"Come on! Come on!" said Ruddy, as plainly as it could be said by any dog.

"Oh, he wants you to come and play with him!" exclaimed Mazie.

"No, it isn't that," her brother answered. "Ruddy would just as soon play here in the yard as anywhere else. He must want me to come to the woods. Well, I'll go, old fellow!"

No sooner did Rick start to follow Ruddy than the dog gave every sign of being pleased. He barked joyfully, leaped about, ran on ahead and then ran back to put his cold nose against Rick's hand. It was as though Ruddy was afraid Rick would not keep on following.

But the boy did, though he could not guess what it was all about. Mazie wanted to come also, but Rick said she had better not, so he sent her home. Then he saw Chot crossing the fields, and called to his chum.

"What's the matter?" asked Chot, for he could tell by Rick's voice that something had happened.

"I don't know what it is," Rick answered, "but Ruddy pulled at my coat, and wants me to come with him!"

"Oh, I know what that means!" cried Chot. "I've often read that dogs do that when they've caught something too big for them. Maybe he's treed a bear in the woods, Rick!" Chot's eyes shone with excitement.

"There aren't any bears around here," Rick said. "But I guess Ruddy has found something in the woods he wants me to see."

"I'll come with you," offered Chot.

And, a little later, Ruddy led the two boys straight to the place where poor Sallie was held a prisoner in the trap.

"Oh, look!" cried Chot, as he saw the gray animal fast among the leaves.

"It's a big squirrel, caught in a bush!"

"No, it's Mrs. Watson's cat, Sallie!" exclaimed Rick. "She's in a trap!

Poor thing!"

Sallie meaouwed as she saw Ruddy coming back with the boys. The dog leaped about and barked, as if he were saying, as he really was:

"There you are, Sallie! I brought someone to help you!"

"Thank you," Sallie must have answered, but she spoke in a very weak voice, for she was in much pain.

As tenderly as they could, Rick and Chot took the trap off the cat's paw. Her leg was lame and sore, but it was not broken, I'm glad to say.

She limped as she walked, and when Chot saw this he said:

"I'll carry her! Say, but your dog is smart, Rick, to come to get help for a cat in a trap!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "It's Mrs. Watson's cat, Sallie! She's in a trap!"]

"Yes, Ruddy is a smart dog," agreed Rick. "I hope the sailor tramp doesn't come and take him away!"

Rick had not lost that fear which stayed with him for many days. He and Chot took turns carrying Sallie home, and very glad the cat was to rest in the arms of the kind boys. Ruddy leaped along with them, now and then giving loud barks. At least that is all they sounded like to Chot and his chum, but, really, Ruddy was talking to Sallie as he trotted along beside her.

It was more than a week before Sallie could step on her sore paw.

Meanwhile she stayed in her own yard--at the house where she lived with Mrs. Watson, her mistress. Ruddy came over to see her each day, and the two became better friends than ever. Mrs. Watson thanked Rick and Ruddy for having brought home her pet cat, and as for Ruddy, Sallie's mistress saved for him every nice bone she got from the butcher's.

"I never knew a dog who was so smart," she said. "And it's remarkable how he seems to like Sallie, especially when he used to chase her so at first."

One day, when he came home from school, Rick asked his mother if he might go to the woods and see if he could get some chestnuts.

"Yes," she answered, "but don't stay too long. Don't get lost as you once did, and be home before dark."

Rick promised to be careful, and to be home before supper, and then, taking a cloth salt bag, in which to carry the chestnuts if he should find any, off he started with Ruddy following. And the dog leaped about and barked happily. Nothing pleased him more than going to the woods with Rick.

Now chestnut trees were rather hard to find in the forest near where Rick lived. The blight had killed many of them, and some did not have any nuts on. So it was not until he had gone more than a mile into the woods before the small boy found a place where the ground was fairly well covered with the brown nuts.

"Now I'll get some!" cried Rick, as he began picking them up. "I'll take some home, and Mazie and I can roast them on the stove after supper."

While Rick picked up the nuts Ruddy raced here and there. He was having as much fun as was his master. At last the boy saw no more nuts on the ground, but there were many on the tree, and Rick began to look for a way to climb up and shake them down. The chestnut trunk was too big for him to span with his arms, so he started up a slim maple that grew next to it. Rick was a good tree climber, but to-day he was out of luck. He managed to scramble up a few feet and then he suddenly slipped in a queer way. One leg was caught fast between the trunk of the maple and a slim branch, and the next Rick knew, he was lying on his back on the ground, under the tree, with one leg stuck almost upright, and held fast. Rick was caught, almost as if he were in a trap.

CHAPTER XI

A MYSTERIOUS WHISTLE

Rick was at first so shaken and stunned by the fall that he could not speak. The breath seemed to have been jarred out of him, as it was once when he fell down stairs, and he could not even cry for nearly a quarter of a minute. But at last his breath came back to him, and he exclaimed:

"Oh! Oh, dear!"

Instantly Ruddy was at his master's side. The dog had been nosing around among the leaves. He had caught the scent of a wild rabbit, and he was jumping about for joy, getting ready to follow the trail of the little creature to its burrow. And let me tell you that Ruddy could, by merely smelling on the ground, over which the rabbit had walked, tell which path the rabbit had gone, whether away from its underground home or toward it.

And Ruddy would not follow the trail away from the rabbit's home. He would nose his way along, getting nearer and nearer to the bunny's burrow at each step until, at last, he might catch the furry little fellow.

It was not that Ruddy was cruel, or liked to hurt rabbits. It was just his nature to want to hunt them. And so it was as he nosed around among the leaves, the wild smell of the rabbit coming more and more strongly to him, that Ruddy heard his master's cry of pain.

Instantly the wild rabbit was forgotten, and Ruddy bounded to the side of Rick--poor Rick who was lying on the ground, one foot caught in the crotch of a tree from which he had fallen as he tried to climb up and get the chestnuts.

"Oh! Oh, dear!" exclaimed Rick again, for he was in pain, his ankle being turned on one side. He hoped it wasn't broken.

"Bow, wow!" barked Ruddy. That was all Rick heard his dog say, and he almost knew it meant: "Dear me! I'm sorry about this!"

But Ruddy said a good deal more than this, or, at least, he thought it, in the strange, mysterious way dogs have of thinking.

"Well, well!" thought Ruddy to himself, dog fashion. "You surely are in trouble, Master! In almost as much trouble as Sallie was! I wonder if I can help you?"

Ruddy sniffed at Rick, walked around him and sniffed again. Ruddy did not exactly understand what had happened. But he knew his master was held fast as the cat had been, though in a different way.

"You can't get me out, Ruddy! You can't get me loose, old boy!" spoke Rick. "You'd better go home and bring somebody to help, as you brought me to help the cat! Go home, Ruddy! Go home!"

Ruddy heard these words and he knew what they meant. Once or twice before Rick had sent his dog home when Ruddy had followed at a time when he ought not to have done so. Then Rick had spoken sharply, as one must do, at times, with a dog, to make sure he obeys. But now Rick's voice was quite different. He was begging Ruddy to do him a favor.

"Go home, Ruddy! Go home!" ordered Rick.

Ruddy barked once or twice, circled around Rick who lay on his back with one foot stuck up in the air, where it was held fast in the tree, and then the dog came and licked Rick's face with his smooth tongue. Dog's tongues are smooth, you know, and cat's tongues are rough.