope and landed at
Billy’s feet.

“Hello, Billy and friends! How do you find yourselves? I have just been
up to pay Stub a visit, and I accidentally frightened two nurses nearly
to death and made them both believe they saw a spook cat instead of a
live one.”

“But how am I to see Stubby? That is what I want to know,” asked Billy.

“I am afraid you can’t get into the hospital to see him, Billy. But
you will probably have a fine chance to see him to-morrow. I heard
the nurse say she was going to take all the convalescent patients
out under a tree in the yard if it was a nice day. And as the sun set
clear, I think you will have a chance to talk to him to-morrow. If you
cannot get near enough to him to chat, at least you can see him.”

“How is his leg getting along?”

“Oh, splendidly! He will be able to use it in a few days. They are
taking off the splints to-morrow.”

“That is good news indeed. Now it will be only a short time before we
can start once again on our journey home.”

“Our journey home!” exclaimed Button. “Who said Stubby and I were going
with you?”

“I did. Or rather I planned taking you both along with me. You don’t
suppose I am going without you now I have found you again, do you? Not
by a long way!”

“But what if we refuse to go? You can’t carry us, one on each horn, can
you?”

“Yes, I could, but I don’t want you to go that way, or against your
will. I want you to _want_ to go. And I know perfectly well that I can
offer enough inducements to coax you both to go with me.”

“But how about deserting our regiments?”

“You have already deserted yours in following Stubby here,” answered
Billy.

“But I had to follow a wounded friend! Besides, they would be delighted
to see me back.”

“That is all well enough! But you fellows are coming back home with
me just as soon as Stubby is able to travel. And I will tell you why.
In the first place you both have had about enough of war to last you
all your lives. Again the war will soon be over now the United States
army is in the thick of the fight. And again you both have come to
the conclusion that there is no country you would care to live in but
America, and the United States of America part of it at that.”

[Illustration]

“You are right, Billy. I was only teasing you to hear what arguments
you would put up. But none of them are the real reason why we would
leave the army now and go home. The only thing that would induce us to
leave it before the war is over is the same thing that made us join it.”

“And pray may I ask what that is?”

“Yes. It is yourself. We left home to find you. Having found you, we
are ready to leave everything and follow you whether you go home or
away from home.”

“Bravo! Bravo!” cheered the dogs. “You and Stubby surely are bully
friends for a goat to have. We congratulate you, Billy, on having such
true and loyal ones.”

“Thanks,” bowed Billy. “Do you know the way to make and keep true,
sincere and loyal friends? I’ll tell you. Be one yourself.”

“Hurrah for you, Billy! You will always have the last word.”

“Do you mind telling me a part of your immediate plan and how you
propose getting from here to where we are to embark? Or are you
thinking of stealing a ride home in an airship?” asked Button.

At this the dogs laughed. The idea of a goat, dog and cat riding in an
airship!

“Well, my friends, you need not laugh and think that is impossible, for
I already have crossed the American continent from New York City to San
Francisco in an airship,” said Billy.

“Will you tell us what you haven’t done, Mr. Billy Whiskers?” asked
Pinky.

“I could not; it would take too long. Well, in the first place,” he
continued, turning to Button, “I thought unless a better plan offered,
I would go straight to Paris and from Paris to the seacoast and get on
the first boat sailing for America. I had not decided on any special
port to sail from. I just left that to chance, for probably we would
have to try many before I could sneak on board. But the hardest part of
the trip will be from here to Paris, as we are known by the soldiers
around here, and we run the risk of being carried back to the army any
minute. If we leave the main highway that leads to Paris, I am afraid
we may lose our way and go a long, roundabout route and possibly we
might fall into the hands of the Germans.”

“Billy, I’ll tell you what I will do,” spoke up the Red Cross dog.
“I’ll leave going back to the army long enough to show you the way to
Paris and across that city. You could easily find your way to Paris,
but I doubt if you could find your way out. It is a big city, and the
roads out are all well guarded now by soldiers who might recognize
you, capture you and send you back. I know every step of the way, and
we could slip out at night or swim the river Seine where it runs out
of the city. After I had accompanied you to within sight of the sea I
could come back. I need a vacation and the trip would be one for me.”

“Thank you, my dear Duke,” for that was the name of the Red Cross dog.
“I will accept your offer. But I cannot allow you to carry out one part
of it, and that part is to leave us and go back into the army. They
have plenty of Red Cross dogs and police dogs, too, so they can spare
you now. As you have expressed a desire to see America many times, why
not continue on with us and visit our fair land?”

“Just the thing!” exclaimed Button. “You may never have such another
chance to visit our country in such good company as a goat, dog and cat
of world renown--a-hem, a-hem!”

At this they all laughed and Pinky said, “Why, yes; why don’t you go,
Duke? I only wish I had the chance.”

“Well, you have!” said Billy. “I extend my invitation to all here.”

“Oh dear! Oh dear! Much as I should love to go, I dislike the hardships
of travel too much, and I know I should be seasick. I was when I
crossed the Channel once to go with my mistress to visit some friends
in London. But I should dearly love to go as far as Paris with you and
see the surprised face of my mistress when I came trotting in. You know
she sent me here so I would be safe when they began to bombard Paris
with those extra long range guns. Besides, she said she had so much Red
Cross war work to do that she could not take the time to look after me
properly and see that I had my walk in the Boulevard or in the Park
every day. And it would be unkind of me to run away to America and
leave her when she has been so kind to me.”

“I must go back to my mountains,” said the big St. Bernard, “as soon
as I am able and help find the travelers that get lost in the heights
and would die of starvation if it was not for me.”

So none of them accepted Billy’s invitation to go except Pinky and even
she was going only as far as Paris.

“Listen! I thought I heard the sound of an automobile turning into the
lane,” said Button.

“You did,” said the hound. “I just saw the flash of its lamps through
the trees.”

Billy and the dogs talked for a while longer, and they were about to
say good-night when they heard voices coming in their direction.

“S-s-s-sh-h-h!” said Billy. “I thought I recognized that voice! It is
the old General’s chauffeur. Now what can he be wanting here at this
time of the evening? I’ll just listen and find out. No, I will get
Button to creep up close and listen for his black coat won’t show in
the dark like my white one would.”

Button crept through the long grass until he was right near where the
chauffeur and the cook stood talking. There being a tree near them,
Button ran up it and sat on a limb listening to every word they spoke.

“Well, Jean,” said the cook, “what important business have you on
your mind this evening, or have you come to take away some of our
convalescent patients?”

“My business is most important, and I have come straight from the
General.”

“Hoity-toity! You don’t say so! Whatever can it be about?”

“That blasted old Billy goat that the General sets such stores by.”

[Illustration]

“You don’t mean it!” said the cook. “And why are you looking for him
here when you took him away with you only two days ago? You don’t mean
to tell me that the slippery old rascal has escaped from camp again?”

“No; he did not escape from camp, because we never succeeded in getting
him within miles of it. We hadn’t gotten ten miles from here when we
broke down and that pesky old goat escaped.”

“Oh, you are fooling! He could not escape one General, three officers
and a smart chauffeur like you!”

“Oh, couldn’t he? You don’t know that old goat if you think that. He
could escape a whole regiment if he wanted to.”

“And why do you come looking for him here?”

“Because we found him here and as he seemed to be having a pretty good
time with the dogs, we thought he might come back.”

“Oh, you did, did you? Well, you reasoned well, for he did come back,
and I tried to catch him so I could claim the thousand dollars reward.
You see my right arm is in a sling, don’t you? Well, it is all on
account of trying to capture that same old goat.”

“You don’t mean to tell me that he really is here? Divide the thousand
dollars with me and I will help you catch him again.”

“Never again do I monkey with that goat! I once swore I would not, and
nothing would induce me to try it again. Would you like to know what he
did to me and how I broke my arm?”

“Yes, I would.”

“Well, it happened in this way. He did come back and I thought I would
catch him and claim the reward. One might as well try to catch the
devil asleep as to try to catch that goat off his guard. Do you see
those steps that lead up onto the hospital porch? And that cherry tree
down the lane the other side of those beehives? Well, just imagine me,
fat as I am, at the end of a rope, being jerked off the porch where
there are no steps, pulled around the yard, down past the beehives,
upsetting them, chased and stung by the bees, wrapped around that
cherry tree so tight I could not move and then the rope pulled out of
my hands so fast it blistered them while the goat ran on, stopped to
look around, saw me stuck to the tree, and then he gave a baa, swished
his tail and disappeared. I have not seen him since. I hope the bees
stung him so he will remember the day as long as he lives, for I know
I shall. Why, I could not see out of my eyes for two days, they were
swollen so, and my ears looked like a jackass’s, they were so swollen
out of shape. No, thank you! You may have all the honor of catching
that goat yourself, and the reward that goes with it. I’ll be a goat
catcher no more.”

Button could see in his imagination just what Billy did to the fellow,
and he laughed so to himself that he nearly fell out of the tree.

“If you would like to hear it, I will tell you how he escaped the five
of us,” offered the chauffeur. Then he told the cook what you already
know, the recital of which pleased the cook immensely, as misery likes
company, and he was glad to know that he was not the only one Billy had
gotten the best of.

“I tell you what let’s do,” suggested the chauffeur. “There are two of
us against one goat. We will lay a plan and get him. Then we can divide
that thousand dollars between us. We won’t try to get him in a hurry,
but we will lay a plan that can’t fail.”

“Can’t fail?” laughed the cook. “_Any_ plan would fail with that old
goat unless you killed him outright. And we don’t want to do that for
the General’s reward is for him alive, not dead.”

[Illustration: Away went Billy, jerking the cook around trees, over
stumps and beehives.  (Page 56)]

“Well, it is a pity with such a big reward in sight if we can’t get
ahead of one old goat! I’ll eat my shirt if I don’t capture him alive
within three days after I lay eyes on him.”

