Читать книгу The Case of the Missing Cat - John R. Erickson - Страница 7

Chapter Two: Pete Makes a Foolish Wager

It didn’t take me long to catch up with Pete. “Hold it right there, cat. It appears to me that you’re moving toward a certain cottontail rabbit. Before you get yourself into some serious trouble, I should point out that the alleged rabbit belongs to me.”

“Oh really? I thought you were too busy for rabbits, Hankie.”

“I was misquoted. What I meant to say was that the rabbit belongs to me and you can keep your paws off of him.”

“Now Hankie, be reasonable. You don’t have any use for a rabbit.”

“Oh yeah? Says who?”

“In the first place, he’s not bothering anyone. He’s just a cute, innocent little bunny who’s eating grass.”

“Yeah, but it’s MY grass, see, and he’s down there by MY gunnysack and he doesn’t have a permit to eat my grass in the vicinity of my gunny­sack.”

Pete grinned and licked his front paw with a long stroke of his tongue. “And in the second place, it’s a well-known fact that a dog can’t catch a rabbit.”

I stared at the cat and began laughing. “A dog can’t catch a rabbit? Is that what you just said?”

“Um-hmm, because a dog goes about it the wrong way. Instead of being patient and stalking the rabbit, as a cat would do, a dog just blunders in and starts chasing.”

“Blunders in and starts chasing, huh? Go on, cat, I’m dying to hear the rest of this.”

“Mmmm, all right. And once the rabbit starts running, the game is over because a dog can’t catch a rabbit on the run. That’s a well-known fact.”

“No, Pete, that’s well-known garbage, just the sort of half-truth and gossip that a cat would spread around. What you’re saying is so outrageous that I refuse to discuss it any more.”

“Whatever you think, Hankie.”

“Except to repeat what I’ve already said: Leave my rabbit alone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got . . .”

“I’ll bet you can’t catch him.”

“. . . two weeks’ work lined up for . . . what did you just say?”

“I’ll bet you can’t catch him.”

I lowered my nose until it was only inches away from the cat’s face. “You want to bet me that I can’t catch a sniveling little cottontail rabbit? On my ranch? When I’m Head of Ranch Security?”

“Um-hmmm.”

My first thought was to meet his challenge head-on, take him up on his foolish bet, and settle the matter once and for all time. However . . .

It was too easy. Something was wrong here.

See, when you’ve worked around cats as much as I have, you develop a certain degree of caution. They’re stupid animals, but they’re stupid in a cunning sort of way.

They have a talent for twisting things around. It’s a minor talent, it doesn’t compare at all with the larger and grander talents you’ll find in even your average breed of dogs, and I’m talking about, oh, just to mention a few: good looks, high intelligence, courage, tremendous physical strength, good looks, speed, quickness, determination, endurance, and devilish good looks.

I must give Beulah the Collie most of the credit for spotting those qualities in . . . well, ME, you might say. Otherwise I might never have known they were there, which would have been a real shame.

Where was I?

Funny how Beulah seems to creep into my thoughts, but I was talking about something else, seems to me, and . . .

Oh yes, cats. They have this minor talent for twisting things around, and over the years I’ve learned that when a cat makes a simple statement or says something that appears on the surface to make sense, it’s time to pull back and study the deal from a different prospectus.

I walked a short distance away and switched over into Heavy Duty Analysis Mode.

Pete had just offered to make a foolish wager with me, one which he had no chance of winning. Now, why would a cat do such a thing?

Answer #1: The cat is just dumb, and you must expect a dumb cat to make dumb mistakes.

Answer #2: The cat is dumb, but not quite as dumb as he appears to be, in which case he should be approached with caution.

Answer #3: The cat is actually pretty smart and . . . I didn’t need to follow this one out any further because it was too outrageous to consider. I mean, this was the same cat who had invented a nonexistent game called “Checkerless Checkers,” right? Nothing more needed to be said.

