The haunted hound; (24 page)

They both listened as Pot Likker's \'oice faded a little before coming back strong.

"See? He came right through all that crisscrossing. He's a great dog, Jonathan." Then Mr. Worth raised his head a little. "Grab him when he gets here. That other snake is still over there in the bushes. Don't let him go in there." 1 won t.

After a while Mr. Worth looked at his watch again and

said, ''Loosen the tourniquet for a minute or so. How's that red streak?''

''Lots dimmer," Jonathan said, untwisting the rubber tube.

"Good."

As Jonathan was twisting the tube back into place again they heard the jeep coming. Jonathan looked around and saw it and stared. It was making about fifty and hitting the ground every twenty feet. Judy was in it beside her mother, and they were both hanging on with everything they had.

It slewed around and jerked to a stop.

"You must think that jeep's a horse," Mr. Worth said.

"Hush. Get in," Judy's mother said.

Jonathan and Judy helped him to his feet and got him into the jeep.

"Take care of the horses," he said, as the jeep started off. "And get Aunt Jemima," he yelled as the jeep raced away.

When it was gone, Jonathan turned and looked at Judy. Her face was still white, her eyes looking big and clear in it. "You've got blood all over," she said.

"It doesn't matter."

"Did you see the snake?"

"One of them. There's another one still in there." He pointed toward the bushes.

"Where'd the other one go?"

"He struck at me and I killed him."

Judy squinched her eyes shut for a second. "What happened anyway?"

Jonathan told her. When he finished, she nodded. ''He probably stirred them up going through the bushes the first time so they were ready when he came back. Were they

big?"

''Big enough to knock him down/'

Judy groaned.

Jonathan said slowly, "Do you think he'll die, Judy?"

She shook her head. "Not if you got the poison out. He'll be awful sick, though.'' She picked up the club he had used. "I'll go around the bushes and get the fox."

"Watch out for that other one."

She swung the club. "Don't worry."

She soon came back carrying the fox. "Now we'll catch Pot Likker when he gets here." She went over to Mr. Worth's horse and put the bridle back on.

"Let's ride toward Pot Likker," Jonathan suggested. "I don't want to take any chances."

"All right." She helped him get the bridle on Spark Plug and they started off, the horses walking.

Pot Likker was close now, voice rolling.

"Uncle Dan—I mean, Mr. Worth—was listening to the race all the time I was cutting him," Jonathan said with admiration.

"I'll bet it hurt him."

"He said it didn't."

Then Pot Likker raced out of the woods. Jonathan called to him, and he hesitated, looking at them.

When he came over, the first thing he saw was the fox

in Judy's arms. He stared at it for a moment, then, his faee disgusted, he went over to walk along beside Jonathan's horse.

They went home slowly, the horses plodding along.

When they were in sight of the stables, Jonathan said quietly, ''I guess Mr. Worth will be in the hospital for a long time, won't he?"

''A while anyway."

"So I guess ril have to go back home now."

Judy jerked around in the saddle to look at him. Then, her shoulders slumping, she said, ''I guess so, Jonathan."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

he Little Bird had taken Mr. Worth to the hospital in the pickup truck and Judy's mother was waiting for them with the jeep.

While Judy took care of the fox and the horses, Jonathan got cleaned up. Then they all got into the jeep. Pot Likker tried to get in, too, and Jonathan had to push him down. 'Til be right back. Pot,'' he told him. ''You stay here. Tm not leaving you, boy. Don't you worry."

As the jeep pulled away Jonathan looked back and saw Pot Likker standing in the road. He looked forlorn.

In the hospital, Mr. Worth was lying propped up in bed. He smiled a little when they came in.

''Dang doctor says I've got to stay here for a week," he growled. "A week! Don't see why I can't go on home now."

"Dan," the Little Bird said.

"Well, dang it." Then he smiled at Jonathan. "Doc says you did some nice slicing on my leg. But right now I wish you'd gone ahead and cut it off. Look at the doggone thing." Mr. Worth pulled the sheet back.

