"I'll cut this rope off," went on Rick. "It may hurt him."

"Hadn't you better leave it on?" asked Tom. "You'll want to tie him up, Rick, so he won't be taken away again."

"Oh, I guess n.o.body will take him now!" boasted Rick. "He'll stay right in here the rest of the night."

And that is what Ruddy did. The dog was given some food and water and then he lay down beneath Rick's bunk and refused to move from there.

Ruddy knew when he had found what he wanted.

Of course there was no more need of standing guard that night. As the recovery of Ruddy was all that was desired, Mr. Taylor said there was no use in sitting up, just to catch the junk man and sailor.

"We have your dog," he said to Rick, "and the most we could do would be to have the men arrested. And perhaps it would be hard to prove that they really enticed Ruddy away. So let them go, if they come."

But they did not return during the night, neither the sailor, nor the junk man after his horse and wagon. For the rather bony steed was still tied to the old log cabin and the wagon load of junk was in the gra.s.s-grown yard in the morning.

"Well, now we'll have breakfast and go home with Ruddy," said Rick, as morning dawned and the boys, rather stiff and cold it must be confessed, arose and stretched themselves out of the bunks. They had been obliged to "double-up" when it was decided that it was no longer needful to stand watch as the bunks were only intended to hold four.

"Yes, we'll be getting back," the Scout Master said. "We have just about enough food for breakfast."

"Won't you come up to our house?" invited Sam Brown. "Mother will be glad to have you."

"Yes, come on!" urged his brother Pete. "I'll run ahead and tell 'em you're coming," and before they could stop him he had sped away. He came back a little later shouting:

"Come on! Mother's all ready for you! She's going to have pancakes and sausage and hot coffee and syrup and gravy and everything! Come on!"

And you may well believe that Rick and his friends did not pa.s.s by an invitation like this.

Ruddy had a good breakfast, too, though he did not eat at the table with the boys and the Scout Master. And between bites the boys told the farmer and his wife of the events of the night.

"Those junk fellows ought to be cleaned out!" declared Mr. Brown.

"They're as bad as the Gypsies! We farmers will have to get together and drive 'em away."

After breakfast preparations were made for the boys to go back to their homes. As it was Sat.u.r.day there would be no school, so they planned to have a good time after reaching Belemere.

"But first I want to take a look at the log cabin," said Mr. Brown. "If those junk fellows are around I'm going to give 'em notice to clear out."

However he did not have that chance, for when Rick and his friends reached the old log cabin where they had camped out for the night the junk man's horse, and the wagon loaded with odds and ends, were gone.

"They came and got 'em while we were eating!" exclaimed Mr. Brown. "They must have been watching their chance."

And, very likely, the men were. At any rate there was no further sign of them, and as Rick had Ruddy back, and as it was thought best not to get into a dispute, just then, with the junk men living in the ramshackle old house near the swamp, nothing was done about it.

"But we farmers will get together and drive those fellows out!" declared Mr. Brown. "If they'll take dogs they'll take other things, especially now with winter coming on. We must clear them out!"

Then Rick, with Ruddy following joyously, the dog now and then running back and sniffing at the legs of the boys, started for home.

"We did what we set out to do," said Mr. Taylor, "and that is generally the way with Boy Scouts. But we didn't do it in just the way we planned."

"But we got Ruddy back!" exclaimed Rick, "and I'm going to be a Boy Scout!"

"That's the way to talk!" cried Chot.

Mr. and Mrs. Dalton and Mazie listened eagerly to the story Rick told--of the night spent in the log cabin, and how Ruddy came back.

"But who cut him loose?" asked Rick's father.

"That's what we don't know," said the boy. "It must have been somebody who liked dogs."

And it was not until some time later that they heard about the sailor, who, with his knife, slashed the rope that kept Ruddy a prisoner.

For several days after this adventure Rick kept close watch over Ruddy, as, indeed, Mrs. Dalton did when Rick was at school. The whole Dalton family, as well as the boys and girls in the neighborhood of Rick's house, had come to know and care for the brown setter. The setter is a very lovable sort of dog, not perhaps as strong in character as a bull, a collie or Airedale, but of a disposition that makes you love him in spite of the tricks he sometimes plays.

But as the days pa.s.sed, and neither the ragged sailor nor the still more ragged junk man was seen in Belemere, Rick began to feel that his dog was safe.

"I guess he won't try to take him again, Rick," said Sig Bailey, the coast guard. "And if I see that sailor along the beach again I'll tell him what I think of him!"

But the sailor did not come again for a long time.

Winter was now at hand. Several times the clouds had seemed to promise snow, and the hopes of the boys and girls who had sleds rose high. But the hopes came to naught, for the clouds blew away without sending down the sifting, white flakes.

At last, however, the glorious days of winter really came. One morning when Rick jumped out of bed and looked from the window, he saw a sight that gladdened his heart.

"Oh, Mazie!" he cried. "It's snowing! It's snowing!"

And Mazie took up the happy cry:

"It's snowing! It's snowing!"

Down in the kitchen, where he was having a warm breakfast, Ruddy barked joyously.

"Oh, what fun we'll have!" chanted Rick. "We'll ride down hill, we'll make a snow man, a snow house, a fort and everything! Oh, what fun we'll have!"

And Rick and the boys did have fun. So did the girls. So did Ruddy and his friend Peter, the bulldog, floundering about in the snow. It was ever so much more fun for the dogs to play in the snow than in the rain, just as it is more fun for boys and girls to scatter the white flakes rather than dodge the pattering drops of water.

As Rick had said, there was coasting and the building of snow houses.

Snow men were made, and pelted with s...o...b..a.l.l.s. Snow forts were built on the hills and the boys divided into soldier companies and had battles with s...o...b..a.l.l.s.

One day when Rick had been coasting with the other boys he had stayed so late that it was almost dark. One by one his chums went home after long, swift rides over the snow-covered hill, but Rick and Ruddy remained on the slope. One or twice Rick took Ruddy down on the sled with him, and the dog seemed to like the swift motion, just as dogs like auto riding.

"One more coast and we'll go!" said Rick, as he saw that he was the last boy left on the hill. His sister Mazie had gone home some time before, telling Rick he had better hurry or he would be late for supper.

"One more ride!" the boy told himself.

He got on his sled. Ruddy, who had been capering about until he was tired, lay down in the snow at the top of the hill. Rick gave himself a push and started down the steep grade.

Just how it happened he never knew, but his sled must have struck a stone, or some obstruction, and in a moment it went off the side of the hill, down into a deep gully, filled with a deep, white drift.

Into this drift plunged Rick, head first, sled and all. And down into the soft snow he fell. At first he was not alarmed, for he had often rolled from his sled into a drift. But this drift was different. At one edge was a big rock, and Rick's head struck on this.

In an instant all seemed to get black before the eyes of the boy--much blacker than the blackness of approaching night. A queer, dizzy feeling came over Rick. He appeared to be sinking away down deep--as if into the depths of the ocean out of which Ruddy had come to him.