This was true enough, and Mrs. Dalton knew it. Just then Mazie, who had stopped on her way home from school to talk to some of her girl friends, came into the yard.

"Did you see Ruddy?" asked Rick, eagerly.

"No," was the answer. "Oh, is he lost, Rick?"

"I--I'm afraid so," was the reply. "I'm going to go out and look for him."

"Better look over in Peter's yard," suggested Mrs. Dalton. "Ruddy may be there."

But the red-brown setter dog was not playing with the queer sleepy-eyed, though good-natured English bull. Peter was gnawing a bone near his kennel when Rick hurried in.

"Bow wow!" barked Peter, for that was his way of saying "h.e.l.lo!"

"Here, Ruddy! Ruddy!" called Rick, looking around the yard of Tom Martin's house, for Rick thought his dog might have been playing with Peter a game very much like the boys' game of hide-and-go-seek.

"Ruddy isn't here," said Tom, coming out of the house with a slice of bread and jam. "What's the matter, can't you find him?"

Rick told about Ruddy's disappearance.

"Come on! We'll go and look for him!" offered Tom, making hasty bites at the bread and jam, after breaking off a piece for his boy friend, and giving Peter a nibble. "We'll take Peter and look for Ruddy."

"Thanks!" exclaimed Rick, hungrily chewing away. "I guess that'll be best. I'll go tell my mother we're going."

"And maybe when you get back home Ruddy will be there," suggested Tom.

"No, I don't believe he will," spoke Rick, rather sadly. "I don't know where Ruddy is, but he's gone."

And gone the setter certainly was--at least he was not back at Rick's house when Tom and Rick reached there, with Peter running along beside them, sniffing at every tree and fence post.

"h.e.l.lo, Rick! What you doin'?" called Chot from the back yard of his home, where he was beating a rug.

"Looking for my dog," answered Rick. "Ruddy's gone!"

"Whew!" whistled Chot. "That's too bad. Wait a minute, I'll come and help you look!"

Searching for a lost dog was more fun, any day, than knocking the dust out of a rug. Chot must have said as much to his mother, or else have promised to finish the beating later, for he soon came running out to join Tom and Rick.

"Where'd he go?" asked Chot, after he had patted Peter on the head, and the dog had wagged his tail.

"We don't know," Rick answered, and then he told about Ruddy having run out at the sound of a whistle.

"It must have been your crow, playing a trick again," Chot said.

"No," declared Rick. "It was that sailor tramp, this time, I'm sure. He wants to get Ruddy back--he told the coast guard so. Ruddy's a lucky dog, and the sailor tramp wanted him."

"He's a good dog all right," agreed Tom. "But it isn't very lucky for him to run away and get lost!"

"'Tisn't his fault!" declared Rick. "That sailor whistled him away. He must have whistled like I do, and Ruddy knew it wasn't Haw-Haw, 'cause the crow was asleep behind the stove. Ruddy ran out when he heard the whistle, and the sailor has him."

"Well, we'll get him back!" cried Chot, fiercely.

Making sure, by calling and whistling, that Ruddy had not come back to the house while he was down street with his boy friends, Rick and his chums started off on the search.

"Can't I come?" asked Mazie, for she loved Ruddy as much as did her brother.

"Oh, no, dear! You can't go off with the boys," said Mrs. Dalton.

"They're going across the field, and maybe to the woods. You must be back before dark!" she called to Rick.

"Yes'm, I will--if I find Ruddy!" he answered.

"The first thing we'd better do," suggested Tom, "is to go along the street and ask people we meet. Peter used to run away a lot, and I always got him back that way. He's such a funny-looking dog that everybody remembers him after they have seen him."

"But Ruddy isn't a funny-looking dog," objected Rick.

"No, Ruddy is nice," agreed Tom. "But he isn't like any other dog around here, and if anybody saw an old sailor taking him away they'd remember."

"Yes, I guess they would," admitted Chot. "We'd better ask folks, Rick."

This was decided on, and the three boys began their search, first going up and down the street on which Rick lived. But no one had seen Ruddy running around that afternoon, or at least if they had seen him, they did not remember.

The blacksmith, the cigar-store keeper and the grocery man--each one of whom knew Ruddy--said they had not noticed him. It was not until the boys went in a small candy store, at the foot of the street, that they first obtained any information.

"I didn't exactly see your dog, Rick," said Mrs. Blake, who kept the store. She had come out to wait on the boys, for Rick had three cents and he was treating his chums. "I didn't see your dog Ruddy, but, now that you speak of it, I did see something queer about an hour ago.

"A rag peddler came to ask if I had any papers, old automobile tires or anything like that to sell. As if I'd have an auto!" and Mrs. Blake laughed, for she was rather poor. "However, what I was going to say,"

she went on, "was that when I looked out toward the rag man's wagon, I saw he had another person with him. There was a big man on the seat, and when I told the junkman I had nothing for him I saw something like a dog, or some animal, down in among the bundles of papers in the wagon.

And the man on the seat was trying to keep this dog, or whatever it was, from jumping out."

"Oh, that was Ruddy all right! I'm sure it was!" cried Rick. "That sailor man must have whistled him away and have put him on the junk wagon. He couldn't get Ruddy any other way. The old sailor has my dog!"

"I guess he has!" agreed Tom.

"Which way did the wagon go? Come on, let's chase after it!" cried Chot.

"It was headed down the street when I saw it," answered Mrs. Blake. "But I didn't pay much attention to it. I never thought it might be your dog, Rick."

"I'm sure it was," said the boy. "Oh, I wonder if I can get him back?"

"Sure we can!" cried Tom Martin. "We'll chase after that junk man until we catch him, and then we'll make the sailor give up the dog!"

"Come on!" shouted Chot. "We'll have a regular 'cop and robbers' chase!

Come on!"

Rushing out, leaving open the door of the candy shop, the boys hurried down the street, their eyes eager for a sight of a junk wagon in which rode two men and a dog.

"Poor boy!" sighed Mrs. Blake, as she closed the door. "I hope Rick gets back his pet."

Tracing a junk wagon in Belemere was easier than trying to find out from pa.s.sers by which way a dog had gone. And the boys soon learned that the wagon had turned off on a road that led to the next town.