Jonathan was shocked. Mr. Worth's leg had swollen until it was enormous. Just to look at it made Jonathan hurt all over.

"How do you feel?'' Jonathan asked.

'Toolish/' Mr. Worth declared. ''Here I am, forty years old and lived around rattlesnakes all my life. So I go and let one plug me. But I tell you what Tm going to do if the Little Bird will ever let me get out of here. Tm going to get two pieces of stovepipe and wear them on my legs the next time I go around rattlesnakes. Then let one of them rear back and hit me. Ping! Those stovepipes will break his danged tushes for him."

''Dan/' the Little Bird said. "The doctor told you to keep quiet."

Mr. Worth nodded but went right on. "Did Pot Likker trail that fox all the way?"

"Most of it," Judy said. "We rode to meet him."

"First thing I do when I get out of here is take you all to a real fox race so Pot Likker can tell 'em all about it."

''Dan," the Little Bird said.

"Come on, kids," Judy's mother said, laughing. "You just lie there and keep quiet, Dan," she ordered. "It'll do you a world of good."

"Aw, shucks," Mr. Worth objected. "Listen, Jonathan, if your dad will let you, I want you to stay with the Little Bird w^hile I'm in this danged place. Keep her company."

"All right," Jonathan said.

Back at the jeep Jonathan said, "I believe I'll go around

and tell Dad what's happened. He can drive me back all right."

Judy's mother said, 'Til drive you there/'

In the jeep again, Jonathan said, "You tell Pot Likker ril be right back, will vou, Judy?"

"All right."

"If you have to go to your house, tell him to wait."

By the time they got to the apartment it was fi\'e o'clock. Jonathan said good-by and watched the jeep drive away.

When he opened the door of the apartment and looked in it seemed curiously strange. He recognized everything, but it no longer looked like home to him.

Nobody was there. Not even Mamie. There wasn't any supper in the oven or any sign that his father was going to eat there. Jonathan got his toothbrush off the top of the refrigerator and went into his father's den.

No one answered the phone at his father's office and suddenly he remembered that it was Sunday.

Jonathan felt foolish. He could've called up the apartment from the hospital and found out all this. And he could have gone on back with Judy and her mother.

For a moment he stood in the middle of the living room, thinking.

Maybe Mr. Duncan was down in the freight yards.

Jonathan locked the apartment and hurried out. It was going to be dark in a little while, so he spent fifty cents on a taxi to take him to the yards.

Mr. Duncan was standing beside his engine with a long-spouted oilcan. "Hi, Jonathan/' he said.

''Whew!'' Jonathan said. ''Hello, Mr. Duncan. Are you going past the Farm tonight?"

Mr. Duncan looked at his watch. "I leave here in precisely eighteen minutes, provided the engine will run and the crew shows up."

"Can I ride with you?"

"Sure." Mr. Duncan climbed up into the cab of the engine and put the oilcan in a rack.

Jonathan climbed up, too, and told Mr. Duncan what had happened to Mr. Worth.

They talked about that for a while, then Mr. Duncan said, "You and Judy really stirred up a row last night on Widow's Hill. Every one of those fox hunters claimed that that beautiful voice was his own hound's. And, secretly, don't a one of 'em really know whose hound it was."

Jonathan felt warm with pride.

"I tell you, Jonathan, you've got to sneak old Pot Likker in there again tomorrow night. They've got a big race coming up."

Jonathan shook his head. "I couldn't, without Mr. Worth."

"You got to do it, Jonathan," Mr. Duncan insisted. "A man from Georgia is bringing over some Walker hounds. They'd show old Pot Likker how to run a race."

Jonathan bristled. "Pot Likker can outrun any hound in Georgia."

''Maybe. Slip him in, Jonathan. You and Judy. I tell you what ril do. If you'll run old Pot, Til take both trips tomorrow night, ril take you out to Widow's Hill and then Til bring the other train back so's I can pick you up. And, by goll\\ if the race isn't over when I get there Til stop and wait for you."

Jonathan was scared, but at the same time he wanted to hear Pot Likker run with a pack again. 'Til have to find out/' he decided. "I'll let you know tomorrow when you come by."

