The Case of the Bone-Stalking Monster Read Online Free PDF Page A

it?”
    I waited for his answer. When it didn’t come, I swung my gaze around just in time to see his eyelids slam shut. I was about to awaken him with a thunderous roar—I mean, after all, the little dunce had fallen asleep while Court was in session, and sleeping under oath is one of the many things I don’t allow on this ranch.
    But I caught myself just in time. You see, a plan had begun to form in the darkest outskirts of my mind. It suddenly occurred to me that the bones were sitting there, unwatched and un­guarded.

    And they were, after all, MY bones. I had won them, fair and square, in a scuffle with the cat, and gathering information about the Bone Monster could, uh, wait.
    I wasn’t sure I believed his story anyway. I mean, who ever heard of a Bone Monster?
    I cut my eyes from side to side. No one was watching. On silent paws, I crept over to the pile of bones, loaded them up in my enormous jaws, and we’re talking about all three at once, and crept away from the gas tanks on padded paws that made not a sound.
    Ten feet away, I shifted into a rapid walk, then into a trot, and finally into an easy gliding lope. And whilst I was doing all this, my mind was racing. Where would I deposit this treasure of bones?
    I considered a list of secret locations, and re­jected all but one for the same reason: The ground was hard and I hate to dig. Having shrunk my list of options down to one, my decision became very easy.
    I would deposit my treasury of bones in Sally May’s garden, for her husband had tilled it up just weeks before. Perhaps in some strange manner, known only to women, she had perceived that her loyal dog would soon need a soft place to bury some precious bones.
    They are very perceptive, you know. The ladies, that is. Sometimes they seem able to read minds and forecast the future. It’s called Women’s Insti­tution, and it can be pretty spooky.
    Well, if Sally May’s institution had caused her to plow up the garden just for me, it seemed totally right that I should accept her act of kindness. I mean, she was probably aware that digging in hard ground will dull a dog’s claws, and that sharp claws are very important to the, uh, overall security program of the ranch.
    It all fit together. Only one obstacle stood in my way. The alleged garden was enclosed inside a hogwire fence, but it happened that hogwire fences were no big deal to me. Clenching my enormous jaws around the bones, I went into a deep crouch, took a huge gulp of air, and launched myself into the air.
    Charge! Bonzai!
    BONK.
    Okay, we had forgotten about that strand of barbed wire above the hogwire. What we had was four feet of hogwire with the single strand of barbed wire above it, and that small fact had altered all our careful calculations and equations and so forth.
    It was no big deal, it could have happened to any dog, and it merely etched another mark into a nose that had already been etched by the stupid cat.
    And by the way, those had been lucky punches.
    Anyways, I made contact with the almost-invisible top wire and took a rude tumble to the ground. OOF! Knocked the breath out of me for a second, but I’m no quitter. I reprogrammed all of the launch data, sank into another deep crouch, and went flying over the top like a . . .
    Tomato plant? It appeared that she—Sally May, that is—she had not only tilled the garden but had also set out some tomato plants, so to speak. No­body had informed me of this, and it’s very hard to operate a ranch when nobody tells you anything.
    They expect us to know everything, and they’re very quick to pass out blame when a small mistake is made, but ask for current information and everybody’s too busy to file their reports.
    But the important thing was that I had made it into the garden area and had wrecked only one of Sally May’s tomato plants. One or two. Several. But it was a small price to pay for a successful mission, and