“You’ll eat your shirt then, young man, and I will sit by and see you
do it if he doesn’t bung up both my eyes so I can’t see out of them
before then.”

“Now let’s plan how I shall go about it,” said the chauffeur.

Button waited to hear no more, but ran to tell Billy that they were
laying plans to capture him.




CHAPTER IX

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.”




CHAPTER X

BUTTON MAKES THE FARMER FIGHTING MAD


Stubby was nibbling on his chicken leg with Duke and Button nearly half
asleep when they were all startled by the farmer coming round the straw
stack unexpectedly. But if they were surprised, the farmer was more
so. To come unexpectedly upon two stray dogs and a black cat and one
of those dogs the Red Cross dog he had just been feeding was enough to
surprise any one.

“Well, well, well! Where did you all come from, I should like to know?
And if here isn’t another Red Cross dog! But no, I am mistaken. You are
a cat, but a cat with a regimental tag around your neck. Come here,
little dog, and let me read what your tag says,” but when Stubby got
up and tried to limp to him, the farmer saw that his leg was hurt, so
he went to him and taking him in his arms, he felt of the injured leg
and found it had been broken. As he had set many broken legs for dogs,
he knew what to do for Stubby and he said, “You two follow me. I am
going to take this little dog to my office and rub his leg with some
strengthening liniment I have which will make it heal quicker. And I am
also going to give him a tonic to brace him up for I see he is very
thin and weak.”

Stubby licked the farmer’s hand to show how he appreciated all this
kindness.

When they reached the office, the farmer put his glasses on and read
the tags on all their necks, and when he got through he called to his
wife to come quickly, that he had made a wonderful discovery. “Just you
read that, wife,” he said, after he had read Stubby’s tag once again.
“This cat and dog are the long lost and much advertised mascots of two
American regiments, which are offering large sums for their recovery.
Bless me but this is lucky! For I was just needing some extra money to
repair the roof of the house and to fix up the place.”

“And I too. I need a new dress and bonnet badly,” said his wife.

“We’ll just fix them comfortably here in the office for to-night,
so there will be no danger of them getting away while I am making
arrangements for returning them to their own regiments and collecting
the reward money. A thousand dollars for each! To think that that cat
is the celebrated black cat from the Black Cat Regiment, and the dog
the yellow dog from the regiment called after him, the Yellow Dog
Regiment!”

The two dogs and Button looked at one another and either winked or
rolled their eyes to let the others know that they were in a pretty
fix and in danger of being carried back to the army. Then they all
thought of Billy waiting on the outskirts of the town for them to come.

“One thing,” thought Button, “he won’t wait long. If we don’t come
along on the third day, he will come back to look for us for he will
know that trouble has detained us. A day’s rest here with the excellent
care the farmer is going to give Stubby and plenty of good food for us
all will help us along on our journey more than anything else would,
as we are all run down, first from our hard work in the front and then
from our wounds.”

Presently the farmer and his wife had them all fixed comfortably for
the night, with Stubby on a nice soft sofa, and Duke and Button on old
shawls and blankets in one of the corners of the room, and a dish of
water for them to drink should they grow thirsty. As soon as the farmer
and his wife left them alone they talked over their predicament, but
all agreed it was for the best and soon they all fell asleep.

For two days they stayed with the farmer and each morning and evening
he rubbed Stubby’s leg and gave him a tonic. He fed Duke and Button up
fine too until they were so fat they could scarcely run. All day long
all they did was to eat and sleep, “getting in condition to travel
fast,” said Button.

The third day the farmer became very much excited when he read the
mail for in it were two letters for him from the colonels of the
regiments of which Stubby and Button were the mascots. They stated that
they would give the reward to the person who delivered the dog and cat
to them unhurt and in perfect health.

“This certainly is fine news, wife, and you better go along with me so
you can pick out your new dress and bonnet while we are in town, for
their headquarters, where I am to deliver the dog and cat, are in a
large town where there are plenty of big stores. We will start early
to-morrow morning, about daylight, as it is a long ways and we want to
reach these headquarters before noon so as to get our money and have
the whole afternoon to shop.”

Stubby heard all this as he lay on his end of the sofa pretending to be
asleep. The minute the farmer and his wife left the room, he to get the
automobile in shape for the trip in the morning, and his wife to lay
out her best clothes, Stubby barked for Button and Duke to come in to
share the news he had just heard.

They both listened without interrupting until Stubby had finished, then
Button said:

“It is a good thing your leg has healed so you can walk on it and
that you are feeling so strong and well, for if they mean to take us
to headquarters to-morrow morning, we must manage to escape some time
to-night.”

“You are right,” replied Duke. “But why wait until night? It would be
easier to escape some time this afternoon before we are shut in for the
night. The farmer never seems to think we will try to run away until
dark as he leaves us pretty much alone all day but at the first hint of
darkness he shuts us in.”

“That is all true. So let us wait and get a good dinner and then when
he lies down to take his twenty winks of sleep, as he does every
afternoon, we will skedaddle. His wife will be so busy getting her
finery ready to wear to-morrow that she won’t have time even to look
out of the window.”

And so it was planned for them to push on to where Billy waited for
them.

It is a good thing that they decided to go when they did for Billy was
getting terribly restless waiting for them, and was likely to get in
mischief if they did not arrive soon.

The three simply stuffed themselves at dinner time. And as they were
finishing, Button said, “Isn’t it too bad we haven’t pockets in our
skins so we could take some of this fine food along with us to eat when
we can’t find anything along the roadside?”

“It surely is,” said Stubby, “and I don’t see why we could not have had
our tails so constructed that we could have hung packages on them like
the opossums carry their young, hanging over their mother’s tail with
all their little tails curled around hers to hold them on.”

“You two do think of the most outlandish things I ever heard of,” said
Duke. “Any one could tell you were from the United States of America.
You are so clever and original. Now a European would be too staid and
too conventional to think of a thing like that.”

While they were talking, not one of them had taken his eyes off the
farmer who had been lying on the sofa to take his nap. But to-day he
was slower than ever in dropping off to sleep, due, I suppose, to the
excitement of the reward he was thinking of getting. But presently
habit was too much for him and he fell fast asleep. At the first snore
he made the three chums crept out of the office and sneaked away toward
the garden. One by one they squeezed themselves through a hole under
the fence and came out in the garden, right under the noses of the
farmer’s wife and son who were picking raspberries.

“Why, what are you doing here? Trying to escape us?” and with that the
woman stooped and grabbed Stubby up in her arms while her son grasped
Duke, but Button escaped them.

“You naughty, naughty dogs and cat to try to run away from us when we
have been so good to you!” Then she turned to her son and said, “I
think they heard your father and me talking of taking them back to the
army and probably they don’t want to go back, and that is why they were
trying to run away.”

“Bet you that is it!” replied the son. “They are so smart they can
understand every word that is said.”

“I told your father not to trust them out alone, but he said he was
feeding them so well that they would not try to run away. It is a good
thing that I decided to pick those raspberries to take to your Aunt
to-morrow, or we would not have caught them. And then I hate to think
of how it would have affected your father.”

When they reached the office, the farmer was still asleep and from the
smile on his face he was probably dreaming he was buying things with
the reward money. Just as they opened the door he called out, “Thieves!
Thieves!” and jumped up from the sofa. He was dreaming that some
thieves had stolen his pocketbook. “Why, what are you doing here with
the dogs in your arms? They haven’t been hurt, have they?” he asked at
last.

“No; worse than that. We caught them trying to run away,” said his wife.

“You don’t say so! That would have been a calamity.”

And then his wife explained to him how she and her son had caught
Stubby and Duke.

“But the worst of it is that black cat is still loose. Still I don’t
think he will run away and leave the two dogs behind.”

“Neither do I, but we won’t take any chances. Come and see if we can’t
catch him. We’ll lock the two dogs in and then see if the three of us
can’t catch the cat. Where did you leave him?”

“Up a tree beside the garden gate.”

“I’ll get a nice piece of meat and see if I can’t coax him down,” said
the farmer. So while he went for the meat his wife and his son went to
the tree where they had left Button. But alas! alack! when they got
there he was gone and nowhere in sight though they searched everywhere
for him and called, “Kitty! Kitty! Kitty! Pussy! Pussy! Pussy!”

The farmer was nearly crazy to think that with the cat gone he would
lose half of the reward he had been counting on so much.

“We must find him, I tell you!” and he began to scold his wife and son
as if it was their fault that the cat was gone. At last his wife grew
angry and said:

“Shut up! I have heard enough of your complaining. If it had not been
for me, they both would have been gone for good. Why, I told you to
keep them under lock and key; that they were too valuable to let run
loose. But you go accusing us of losing them, while you sleep and let
them sneak off. Don’t you suppose I want a new dress and bonnet with
that reward money as much as you want to spend it on fixing up the
place?”

This was good logic, so the farmer stopped his scolding. In the first
place he knew it was not her fault but like some men he tried to lay
everything that went wrong on some one else. Whoever happened to be
near at the time usually got the scolding.

“Gee, how I hate a man who lays everything that goes wrong on his
wife!” said Duke.

Button had hid under some currant bushes and was having great fun
watching them hunt for him. When supper time came they put his supper
outside the kitchen door on a plate but left the door part way open,
so they could open it quickly and grab him if he came to eat the food.
But they waited in vain, for Button had seen the crack and knew what it
meant.

[Illustration]

“I am not very hungry, and I can wait for my supper until you go to
sleep. You will have to go to bed,” he thought.

At last the farmer could stand waiting no longer. He wanted to find
that cat and lock him up so he could go to bed and be ready for an
early start to headquarters in the morning. With no cat, there would be
no use in going.

