“I ran straight on, regardless of bombs dropping
all around me.”

(Page [124])

BILLY WHISKERS
IN FRANCE

BY
FRANCES TREGO MONTGOMERY
AUTHOR OF “BILLY WHISKERS,” “BILLY WHISKERS’ KIDS,” “BILLY
WHISKERS IN THE SOUTH,” “BILLY WHISKERS IN CAMP,”
“ZIP, THE ADVENTURES OF A FRISKY FOX TERRIER,” ETC.

Illustrated By FLORENCE WHITE WILLIAMS

THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK

Copyright 1919,
by
The Saalfield Publishing Co.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Billy Whiskers in France

CHAPTER I
BILLY WHISKERS GROWS HOMESICK

AS Billy Whiskers lay in an American camp somewhere over in France, he became very restless and soon had the blues from thinking of his dear Nannie so far away—away over in America, with that deep, deep, wide, blue ocean between them, infested not only with huge sea monsters belonging to the finny tribe, but also with death-dealing, quickly moving submarines and torpedo boats belonging to the German Kaiser.

“I want dreadfully to go home! Still I hate to risk my life on any ship that sails the seas these days, for it may be blown sky high at any moment, or sunk to the nethermost depths of the ocean. There is no way to walk around, and I don’t suppose I could get any one to let me go with them in an airship. So here I must remain, or trust my life to some troop ship returning to America for more soldiers. I just believe I will do it! I have lost all interest in the War over here since my master was wounded and was invalided home. Home! The very word makes me so homesick I can’t see for tears. Well, I’ll just fix this homesickness, so I will! I start for there this very minute. It is a good dark night and I think I can slip out of camp easily as they have not been watching me so closely since my master was sent away.”

Suiting the action to the words, Billy jumped up, shook himself, took a long breath and said to himself, “Here’s luck to you, old fellow, on your long, long, perilous journey! And may you reach the other side and once more see your loving little wife Nannie and all your children and grandchildren!”

Then he gave a flick of his tail and started on a brisk run for the least guarded entrance to the camp, to try to sneak through.

“My, but it is lonesome traveling by myself!” he thought. “I do wish Stubby and Button were here to accompany me on this journey.”

Billy was so busy thinking of his old friends Stubby, the little yellow dog with a stubby tail, and Button, the big black cat with blazing eyes like buttons, that he reached the entrance to the camp before he knew it, and he managed to slip out without being stopped, for there was a jam at the gate caused by many big ambulances going out and army trucks coming in.

“Humph!” said Billy to himself. “If I get over all my difficulties as easily as I got through that gate and past the guards, my journey will be a smooth and pleasant one.”

He had been traveling some time when he heard some one say, “Hi, there, Billy Whiskers! What are you doing outside of camp? Looks to me as if you were trying to run away.” This from a driver of an ambulance who knew Billy was not to be allowed to escape from the camp. “Come here and I will give you a nice red apple.”

“See anything green in my eye?” winked back Billy. “I know you! You would give me an apple with one hand and slip a rope around my neck with the other. Anyway, where’s your apple? I don’t see any!”

“Here, Billy! Stop, I tell you, and come here! If you don’t like apples, here is a handful of salt,” and the soldier held his hand out as if he had it full of salt.

But Billy was too keen for him. He had seen him close his hand over nothing before offering it to him. So he kept right on walking as if he had not heard the soldier.

“Say, Bill, this is no joke! It is the General’s orders that you are not to escape, but to be made to stay in camp until we go home. You are too valuable a goat to allow the Germans to make you up into chops and roasts. Besides, when we get home we want to show the goat that stole Von Luxemburg’s maps and plans from under his very nose, and also butted or hooked all his staff into a heap in the corner of his own little room. If you won’t come back for apples or salt or coaxing, very well! I’ll have to lasso you, or shoot you in one of your legs so you cannot run away,” and the soldier turned his back to look for a rope in the ambulance, as he preferred to lasso Billy rather than shoot him. He was an expert with the lasso, as he had come from a ranch away out in Montana to join the army, and was considered the best hand with the rope in all Montana.

“Huh!” grunted Billy. “I must have run into Lasso Jake. If this is so, I better be getting a move on me and pushing my leg.”

As luck would have it, right before Billy was a creek, with a temporary bridge across it. Down the bank beside the bridge plunged Billy, for he knew the bank was so high that the cowboy soldier could not throw his lasso so as to catch him. Instead of trying to climb out the other side of the creek, Billy kept on in the middle of the swift-flowing stream, swimming against the current, though he could not make much progress against it. Presently he heard voices and turning his head he saw two soldiers standing on the bridge and one was swinging a lasso over his head. Billy waited to see no more, but ducked. And just as his head disappeared under the water, he heard the splash of the rope as it hit the surface of the water just where his head had been.

“Good thing I ducked! If I hadn’t, they would now be pulling me to shore with a lasso around my neck. Gee, but that was a close call, and that cowboy soldier is some lasso thrower! I never saw his equal, even in a circus. I think he better get a flying machine and fly over the German line and watch his chance to rope the Kaiser or the Crown Prince, some of the Generals and other high monkey-monks.” And Billy laughed to himself at the spectacle of the Kaiser being made to walk into an American camp with a lasso around his neck. Billy forgot he could not open his mouth to laugh under water, and he began to choke so he had to stop swimming under water and come to the surface.

Just as he did so, his eye caught sight of a soldier standing on the bank of the stream with a lasso hanging from his hand ready to throw the moment Billy’s head appeared above the surface of the water. He was about to dive again when he heard a cry for help from the bridge. The soldier turned and ran to rescue a man who had fallen into the water, calling as he went down, “Save me! I can’t swim!”

Billy crawled out of the stream and stood watching the soldier with the lasso trying to save his comrade. He was having a hard time for as the man went down he struck his head on a stone, which stunned him, and now he was being carried downstream by the swift current and knocked against the bowlders over which the water frothed. Try as he would, the cowboy soldier was put to it to catch up to him as the swift current bore his chum’s body ever and still ever ahead of him. But at last his comrade’s body caught between two rocks and was held there until the cowboy soldier overtook it. The cold water had revived the man, so that by the time his soldier chum reached him he was coming to his senses. Billy only waited to see that the man was alive and then he left them sitting in midstream, each on a big rock that raised its head above the water. He thought it wise to cut sticks for safety and ran into a thick woods he saw, which would serve to hide him from the soldiers should they cross the bridge and try to follow him. This, however, they did not do, knowing it would be useless to try to catch Billy when he had such a start.

As soon as he could, Billy found his way out of the woods to the road he had left. After following it for some time he found it led out to the main highway to Paris. This road Billy knew he must follow or he could never find his way back to the seacoast. Once in Paris, he knew he must pass through it and then keep straight on in a westerly direction until he came to the English Channel. Once there, he would follow the coast until he came to a port from which boats were sailing for America. Then he would watch his chance to steal aboard and sail for home. Billy was very good at directions and from the moment he had landed in France he had taken special pains to keep the points of the compass straight in his head, so that if he ever wanted to return home alone he would find his way. Now it proved what a wise old goat he was, for all he had to do was to travel by the sun and North Star in a northeasterly direction until he came to Paris and from there in a westerly until he reached the English Channel, from one of whose ports he had disembarked when he came to France. But it was discouraging to think how very far it was and what privations and hardships he would have to endure and overcome before he reached his destination. But Billy Whiskers was a regular old soldier by this time and well used to hardships and hard knocks of all kinds. So he only heaved a long sigh and then ran all the faster, knowing that every step he took brought him just that much nearer home and Nannie.

“If I tried to count the steps I shall have to take before reaching home, it would be like counting the sands of the sea. I shan’t try, but just push on and I know I shall get there some day.”

“Bow-wow-wow!” barked a big Dane in his deep voice.

“Bow! Wow! Wow!” came the short, sharp, snappy barks from a short-legged Scotch terrier as they bounded out of a gate beside the road, ready to pounce on Billy. They were followed by poodles, collies, St. Bernards, and all manner of dogs, both great and small. Billy thought he had never seen so many dogs of different breeds in one place in all his life. You see he had run into a dog hospital, and these were the convalescent dogs which were allowed to play together in the yard.