"All right," Mr. Duncan said. Then he looked at his \\atch and yanked the whistle cord.

By train time the next night everything had been settled. But not the way Jonathan wanted it.

In the first place, Judy couldn't go. Her mother was taking her to Jacksonville to see about her teeth. "I might even have to wear braces," she wailed.

Then Mrs. Worth was planning to go into town to see her husband.

And Judy's mother had telephoned a man she knew and gotten permission for Jonathan to enter Pot Likker in the race. She had also arranged for the man to look out for Jonathan.

Jonathan almost didn't want to go, especially without Judy or Mr. Worth, but everybody had gone to so much trouble about it that he practically had to.

Mr. Duncan slowed the train for him and he swung up

into the caboose. Then Pot Likker came, making that long leap all the way from the cinders to the floor of the caboose. Dollar Bill was glad to see them.

By the time the train slowed near Widow's Hill it was pitch dark. Jonathan and Pot Likker got out and climbed the fence.

Pot Likker must have known what was going to happen for he was excited and tense.

When Jonathan got close to where the cars and horses were, he slowed down. He was supposed to find a Mr. Sedgwick and arrange with him about putting Pot Likker in the race.

Jonathan caught Pot Likker and tied him to a tree. 'Tou stay here and keep quiet, Pot Likker. Til go find Mr. Sedgwick, then ril come back.''

There were many more men this time than there had been before and they were all busy either talking to each other or keeping the hounds together. Jonathan began to feel out of place and shy. He was the only boy there and they were all acting so busy and grown up. He wandered around among them, hoping somebody would call Mr. Sedgwick by name, but nobody did.

Suddenly Jonathan made up his mind. After all, he argued, he would only be a nuisance to Mr. Sedgwick. There was no use bothering him. As soon as the race got started he could let Pot Likker go just the way he and Judy had.

There was another reason, too. He was a little afraid that Pot Likker wouldn't be able to run with the hounds the man

was bringing from Georgia. Mr. Duncan had said they were the fastest hounds in the world. Jonathan just didn't want all those men to know about Pot Likker.

Jonathan sneaked back and untied Pot Likker. ''We'll stay bv ourselves, Pot," he told him. ''No use getting all messed up with so many."

Pot Likker just shivered.

"There're some hounds from Georgia here. Walkers. They're hsty Pot Likker. But don't you bother about them. You just strike and run."

The men were beginning to go up Widow's Hill. Jonathan hugged Pot Likker one more time. "This is a big race. Pot. You run it right, hear? Don't speak until you're sure. But when you are, tell 'em. Pot."

The dog was trembling all o\'er when Jonathan at last let him go.

The men had already built the fire by the time he got there. There were so many men that some had to stand up. He spotted the senator's white hair and he could tell which one was the man from Georgia by the way he talked.

Jonathan settled with his back against the pine tree and waited.

Over around the fire he heard som.e men arguing. "I tell you," one man said, "that mouth we heard Saturday night didn't belong to any hound we saw when thev treed that fox. I've heard ever\- one of these hounds and not one of 'em e\er had a tongue like that."

A man laughed. "Just a ghost dog, Charhe?''

''CouldVe been," the man said, serious. ''Because no hound is going to just walk away from a treed fox."

"And I guess that was a ghost horn we heard a-blowing?"

The man was more serious. "You know that no hound can be horned away when he's got fox scent strong in his nose."

Jonathan wanted to go over there. He wanted to stand and say, "Mister, my dog Pot Likker comes when I call him. IVe got a good dog." But he stayed against the tree.

"It was a ghost horn, too," the man said. "It was the voices of all the great hounds that are dead now, and the horn was the cry of all the gone hunters."

The other man was serious now, too. "Maybe so, Charlie," he said quietly. Then he turned to the man from Georgia. "If that hound we were talking about was here tonight, mister, those Walkers of yours wouldn't get in the race. But you wouldn't care, mister. The music that dog made would cause you to forget every other dog you ever heard."