“I have it!” he at last exclaimed to his wife. “I’ll go unchain Towser
and get him to smell out the cat for me. That dog is a crackajack for
finding cats. He hates them so--or most of them. This cat is the only
one I ever saw him make friends with.”

So Towser was unchained and set to looking for Button. He ran around
and around, smelling everywhere and he barked up the tree that Button
had climbed. But still he had not found the missing cat. At last he got
the scent, but just before he got to him Button shot out from under the
bushes and ran up a tree.

“He has found him, found him!” called the farmer to his wife. The
farmer had been close on Towser’s heels all the time, a bag in his
hand. He had intended to put the cat in it when Towser caught him by
the nape of his neck as he did most cats. But Button was too quick for
them. He was up a tree before they could wink. The next thing was to
get him down. The farmer, his wife and son coaxed and coaxed Button to
come down but he just sat on a limb and blinked at them.

“Climb the tree and see if you can’t catch him,” said the farmer to his
son.

[Illustration: One thing Billy butted was a basket full of clothes.
                                                              (Page 67)]

This the boy did, and Button let him come within reaching distance of
him. Then he climbed a little higher up the tree. This kept on until
he was away up in the topmost branches, and away out on a limb so thin
that it would not bear the weight of the boy. When he saw this he took
hold of the limb and tried to shake Button off by swinging the limb
backwards and forwards with all his might. But he might just as well
have tried to dislodge the bark itself as Button. He simply stuck his
sharp claws down deeper into the tree and enjoyed the swinging of the
branch.

“Come down, Pierre!” called his mother. “We will try smoking him out.”

Pierre climbed down and they all busily set about building a big smudge
fire under the tree. As it was a still evening, with no wind, the smoke
rose straight in the air to where Button sat, but by shutting his eyes
he did not mind it much and he sat on. The smoke made the farmer, his
wife and son sneeze and cough and their eyes smart and water. That was
all the good their fire did, for when the fire at last died out and the
smoke had cleared away, they looked up in the tree and there sat Button
as composedly as ever.

“Darn that cat!” exclaimed the farmer.

“Father, you must not swear, and before our son at that.”

“I can’t help it, for I am so mad at that cat I could kill him. And if
he doesn’t come down pretty soon, I’ll shoot him and take his hide to
headquarters.”

“That would do no good, for they say in their letter the reward will
only be given if the dog and cat are alive and well,” replied his wife.

“Well, what next can we do to get him down? I am at the end of my
string of suggestions.”

The three sat down under the tree, their heads on their hands and
elbows on knees, to try to think of some way to capture Button. After
sitting there for about ten minutes, the son exclaimed, “I have it! I
know how we can get him down and not hurt him in the least.”

“Let’s hear your plan, quick!” said the father.

“I’ll go up and saw off the limb he is sitting on, while you and mother
hold a net under the limb. Then when it falls, the cat and limb will
fall in the net and the cat won’t be hurt.”

“An excellent idea, my son,” commended his mother.

“But where are we going to get the net?” asked his father.

“We can use my tennis net.”

“Run and get it while I go for a saw and, mother, you stay here to keep
him from escaping while we are away,” said the father.

Presently the father and son were back with the saw and the net. The
boy climbed the tree, while the father and mother stood under the limb,
waiting to catch Button when the limb should be sawed off. Button never
stirred while the boy sawed the limb, for he had made up his mind what
he was going to do when the limb fell into the net. This it did in
about two minutes. The branch had scarcely touched the net when Button
with a bound ran up the side of the net, jumped to the ground and ran
up the next tree. And could you have looked into the faces of those
three people, you would have said you never had looked into three more
disappointed ones in your life.

“That cat is possessed of the devil!” said the father.

“I truly believe he is!” said the mother.

“Well, gosh darn his skin, I say!” exclaimed their son.

“I have another idea,” said the father. “You go get your fish net and
then you can climb the tree he is now in, and throw it over his head,
and we will have him.”

[Illustration]

The boy went after his round net on a long pole, climbed the tree and
threw it over Button’s head, but just as it came down Button gave a
leap for the next tree which was six feet away and lit on a limb as
nicely as if he had been a flying squirrel and used to jumping from
tree to tree all his life.

“Well, that cat surely beats the devil! He can stay in that tree for
all of me! I shan’t try to catch him any more. But I’ll just go and get
some sleep, and in the morning we will go to town and get the reward
for the little dog and say nothing about ever having seen the cat. Then
when we come back, if he is still seen around the premises we will try
some other plans to capture him.”

When they had all three gone to bed, Button came down out of the tree
and ate the supper they had put out for him early in the evening. After
finishing it he went over to the office and jumping up on the window
sill he talked to Stubby and Duke through the window and told them how
he had been having some fun with the family.

“Don’t worry, boys! You will be able to give him the slip as he takes
you to town. And if you don’t, you can get away in a few days. I will
go on and tell Billy what has happened and then the two of us will come
back and help you escape.”




CHAPTER XI

THE CHUMS ON A CANAL BOAT


“No need to go for Billy or to tell him what has happened,” said a
voice behind Button, “for I have heard it all.” Turning around, Button
saw Billy standing under the window.

“Billy!” the three exclaimed in one breath. “Where did you come from?”

“The town where I was to meet you. I waited and waited and at last made
up my mind that something must have happened to you, so I went back to
the hospital, or at least I got nearly there last night when I saw ten
or fifteen aeroplanes circling over the hospital. I made out that half
were German planes and half American. The Germans evidently were trying
to blow up the hospital by dropping bombs on it, and the Americans were
trying to fight them off. As I looked, I heard a terrible explosion and
by the light of the fire that followed I saw a big building go up in
smoke and flames, and as I watched I saw distinctly two human figures
outlined on the sky, flying up in the air with the débris. But when
the smoke cleared away, I saw that the hospital still stood there and
that it was the big barn they had blown up. So the two figures I saw
must have been those of the two spies who were going to try to bomb the
hospital--those whose eyes you scratched out, Button. So you see they
got their just deserts and were blown up themselves just as they had
planned to blow up others. I was so thankful to see that it was the
barn instead of the hospital that I ran straight on regardless of bombs
dropping all around me. All I thought of was to see if Stubby was still
in the hospital, and trying to save him, but before I reached there
the American aeroplanes had driven off the Germans, and I saw three of
their machines lying in wrecks on the ground, the work of the Americans.

“I went on to the hospital, and ran straight to Stubby’s ward to see if
he was there, well knowing that in the confusion nobody would molest
me. I passed the cook on the stairs and he was so excited and scared he
did not pay the slightest attention to me. When I reached your ward,
Stubby, I found your bed empty so took it for granted that you had
started to meet me and that I had missed you somewhere on the road. So
I started back, stopping at every farm I passed to look the place over
to see if I could hear or see anything of any of you. A rooster at the
next farm told me he had seen two dogs and a black cat pass their place
at sunrise five days ago. Then I knew that you were either prisoners
somewhere or I had passed you on your way to meet me. Now tell me how
it happens that you two dogs are locked in and Button still running
outside.”

Between them they told Billy all that had happened since he left them,
ending by relating how they were to be carried to headquarters early
the next morning.

“Well, I guess not! Not if my name is Billy Whiskers will you two stay
prisoners another minute. I’ll just hook the glass out of this window
and you two can crawl out and then we will make a merry chase for the
next village.”

[Illustration]

Billy did this, and as they passed the house, the soft-hearted Stubby
said to the farmer and his wife, “I am sorry to make you lose your
reward for my capture, as you have been very good to all of us. But
even for you I can’t be a prisoner just so you can get some money by
delivering me to headquarters. So _au revoir_, old friends!”

“Good-by,” meowed Button. “And may you have better luck the next time
you try to catch a black cat! Had you only remembered that black cats
are said to bring bad luck, you would not have wasted so much valuable
time in trying to capture me.”

“And many, many thanks for the good meals you gave us,” barked Duke.
Then the four passed on into the darkness and were lost to the farmer
forever.

“I think the best thing we can do,” said Billy, “is to push on to Paris
just as fast as we can, and that won’t be very rapidly, as we shall
have to travel by night most of the time and lie hidden in the daytime,
since there are so many looking for us who are sparing no expense in
advertising and searching for us. We are like regular escaped prisoners
with a price on our heads.”

“The nearer we get to Paris,” said Duke, “the harder it will be to keep
hidden, for the country is very thickly populated for miles and miles
outside the city. But an idea just flashed across my mind that, if
carried out, would get us inside Paris without much trouble.”

“What is it?” asked Billy.

“It is this: that we enter Paris by boat instead of on foot.”

“And how can we do that?” inquired Stubby.

“I’ll tell you. We will go to the banks of the river Seine, about five
miles out of Paris, and try to get on one of the flat canal boats that
run right into the heart of the city, and we might be lucky enough to
get on a boat that would pass right through Paris and continue on to
the sea, where we could embark for America, as the river empties into
the sea at a very large shipping port called the city of Havre. From
this port there are big merchant ships sailing to all parts of the
world, and we would get on one bound for America. If we could only
accomplish this it would save us all that long, tiresome walk of about
one hundred and twenty-five miles.”

“Gee!” exclaimed Button. “Your plans sound good to me! Saving a hundred
and twenty-five mile walk, dodging people, bad boys and troublesome
dogs, is worth trying.”

“I should think it did sound good!” said Billy, “and I feel quite
sure we can carry it out, for Stubby, Button and I have had lots of
experience sneaking on ocean-going vessels, steamers, and so on. We
have stolen on board a vessel going from Japan to America, and on still
another sailing from Boston for Constantinople, and another plying up
and down the Mississippi River, with others too numerous to mention. So
I guess we can manage to get aboard a slow going canal boat.”

“Of course we can!” said Stubby. “I feel like thanking you for thinking
of such a plan. It is such a good one for us all but more especially
for me with my lame leg.”