Not one of these dogs tried to bite Billy, and after they had given up trying to frighten him by barking in their fiercest way as if about to eat him alive, they quieted down and became as docile as lambs.

CHAPTER II
BILLY UNEXPECTEDLY MEETS A FRIEND

GOOD-MORNING, friends!” baaed Billy. “Would you allow a tired traveler to rest under the shade of your trees, and give him a drink of water? For I am a stranger in a strange land, and have traveled far. I am an American.”

“You an American?” exclaimed the dogs in chorus.

“Now we surely are glad to meet you!” barked the big Dane. “For if there is any place on earth we dogs have longed to see, it is America. Probably you will tell us about it?”

“Yes,” said another dog. “We have heard that every dog has his day over there and many of them two or three.”

“We have also heard,” added a French poodle, “that all dogs are free over there, and can go and come as they like, and that they are never tied up, shut in a house or muzzled. Is that true?”

“Yes and no,” replied Billy. “It depends on where you live and who your master or mistress is.”

“Why, we have heard,” piped up a little black and tan, “that any dog can choose his own master or mistress, and that all he has to do if he doesn’t like them or isn’t pleased with the way they treat him is to walk off and follow the first person he sees that he thinks he would like to live with, and that they will take him home with them and feed and house him.”

“Again you are partly right and partly wrong,” replied Billy. “It depends on whom you run away from and whom you pick out to be your new master or mistress. You might happen to belong to some one who was very fond of you, though you might not be fond of them. In that case if you ran away they would advertise and try to get you back, but if you had proved yourself to be a good-for-nothing dog, they would let you go and say ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish!’ and never bother their heads about you.

“Then again you might show poor judgment in selecting a new master and choose one who did not care for dogs, and when he found you following him he might throw sticks and stones at you. So you see you can’t always be sure of changing masters successfully.”

“Did you just come from America?” asked a fourth.

“Oh, no! I have been over here nearly a year now, with the army.”

“You don’t mean to tell us that you have really and truly been with the army?”

“Surely not at the front!” added another in amazement.

“But I have!” Billy assured them. “I have crossed No-Man’s-Land many times, and been shot at and blown up once besides. See where a piece of my tail is gone? Well, I lost it at Verdun. A bomb exploded and threw me up in the air and also blew off part of my tail. I consider myself very lucky that it decided to blow a piece off that end of my body instead of the other, for if it had been my head in place of my tail, it would have killed me. I can’t get along without a head, but I can without a tail.”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” laughed the dogs.

“You surely are a funny fellow!” said one. “Come on in and we will find something for you to eat and drink and also a place to rest. Then after you have rested, I hope you will tell us more of your experiences at the front. If you will do that, we will tell you our experiences in Paris before we left there, and we will introduce you to some of our celebrated police and Red Cross dogs who have been in the war and been wounded or gassed. They will relate some thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes. To-night will be a good time, after our keepers have gone to bed. Then we can sneak out under the trees in the little patch of woods behind the big stables and while you brave soldiers swap tales of the war we who have never been near the war can listen.

“There goes one of our heroes now. See that dog crossing the lawn, wearing a Red Cross bandage on his chest?”

Billy turned and took one long look at the dog. Then without a word of warning he put down his head and bounded toward him, taking ten or twelve feet at a single bound.

The dogs stood spellbound. What was the big goat going to do? Butt their wounded hero? If so, why should he wish to butt a perfectly harmless dog he had never seen before? But had he never seen him before? Perhaps they had met and fought on the battlefield and were enemies. If so, they must all run and protect their hero from the long horns of the strange goat.

But when the dogs arrived within speaking distance they were overjoyed to hear the goat baa out, “Hello, old chum! How in all that is wonderful did you get here? I heard you were dead; that you had been seen with a Red Cross ambulance which had first been gassed and then blown up by a shell. One of your friends said he saw you with his own eyes sitting in the back of the ambulance when the shell struck it, and the next thing he saw was the whole ambulance flying up in the air and then coming down in small pieces.”

“What he saw all happened. I was there and sitting in the back of the ambulance with my gas mask on, for the signal had been given for all to put on their masks, and one of the doctors with the ambulance corps had just stopped and strapped mine in place when a shell hit us, and I found myself going up in the air at the rate of about a hundred miles a minute. When I came down, my mask had been blown off my face. How it ever was done without killing me or blowing my head off I don’t know, but it was. I thought I was all right until I began to see red, and I had a queer sensation in my head as if my brain were going round and round like a cat runs after its tail. Then I could not get my breath and I fell over, giving myself up for dead. But if you will believe it, the next thing I knew I opened my eyes and found myself in a long room with two rows of beds in it, all just like baby cribs. And bending over me was a sweet-faced lady nurse. I found myself all bound up in splints and cotton batting. You see an interne to another Red Cross ambulance who had come to look for the wounded, if any had possibly survived the blow-up, had found me senseless on the ground. So he picked me up and brought me here as this hospital for dogs was on the way to the hospital where he was stationed. This is now my fourth week here, and I want to tell you that only angels in human form live here. They are so good to one! They have nursed me back to life. I was only slightly gassed and so my lungs are all healed and I am also over my shell shock. I shall likely go back to the front in another week.”

“You don’t mean that you are going back to the fighting line, do you?” asked a long white-haired collie that had fallen very much in love with the brave Red Cross dog. “Oh, why do you risk your life again?”

“Why do I risk my life?” in astonishment. “To try to save some brave soldier, whose life is a thousand times more valuable than any dog’s ever will be. Yes, I am going back and back and back as long as I have eyes, teeth or claws to go back with, until this cruel war is over.”

“Bully for you!” exclaimed Billy. “You make me feel like a slacker, getting homesick and running away from the army.”

“Well, it is not too late yet to go back. I propose that you stay here and rest until next week and then go back with me.”

“I’ll do it!” said Billy, and they rubbed noses together to seal the bargain. “I hear a bugle. What is that call for?”

“Oh, that is our supper call,” said the Red Cross dog. “When they blow the bugle all the dogs that are running loose are supposed to go to the back kitchen door. There are long troughs there in which they put our suppers. Come ahead with us, and we will give you some food. There will be plenty for all of us and for you too, for they serve very bountifully here,” and all the dogs and Billy too moved off in the direction of the kitchen.

CHAPTER III
AN INOPPORTUNE SNEEZE

WELL, well, well! Whom have we with us?” exclaimed the cook at the dog hospital as he stood in the kitchen door in apron and cap ready to throw some more food in the dogs’ trough. “Bless my soul, I believe it is Billy Whiskers!”

Billy hearing his name spoken looked up, only to find himself gazing into the eyes of the cook who had once served the old General who had issued the strict orders for Billy not to be allowed to leave camp.

“Billy, you old rascal, come here and let me pull your beard for luck and old times’ sake! I will bet my whole month’s wages that you have run away from camp.”

All the time the cook was talking, he was walking toward Billy, wishing to get near enough to discover if the goat really wore around his neck a collar from which hung a medal engraved with his name.

“Here, Billy, is a nice big carrot for you. Don’t jerk back. I am not going to hurt you. I am only going to pat your head. Don’t you remember the good old times in camp when I used to give you nice juicy apples and crisp lettuce heads?”

By this time the cook was standing close by Billy, pretending to pat his head, but every time he put his fingers through his hair, he tried to feel for the collar and Billy would jerk his head away. He was afraid the cook was going to try to take off his collar and Billy had made up his mind many moons before this that if ever any one tried to take it off he would fight them to the death. Just then a little breeze blew Billy’s hair up so that it showed the medal with some engraving on it, and the cook saw it read:

“This collar was presented to Billy Whiskers by the —th New York Regiment for his bravery in battle.”