And so, having dismissed Answer #3 in record time, I ran Answer #1 and Answer #2 through my data banks. What the printout revealed was a confirmation of Answer #1, which I had suspected all along.

Pete had made a dumb mistake and had thrown down the goblet, so to speak, and challenged me to enter into a foolish wager. Foolish for Pete, that is.

Okay, the only question left to ask was, “Would Hank the Cowdog consider taking unfair advantage of a dumb cat?” And I didn’t need to run that one through the data banks.

In a word YES. I would, with all my heart and soul.

Stealing glances as I paced back and forth, I studied the cat, measured him, sized him up, and prepared my next move. A strategy began to take shape in my mind, and at that point I was ready to respond.

I swaggered back over to him. “Okay, I’ll take you up on your bet, kitty, but only if there’s something at stake.”

He looked up at me with his big cattish eyes. “Hmmm. You mean something valuable?”

“Exactly. I don’t enter into bets with cats for my health. If you can’t put up something that makes this deal worth my time and trouble, I’m not interested.”

“My goodness, Hankie, you get pretty serious about these things, don’t you?”

“You got that right, cat. I’m a very busy dog and the nickel-and-dime stuff doesn’t interest me.”

“Well, let me think. I’ll bet you tonight’s supper scraps.”

“Not enough.”

“Well, then I’ll throw in tomorrow’s breakfast scraps too.”

“To be real blunt about it, Pete, scraps don’t excite me right now. If we’re going to bet, I want to bet something that really matters—something that, if lost, will hurt BAD.”

“Ummm! That kind of bet!”

I smirked and gave him a worldly, sideways glance. “Now you understand, Pete. No penny ante here. This is go-for-broke. Do you want into the deal or do you want out?”

He studied his claws for a moment, I mean, the cat was obviously scared and stalling for time. “All right, Hankie, if that’s the way you want it.”

“That’s the way I want it.”

His eyes came up. “I’ll bet you your job as Head of Ranch Security.”

“HUH? My job as . . . now wait just a minute.”

“You wanted big stakes, right? You wanted to go for broke, right?”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“There’s the bet,” he grinned, “if you’re dog enough to take it.”

My eyes narrowed and a growl began to rumble deep in my throat. “Watch what you say, cat. Your words could come back to honk you. And if your words don’t honk you loud enough, I might consider doing a little honking of my own. Repeat the bet.”

“I’m betting your job as Head of Ranch Security that you can’t catch that rabbit.”

My data banks whirred. “Let me get this straight. If I lose, you get my job as Head of Ranch Security. But what are you putting up? What happens if you lose?”

“Well, if I lose, you win the job as Head of Ranch Security. We’ll both be playing for the same prize, and if the prize is the same for both of us, it has to be a fair bet.”

I didn’t like the way he was grinning, so I took the time to study the deal from every possible angle. It checked out. For the first time in years, this cat had offered a deal that was equal, fair, square, level, and plumb.

“All right, cat, you’ve got yourself a bet. It’s a done deal and there will be no backing out.”

“You only get three tries.”

“Sure, fine, don’t bore me with details.”

“But what if you lose, Hankie? Will you pay off?”

I laughed. “That’s not likely to happen, Kitty, but if it does, I’ll pay off. You’ve got my Solemn Cowdog Oath on it.”

“Mmmm. And a cowdog never goes against his oath, right?”

“Exactly. And now that you’ve committed yourself to the deal, I can reveal that you’ve made a very foolish blunder. Pete, old buddy, old pal, you’re fixing to lose it all on one roll of the dice.”

He gasped! Yes, he tried to hide it but I saw him gasp. Hey, that cat was beginning to feel the jaws of my trap closing around him.

All that remained was for me to lumber down and catch the rabbit, which would be a piece of cake for this old dog. I mean, catching rabbits was no big deal for me—just by George run ’em down and snatch ’em up in the old iron jaws.

Yes sir, and when that happened, fellers, Pete the Barncat would be out of luck and out of business.