“About how far do you think we are from Paris now?”

“I should say fully twenty-five miles. But only about seven from the
river if we take a straight line to the east until we come to it.”

“Then me for the straight line to the river!” declared Billy.

“Same here!” said Button.

“And I follow wherever you lead,” avowed Stubby.

The four made such good time that by daybreak they were in sight of the
river, catching their first glimpse of it from the top of a high hill.

And joy! they saw straight ahead of them a small town at whose dock
lay a long white-and-green boat with a flat top. It was so early in
the morning that no one was astir in the town when they reached it, so
they were not molested as they ran through it straight for the boat.
When they came close to the dock they proceeded more cautiously and hid
behind boxes and barrels until they could find out what kind of people
were on the boat. But no one appearing and the dock being deserted at
this time of the morning, they decided to chance finding nice people
on board, and crept on deck. This they did easily as the owner had
neglected to pull in his gangplank before he went to bed.

“It looks as if our good angel was with us and it was intended we were
to make this trip in this way,” remarked Stubby.

“Now we must all secrete ourselves and keep hid until the boat is
loaded and pushed off shore. Then they will have to take us with them
until they reach the next stopping place, and if the worst comes to the
worst we can jump overboard and swim, for it is not far to shore and
the boat is not high above the water line.”

Billy secreted himself behind a pile of bags filled with hops, while
Stubby and Button climbed on top of them and hid themselves between two
of the top bags, and Duke squeezed himself under them in a hole made
by two of the bags which had not been packed closely. So by the time
the sun was well up and the people began to arise, they were all stowed
away as comfortably as could be.

The first person on deck proved to be a big, comfortable looking fat
man, followed by his grandson, a little fellow with curly, flaxen hair
and big, blue eyes, whom it was easy to see the grandfather fairly
worshiped.

Then three men came up from below and began fussing around on deck.
About this time the delicious odor of boiling coffee, fried potatoes
and bacon was wafted up the hatchway.

“Gee! The fumes from that cooking make me hungry as a bear!” said
Button.

“Me too!” agreed Stubby.

“And it reminds me that none of us has had a bite to eat for hours. We
were so busy getting away from our pursuers that we forgot to stop to
look for something to eat,” said Duke.

“That may smell good to you fellows, but that white clover beside the
dock, with the dew still on it, smells better to me. And when they go
in to breakfast, if they still keep that gangplank out, I am going to
come out of this hiding place, skip ashore and eat a mouthful or two
before any of the people on board are through their meal and come up on
deck again,” said Billy.

“You are lucky that you can live on grass and green things,” replied
Duke. “I wish _I_ could.”

“That is the only trouble dogs and cats have when traveling,” said
Stubby; “this matter of food. One has to steal it, or eat it raw, and
run the risk of being clubbed or stoned unless he falls in with some
one who is kind to animals and doesn’t think it is too much trouble to
feed and water them.”

“Most people seem to forget that animals have to eat and drink the same
as human beings. They know better, but they just do not think,” said
Button.

Billy did as he had planned and slipped off the boat and made a hearty
breakfast of clover and took a good drink of water out of the river.
Then he was fixed for the day if need be.

“Mew! Mew! Mew!”

“Hark! I hear a cat mewing!” whispered Button to Stubby who were close
together upon the pile of hops.

“I see her,” said Stubby. “It is only a little kitten. Sh-sh-sh! Here
comes a woman up from below with a plate of food for the kitten.”

“Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!” called the woman, looking around for the cat and
paying no attention to the mewing kitten at her feet.

“Evidently she is looking for the mother of the kitten,” whispered
Button.

As they watched, they saw a big yellow cat jump out from a pile of rope
up near the prow of the boat and walk lazily toward her. A black and
white spotted cat also came running from the opposite side of the deck.

“They seem to have a whole family on board,” remarked Stubby.

When the woman saw them coming, she set down a heaping plate of food
for them and said, “Well, lazybones,” addressing the yellow cat, “did
you catch that big wharf rat I saw run on board last night? If you did
not, you better hustle and get him if you want any more to eat from
me. I am not going to feed you anything until that rat is killed. Do
you hear me? Old Mouser has been doing all the work lately in catching
the rats and mice, and it is time you did something, for we want no
free lazy passengers on this boat. Baby,” addressing the kitten, “stop
crying and mewing around my heels. If you are hungry, eat something
on the plate. Oh, I forgot, you are too young to care for meat and
potatoes. Come with me and I will get you some milk to drink,” and she
picked up the kitten and went below.

The cats were evidently not very hungry, for they scarcely touched the
food on the plate, but walked off and left it, the spotted cat going
down the hatchway and the yellow cat back to the pile of rope up front.

[Illustration]

“Now is our chance, Stubby,” whispered Button, “before any one comes up
from breakfast!”

The two of them climbed down from the hops and made a good meal of what
the cats had left, as the woman had brought up a plate heaping full.

“Tell you what, that tasted good!” said Button.

“Indeed it did!” replied Stubby. “I did not know I was so hungry. But
I was as thirsty as the very dickens. I hate to chance going off the
boat for a drink, but I’ve simply got to have water. I think I can
chance it to run off and lap a few mouthsful before they come up and
pull in the gangplank. I am going to try it anyway. Are you coming?”

“No; cats drink very little water, and I do not feel the least bit
thirsty now.”

Stubby succeeded in getting his drink and was safely back on board
before any one appeared. But he did not have a minute to spare as his
short, stubby tail only just disappeared out of sight when all the men,
including the Captain, came on deck. Then the Captain bawled out in his
big voice for them to heave in the gangplank and cut loose. In less
than fifteen minutes the old boat was out in the middle of the river,
floating down toward Paris on the swift moving current.

“Gee, it seems good to be in a safe place once more,” said Billy,
“where one can sleep without keeping one eye open for fear of capture
or of being blown sky high by a carelessly dropped German bomb. I am
just going to sleep and sleep and sleep while on this trip and get good
and rested.”

“And I am going to do the same,” replied Duke.




CHAPTER XII

BUTTON HAS A FIGHT WITH A WHARF RAT


All day long the four of them kept hidden. At noon Stubby, Duke and
Button ate what the cats left, and Billy ran ashore and ate a little
grass by the river bank, where the boat had tied up for noon.

The Captain and his crew seemed in no hurry to get to Paris or anywhere
else, for that matter. All they seemed to do was to eat, sleep, tell
stories and smoke.

It was getting to be about half past nine, and the dogs and Button
were growing hungry for their supper which they could see on the plate
by the gangway, but could not go to get it as the sailors were still
lounging on deck talking and smoking.

“Will they never stop their silly talk and go to bed?” sighed Button.

He could not hear a word of what they said, but he called it silly
because he was so cross at them for not going to bed. And as they
talked, a big black wharf rat sneaked up behind them and began to help
himself to the meat on the plate. It was too much for the hungry Button
to lie there and see his supper or what he considered his, eaten up
before his eyes by a nasty old rat. Forgetting that he might be caught
by the sailors, he sneaked off the pile of hops and crept to within
jumping distance of the rat. Then with one long flying leap, he landed
on the rat’s back and buried his teeth in his neck and his claws in his
sides. It was a powerful rat, as I said before, and gave fight. Soon
the two of them were rolling around on the deck, with first one on top
and then the other. The scuffle they made added to the squeal of the
rat brought all the sailors to their feet and there they stood watching
the fight and wondering where the big black cat came from.

All of a sudden the rat let go of Button’s ear and buried its teeth
in his neck, causing the blood to flow freely. On seeing this Stubby
forgot all caution and came running to Button’s assistance.

“Holy Moses! And where did this dog come from?” asked the Captain. “He
must have dropped from the sky.”

Stubby tried to grab the rat by the back of its neck as it clung to
Button’s throat, but he could not as they kept rolling over and over
each other so that first one was on top and then the other. At last in
trying to stoop and get a grip he turned his broken leg the wrong way
and the pain was so intense that he fainted dead away and the sailors
thought he was dead. So did Duke, who was watching the struggle from
the top of the hop pile with Billy. When they saw Stubby roll over and
stretch out they both bounded off the hops and appeared on the scene.

“Jumping Jupiter! What have we here? A menagerie?” exclaimed the
Captain. The sailors all stared at Duke and Billy as if an elephant had
appeared in their midst, while from the other end of the boat came the
yellow cat and Mouser. And still the fight went on, with the Captain,
three sailors, two cats, one dog and a goat watching, all having formed
a ring around the fighters.

[Illustration]

Billy saw that Button was growing weak from loss of blood and though
he did not wish to interfere in Button’s fight, still he felt it best
under the circumstances to do so. So he watched his chance and ran one
long horn right through the rat, killing him instantly. Then with the
rat still sticking to his horns, he walked to the side of the boat and
scraped it off, and it fell into the water.

This was such a smart thing for a goat to do that the Captain clapped
his hands and cried, “Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!” in which all the sailors
joined him. Their clapping and cheering brought the Captain’s wife on
deck to see what all the commotion was about, and when she saw the
strange animals on board, she said,

“When did you buy this menagerie? I never laid eyes on them before.”

“Nor any of us,” answered the Captain, “until two or three minutes
ago,” and he related to her what had taken place.

“This fight never would have happened if that lazy yellow cat of ours
had done his duty and caught that rat.”

“But if he had, none of us would ever have witnessed the most desperate
bloody battle any of us ever saw between a cat and a rat.”

“I wonder to whom these animals belong and when they came on board,”
mused the Captain’s wife.

“They must have come on board the night we forgot and left the
gangplank out,” said the Captain.

“That is just when it must have happened,” agreed the sailors.

“They probably belong to some one person as they are all together, and
I should judge from their appearance that they are very valuable. See,”
said the Captain’s wife, “they all have medals around their necks, and
one dog wears a Red Cross badge sewed on his body.”