“Well, Billy, I certainly am glad to see you! But I bet you have left many sad hearts behind you. I am homesick to be back with my old regiment, but I can’t go. Perhaps you haven’t noticed that I have a wooden leg and that part of my right arm is gone. If it was only my leg that was gone, I would be back, leg or no leg. But without my arm, I can’t shoot or carry a bayonet. It breaks my heart to be near enough to hear the roar of battle as I am here, and know I can’t be in it, killing off those pigs of Germans!”

Just then from down the road came the sound of a high powered motor car, and the cook, stepping on a big stone to see the better, exclaimed, “It is the General, by hookey! And I bet he is coming in here for a cup of coffee and a bite to eat, as he knows I can get it for him quicker than if he went on to the village restaurant, and better, too. He always said no one could make coffee like I can.”

Billy waited to hear no more, but started to find a place to hide, well knowing the General would carry him back to camp if he saw him, even if he had to take him in the auto with him.

The cook had forgotten all about Billy in his excitement at seeing the General. Billy took advantage of this to whisper to the dogs, telling them what was up and they all followed him as he ran toward the stable to try to find a place to hide. Just as Billy was about to turn the corner of the stable, he saw the General’s big touring car turn in the lane.

“Gee, fellows, I’m lost if that cook even mentions my being here! For the General is equal to sending a whole squad of soldiers to find me and bring me back to camp. It would not be the first time he has done it, either!”

By this time Billy and the dogs had run into the little grove of trees spoken of before, but they stayed near enough the edge to be able to see if any one started to hunt for Billy.

“I tell you what I think would be a good plan,” said the Red Cross dog. “Have one of the dogs go back and hang around where he could hear everything the cook says to the General. In that way we will know whether or not he tells the General that you are here.”

“Excellent idea, that!” agreed Billy.

“Pinky, you would be the best one to go. You are so small that you can squeeze in anywhere out of sight under a chair or sofa, and listen to all that is said.”

“Oh, I don’t want to go! I am afraid they will kick me out if they should catch me listening. Besides, I want to stay here and hear Mr. Billy Whiskers relate his experiences. It is so dull here after Paris that I just long for some excitement, and I am sure Mr. Whiskers’ tales will be all that.”

“You run along, Miss Pinky, and I’ll tell you just what I tell them some other time all by yourself. Besides, you won’t miss much as our friend here, the Red Cross dog, can tell you adventures a hundred times more exciting than I can.”

“Oh, no, he can’t. But I will go if you promise to repeat word for word to me all you tell them when we are alone some time.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Pinky.”

“Don’t call me Pinky! That is not my name! It is only a nasty, mean nickname the dogs have given me because I am afflicted with pink lids to my eyes, the same as many poodle dogs. I just hate that name! But I can’t stop them from using it.”

“And pray what is your real name?” asked Billy.

“Rosie de la France. And it is such a pretty one I like to be called by it.”

“Well, hereafter I will call you Mademoiselle Rosie de la France. But I cannot see much difference between Rosie and Pinky, as they are both pretty much the same color.”

“Yes, if you look at it in that way. But it is the meaning hidden under it that I hate.”

“Never mind now what you are called, but run along or you will be too late to hear all the cook says to the General,” said the Red Cross dog.

The dogs then all lay down under the trees in a semi-circle around Billy and the Red Cross dog, so they could hear every word that was said by either of them, but every one of them kept an eye open for any one who might round the corner of the stable. Billy and the Red Cross dog had told them their most exciting experiences in the war, interposed by stories from the other dogs, when they heard the hum and buzz of the big motor as it drove out of the lane, and at the same time they saw Pinky running toward them so fast one could scarcely see her for dust.

She ran into their midst panting and all out of breath, and between gasps tried to tell them that she had slipped into the sitting-room and sneaked under a big davenport with a cover thrown over it that hid her completely, but where she could hear every word that was spoken in the room. The General was sitting at a little table only a few feet from her, eating the good things the cook had brought to him on a tray.

“He seemed in a very good humor,” she said, “and was laughing and joking with two officers who were with him when I had the misfortune to sneeze. You would have thought I had thrown a bomb the way those three men jumped to their feet and reached for their swords!

“‘Who sneezed?’ thundered the General.

“‘There is some one hiding in this room!’ exclaimed one of his staff.

“‘Come out of the closet or from behind those curtains or wherever you are before I shoot!’ commanded the General.

“Of course no one came out, and I crouched down nearer the floor than ever and prayed that they would not lift the cover of that davenport and see me. I could see through the thin ruffle of the davenport cover and there they all stood stock still, with eyes searching every nook and corner of the room. Then what do you think happened? I sneezed again, and expected to be killed on the spot, but I could not help it as there was a lot of moth balls right under my nose, put there to keep the moths from eating the carpet. Well, if you will believe it, every man of them jumped again as if shot. I could see their feet leave the floor. And one of the staff said in a stage whisper, ‘Spies behind that curtain!’ Then he marched toward it with sword in hand, and brushed the curtain aside. Of course there was no one there. Then the other staff officer flung open the closet door. No one there! Still they had heard two distinct sneezes. The General stalked to the window and looked out as it opened on the ground. I expect he thought some one might be hiding under the window, listening. No one there! Only a flower bed with bees droning and buzzing over it. And horror of horrors! As he leaned out of the window and the staff officers were looking behind chairs and under tables and even up to the ceiling I gave another big sneeze. I sneezed so hard it nearly blew my head off. I expect it was because of holding it in so long.

Every man of them jumped as if shot.

“This of course was my undoing. One of the staff dropped on one knee to look under the davenport. The General jerked his head back through the window, and heard the staff officer exclaim in a loud voice, ‘Only a measley, sneaking little poodle dog!’ and with that he stuck his sword under the davenport to prod me out. It would have cut my leg off, or run right through me, I am sure, but just then the cook opened the door to come in to remove the dishes and I jumped over the sword and ran between the legs of the staff officer who was standing between the davenport and the door, and simply flew back here.

“When I got outside I did sneak around under the window, and heard them all laughing over the fact that a little dog’s sneeze had given them such a fright. The General said ‘Better be on the right side than on the wrong, and many a warning as small as a sneeze gone unheeded has cost many lives. I would rather be too careful than not careful enough,’ You see they all thought I was a spy hidden in the room somewhere. Then I heard the cook say, ‘General, has the Regiment still got the big white goat they used to have as a mascot?’

“‘No, I am sorry to say he has been missing since a week ago to-day, and we cannot get any trace of him. One of our ambulance drivers saw him on the road to Paris, and tried to catch him, but he could not. He nearly had him when a friend fell off a bridge into a creek, and would have drowned had he not left the goat and gone to his assistance. I would not have lost that goat for a thousand dollars. He knows more than most men.’

“‘Well, General, you have lost your thousand dollars. I know where your goat is at this minute.’

“‘You do? Well, produce him and the money is yours. You know Billy is like the proverbial flea. Now you have him and now you don’t. If you will show me that goat now, we’ll have him in my office at camp headquarters to-morrow. I’ll give you a check for one thousand dollars, too.’

“‘I’ll do it for you gladly, General, as you have done me many a good turn, but I cannot accept your money. And now if you will step to the door, I will show you Billy, the Mascot of the Regiment, quietly eating out of a trough at the back kitchen door.’

“The General and his staff picked up their caps and swords and followed the cook around the house to the dogs’ trough, but as you know, no goat was there.

“The General had to laugh at the blank look on the cook’s face when he turned the corner of the hospital and saw that the goat and all his dogs too had disappeared as completely as if swallowed up by an earthquake.

“‘Well, that beats everything I ever saw! He was here a few minutes ago. In fact, just when you drove in eight or ten of our dogs with Billy in their midst were all standing here eating and now not an animal is in sight anywhere. It beats all! I can’t explain it!’

“‘I can,’ said the General. ‘That goat recognized my car, thought I was after him and lit out. He has done it before, and I doubt if any of us will ever see him again. I tell you he is sharper than the devil, whose cloven hoof he has!’

“‘General, will you kindly do me the favor to wait till I blow my dog whistle? That is the signal for all the dogs to gather here. We will see if Billy does not come running with them.’

