The Case of the Kidnapped Collie Read Online Free PDF

worse.”
    â€œYeah, I know. Kangaroos, ’cause my old heart’s about to jump out of my chest.”
    I began pacing. “All right, Drover, your heart is jumping around like a kangaroo that is beating a drum. What color is the kangaroo?”
    â€œPink, with orange stripes.”
    â€œHmmm. This is worse than I thought. How’s your blood pressure?”
    â€œI think it’s a quart low.”
    â€œHow about your vision?”
    â€œWell, let’s see. I thought I saw an angel in the back of Billy’s pickup.”
    â€œMercy. Was he playing a drum?”
    â€œNo, she was just sitting there.”
    â€œHmmm. Give me a complete description. Facts, Drover, facts and details. No detail is too small to be large.”
    â€œWell, let’s see here. She had . . .”
    â€œHold it right there. You said ‘she.’ Does that mean that she was a girl or a woman?”
    â€œYeah, I think so.”
    â€œOkay, go on. Finish your description of the angel.”
    â€œWell, she had pretty brown eyes and . . .”
    â€œWhoa. Were the eyes pretty AND brown, or pretty brown? It could be important.”
    â€œWell, let’s see. Both were both.”
    â€œYou mean she had two eyes?”
    â€œOh yeah, and both of her two eyes were both pretty and brown and pretty brown. And she had long flaxen hair, and I just fell in love with her nose.”
    I stared at the runt. “You’re sicker than I thought, Drover. What kind of creep would fall in love with a nose?”
    â€œWell, it was on her face and I loved her face too.”
    â€œOh. Well, I think I’ve got this thing figgered out, Drover. The pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place at last.”
    â€œOh good. What’s happened to me?”
    Once again, I began pacing back and forth in front of him. My mind seems to . . . I guess I’ve mentioned that before, but it’s true.
    â€œAll right, Drover, listen carefully so that I don’t have to repeat myself.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI said, listen repeatedly so that I don’t have to care for myself.”
    â€œGosh, are you sick too?”
    â€œHush, Drover. Number One, the angel you saw—or thought you saw—was actually a mental image of a kangaroo. Number Two, that would account for the odd kicking behavior of your heart.”
    â€œI’ll be derned.”
    â€œBut I’m not through. Number Three, your mind produced this strange mental image because you are mentally pathetic.”
    â€œGosh, you mean I can see things that other dogs can’t see?”
    â€œExactly. In cases of mental pathetica, the vision of a kangaroo-angel is fairly common, but the important thing is that she was just a filament of your imagination.”
    â€œOh good, I’m so happy. But there she is again.”
    I couldn’t help chuckling. “Don’t worry, son. On the count of three, I will clap my paws together and turn my eyes toward the Angelic Kangaroo and she will be gone. One. Two. And you will feel much better. Three!”
    I clapped my paws together and turned my gaze toward the . . .
    HUH?
    . . . toward the angel, and holy smokes, there she was before my very eyes, the most gorgeous angel I had ever seen!
    And she wasn’t a kangaroo.

Chapter Six: Forget the Kangaroo, It Was Beulah

    N ot only did she not look like a kangaroo, fellers, but she reminded me a whole lot of Miss Beulah the Collie.
    All at once my heart was beating like a drum and jumping around inside my chest like a jack­rabbit. Or, okay, a kangaroo. My blood pressure suddenly felt a quart low. I fell over backward and began kicking my legs in the air.
    Drover seemed to have suffered a relapse and was doing the same. No doubt an impartial observer would have found the scene a bit . . . uh . . . strange, two grown dogs doing such things, but an impartial observer would never have understood the incredible power of that woman’s