The Case of the Tender Cheeping Chickies Read online

  The Case of the Tender Cheeping Chickies

  John R. Erickson

  Illustrations by Gerald L. Holmes

  Maverick Books, Inc.

  Publication Information

  MAVERICK BOOKS

  Published by Maverick Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 549, Perryton, TX 79070

  Phone: 806.435.7611

  www.hankthecowdog.com

  First published in the United States of America by Viking Children’s Books and Puffin Books, members of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2005.

  Currently published by Maverick Books, Inc., 2012

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  Copyright © John R. Erickson, 2005

  All rights reserved

  Maverick Books, Inc. Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59188-147-6

  Hank the Cowdog® is a registered trademark of John R. Erickson.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Dedication

  To the good people of my hometown, Perryton, Texas, who were the first to recognize something special in Hank.

  Contents

  Chapter One The Eternal Bed-springs Mystery

  Chapter Two We Defeat a Smart-Aleck Frog

  Chapter Three The Invasion of the Road Monster

  Chapter Four A Terrible Bloody Battle

  Chapter Five Okay, It Was a Road Grader

  Chapter Six Pete Steals Food from Hungry Children

  Chapter Seven I Prescribe a Cure for Drover’s Malady

  Chapter Eight Alfred Decides to Raise Baby Chicks

  Chapter Nine Something Strange in Sally May’s Car

  Chapter Ten Temptation!

  Chapter Eleven I Try to Help Drover

  Chapter Twelve The Killer Strikes!

  Chapter One: The Eternal Bedsprings Mystery

  It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. The Long-Snouted Road Monster attacked our ranch early one morning in the spring. We had no warning whatsoever. One minute, everything was quiet and peaceful. The next minute, the peace and quiet were ripped apart by the roar of the monster.

  Maybe you don’t believe in Long-Snouted Road Monsters. Well, I didn’t believe in ’em either, until this one attacked our headquarters compound and threatened to tear the place to smithereens and eat every person and dog on the ranch.

  As you can see, this will be no ordinary mystery. On a scale of one to ten, it scores a 9.5 in Chills and Nightmares. It’s so bad, we’ll have to check IDs. No kidding. It’s that scary.

  Or, tell you what, if you’re underage, sickly, or nervous, skip the first three chapters and pick up the story in Chapter Four. That’ll get you through the roughest parts.

  Okay, where were we? Oh yes, the baby chicks. They came to the ranch in a cardboard box with holes in the sides. Little Alfred and his mom bought them at a farm where hens sit on nests, lay eggs, and hatch out baby chickens.

  Baby chickens come from eggs. Did you know that? Maybe you thought that bacon comes from eggs, but that’s incorrect. Bacon comes from pigs, and baby chicks come from eggs, but bacon and eggs are sometimes found together in breakfast situations because . . .

  Wait a minute, hold everything. We weren’t talking about the baby chicks. They come in later in the story, and to be honest, you’re not supposed to know anything about them yet.

  So forget we said anything about baby chicks or bacon and eggs, even though baby chicks really do come from eggs, and bacon really does . . . uh . . . make my mouth water.

  Just skip it. We never said anything about the so forth.

  We were talking about the Long-Snouted Road Monster, is what we were talking about, so sit down and prepare yourself for some Heavy-Duty Scary Stuff.

  It all began on a quiet morning in the springtime. I’ve already said that, but I don’t care. It never hurts to repeat important important facts facts, because by their very nature, they are very important.

  It was a quiet morning on the ranch, just another average springtime day. The wild turkeys had come off their roost at daylight and had gobbled their usual nonsense to who—or whomever—listens to such rubbish, not me, because a turkey has nothing to say that I want to hear.

  Oh, and I had done my usual job of barking the sun over the horizon, which is a very important part of my daily routine. If I ever skipped a day, there wouldn’t be a day. Every day would be a night, because any day without sunlight is no day at all. Also, if I ever skipped a day of Barking Up the Sun, the turkeys would have nothing to gobble about, because they always gobble first thing in the morning.

  Why? I have no idea. Do I care? No. If you ask me, the world would be a better place if those guys didn’t make all that noise in the early-morning hours. It’s not that they disturb my sleep, because I’m very seldom asleep at that hour. Okay, sometimes I am asleep at that hour and I don’t appreciate . . .

  Forget the turkeys.

  The Road Monster Report came in around nine on a Wednesday morning. Or was it ten on a Thursday morning? It doesn’t matter. The report came in, loud and clear.

  Drover and I were busy, very busy, doing some important work near the corrals, although I can’t remember exactly . . . wait! Here we go. Drover had just made an interesting discovery. Most of his “discoveries” aren’t so interesting, but this one was.

  He had discovered a big green bullfrog sitting on the south bank of Emerald Pond. Do you see the significance of this? Maybe not, so here’s the scoop on that. Emerald Pond belongs to us dogs. It’s our own private bath and spa, a place where the employees of the Security Division can go to relax, soak up the mineral waters, and recover from the grinding routine of running our ranch.

  In other words, it’s our private retreat and vacation spot, yet, according to Drover’s report, a big fat ugly green frog was sitting on the southern shore—and looking very satisfied about it, as though he owned the place. Well, he didn’t own the place, and to be very blunt about it, he hadn’t even been invited to use our facilities.

  When Drover brought me the news about the trespassing frog, I was shocked and dismayed. “A frog using our facilities? That’s no good, son. I hope you ordered him to leave.”

  Drover gave me a silly grin. “Yep, it never hurts to hope.”

  “Does that mean you ordered him to leave?”

  “Well . . . not exactly. It means that hope makes eternal bedsprings.”