“The General waited. The cook blew his whistle repeatedly but no dogs showed up. Then the cook ran to the barn and around it, looking in every known hiding place the dogs had, but no goat or dog did he see. And he came back to the General and said, ‘Well, General, I shall have to give up beaten. He has gone and, what is more, he has taken every dog with him that is not confined to a hospital bed. I can’t find hide or hair of any of them, but I am so mad that I am ready to devote months, if need be, to finding that tricky goat. And when I do I will return him to you even if I bring only his hide, horns and tail!’

“‘Well, here is luck to you, but I hope you will bring him alive, and not in pieces for I could make use of a live goat, but I would be hard pressed to know what to do with a dead one!’

“Then with a hearty laugh all around, the General and his staff got into their auto and whizzed out of the lane, and I scurried back here to tell you all this.”

CHAPTER IV
THE GENERAL RECAPTURES BILLY

THANK you, Miss Rosie de la France, for finding out so much for me. You certainly did have a narrow escape when under that davenport and you sneezed for you might have had your legs cut off by that officer’s sword. So the cook is going to catch me and bring me to the General, alive or dead, is he? I can tell him right now that he will never be able to give so much as one hair of my beard to him!”

“Here comes the cook now!” exclaimed one of the dogs. “We better scoot!”

With that they all jumped up and ran in different directions, Billy choosing a long, circuitous course that would bring him out on the Paris road. Then and there he gave up the idea of returning to the war and entering the army again with the Red Cross dog.

He soon reached the road, and once on it he put his head down like a race horse to resist the wind, and ran as he had never run before, jumping stones, ditches and uneven places on the roadway until he was completely winded. As it took a great deal to wind Billy Whiskers, you may know he traveled many, many miles and left the dogs’ hospital far behind.

“I shall stop running when I come to the next stream, get a drink, take a bath, and eat whatever I can find by the roadside. Then after a good rest I shall start on again,” he planned.

All of this he did, and he was hidden behind a big bush beside the road down by a stream, watching the big ambulances and high powered touring cars go thundering by in endless procession when, all plans to the contrary, he dropped asleep. It seemed but a minute to him after his eyes had closed when he felt something tight around his neck. He tried two or three times to loosen it by stretching his neck without taking the bother to open his eyes, but when at last he did open them, he saw standing around him three officers with broad grins on their faces. And behind them was the old General in his touring car, waiting for his officers to bring Billy to him!

“I certainly was caught napping that time!” thought Billy to himself. “And they have me all right enough now with this strong rope around my neck. It is queer I did not hear them coming! It must have been I was so tired that it made me sleep like the dead.”

“Come, get up, Billy, you old rascal, and come along without any fuss! For you are a smart enough goat to see that there is no use resisting with a rope around your neck and five men against you—we three officers with the General and his chauffeur.”

Yes, Billy saw all this and as he walked along quietly behind them he wondered where they were going to put him. They could not mean to tie him behind the car as no goat, even if fitted out with twenty league boots, could keep up with the General’s car at the rate he drove. And with three staff officers, the General and the chauffeur he could not see where there would be room inside the car.

“Well, Master Billy, you thought you had escaped from me for good, didn’t you? But you see you haven’t. And, what is more, you won’t escape in a hurry again, for I propose taking you right along with us, though it will crowd us some. Here I was blustering about and scolding the chauffeur for his carelessness in not seeing that we had water enough in the car to carry us through when the very lack of it led us to finding you. He got out to carry a bucket of water from the stream and found you so fast asleep behind the bush that you had not heard our approach in the car or even the chauffeur’s steps when within three or four feet of you. He had time to come back to the car and tell us what he had found, get a rope and the three officers to help me capture you while you slept on. Now, my dear Billy, you are my prisoner. If you behave, you shall have every care and comfort, but try to escape, and I shall send a bullet through you, for I shall stand no nonsense. Hear that?” and the General pulled Billy’s beard in a joking manner. But Billy knew he would do as he said if he tried to escape or cut up any monkeyshines. So he quietly let them help him into the car, where he stood between the two seats in the tonneau while they tied him to the rod at the back of the front seat on which the extra robes hung.

Billy was experiencing one of his rare moments of dejection and discouragement, for he knew if they once succeeded in getting him back in camp it would be very difficult indeed to escape as they would use every precaution to keep him there and they might even put him inside the electrically charged barbed wire fence where they kept the German prisoners. That would be horrible indeed!

“I must think up some way to escape before we reach camp or I am lost,” thought Billy. “How I ever can unless we have a breakdown is more than I can tell!”

Presently they came to the dogs’ hospital and whizzed by it at full speed, but not too fast for Billy to see standing at the gate the cook, or for him to get the cook’s expression of surprise and wonder when he saw Billy in the General’s car. Billy also saw the Red Cross dog close at the cook’s heels.

“I am glad they saw me for now the dog will know what has become of me,” thought Billy.

Presently the big car slowed down and went bumping and sliding over a terrible piece of road that was being repaired.

“Now would be my chance to jump out while they are going slower if I only were not tied. And I can’t chew the rope loose right under these men’s noses, either. Perhaps when they stop for supper I may get a chance.”

Just then there was a terrible explosion as one of the tires blew out, and at the same time the car slipped on the soft, shifting gravel with which they were repairing the roadway and slid down into the ditch.

“Now we are ditched and in for a long delay!” exclaimed the General. “I simply must get to camp with these plans within the next three hours. Stop the first car that passes here and I will make whoever is in it take me to camp while you officers stay here and help the chauffeur repair the damages and get the car out of the ditch. That should not be a hard job but only a tedious one for the men working on the highway can help you out of the ditch and the chauffeur can mend the tire for I expect the explosion was due to a bursted tube.”

It was one thing to say get the men on the road to help but where were those men? Nowhere in sight, but several miles down the road working on another bad stretch.

“I hear a car coming!” exclaimed the General. “Make ready to stop it, Lieutenant Strong!”

In less time that it takes to tell it, the car had come, stopped and taken the General aboard. As the General waved good-by to them, he called back, “I wish you luck, gentlemen! I will keep your supper hot for you!” to which Billy replied with a loud baa. This made the staff officers laugh, for his voice sounded exactly like a cross old man saying “Bah!” in derision to the General’s joking remark.

As soon as the General was out of sight, the officers fell to and tried to lift and push the car up into the road. But they might as well have tried to move a huge rock for it did not so much as budge an inch. It was embedded too deep in the sand and loose gravel.

“This is most provoking!” said one of the officers. “It means that we must try to stop some passing car and get them to help us. When they see it is the General’s car that is in trouble they will feel in duty bound to aid us, no matter whether they really want to or not. But I just hate the job of stopping any one for that purpose as it always makes any one provoked to be so hailed on the road.”

“Here comes a farmer driving a pair of horses hitched to an old wagon. Let us stop him. I think his horses can pull us out if we all push,” suggested another of the officers.

“Now is my chance!” thought Billy, and he was just about to chew at the rope around his neck when the farmer came up and stopped opposite them to see if he could help them any.

“Yes,” replied one of the officers. “You are just the man we have been looking for to give us a lift out of this ditch.”

“Wal, that is a purty durn big car of your’n. But I guess my hosses kin pull her out. That is, if I only had a rope to tie to the back of my wagon, but I can’t get hide nor hair of any rope or chain or nothin’.”

“We have a rope,” answered one of the officers. “We always carry a good strong rope for just such purposes under one of the seats. Here, Jean, get it out and we will see how soon these horses can pull us out.”

Jean, the chauffeur, stopped working on the tire to get the rope, but alas! when he looked under the seat no rope was there. From the fury into which the officers flew, Billy thought they were going to kill the fellow on the spot for his carelessness, first running out of water and now finding no rope.

“You are discharged the minute you get us to camp!” roared the superior officer. “And what is more, I shall see that the General has you severely punished. What if the enemy were at our heels and we were trying to escape from them, or we had important dispatches that must get to Headquarters to change some movement of the army that would mean the saving of hundreds and thousands of lives?”

At last the chauffeur managed to say, “Could we not use the rope that is around the goat’s neck to pull the car out of the sand? It is a very long one. In fact, it is the rope that belongs under the seat. In my excitement I forgot I had used it to tie the goat.”