The Captain stooped down in front of Billy and began to read what was
on his badge.

“Wife, come here! Come here!” he called in excited tones. “What do you
think I find engraved on this badge? This goat is the celebrated Billy
Whiskers, the Mascot of the --th New York Regiment!”

“You don’t mean it? Not the goat that the big reward is offered for?
You don’t mean _that_, do you?”

“Yes, I do! The very same!”

“And this little dog and the black cat are mascots, too, other
regiments offering a big reward for their return. I read about these
very animals in one of the Paris papers this morning. I’ll go get the
paper and read it to you,” she said.

In a jiffy she disappeared inside the boat but came out again, waving
the paper. “Here it is! Now listen while I read to you all what it says:

  LOST, STRAYED OR STOLEN

  One large white goat, belonging to the --th Regiment of New York

  One small yellow dog, belonging to the --th Regiment of Pennsylvania

  One big black cat, belonging to the --th Regiment of Illinois.

  Any person or persons returning the same to their respective
  Headquarters will receive $1,000 reward for each animal alive and
  well.”

She jumped up and went springing and dancing around the deck.

“Here we have all three of them right here on our boat! Ho for the
reward! I see where we get it when we return from this trip. We will
take the best of care of them, but keep them hidden from others until
our return trip. Then we will take them to Headquarters and claim the
reward.”

“Well, you won’t get any reward for either the cat or the dog if you
don’t fix up the wounds where that rat bit them, for they are losing so
much blood it will kill them,” said the Captain.

“Here, some of you give me a hand and help me dress their wounds,” said
the Captain’s wife, who was as good as any trained nurse when it came
to dressing wounds and looking after the sick. “I’ll go ahead and get
warm water, witch hazel and bandages ready, while you carry them down
to my stateroom and lay them on the bunk.”

When Stubby came out of his fainting spell, he found himself lying
on a bunk beside Button, who had a bandage wrapped around his neck,
and smelling strong of witch hazel, besides having several crosses of
adhesive plaster on his sides and on the tip of his nose.

“How did we get here and what has happened to us?” he asked.

“What a fool thing for me to faint just when you needed me most!” said
Stubby.

“How did you happen to do it?” asked Button.

“I turned my broken leg the wrong way, and over I went.”

“But who helped you in the end? Did some of those men come to your
rescue? I should think they would have helped you before and not stood
there and see that monster rat biting you with its poisonous teeth.”

[Illustration]

“No, Billy came to my help as usual. He forgot he was in hiding and
jumped in and ran his horn straight through the rat, which made it
let go my throat, as he had killed it instantly. I never met such a
big rat before or one with such long, sharp teeth. When it cried, its
voice sounded like a baby’s. I shall be all right soon as the Captain’s
wife has fixed me up fine so the poison from the rat’s teeth won’t
hurt me. As it turned out, this fight was the best thing that could
have happened, for since they read our medals, every one is as keen on
keeping us on board as we are in staying. They have found out who we
are, and are now looking out for the reward. But they intend to take us
along with them to the coast and on their return will hand us over to
our respective regiments and claim the money.”

“How did they know there is a reward offered for us?”

“Why, the Captain’s wife had just finished reading about us in one of
the Paris papers.”

“We certainly are in luck! Here we shall have the best of care and get
clear through to Havre without walking one step. And when there we can
give them the slip as we did the farmer and his wife.”

“I know; but it does seem a shame that we always have to run off and
appear so ungrateful to our kind friends, doesn’t it?” said Stubby.

“Yes, it does; but it really can’t be helped,” replied Button. “Where
are Billy and Duke now?”

“Oh, they are having the time of their lives being petted and fed by
all on board. You see we will fare like princes for the rest of our
journey.”

Button was right. Nothing was too good for them and the way they were
fed, watered, combed and brushed would have satisfied a king.

“My, don’t they all look fat, sleek and shiny!” said the Captain’s wife
after they had bathed and curried all four of them. She had taken off
the dirty bandage that was around Duke’s body and put on a nice clean
white one with a lovely Red Cross embroidered on it.




CHAPTER XIII

A DOG CEMETERY IN PARIS


The rest of the journey to Paris was quite uneventful. They arrived
there one evening just as the sun was setting behind the city, throwing
the Eiffel Tower and the big square dome of Notre Dame in bold relief
against the deep red sky.

Just on the outskirts of the city they came to an island on which was a
good-sized cemetery.

“What a nice place for a cemetery!” exclaimed Stubby.

“There seem to be a good many people buried there from all the
monuments I can count,” said Billy.

“You may count the monuments and walk or drive down the broad paved
roads and walks but you will never pass one grave where a human being
is buried,” said Duke.

“You are joking!” said Button. “What do you mean? That there is no one
buried there now and that all the bodies have been removed? Bet I hear
men chiseling monuments at this minute and soon can see them at work in
their shops.”

“True again. But for all that there is not a human being buried there,
for it is a dog cemetery where only pet dogs are buried.”

“Well, wouldn’t that beat the Dutch!” exclaimed Billy. “A regular
cemetery with flowers on the graves and flower-bordered walks and
fenced-in lots and monuments just like people have! It certainly does
take the French to think of odd things!”

“Why shouldn’t pet dogs have a nice resting place?” inquired Duke.
“They are man’s companions and guard and watch over him as if they were
human. Yes, and they are more faithful than the dearest human friends,
for they stick when adversity overtakes one, when often a human friend
one has counted on proves false. But never a dog! There is one monument
there that has this inscription on it in French, but I will translate
it for you into English. It reads: ‘The more I see of men, the more I
love dogs.’ Pretty hard on his friends, wasn’t he?”

“I bet some one he loved played him false, don’t you?”

“It would seem like it from that inscription,” answered Billy.

“But hush! I hear a bell tolling,” said Button.

“Yes, they toll the bell when a funeral enters the gate just as they do
in all cemeteries,” explained Duke.

“Look, fellows!” said Stubby. “There comes a little white hearse just
like the ones they use to take babies to the cemetery, and see the
autos that are following! Why, it is a regular funeral, with a wreath
of flowers on the casket and everything else complete!”

“Certainly! Everything is done just as it is in a cemetery for people
and not one thing is left out,” replied Duke. “If you should walk
through, you would see on some of the graves the playthings the dogs
liked when alive.”

“Really?” said Stubby in amazement.

“Yes, really!” replied Duke. “I had hoped to be buried there myself
some day, but now I expect my grave will be a shell hole on the field
of battle.”

“Oh, no, it won’t now since you are going to America with us.”

“Over there your grave will probably be made under a rose bush or in
some nice quiet orchard or back yard of the family with whom you live,”
said Billy.

While they had been talking, the boat drifted away past the cemetery
and they were getting near Paris. They had just fixed themselves
comfortably on deck to enjoy the approach to the city and watch the
people on the banks and wharfs as the boat floated by when the Captain
appeared and said,

“Sorry to disturb you, fellows, but it is necessary that we shut you
below while we are in the city. If we don’t, some one may see you who
has read the papers offering a reward for you and they would come
aboard and take you off.”

“Oh, bother that old reward!” from Billy. “I don’t want to be shut in
out of the air in that stuffy cabin. I want to be out here where I can
stretch my legs and breathe good fresh air.”

Just the same, Billy with the others was shut in a stuffy little cabin
scarcely large enough to hold them. There the four of them fretted and
grumbled and pouted, but to no purpose.

They had been there about two hours when they felt the boat scrape
along the side of a dock, and they found their porthole looked out on
the wharf side of the boat. Button soon took advantage of his powers of
climbing and sat in the porthole, from which place he could look out
and tell the others what he saw.

The boat had come to dock right opposite the Eiffel Tower and on that
side of the river. By sticking his head out of the hole he could also
see the big Hippodrome with its grassy lawn and flower beds and benches
for tired pedestrians to rest on.

“Gee!” exclaimed Billy, “but I would like to get out of this and kick
my legs on that lawn and eat some of the grass, for I am awfully tired
of the food on this boat. It is all right for people, cats and dogs,
but rather dry for goats.”

The next morning the Captain appeared at their door and said, “Now,
Chums, here is a good breakfast for you, and a drink of water. Awfully
sorry to shut you in, but I have to under the circumstances. Ta-ta
until night! We are going up into the city to do some shopping, but
One-Eyed Dick is going to stay aboard to look after things. Again
ta-ta!” and he slammed the door and was gone.

[Illustration]

“Drat him!” exclaimed Billy. “I want to go walking in the park!”

The four ate their breakfast in silence, then lay down to sulk the
day away, when all of a sudden Button jumped up and climbed into the
porthole again.

“Heigho, fellows! The way this boat lies now I can jump from this
porthole onto the dock. And if I don’t leap as far as I mean to do, I
will only fall back on deck and not go into the river. I am going to
try it anyway. So here goes!”

With a long, flying leap he made it, landing right in front of a dog
that chanced to be wandering along the dock just then. The dog made a
bound for Button. But Button, contrary to the ways of most cats, stood
his ground instead of running and before the dog knew what had happened
to him, Button had slapped his face and scratched his nose, leaving a
long, red mark down its length, and had disappeared up the path leading
to the park.

“I heard Button spit as if he were mad, and then a dog barked,” said
Stubby. “I bet he met a dog.”

“I know what we can do,” said Billy. “I can stand under the porthole
and then, Duke, you and Stubby can get on my back and jump through the
porthole. I am quite sure I am high enough so you can make the jump.”

“But what good will it do even if we can reach the hole? We don’t want
to go ashore and leave you here alone.”

“That is just like you, Stubby, to spoil your whole day to stay with
a friend that can’t get out. You are too generous. I shan’t let you
sacrifice yourself like that for me. You and Duke go, and then you can
come back and tell me what you saw. If you stay, I have to stay just
the same, and lose the fun of hearing what you fellows do ashore. So
jump up on my back and let’s see if you can make the hole.”

