CHAPTER III
SAL SCRUGS DEFIES SHEP
ANYHOW I am going to try it,” determined Sal. “I can but fail, and it will give the rest of you stay-at-homes something to bet on—whether I win or the dog.”
“Well, if you come home with bleeding ankles and half your tail pulled out, don’t say no one warned you not to go.”
“Look! Shep is half asleep, stretched there in the middle of the broken fence, thinking to himself that none of the cows will even try to pass him! I’ll just go pretty near the opening, eating as I go along, until I see him close his eyes. Then I’ll take a running jump over the fallen rails and off down the road I’ll go. I’ll take the road from home as there is a nice thick woods down that way where I can hide until he stops hunting for me,” said Sal.
“I tell you you aren’t counting on Shep being different from other dogs who have chased you. But you will find there are dogs—and dogs. Shep belongs to the kind that never give up.”
“I don’t care. Tee hee! Keep your eyes open for I am off!”
Five minutes later there was a sharp bark from Shep and when the cows stopped eating to look up to see what caused it, all they saw was a thick cloud of dust, with Sal Scrugs running like mad and a bundle of yellow hair following in leaps and bounds.
“Oh, dear!” said Sal Scrugs to herself. “That dog is gaining on me! I thought that with my long legs I could out-run any dog, but this one is coming like the wind and is surely gaining on me. My only hope is to jump this barbed wire fence which he can’t crawl through, and make for the woods at the other side of the field where he can’t see me.”
Just as Shep reached her and gave one nip at her heels, taking out a small piece of flesh, Sal jumped the fence. It being higher than she calculated, instead of landing on her feet as usual, she caught her foot on the top wire, which threw her on her nose and she fell, nearly breaking her neck. But in a minute she was up and off again across the field, running faster than ever for now she began to know for a certainty that unless she gained the shelter of the woods and hid in the thick underbrush, she was lost and Shep would bite her unmercifully unless she went back to the herd. And she did not care to return and endure their laughter at her expense after all her vain boasting.
While she was running across the lot for dear life, Shep was barking in anger at the closely woven barbed wires that kept him from the pursuit. He tried jumping the fence, but could not and was about to run around the field when he spied a small hole under the fence. In a jiffy he was scratching, making the dirt fly out in a shower behind him as he made the hole large enough for him to squeeze under. And just as Sal Scrugs entered the woods and turned her head to see where Shep was, expecting to see him running aimlessly up and down the road, she saw him coming like mad, already half way across the field. With a quick plunge into the deep bushes, she stood still, hoping to hide from him. She scarcely breathed for fear of betraying her presence, but alas, she had forgotten that dogs do not have to trust to their eyes to find things, but that they are given a sense of smell which aids them wonderfully.
The minute Shep entered the woods, he saw some bushes were slightly moving, so he went directly to them and as he approached the scent of a cow grew stronger and stronger. Peering through the bushes, he spied Sal Scrugs standing stock still, staring back at him, her eyes distended with fear. For by this time Sal Scrugs knew she had found her master and was frightened to death.
“Here you, Sal, come out of those bushes and march straight back to the pasture, or I’ll nip your ankles until they bleed!” barked Shep.
“I’ll do nothing of the kind, for you don’t belong to our farm and consequently it is none of your business what I do!” she answered.
“Oh, yes, it is my business because my master told me not to allow a single cow out of the pasture while he was gone. You heard him say it! Still you thought you would go, just to be mean. Now I’ll bark three times and on the third bark you chase yourself toward home or I’ll show you. And what is more, I’ll bite you every time you try to get away from me. Bow, wow, wow!”
By the second “Wow!” Sal Scrugs bounded out of the bushes in the opposite direction from the pasture and hooked her way through the thick bushes straight for a little lake that lay sparkling in the sunshine.
“Here, you long-legged, cross-eyed cow, don’t think you are going to lose me in these woods! For you are not, even if the thorns and briars do pull the hair off my skin!”
On, on, faster and faster went Sal Scrugs, straight for the lake, though the hide on her back was scratched by the long, cruel thorns on the thorn apple trees under which she ran. Anything was better than being bitten by Shep! She had just come out of the woods to a smooth piece of ground where she expected to make great headway and out-distance Shep when, chancing to look behind her, she saw Shep within thirty feet of her, running with mouth open and showing to advantage his glistening teeth.
“Oh, my! He is going to catch me! But I will try one more way to dodge him. I will run into the lake.”
She increased her speed but to no avail. She could hear him coming closer and closer and just as she reached the shore of the lake she felt his warm breath on her legs and expected to feel his sharp teeth sink in her ankles when, with one plunge, she threw herself into the deep water and began to swim for the opposite shore. Shep did likewise, and her hope that he would not follow her into the water was blasted. As she swam, he barked to her: “If you don’t turn toward the pasture when we land, I will bite a big piece out of your hind leg, and no fooling about it, either!”
On hearing this, Sal said to herself, “I guess he means it so I might just as well give up now and go back to the pasture as to wait until I am all bitten up. I guess my aunt was right. Shep never gives up chasing an animal until he has it where he wants it.”
Consequently when she landed on the opposite shore, she cut sticks for the home pasture as fast as her legs would carry her.
What was Shep’s surprise when he returned to find that while he had been gone all the other cows had walked out of the pasture and were now ambling leisurely down the road away from home! But it took only a few minutes for him to run past them and head them toward home again. He had just succeeded in getting them all back in the pasture and was taking a much needed rest when he saw Mr. Watson, Mr. Jones and their two hired men coming down the road to mend the fence. When they arrived, Mr. Watson noticed that Shep was wringing wet and he said, “Why, Shep, how in the world did you manage to get so wet? There is no water nearer than the lake, and I do not think you would leave the cows you were in charge of long enough to go for a swim.” But chancing to look up just then, he saw Sal Scrugs too was wet all over, and he exclaimed, “I think I begin to see light! That impish cow of yours, Sal Scrugs, got out of the pasture and went over to the lake, and she and Shep have both been in the water. And I think if the truth were known, it was she who broke down the fence and let out all the other cows.”
“I believe so, too,” replied Mr. Jones, “and this settles it. I am tired of her tricks and I am going to put her up for sale to-morrow. She never gave much milk, and I can’t fatten her for beef; no matter how much I feed her, she never takes on a pound of flesh. So why keep such a mean animal? Sal Scrugs, you hear that? You are to be sold to-morrow!”
“Now don’t you wish you had taken your old aunt’s good advice and not broken down the fence?” twitted one of the herd.
“No, I don’t! I have had some excitement, and I would just as soon be sold as not, for I am tired living my life among such old fogies as you! If I don’t like the people to whom he sells me, I shall jump the fence and run away.”
“Yes, and if you keep that up much longer, you will find yourself hung up by one leg on a hook in a butcher shop one of these days. But I am only wasting breath talking to you,” said Sal’s aunt and she turned her back and walked off, shaking her head in dismay at the actions of her wayward niece.