“Of course we can! And to keep him from escaping we can tie him with one of the farmer’s reins.”

“Here, you Billy, stand still while I take this rope off your neck.” The chauffeur stood on the step, leaning through the open door of the tonneau as he untied the rope that was around Billy’s neck, with the farmer standing behind him ready to hand him one of his reins to secure Billy again.

“Here is a good chance to escape,” thought Billy. “To be sure, I will have to run the chance of one of the officers shooting me, but I will take it. For I would rather be shot than carried back to camp and shut up with a lot of German prisoners.”

At the moment Billy was forming his plan of escape, all the officers were fussing on the car at one place or another trying to dig out the wheels by shoveling a path for them in the sand.

Seeing all this, Billy made up his mind he would butt the chauffeur so hard he would knock all the breath out of him so he could not cry out and give the alarm. So just as the farmer stepped close behind the chauffeur to hand him the rein, and the rope was off Billy’s neck, Billy gave a plunge forward and planted his head in the middle of the chauffeur’s stomach, sending him backward with all the breath knocked out of his body and with such force that he hit the farmer and sent him sprawling on his back, with his head hanging over the ditch. Now just as his head hit the ditch, the officer who was shoveling a path for the car raised up and the farmer in turn hit him and sent him flying into the ditch. There were three men disposed of in one butt. That left only two to shoot or pursue him, and both of these were on the far side of the auto and had not noticed anything as their heads were down and they were busy tugging big stones out of the way of the wheels. So Billy had a good start of a hundred yards or more before the officer who had been sent rolling into the ditch could right himself and give the alarm. By the time he found out what really had hit him, Billy had run to the side of the road, jumped a fence and disappeared in a thick woods. The officer’s anger knew no bounds, and he swore a blue streak and fired two shots after Billy.

“Thunder and lightning, I would not have had that goat escape for a million dollars,” he exclaimed.

“Bet your small change first,” counseled another.

“Yes; his escape puts us in a pretty light, doesn’t it? Five able-bodied men not able to keep one goat in an auto! To be sure, one man was not a man, only an idiot of a chauffeur,” he stormed.

“Say, Jean, you better stop working on that tire and go hang yourself with the rope in your hand!” scoffed the third, “for you are likely to be hung in earnest when you get to camp for all the mistakes you have made to-day, to say nothing of losing the goat besides.”

But poor Jean heard this not at all for he was still unconscious from Billy’s terrific butt.

“Some goat, that, misters!” said the farmer in a dry way.

“I guess you would think so if you knew just a little of his history!”

“You don’t mean to tell me that that there goat is the one they call the —th Regiment’s mascot, and the one the papers are always telling about?”

“Same goat!”

“Wal, I’ll be gosh darned!” in astonishment.

Jean did not come to and one of the officers had to run to the auto for restoratives while Jean was stretched out on the back seat with his head in a second officer’s lap. In falling he had hit his head on a stone and the wound was now bleeding profusely. The soldiers tied their handkerchiefs around his head and tried to stop the flow of blood as best they could and after the car was out of the ditch they drove so fast they were in danger of breaking their necks or having the car turn turtle at every turn.

When at last they did reach camp and got the chauffeur into the hospital and reported to the General for duty, they were in a pretty mess and looked as if they had been in a pitched battle with the enemy for they were covered with dirt and blood from their heads to their heels, which made the General exclaim when he saw them, “Well, bless my soul, you are a nice looking crowd! Whatever has happened to you?”

CHAPTER V
BILLY NEARLY KILLS THE COOK

WHEN Billy was sure he was not being followed, he went a circuitous way back to the dogs’ hospital that he might stop and have the fun of telling them how he escaped from the old General.

When at last he approached the hospital from the back, he saw no one about, not even a dog or cat. But all the windows and doors were open so he knew they were at home and around somewhere. He cautiously approached, keeping a sharp lookout for the cook, for he did not want him to catch him and deliver him into the old General’s hands. He was just rounding the pig pen when he saw driving into the lane one of the field hospital ambulances.

“I expect it has come with a load of wounded dogs. I’ll just stay here and watch,” pondered Billy.

The hum of the ambulance motor was heard in the hospital and presently a young doctor and two trained nurses appeared at the door ready to receive the new patients. Billy could hear the low groans and yelps of pain from the dogs as the stretchers were lifted and the dogs were carried inside. Several dogs tagged in after the stretcher bearers and as Billy had always wanted to have a look about the hospital wards, he determined to follow.

Presently he found himself standing in the doorway of a long ward with tiny beds like babies’ cribs lining the wall all the way around, and in each bed was a dog, either curled up asleep or sitting upon its hind quarters watching the newcomers.

Some of the dogs had their legs in slings; others had bandages over their eyes, while others were in plaster casts. Beside each cot was a little stand on which had been placed the medicine for that particular dog, along with a bowl of drinking water.

“Gee!” exclaimed Billy. “A dog would not mind being sick in these quarters with all this comfort and the pretty nurses and the kind doctors to wait upon him. But what is that? Do my eyes deceive me, or am I seeing things? If so, I am a sick goat and I shall crawl into the first cot I find that is big enough to hold me. If I am not seeing things, then that big, black cat on the window sill is my dear old friend Button from the United States of America. Such being the case, Stubby, the other member of our trio, can’t be far off. Perhaps he is one of these wounded dogs that just came in the ambulance. I know how I’ll soon find out. I’ll just baa and if it is Button sitting in that window and Stubby is in one of these beds, I bet it will surprise them so that even if they are half dead they will come to life long enough to answer my baa.”

Billy gave one long, loud baa that resounded down the big, bare room like a loud clanging bell. Every person and dog in the long hospital ward jumped as if a bomb had exploded in the room, and some of the weaker and more timid dogs fainted dead away from the shock. They were weak from loss of blood, and fatigued from their hard work on the battlefield, having been without anything to eat or drink for many hours. And I am sorry to say that Stubby was among them. Billy listened in vain for a familiar bark, but he was going forward to speak to the cat which meowed with joy in response to his baa when a doctor picked up a window pole and made towards Billy, while another grabbed the cat and threw it out of the window before the cat knew what was taking place. He had been so delighted to hear Billy’s familiar baa that he did not even see the man approaching.

The doctor chased out Billy and all the dogs that had tagged in, and shut the door behind them.

Now Billy had not heard the answering meow, and so was still in some doubt as to whether or not the cat was Button, or if his old friend Stubby was one of the wounded dogs. As he thought of this he walked toward the back of the hospital into the yard. All the dogs which had been driven out with him were following him and telling him how they had enjoyed the commotion he had caused, and were plying him with questions as to how he got away from the General and back so soon, and how far he had gotten on the journey before he was caught. Billy paid not the slightest attention to any of them. In fact, he did not even hear what they were saying, he was so busy thinking of his two friends and wondering how they ever got to France for when he had last seen them they were in New York state.

He had gotten just this far in his musings when he turned the corner of the hospital and saw the black cat sitting on a packing box, looking up at the window from which he had been thrown. Billy knew in a second that the black cat was his old friend sure enough. On seeing Billy, the black cat made one spring and lit squarely on Billy’s back. Then he jumped off and ran up a tree, then down and over and under a wheelbarrow that was standing near, then in among the dogs that were surrounding Billy as if to try to save him from the onslaught of this crazy acting cat which they all thought was having a fit.

Yes, it was a fit, but not from sickness, but rather from joy at beholding Billy alive and in the flesh when he had been given up long ago for dead.