Stubby demurred, and so did Duke, but Billy at last prevailed on them
to go.

[Illustration: The first thing Billy knew, he was rolling over
something soft that squealed like a stuck pig and that kicked like a
calf.  (Page 155)]

Stubby made the hole and landed on the wharf all right, but Duke was
large and the first jump he made he hit his head and fell back into the
cabin. He was so fat he made a tight squeeze for the hole but on the
second trial he made it. Then he attempted to push and squeeze himself
through the hole. To do this he had to go head first, which made him
fall on the deck on his nose. But it did not hurt much and no one saw
him. He barked back to Billy that he was all right and was going to run
up into the city and visit some of his old haunts.

“I’ll steal a bunch of carrots for you from some vegetable stand,” he
barked back.

Billy fussed and fussed and kicked around until the cabin looked as
if a whole drove of kicking mules had been shut in it. Then all of a
sudden he stopped and said to himself,

“What a fool I am, kicking and butting things around here! Why don’t I
butt down that old door? It will be easy to do and then I too can go up
into the city.”

To think was to do with Billy. And crash! went the door and out through
the wreck went Billy. When he arrived at the top of the hatchway he
met One-Eyed Dick coming down to see what had caused all the noise. On
seeing Billy, he tried to shut the hatchway to keep Billy in by sitting
on it. But the next thing he knew the door was lifted up under him and
he found himself slipping off. Before he could get to his feet Billy
was out and off the boat, and that was the last he saw of Billy for
that day.

Duke had just reached the front door of his old home when who should
come out of the house but his old master, the one who had taken him to
war with him and made him a Red Cross dog.

[Illustration]

“Duke, you old sport, where have you been and how did you happen to
turn up here just now when I was returning to the front and planning to
stop at the dog hospital to get you?”

His master picked him up in his arms and hugged and hugged him until
Duke thought his ribs would be crushed in.

“I am so glad you came for now I shall not have to go out of my way to
get you. We are on the eve of a big battle and we will both be needed
at the front.”

“Here is where I give up going to America,” thought Duke. “But it is
all for the best, for since I have seen my old master again and found
how he loves me, I think it would have been a mean trick to desert him
while he is in danger of his life every moment. But I _do_ wish I could
have gone back first and said good-by to Billy, Stubby and Button. They
are the three finest friends a dog ever had.”

While Duke was thinking this, his master was carrying him to a big
touring car and in a few seconds they were breaking the speed laws of
the city.




CHAPTER XIV

WHAT THE CHUMS DID IN PARIS


As soon as Billy found himself on shore he ran as fast as ever he
could up into the city to try to find a grocery store where he could
get some fresh juicy vegetables or fruit. He was tired to death of dry
hay, straw and carrots that had been fed to him on the boat, though the
Captain thought he was giving Billy just what goats like best.

Stubby and Button saw him disappearing down a side street and started
to follow him.

“How in the wide, wide world do you think he managed to get out of that
cabin?” asked Stubby.

“I am sure I don’t know,” answered Button, “for I am sure he could not
possibly crawl through that porthole even if he could reach it. He is
too big.”

“You don’t suppose he butted down the cabin door, do you?” asked Stubby.

“I should not wonder in the least if he did, and come to think of it,
I bet that is just what he did do, for that is the only way he could
possibly leave that cabin. Perhaps old One-Eyed Dick opened the door
to give him a drink or to get something out of the cabin, and Billy
butted him over and escaped. However, we will soon find out when we
overtake him.”

“But where is he? I don’t see him anywhere,” said Stubby.

[Illustration]

When Stubby and Button reached the side street down which they had seen
Billy disappearing, no Billy was in sight. But as they stood there
debating what had become of him, and wondering where they would look
for him, they saw Billy run out of a fruit store with a big apple in
his mouth, followed by an angry Frenchman madly jabbering and waving
a broom over his head, with which he was trying to hit Billy. He was
just about to bring it down on Billy’s back when Stubby ran between the
man’s legs and tripped him. He got up with an oath and started to chase
Stubby when Button ran in front of him and down he went again. He was
so busy watching Billy and Stubby that he had not time to cast his eyes
down to see what was under his feet or where he was stepping. This time
he fell flat on his stomach, which knocked the breath out of him so he
could not rise again and chase them. And he sat there trying to get his
breath until he saw them turn a corner and disappear, though he had
the fun of seeing a man knocked over as he himself had been by Billy
running into him as he turned the corner. Billy did not see the man
as his head was turned to see if the fruit dealer was still pursuing
him. And when he looked ahead, he was surprised to find both Stubby and
Button following him. He still had his head turned when he ran into a
fat woman going the same way he was, a big basket of clean clothes on
her head. The first thing Billy knew, he was rolling over something
soft that squealed like a stuck pig and that kicked like a calf. He
lost his own balance and rolled over in the gutter. All this commotion
caused a crowd to gather around them in no time, and Stubby had to bark
and growl and nip the heels of the people to make a clearing so Billy
could get up. Soon the police were upon them, swinging their clubs and
crying out in French for the crowd to make way and clear the street.

The fat woman was crying and trying to gather up her wash which had
spilled in all directions, and she was afraid the people would steal
some of the pieces or step on the clean snow-white bosoms of the
shirts.

“Here, don’t you put your dirty hands on that shirt!” she called to a
boy who was going to try to help her pick up her scattered things.

“Police! Police! Stop that woman! She is trying to hide a lady’s skirt
under her shawl!”

Stubby felt sorry for the poor laundress and he watched to see if any
of the crowd tried to steal her things.

Presently a bootblack picked up a nice fine white dress shirt and
attempted to hide it under his short jacket, but the shirt was too long
to conceal even when folded, and when it unfolded a long white tail
stuck out. A policeman made a grab for it but the boy dodged and ran
down the street with the shirt dangling between his legs. When Stubby
saw this, he started in pursuit and soon overtook the boy. He made a
snap at the flying tail, caught it in his mouth, gave a jerk and the
shirt slipped from the boy’s hold, wound itself round his leg and
tripped him. The policeman coming up just then caught the boy and gave
him two or three sharp raps with his club together with a kick and told
him to go about his business while he carried the much prized shirt
back to the laundress.

“Thank you! Thank you, sir, for saving that shirt! It belongs to the
man at the head of the Police Department and I’ll tell him how smart
you are on your beat and get you promoted for helping a poor working
woman out of her troubles,” and she wiped her eyes and began to count
her pieces to see if they were all there.

While the police was keeping the crowd from bothering her, the three
Chums sneaked away and decided to return to the boat for they did not
want to be left in Paris. Their destination was Havre for the present
and America next.

About six o’clock when the Captain, his wife and the sailors came back
to the boat, they found Billy, Stubby and Button all lying out on deck
enjoying themselves.

“Look, will you?” exclaimed the Captain. “There are those animals I
locked in the cabin quietly lying on deck. One-Eyed Dick must have let
them out. I’ll fix _him_ for disobeying orders!”

But when he came aboard there was no One-Eyed Dick to be found.

“So-ho! When we left, Dick must have decided to go too and while he was
away these animals have broken out of the cabin.”

While the Captain was talking, his wife had gone below to take a look
at the cabin and find out if possible how they got out. She found,
as you know, everything kicked and scratched to pieces and the door
smashed to bits. She called to the Captain to come see what had
happened. But just as he was leaving the deck he saw old One-Eyed Dick
running toward the boat, all excitement.

“What is up, Dick? And why are you running?”

“Come quick! Come quick! I am on the track of the three of them!”

“Three what?” asked the Captain.

“Why, the runaway animals! Don’t stop! Don’t stop to talk a moment or
we will never catch them! I’ve been all day trying to get track of them
and now I have, come quick or we will never lay eyes on them again!”

“Are you crazy, man, wanting me to run find animals that are already
found?”

“What do you mean?” asked Dick.

“Look over on the other side of the deck and you will see what I mean.”

“Jupiter! How ever did they get here? And me following them from place
to place only to be told they had just been seen turning a corner here
and a corner there!”

“But why did you let them out in the first place?”

“_Me_ let them out? Why, bless your life, that big goat let _himself_
out after breaking up the whole of the inside of our boat and butting
the door down as if it had been made of paper and me off the hatchway
as if I had been a bale of cotton. You don’t know that goat, you
don’t!”

“Come down here, I say, and see all the damage that goat did,” called
the Captain’s wife again.

“Well, thunder and lightning! He _did_ leave a pretty mess, didn’t he?”
exclaimed the Captain when he saw what Billy had done.

“Oh, Captain, come up! There is a man wants to see you,” called
One-Eyed Dick down the hatchway.

When the Captain went on deck, he saw standing talking to Dick a poorly
dressed, shifty-eyed individual. “Well, my man, what can I do for you?”
asked the Captain, but as he passed one of his sailors he said in a low
voice to him, “Get those animals below as fast as you can, and keep
them out of sight!”

The sailor obeyed, and he got Stubby and Button down but when he came
up for Billy he heard the man say,

“I’ve come for me pets. And you need not try to hide them. I tracked
’em here not half an hour ago and I been waitin’ for youse to come back
as I didn’t like to take ’em without tellin’ ye that them belongs to
me.”

“You hear? Get off this boat or I’ll have Billy butt you over the
Eiffel Tower! What do you mean by coming here and telling me such a
cock and bull story as that?”

“’Deed them _is_ my pets! And if you don’t give ’em up to me I’ll call
me chum and prove it.”

“Get off my boat, you stupid liar, or I’ll call the police!”

“I’ll go get the police meself and have you arrested for holdin’ stolen
goods!”

“You will, will you? Well, here, on your way there you better take a
bath in the river and wash up. They’ll be better pleased to see you
after you have had a clean-up than the way you look now,” and with
that the Captain walked over to the man, took him by the seat of his
trousers and the collar of his coat and threw him overboard into the
river. The fellow being a regular wharf rat swam ashore, swearing
vengeance on the Captain, but he never showed up afterwards.

“Well, that fellow displayed more cheek than I ever saw before,
asking me to give up Billy, Stubby and Button on the strength of his
saying they were his pets. But it goes to show that he had read the
advertisements in the paper, and since others may have read them also,
I guess we better pull up anchor and proceed on our way.”

It was an hour after this when all were at supper but Dick, who was
sitting whistling and braiding ropes, when a dapper young American
orderly appeared at the gangplank and called out: “Hey, there! Have you
seen a big white goat, a little yellow dog and a black cat around here
any time to-day?”

“No, sir; I haven’t laid me two eyes on them,” said Dick with a
straight face, though his good eye did wink once or twice at the fib.
“Why, sir? Have you lost them?”

[Illustration]

“No, _I_ haven’t, but one of them belongs to my regiment and the other
two to two other regiments. And we have been looking everywhere for
them and advertising in all the papers. But every time we hear that
they have been seen in a certain locality and go to get them, they are
gone. And I just heard this afternoon that three animals answering to
their description had been seen coming this way.”

“Well, I have been here nearly all day, and I haven’t laid me two eyes
on any goat, cat or dog.”

No, to be sure he had not laid his _two_ eyes on them for he had but
one eye with which to see.

The young orderly went off, inquiring on every boat that lay along the
dock if they had seen a goat, dog or cat anywhere around there that day.

“Captain! Captain!” called Dick down the hatchway. “We have had another
close call. A young orderly from the very regiment Billy belongs to was
here inquiring for him and the other two.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“Just said, ‘No, I have not laid me two eyes on them.’”

“Haw, haw, haw!” laughed the Captain. “You did well to turn him off in
that way, even if it was half a lie. But it shows we must not tarry
another minute here or the next thing we know they will be sending the
police for them. Here, call the other sailors and let us heave to and
be off.”

And presently Billy said to Button, “We are moving! Thank goodness we
have started on our homeward journey once more!”

Nothing of interest happened on the rest of the trip to Havre except
when a little bird flew on deck with a message for Billy from Duke.

“Why, I did not even know he was gone!” exclaimed Billy. “I took it for
granted he had returned to the boat when I was away, and was now asleep
somewhere on it. What did you say he said, and where was he when he
told you?”

“He was in a big touring car, just leaving the outskirts of Paris. He
was with his old master who is a celebrated surgeon at the front and
they were both going back to his hospital. Duke told me to tell you
that he was very sorry to leave you all without a chance to thank you
for being so good to him and to say good-by. When he left the boat
he had only intended to run up in the city and take a look at his
old home, but when he got there who should he see coming out of the
house but his old master, who was just going to get him at the dogs’
hospital, where he thought Duke had been all this time. And Duke said
to tell you that when he saw his old master again, all his love for him
came back and he could not bear to leave him to run away to America.”

“Well, if that doesn’t beat all!” exclaimed Button.

“I think it is just as well he left us,” said Stubby, “for I am afraid
he would not understand our free and easy life in America after living
all his life with formal people.”

“Guess you are right,” agreed Stubby and Billy.




CHAPTER XV

BLOWN UP BY A SUBMARINE


You will be surprised to learn that the Chums had no trouble whatever
in sneaking off the canal boat and secreting themselves on a packet
bound for Queenstown that night.

Before boarding the boat Billy said, “This boat is not sailing for
America, but we must take any boat we can get on to escape from France
where we are so well known. If we don’t, we will be captured and sent
back into the army in no time. When we get to Queenstown, we can ship
on another bound for the United States of America, for many boats stop
there before crossing the ocean to pick up the last mail from England.”

The boat they were on left the dock at about half past nine, with all
lights out, as was necessary to avoid attracting the attention of the
submarines that infested those waters. For a wonder the Channel was
smooth as glass and as the night was clear, with a big moon shining,
anything afloat on the water could be seen for miles.

“Keep your weather eye peeled for submarine periscopes!” said Billy to
Stubby and Button as they lay on the forward deck, looking out over the
water.

[Illustration]

It was after midnight and every one was in bed but the officers of the
ship and the sailors on the lookout for submarines when Billy’s sharp
eyes saw something that looked like a log of wood standing straight up
in the water. Before he could call out, “A periscope!” a black object
was seen skipping over the surface of the water and the next thing he
knew he was flying up in the air amid a spray of water. When he came
down he struck the water about a hundred feet from where he went up and
he felt himself going down, down, down toward the bottom of the ocean.
But it was too deep for him to strike bottom here, so after going down,
down, down, he began to come up, up, up, and when he got to the surface
and shook the water out of his eyes, he looked around to see if he
could discover Stubby or Button. And oh, joy! there they both were
swimming towards him unhurt.

Luckily for them, not one of them had been injured in the least. Just
then a big piece of wreckage that would act as a raft floated near
them and they all crawled upon it, and were just in time to see what
was left of the packet sink beneath the waves. They also saw that two
lifeboats were afloat toward which many black heads could be seen
swimming. Soon the swimmers reached the boats and climbed into them,
and Billy saw they were the Captain and officers of the ship along
with some of the sailors and passengers. As soon as they were in the
lifeboats, they began picking up the people they saw in the water,
and as there were but few passengers aboard all were saved. For a
wonder the U-boat did not send another torpedo after them which in all
probability they would have done had they not been frightened away by
a guard boat coming to the rescue. After it had chased the submarine
away, it came back and picked up all the passengers of the lifeboats
and steamed away toward Ireland with them as they happened to be very
near Queenstown.

Now none of the people had seen or heard the Chums on their raft though
Billy baaed, Stubby barked and Button mewed.

“Well, there are two or three things to be thankful for,” said Billy.
“First of all, we are alive and unhurt. The next is that the tide is
carrying us inshore instead of out to sea, and the wind is blowing
that way too. But most important of all is the fact that we are not far
from land, and if the tide doesn’t turn and carry us out to sea, we
should reach land at the rate we are floating now in about two hours.
If we see the tide is turning, we can jump off the raft and swim for
shore.”

“You would see some good in every situation, even if your home was
burning,” declared Button.

“Well, wouldn’t you?” asked Billy.

“No. I nearly always feel despondent when in bad luck until I get mad
and think what is the use. Then I make the best of whatever comes,
while patient little Stubby here says nothing but just saws wood, as
the saying is.”

Soon after daylight the raft touched the shore, and the Chums lost no
time in leaving it, I can tell you. In the distance up the shore they
saw a number of fishermen’s cottages. Stubby and Button proposed to
walk up to them and see if they could not get something to eat, while
Billy waited for them near by and made his breakfast of shamrock, for
they were on Irish soil, the native heath of the shamrock.

The fishermen received them kindly, and gave them plenty to eat and
drink. Then a quarrel arose as to who should own the dog and cat that
had come to them so strangely. At last it was proposed to auction them
off. The bidding was in kegs of fish instead of in money, however.

While the excitement of the bidding was going on, Stubby and Button
thought it a good time to steal away and join Billy. The last Stubby
heard were these words, “I’ll give three kegs of fresh fish for the
little dog!”

When they got back to Billy, they hurriedly told him what was up and
explained that the men Billy saw waving their arms and shouting were
only bidding in the auction and not preparing to fight each other.

“But we better scoot out of here before they miss us or we will be
captured and tied up.” And for the next half hour the Chums ran
straight inland, only stopping long enough to get their breath, then
running on some more. They were not followed, however, and at last they
slowed down beside the roadside to listen to the passersby, to try to
find out what part of Ireland they were in and how far it was to the
nearest seaport from which large vessels sailed. Imagine their joy when
they found they were only four miles from Queenstown and on the direct
road that led there!

It was no trick at all to reach that city and when they arrived they
went straight to the wharf to look for a boat to carry them still
nearer America.

“Look! Billy, look!” exclaimed Stubby. “There is a big camouflaged
troop ship lying at the dock. They can’t fool _me_ with their
camouflaged ships; I have seen too many of them.”

For the next few minutes you could not see the Chums for dust as they
ran toward the ship. Sure enough, it was just as Stubby said. It was
an empty troop ship returning to the United States of America for more
soldiers, and had only stopped here for coal and provisions. There not
being any troops aboard, it was easy for the Chums to steal on board
and hide themselves until the ship was away out to sea before showing
themselves.

“I bet you,” said Stubby, “that that old submarine that blew us up was
waiting for this troop ship in the hopes of blowing it up and while
waiting for it to put to sea, they just blew up the packet we were on
to keep their hands in.”

“I shouldn’t wonder in the least,” replied Stubby, “if that was just
what they were up to. And perhaps we will be torpedoed again.”

“Well, I will take my chance, won’t you, fellows?” said Billy, “for I
am anxious to set foot on American soil once more, and I want it to be
the U. S. part of it, not South America or Mexico.”

“Listen!” commanded Button. “I hear the propeller beginning to move.”
This so excited Button that he jumped up and ran up and down the big
coal pile beside which he had been hiding. This started the coal to
rolling so that it nearly buried Stubby and Billy under it, and filled
their eyes with coal dust.

“You stupid, stop that!” barked Stubby. “Do you want to bury us alive,
or have some one come to see why the coal started rolling?”

“No, of course not, but I am so glad to be on the last lap of our
journey home that I had to express myself in action or blow up.”

“I should think you had had enough blow-ups for one while. And you are
likely to have another before we reach New York harbor, for which port
I hear this ship is bound,” said Billy.

“New York, did you say?” asked Stubby. “Oh, I am so glad we are sailing
for New York instead of for Philadelphia, Baltimore or some other port.
I always like to return to America by way of New York and have the
Goddess of Liberty welcome me home with extended arms.”