Presently the cat quieted down and came and stood before Billy, and gazed and gazed and gazed into his eyes without saying a word. And Billy gazed back, wondering in his own mind what on earth had made the dignified Button act so crazily. After this long scare, the cat meowed, “Well, Billy, old fellow, I see it is really you in the flesh and not some other goat that looks like you. But how you ever managed to keep from being killed is more than I know. All of us had given you up as dead and mourned for you for months. Nannie, your poor little wife, is still bewailing your loss. You see, we thought you were done for from an item in the newspaper, which I heard my master read aloud one morning. I can’t give it to you just as it was written, but the gist of the matter was that the —th Regiment with its celebrated white goat mascot, Billy Whiskers, had marched to the front on May twenty-first but that, sad to relate, few returned and those that did were badly wounded. A great many had been taken prisoners and whether their mascot had been killed or captured, those returning did not know. Stub and I did not feel you were killed, and that if you were captured you would find some way to escape. We then and there made up our minds to cross the ocean and look for you, for we were bound to find you if you still lived. And here we two have stumbled into you just when we had given up all hope of you being alive.” And off went Button, running up one tree and then another, around in circles and jumping over and through hedges and flower beds. Once he made the dogs all laugh for by mistake he ran up an old gardener’s back as he was stooping over digging away, thinking it was a stump, he was so nearly the color of the trees and grasses of the garden. The old fellow was so surprised that he fell headlong into the ditch he was digging.

“You see, Billy, I am so delighted to see you I can’t keep still.”

“I am just as glad to see you, but I can’t jump around like a crazy loon to show it. Come here until we rub noses in the place of a kiss!” said Billy.

“I must run and tell Stubby. He will be so delighted it will help him stand his pain and he will get well sooner. But how am I to get into this blooming building again? Aren’t there some back stairs, fire escapes or something of the like I could go up to get to his ward?”

“No, there are no fire escapes on any of these country buildings that have been turned into hospitals,” replied the Red Cross dog. “What we need more than fire escapes is a bomb proof cellar large enough to carry our patients into when we have an air raid.”

“I’ll tell you how you can get in,” spoke up Pinky. “Wait until the nurses begin to carry suppers up to their patients, and then you can creep along at their heels and, being black, you can hide in the shadows until they leave the ward. Only the night nurse will then be on duty and she will soon fall asleep. Then you can creep out and go to your friend’s cot and tell him all the news.”

“Splendid idea! Thank you very much! Won’t some one introduce me to this dog?”

“Goodness gracious me! Do excuse me, Button, for being so impolite, but joy at seeing you drove all my good manners out of my mind. It is not too late now, and I wish to introduce you to all my friends you see standing around us.”

After they had all been presented to Button, they went over to the grove of trees where the dogs always went when they wished to talk without interruption, and they agreed to stay there until time for the patients to have their supper, for they were very curious to hear how the big, black cat got all the way from the United States of America to France, and also to hear how Billy got away from the old General.

They were all trotting along as fast as they could through the barnyard with heads down, thinking what a fine time was in store for them listening to the goat and cat relate their adventures, when the Red Cross dog heard a peculiar croak and, looking around, he saw the cook astride Billy’s back, trying to get a rope around his neck. Now the rope had just slipped over Billy’s head and the cook gave it a pull that nearly strangled him and made him make the croaking noise that caused the Red Cross dog to turn around.

“Gee, that is too bad!” sighed the dog, and Pinky said:

“Just my luck! I never counted on having a good time that something did not come along and spoil it! I expect the cook won’t rest now until he has delivered Billy to the old General.”

“I wonder where the cook is going to put him now he has him,” said one of the dogs.

“Goodness knows! I don’t!” replied Pinky.

“Why, look! He is going over toward the hospital with him,” said another.

“Let’s follow and see what he is going to do with him,” suggested the Red Cross dog. “But keep out of sight and don’t let the cook know we are following him,” he warned.

So they all separated, slinking along in the shadows, dodging behind trees, boxes and barrels, their eyes glued to the cook’s back.

Instead of hiding, Pinky walked out in plain sight, and trotted along at the cook’s heels, and she heard him mutter to himself: “I’ll just put this foxy old goat in that vacant room in the hospital and lock him in and then we will see if he is smart enough to butt down the hospital!”

“He might not try,” whispered Pinky to herself. “But I bet he could butt down the door if he took it into his head he wanted to do it.”

The cook got Billy to the foot of the stairs leading to the porch of the hospital. Here the cook went ahead and tried to lead Billy up. But all of a sudden Billy planted his fore feet straight in front of him and pulled back. His quick stop accompanied by the jerk nearly cracked the cook’s head off his shoulders and Billy, giving a second pull just then, jerked the cook backwards off the steps where he landed at the bottom, sitting straight up and facing Billy, with their noses not three inches apart. He looked so comical with his legs spread apart, cap on one side of his head and his hair standing straight up, that Billy had to laugh. Surely the cook’s startled expression was a study as he gazed into Billy’s eyes.

On seeing this, the dogs all laughed out loud. The cook jumped up and looked around to see who was making sport of him, but of course he saw no one. So he thought some one must have been leaning out of one of the upper windows, then quickly ducked after they laughed. Anyway, he would make Billy pay for his discomfort. He jerked him up the steps and was about to shove him into the room he had just unlocked when Billy gave a big, big pull and started to run off the porch. He ran so fast and was so strong that he jerked the cook along as if he had been a rag. Along the porch they went until Billy came to one end. Here there were no steps, so Billy just gave a big leap and landed in the middle of a flower bed, the cook sailing on behind, hanging on to the rope that was still around Billy’s neck. And it was a lucky thing for the cook that there happened to be a nice soft flower bed right there for him to fall in; otherwise he might have broken his back.

Billy gave another pull to the rope which brought the cook to his feet, and away went Billy across the lawn and down the lane, jerking the cook around trees, over stumps and beehives, upsetting them and causing all the bees to come out to see what was the matter. For a while the air seemed to Billy to be black with bees. Then they stung the cook so that he let go the rope and rolled in the grass to try to keep them off his face. But they settled on him thick as flies on a molasses covered paper.

“Run for the watering trough in the barnyard!” called a nurse who saw all this, and the cook did, diving headfirst into the water to drive off the bees, which it did effectively.

Billy thought they could not sting up through his long hair, and he stood enjoying seeing the cook trying to fight them off. But all of a sudden one bee stung him on the ear. The pain made him frantic and he started for the watering trough, regardless of the fact that the cook was still sitting on the edge, rubbing his swollen face and hands and putting mud on them to take out the burning, stinging pain. Strange as it may seem, neither the cook nor Billy paid the slightest attention to each other. They were too much occupied each in trying to stop the pain of the bee stings.

Presently the cook got up and limped into the kitchen, saying to himself as he went, “That goat sure has the devil inside of him! I’ll never try to capture him again for the General. No, not for the President of the United States himself! I am done! What with having my head jerked off, my spine driven through the top of my head, and my legs nearly broken off, to say nothing of running me into stumps, trees and beehives, I’ve got enough of that goat, even with one thousand dollars as a reward offered for his return. No! No more at all, at all, do I ever have anything to do with goats!”

CHAPTER VI
BILLY RELATES SOME OF HIS ADVENTURES

OH, Billy, are you hurt?” whined Pinky at his heels.

“Yes. I have a bee sting on my ear that hurts like the very mischief. And, by Jove, I believe I have another over my eye for it is fast swelling shut.”

“Come with us,” said the Red Cross dog, “over to the grove before it closes entirely and you can’t see where to walk. When we get there I’ll fix you up for I know what is good for stings.”

On the way they had to cross over a little stream with a soft, muddy bank, and the Red Cross dog stopped there and said, “Now stoop down and rub your head in the mud so it will cover your eye and get into the lid where the sting is. As soon as the mud closes over it you will find that the pain will stop almost instantly. I have seen my master rub mud on too many stings not to know it is a sure cure.”

“Gee, but I hate to get that nasty mud in my ear and all over my face!”

“Never mind the dirt! It is clean mud and will dry and fall off itself so it won’t be hard to get out of your ear or off your face. Should it be, you can just shut your eyes, hold your breath and dip your head up and down in the trough until your hair is as white as snow again.”

“Well, I’ve got to do something, dirt or no dirt, for this pain is setting me crazy. So here goes!”

Billy knelt down and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed one side of his head up and down in the soft mud until it was as brown as an African’s face. When at last he stood up all the dogs tried not to laugh, but finally they went off in a perfect howl of merriment.

“What you laughing at?” asked Billy.

“Just step here where the water is clear and look at yourself,” said the Red Cross dog.

This Billy did, and then he too began to laugh, for he was a most comical sight. One side of his face looked twice as large as the other, and on this side the eye was swollen shut with a bump as big as a hen’s egg standing out above it. And this whole side of his head was as brown as could be while the other was white, which made him look exactly as if his head had been made in two parts and they were misfits.

“Hurry!” said a hound that was with them. “We better get to the woods. I hear some one coming!” and away scampered the dogs and goat to the grove, their old trysting place.

I should like to have had a picture of them as they stood beside the clear stream, with the dogs surrounding the mumpsy looking goat, laughing at his discomfort.

There was the big St. Bernard, majestic and tall; the long, sleek, black hound with tan ears and feet; the fluffy white French poodle with pinkish eyes; and the Red Cross Belgian dog with his short, sharp ears, wide-awake face and short, glossy black hair, while over his breast was still the white band with the Red Cross on it.

Once in the woods and comfortably fixed, Billy related to them the story of his life and how and where he first met the big black cat they had just seen, and the little yellow dog that was now wounded and in the hospital.

“Before you begin, Billy,” said the Red Cross dog, “I want to ask if the pains in your ear and eye are better?”

“Why, bless my soul, they don’t hurt at all! Even the swelling is going down. You sure are some doctor!”

“Now go on with your story, and excuse me for having interrupted you.”

“Well, to begin with, all three of us—the little yellow dog named Stubby, the big black cat called Button and myself—were born in the United States of America. We have known each other for years and been great chums. Why, we have scarcely been out of sight of one another for years until I joined the army. My regiment left so unexpectedly for France that I had no way of letting them know I was going, as they were away at the time on a vacation. And I bet you we will find out when I get a chance to talk to them that the minute they got home and found I was gone they managed to make friends with some of the soldier boys and made themselves so useful that they brought them along. Why, do you know that we three have crossed the big American continent twice, and we have been from Northern Wisconsin away down to the Gulf of Mexico? Not being satisfied with that, we have crossed the Pacific to Japan and we all three were in the war between Russia and Japan as mascots. Before that we crossed the Atlantic Ocean, sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar and over the Mediterranean Sea to Constantinople. We are some little globe trotters, don’t you think?”

“Heavens! It makes my head dizzy to even think of it!” said Pinky.

“And you lived to tell the tale!” said the big St. Bernard.

“Yes, as I shall live to tell the tale of this war and about all of you to my grandchildren when I get home,” replied Billy.

“But you must have had a great many narrow escapes and thrilling experiences,” suggested the hound.

“I should think so! More than would fill a book the size of Webster’s dictionary. As for hurts, bruises and scars, I have been wounded so many times I don’t believe there is a square inch on my body that has not a scar of some kind on it. It is a good thing I am not a hairless goat, like those little hairless dogs they have in Mexico, for if I was, I would look like a tattooed man,” said Billy.

“Tell us of your most thrilling experience,” begged the Red Cross dog.

“Heavens! I have had so many hairbreadth escapes I would not know which one to pick out.”

“Tell us two or three of them,” said Pinky. “I just love to hear you tell of your adventures.”

“Yes, do!” exclaimed all the other dogs in chorus.

Just then Billy gave his head a shake and a big clod of dry mud fell off his eye, leaving it practically well and the swelling gone.

“A mighty quick cure, I should say,” remarked Billy. “I recommend you, Doctor Red Cross!”

“Turn your head to one side and shake it and I think the rest of the mud will fall off. Then by holding your head well over on one side, the mud will fall out of your ear.”

All this Billy did.

“My, but it certainly does feel good to be able to see out of both eyes and hear with both ears once again! So you all want to hear of some thrilling adventure I have had? Well, let me see which one I shall tell first, about being wrecked at sea, falling in the crack of an earthquake that opened at my feet, or being blown up by a bomb in this war or—”

“Oh, don’t tell us anything about bombs!” exclaimed Pinky. “They are too common around here. We want to hear something we don’t know so much about.”

“Well, then I guess I’ll tell you about the earthquake experience. It happened when Stubby, Button and myself were in San Francisco.

“One day we were trotting along one of the streets in Chinatown, the name given to the Chinese quarters of that city. It was about lunch time, and Button had jumped up into a milk wagon that had stopped opposite us, to see if he could not find some milk to drink, Stubby had run into a butcher shop to see if he could find some meat, and I decided to sneak into some Chinaman’s back yard and see what I could find to make a meal.

“Presently I came to a long, narrow, dark passageway that led to a back yard. I sneaked in quickly, so a Chinaman looking out the window would not see me. But alas, he did, and I had scarcely gotten half way down the passage when I heard a door slam shut behind me and a bolt slipped into place. I knew before I even turned around, when I heard that bolt slip into place, that I was caught in a trap like as not. But I went right on pretending I did not hear the Chinaman shut the door.

“The end of the passage opened into the back yard of a Chinese laundry and there were lines and lines stretched from one side of the yard to the other, but there were no clothes hanging on them when I went in. Without paying any attention to me, the Chinaman began to take down the lines, but instead of taking them all down, he only took a short one, I noticed. Then he made a slip knot in one end, whistling as he walked toward the laundry. He went inside, still without looking at me, and I was beginning to think I had been mistaken and he had not seen me enter and that the rope was not to tie me up, when out he came with a carrot in one hand, the rope still in the other.

“He came straight toward me, holding out the carrot in one hand while he kept the other behind him. As he approached me he kept saying, ‘Nice little goatee! Nice little goatee! Have a carrot!’

“And I thought to myself, ‘You might as well try to catch a bird by putting salt on its tail as to try to catch me with a carrot in one hand and a rope hidden in the other behind your back, especially when that rope has a slip knot in it. Oh, no, Mr. Chinaman, I was not born yesterday or the day before! And unless you open that door quickly and let me out, you are going to be carried out of it on my horns. I am in no mood for play or jokes!’

“Just then another Chinaman came out of the laundry with a basket heaped up with clothes to hang on the line, and the Chinaman with the carrot said, ‘Yum, you watcha me catcha little goatee. Keep little goatee. Him bring heap money at butcher’s!’

Billy gave one long, loud baa that resounded down the big,
bare room.

(Page [49])

“‘So-ho! You would sell me for chops and roasts, would you? Well, just you come a little nearer and see what happens to one little Chinaman!’

“The Chinaman with the clothes began to hang them on the line, singing a queer, monotonous refrain in his cackling language. By this time the first Chinaman was within three feet of me, holding the carrot straight out before him and staring into my eyes. Evidently he was not used to goats, and felt a little uncertain as to what I would do. While I was watching him, expecting he would try to throw the rope over my head every minute, to surprise him I stretched my neck out quickly, grabbed the carrot out of his hand and ate it up. Then he came boldly up to me, as this gave him the assurance I was not going to butt him. But when he tried to put the rope around my neck, I simply lowered my head and butted him over flat on his back. This infuriated him, and he leaped up and grabbed a clothes pole to hit me with it. Then the chase began. Around and around that small back yard we went, upsetting everything, he trying to hit me all the while and I dodging him but trying to butt or hook him at every turn. Then I took to butting everything and anything that came in my way. One thing I butted was the basket full of clothes the second Chinaman had left, having sought a place of safety when first the chase began. Now he sat cross-legged on the low roof of the back porch grinning from ear to ear and watching the sport. When I butted the basket, it shot straight up in the air, spilling out the clothes as it soared, which the wind caught and carried over into the other yards.

“Presently from all the doors and windows of the adjacent buildings one could see grinning faces. But not one person came to help that Chinaman I was butting and chasing. He must have been thoroughly disliked by his neighbors for them to act as they did. Their jeers and calls made him madder and madder and every time he tried to hit me with the long pole and missed, they would call:

“‘Try it again! Try it again! Don’t give up!’