The trip across the Atlantic was a fast and pleasant one and the Chums
made friends of all on board, just as they always did wherever they
were.

They waited until the second day at sea before they showed themselves,
and when they came slowly walking up on deck and stood before the
Captain as much as to say, “Here we are! You may do with us what you
will,” he nearly fell over with surprise and then took pity on them,
for they were a sorry, hungry looking trio after having been shut in
the coal bunker for a day and a night. He ordered them scrubbed and
fed, and when he saw them again he did not recognize them at once, for
he thought they were all three black. Now the dust was washed off them,
he found only one was black, while one was yellow and the other white.

As he stood looking at them, the sailor who had been ordered to wash
them came up and after saluting the Captain said,

“Captain, will you kindly read what is on the medals around their
necks? They each have one, but they do not show unless you look for
them as they are concealed by their hair. When we went to work on them
we found each wore a medal around his neck.”

While the Captain was reading the medal Billy wore, he had a good
look at the Captain and was surprised that he had not noticed before
that this Captain was the very same one with whom he had crossed when
he sailed for France with his regiment. At the same time the Captain
recognized Billy.

“Well, well, Billy, old boy, how are you? But no need to ask, for you
are looking fine. And the only thing different I see about you is that
you have lost the end of your tail. Blown off by a bomb, I bet! But
where did you pick up your two friends? Wait; I will read what their
medals say and perhaps that will throw some light on who they are.
Lieutenant, come here!” called the Captain to a second lieutenant who
was passing. “Just read these medals and see whom we have with us.”

“Holy Moses!” exclaimed the lieutenant. “This is a find! Didn’t you
know that there is a reward of one thousand dollars offered for each of
these animals by the regiments they belong to?”

“Jumping ginger! You don’t mean it?” exclaimed the Captain. “They must
have gotten homesick and run away.”

“You have said it!” baaed Billy, “and there is no place like home when
that home is in the United States of America.”

[Illustration]


THE END




ZIP

The Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier

BY FRANCES TREGO MONTGOMERY

The Well-Known Author of

THE BILLY WHISKERS SERIES


Zip is the adventure-loving, frolicsome pet of the popular doctor of
a small village. He goes wherever his master goes--and ventures to
undertake much at which the physician would shake his head in fear. In
fact, Zip dares anything and anybody. He is known and beloved by all
the village folk, who are kept on the _qui vive_ wondering what will be
Zip’s next outbreak.

His life is far from one of peace. The unexpected is continually
happening--every page bristles with the unusual adventures of this
active little, dear little, frisky little Zip. He will be found to be a
splendid story-book play-fellow by every boy and girl.


  _Quarto, bound in boards, with cover, jacket and four full-page
    illustrations in colors--$.60 postpaid._


The Saalfield Publishing Company

AKRON, OHIO




Billy Whiskers Series

(TRADE MARK.)

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

By FRANCES TREGO MONTGOMERY


BILLY WHISKERS

Billy Whiskers is a mischievous creature, full of wickedness and folly,
whose antics have furnished fun for a million readers. The child enjoys
every moment after he is introduced to the irresistible fellow.


BILLY WHISKERS’ KIDS

“Recounting the adventures of Day and Night, twin kids of the
nursery-famous Billy Whiskers. This is a stirring tale of travel and
trouble and mischief that will delight the little world.”--_Galveston
News._


BILLY WHISKERS, JR.

“Night, now grown, is known as Billy Whiskers, Jr. and as he has
all the personal traits which made his father’s career one round of
surprising activity and astonishing adventure, the son will be quite as
well beloved as his sire.”--_Chicago Record Herald._


BILLY WHISKERS’ TRAVELS

In which the ever active Billy tours Europe, each city in turn
furnishing ample opportunity for fun for sight-seeing Billy.


BILLY WHISKERS AT THE CIRCUS

“Everything goes well enough with Billy until a circus comes to town,
and then just like the small boy, he made up his mind to go, come what
might and cost what it would. He made preparations for a week and went,
there to meet with all manner of adventures, becoming so infatuated
with the life that he joined it.”--_Des Moines Capital._


BILLY WHISKERS AT THE FAIR

In going to the Fair, Billy Whiskers didn’t leave a single prank at
home. He had more fun to the minute than most others have to the hour.
What he didn’t do and didn’t see is not worth relating.


  Each volume bound in boards, cover and jacket in colors, six full-page
    illustrations in colors, with scores of text drawings, quarto,
    postpaid, per volume                                           $1.25


THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING CO., AKRON, OHIO




Billy Whiskers Series

(TRADE MARK.)

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

By FRANCES TREGO MONTGOMERY


BILLY WHISKERS’ FRIENDS

This story of how Billy Whiskers and his wife Nannie journey west in
search of their son, Billy Whiskers, Jr., teems with exciting incident
and ludicrous situation.


BILLY WHISKERS, JR. AND HIS CHUMS

The Chums are a black cat and a yellow dog, and together this trio make
a trip from San Francisco immediately after the great earthquake back
to Billy’s former home in the east.


BILLY WHISKERS’ GRANDCHILDREN

Being a laughable record of the adventures that come to Punch and Judy,
Billy’s grandchildren.


BILLY WHISKERS’ VACATION

Promising his faithful wife to be back within a year and a day, active
Billy starts on another ramble, to meet as many exciting adventures as
in his younger days.


BILLY WHISKERS KIDNAPED

Because Billy is a valuable goat, two men determine to kidnap him, and
after many attempts they succeed. The Chums unearth the plot, and take
up the trail--but what happens it is the right of the author to tell in
her own charming way.


BILLY WHISKERS’ TWINS

Billy’s twin children go to a famous summer resort, now being owned
by children who sojourn there each year. Father Billy and the Chums
follow, and the five make merry during the season, enjoying it fully as
much as any of the cottagers.


BILLY WHISKERS IN AN AEROPLANE

Billy keeps step with the progress of the world, and here we find him
making a cross-country flight in an aeroplane race, with the Chums in
rival machines.


  Each volume in boards, cover and jacket in colors, six full-page
    illustrations in colors, with scores of text drawings, quarto,
    postpaid, per volume                                           $1.25


THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING CO., AKRON, OHIO




_FRANCES TREGO MONTGOMERY’S BOOKS_


The Wonderful Electric Elephant

“A new and fascinating sort of fairy story.”--_Salt Lake Tribune._

[Illustration]

“A book in which youth will take keen pleasure.”--_The Bookseller._

Among the tales of travel for boys and girls there are few which record
such strange adventures as befell the owners of the wonderful Electric
Elephant.

By a fortunate chance, Harold Fredericks comes into possession of a
wonderful mechanical elephant, so ingeniously contrived that it will
pass for a real animal, even under closest inspection. The interior is
fitted up luxuriously, affording the finest accommodations for Harold
and the traveling companion whom he secures by another lucky chance.
The young folks have a journey quite unlike any on record, meeting
adventures both on land and sea.

The boy or girl who wants something new in the story line will surely
find it in this chronicle.

  Elaborately illustrated with 50 full-page halftones, bound in cloth,
    12mo, postpaid                                                 $1.50


ON A LARK TO THE PLANETS

“The colored illustrations are a feature of delight.”--_Grand Rapids
Herald._

[Illustration]

“This sprightly author holds the record for
inventiveness.”--_Philadelphia Item._


Some time ago a book appeared which has been a delight to thousands of
boys and girls. It was “The Wonderful Electric Elephant.” Frances Trego
Montgomery has published a sequel to that book and calls it “On a Lark
to the Planets.” The contents of this new volume makes a feast for the
young mind, telling of a journey Harold and Ione took to the planets.

“As a gift book to the children, nothing could be more desirable. It is
an assurance of happiness for any young person to be the possessor of
this charming story.”--_Birmingham Ledger._

  Beautifully illustrated in colors, bound substantially in cloth, 12mo,
    postpaid                                                       $1.50


A CHRISTMAS WITH SANTA CLAUS

[Illustration]

_The Buffalo Courier_ says:

“Frances Trego Montgomery has the happy faculty of knowing what the
small boy and his sister like in the way of fiction.”


“A CHRISTMAS WITH SANTA CLAUS” is the title of an ideal Christmas book
by Frances Trego Montgomery, illustrated in colors in a most bewitching
way.

The story recites the adventures of Jack and Gladys, whom Santa picks
up and whisks away to the Northland. There they make the acquaintance
of Mrs. Santa, and help fill the Saint’s chimney bags. When all is
ready and the sleigh is packed, they accompany old Santa on his annual
trip.

“If you doubt the joys of a ‘Christmas with Santa Claus,’ read of the
pleasures that awaited two little waifs the big-hearted Christian saint
gathered into his home. Mrs. Montgomery introduces you to his motherly
wife. She is as good as another grandmother. Try her!”--_New York
World._


SANTA CLAUS’ TWIN BROTHER

[Illustration]

_Boston Ideas_ says:

“Mrs. Montgomery’s ideas are touched with the sparkle of real genius.
It’s a delight to travel in her company.”


Can anyone make a better play-fellow than Santa himself? That is the
question every child ponders after reading “A Christmas with Santa
Claus.” And likely they would ask it in vain if Mrs. Montgomery had not
written “Santa Claus’ Twin Brother.” This lively story convinces them
that there is one other who enters into their moods just as thoroughly
as the merry old fellow with ruddy face and snowy beard, and why should
he not, for he is Kris Kringle, twin brother of Santa.

Four little children are fortunate enough to have a frolic with these
two merry fellows, and their laughter rings through every page of the
captivating story.


  Each volume illustrated in colors, with colored cover and jacket,
    quarto, bound in boards postpaid, per volume                   $1.00


THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING CO., AKRON, OHIO




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


Italicized or underlined text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65898 ***