“Once the pole just grazed my back, and for this I went to the clothesline and taking a shirt sleeve in my teeth I jerked it off the line, stamped on it and then tore it to pieces. He nearly foamed at the mouth when he saw this. And I was just walking up to get another when some one slipped up behind me and threw a blanket over my head. Well, of all the rolling and tumbling that went on then you never saw the like! First I was on top, then the two Chinamen were. My legs were loose and you better believe I used them. I kicked and kicked. Then all of a sudden it seemed as if every Chinaman in all Chinatown was sitting on top of me. They came from over the fences, from all directions, and every one that came proceeded to sit on me. At last there were so many of them I could not move. They tied all four of my feet together and strung me on a pole, which they suspended over a place where a bonfire had been made over which to make soap. Some one removed the big kettle of soap and then they put me right where the kettle had been. Next they took the blanket off my head and began dancing around me, and spit at me and jabbed me with sticks, doing everything they could possibly think of to torture me.

“The blood ran into my head so from being hung upside down that I could scarcely see, and the ropes binding my feet cut into me until I bled. But still these heathen Chinese showed no mercy and I was beginning to wonder if they intended leaving me to die a slow death when the first Chinaman said, ‘Let’s build a fire under him and cook him alive! Roast goatee is velly, velly good, me hear.’

“This seemed to please the crowd, and they joined hands and ran around and around me, chanting some heathen song until the old Chinaman who had proposed cooking me alive came with some matches and shavings to start the fire.

“Then for the first time I began to be worried, and thought, ‘Well, at last I am in a tight place I can’t get out of,’ when I heard howls of pain and rage and the fierce growl of a dog. Opening my eyes to see what was taking place, I saw Stubby biting the heels of the Chinaman as he stooped to light the fire, while Button sat on his back scratching the very shirt off him. In about two minutes the yard was cleared of Chinamen, I can tell you! Stubby bit and Button clawed them until they were glad enough to climb the fences to get away alive.

“They had frightened the Chinamen off and saved me from being roasted to death. But how were they ever to get me off that pole?

“At last I thought, ‘Perhaps if I wriggle and squirm my weight will break the pole. Anyway, I am going to try it.’

“And soon I found that by moving my body in a certain way I could start a certain motion that made me swing up and down and the more I moved the higher I went and the pole began to creak. Then presently it broke in two and came down all in a heap. I had scarcely touched the ground when Stubby and Button began to gnaw the ropes that bound me, and in a jiffy they had gnawed them through and I was loose.

“Do you think I ran away when I was free once more? No, indeed, I did not! I stayed right there to get even with Mr. Chinaman who had proposed to cook me alive. It was very dark in the yard now as night had closed in while all the fuss was going on. So I proposed to hide and wait for the Chinaman to show himself in the yard. Well, all I can say is that if he ever did show himself I had made up my mind to kill him. Stubby and Button hid too, and then we waited. And as we waited the earth under our feet began to quiver and shake and low, rumbling noises were heard like distant thunder. These shakings and tremblings of the earth continued growing more and more violent until they threw me off my feet once or twice, while the ripping, roaring noises grew louder and more frequent. Presently fire bells began to ring and the night sky was illuminated with vivid red reflections from huge fires. But still we three watched for those Chinamen to come out of the house.

“‘Come on, Billy!’ Stubby barked in a whisper. ‘Let us get out of here. We must be having one of those terrible earthquakes they sometimes have out here in this country.’

“‘Yes, come, Billy,’ urged Button, ‘and leave the Chinaman to the mercy of the ’quake. Perhaps the earth will open and swallow him!’

“‘Hope it does, but I am going to give him a butt that will break his back first. I’ll teach him not to torture goats in the future!’

“‘S-s-s-s-h-h-h!’ exclaimed Button. ‘I see him through the window. He is coming now.’

“Cautiously the door opened a crack, and the Chinaman’s crafty face peered out. His eyes searched every nook and corner of the yard, but he saw no goat, dog or cat. Button was so black one could not see him as he sat on top of the fence. Stubby was hidden under a pile of old chairs, tables and so on, while I was close against the house behind the door the Chinaman had just opened. I got there on purpose so that when once he stepped into the yard he could not go back unless he passed me for I would be between the man and the house.

“‘What has he in his hand that smokes so?’ I wondered. ‘Why, it is a dipper of boiling water! Gee, I bet he intended to throw that on me when he saw me. Well, I’ll just sneak up behind him and give him a butt in the back and make him spill it on himself and then he can see how he would like boiling water thrown on him.’

“I did not dare to try to walk up behind him for fear I might stumble over something and then he would hear me and throw the water, so I made one big jump from behind the door and butted him squarely in the back. Well, I made the jump all right, but just as my feet left the earth it opened under me with a ripping, tearing noise and swallowed the Chinaman with his dipper of hot water, and closed again so quickly that when I came down from my jump I lit on solid ground where but half a second before had been a yawning chasm. Whoo! That was a narrow escape, for had I stood still the earth would have opened under me or if I had not happened to jump high enough I would have landed right in the opening and been crushed or killed as had the Chinaman.

“The ’quake that swallowed the Chinaman had extended far and shaken down lots of the old rickety buildings in the neighborhood, and buildings were tottering and falling all around. So Stubby, Button and I lost no time in getting out of that place, I can tell you. I simply butted down the door the Chinaman had bolted when I came in, and we all three ran out and down the street towards the Bay. I won’t stop to tell you of the destruction of the beautiful city and the fearful, gruesome sights and sounds we saw and heard, or how the flames licked up the handsome buildings after the earthquake had shaken them down, for the destruction of San Francisco has passed into history and any one of you who wish to hear more of it can listen as some one is reading aloud about it. This ends the tale of one of my most thrilling adventures.”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you so much, Mr. Whiskers, for telling us this story,” exclaimed the facile Pinky. “I have enjoyed hearing it so much, though you did make my skin creep and my hair stand on end when you were telling of how they proposed to cook you alive.”

Then all the other dogs thanked him also for relating to them this wonderful tale.

“I think we better go back to the hospital and look for Button and see if we cannot find a way for me to slip in and see Stubby,” remarked Billy.

CHAPTER VII
BUTTON FRIGHTENS TWO NURSES

WHILE Billy had been relating his adventures Button had been lying in a box under Stubby’s window, trying to think of a way to get to him and tell him that Billy was here in this very place.

“If there was only a fire escape!” he sighed. “Then I could easily make it.”

It was getting near supper time but he was still puzzling his brain over the matter when he saw one of the nurses in Stubby’s room come to the window and let down a rope with a basket on it. When it reached the ground she still stood there holding on to the rope as if waiting for some one to come.

“What in the world can be going on now, I wonder,” mused Button.

Presently from around the corner of the hospital from the kitchen he saw another nurse appear with a tray loaded down with the dogs’ supper. There not being an elevator in this old building, the nurses had thought out this way of saving them climbing the long flight of steps with the heavy trays on which they carried the dogs’ food to them. One nurse would go to the kitchen, get the food prepared by the cook, and then bring it around to this window, place it in the basket, and the nurse in the window would pull it up. When the dogs had finished their meal, the dishes were lowered in the basket just as they had been hauled up, carried back to the kitchen and washed. So you see what a saving of steps this basket elevator really was.

“My, if I could only manage to get in that basket and have her pull me up!” thought Button.

The cat watched the nurses raise and lower the basket until presently a nurse came from the kitchen, put the food in the basket and went off, forgetting to pull a string which rang a bell, the signal that the basket was ready to be pulled up.

“Gee, she has forgotten to pull the string and gone off. I can see the nurse in the window waiting for the signal. She will get tired waiting pretty soon and pull it up, I believe. I am going over and eat up what is in that basket and hop in myself, and then I shall be pulled up. If the basket feels heavy, the nurse will think there must be an extra amount of dishes in this trip.”

Suiting the action to the thought, Button hurried over to it, lapped up a cup of milk, ate some cold chicken and potatoes, and then he saw the basket begin to move. Without a moment’s hesitation he jumped in and sat on the soiled dishes and the remaining suppers. Up, up he was slowly drawn, and he heard the nurse mumble to herself, “Wonder what they have in this basket to-night? It feels like a basket of bricks, it is so heavy.”