  There was a moment of silence. “What?”

  “I said . . . let me think here. There’s an old saying about hope and bedsprings.”

  “Yes? Go on. Explain yourself.”

  “Well . . . I’d sure hate to mess it up.” Drover twisted his face into a wad of concentration. “Eternal bedsprings are made of hope.”

  “Eternal bedsprings? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Is it possible . . . wait, hold everything. I just figured it out.” I began pacing back and forth in front of the runt, as I often do when my mind is on the trail of an important concept. “The wise old saying to which you referred goes like this: ‘Hope springs eternal.’”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “That’s not what you said. You garbled it so that it came out
saying something about bedsprings.”

  “Maybe it was a mattress.”

  “It wasn’t a mattress, and it has nothing to do with a bed.”

  “Yeah, but if a bed didn’t have any springs, wouldn’t it be hard?”

  “Of course. Yes. It would be very hard.”

  He grinned. “Well, that’s why they’re called ‘eternal springs.’ They’re so hard, they last forever.”

  I stopped pacing and beamed him a glare. “Drover, please. You’re embarrassing me. The wise old saying to which you referred has nothing to do with beds, mattresses, or eternal bedsprings. Let me repeat the wise old saying: ‘Hope springs eternal.’”

  A light seemed to come on in his eyes. “Oh, I get it now! The water in Emerald Pond comes from underground springs, and if you take the ‘e’ out of ‘hope,’ it’s ‘hop.’”

  “I’m not following this, Drover.”

  “Water comes from springs and frogs hop, so the wise old saying was really talking about that frog I saw.”

  This was beginning to sound interesting. “What about ‘eternal’?”

  His smile faded. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t fit.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Maybe you should just drop it.”

  “Yeah, maybe somebody made a mistake.”

  “Right. It happens all the time. Okay, now we’re cooking. We’ll cross out the ‘e’ in ‘hope’ and drop ‘eternal.’ That gives us ‘hop springs.’” I pondered those two words for a moment. “Wait a minute, Drover! I think I’ve just figured this out.”

  “I thought I figured it out.”

  “You were close, son, but in this business, close doesn’t count.” I resumed my pacing. “Okay, here we go, and listen carefully. Many years ago, when the Pilgrims first came to the Texas Panhandle, they discovered Emerald Pond, only back then it didn’t have a name.”

  “I wonder why.”

  “Because it didn’t, that’s why. And they saw a frog sitting beside the pond, and when they walked up, the hog fropped away.”

  “So they called it Hog Heaven?”

  I stopped in my tracks. “What? Hog Heaven? What are you talking about?”

  “Well, you said they found a hog.”

  “I did NOT say hog. I said frog. Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about for the past ten minutes? Why do you bring up hogs when we’re talking about frogs?”

  “Well, I thought . . . boy, I sure get confused.”

  “Hear me out, Drover, I’m very close to wrapping this thing up. Okay, when the frog hopped away, they decided to name the place Hop Springs.”

  “Gosh. You mean . . .”

  “Exactly. The old saying ‘Hope springs eternal’ is really a code name for Emerald Pond, dating back thousands of years. And through clever interrogation, I have pulled this secret message out of your unconscious mind. Is that awesome or what?”

  “Boy, that’s an old frog.”

  I stared at him for a moment, wondering if he knew what he’d just said. In the course of his jabbering, he had somehow managed to unearth the last piece of the puzzle.

  “And now, Drover, I can reveal the rest of the mystery, for you see, I have just figured out why the word ‘eternal’ appeared in the wise old saying. ‘Eternal’ means old, right? The frog has been here for thousands of years, right?”

  “Oh my gosh! You mean . . .”

  “Yes, Drover. We thought ‘eternal’ was just a mistake, but it wasn’t. It was embedded into the wise old saying for a reason.”

  “Embedded. You mean . . . bedsprings?”

  The air hissed out of my lungs. “No, Drover, and please don’t mention bedsprings again.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I know you’re trying to help, but just let me finish. The Pilgrims knew the frog would grow older with time and would become a very old frog, so they named our pond Eternal Hop Springs.” I beamed him a triumphant smile. “So there you are. Now we know the true meaning of the wise old saying, and also how our pond got its original name.”

  Drover blinked his eyes several times. “I’ll be derned. That’s pretty amazing.”

  “Of course it is, but let me remind you that doing amazing things is just part of our job with the Security Division. Nice work, son. With no help at all from outside sources, we dogs have pieced together the history of Emerald Pond. What do you say we celebrate by taking a little dip in that very same pond? I’d say we’ve earned—” My keen eyes had just picked up an important detail: Drover wasn’t smiling anymore. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Oh my gosh! I just had a terrible thought!”

  Chapter Two: We Defeat a Smart-Aleck Frog

  Are you ready to hear Drover’s terrible thought? Here’s what he said, word for word. “If that frog’s been there for ten thousand years, wouldn’t it mean that . . . it’s his pond, and not ours?”

  I stared into the vacuum of his eyes. “Drover, how many times have I warned you about asking questions I can’t answer?”

  “I don’t know. Three?”

  “No. Three hundred. I’ve warned you over and over: Never ask questions unless they’ve been approved by the Head of Ranch Security. Do you see what you’ve done?”

  “Not really.”

  “You’ve ruined everything! How can we enjoy a romp in our pond if it’s not our pond?”

  “Well, I guess we could . . . ask the frog’s permission.”

  “What? Ask the frog’s . . . Drover, I will never ask a frog’s permission for anything, never!” I marched a few steps away. My mind was racing over the many details of property law. “Okay, I think I’ve got the answer to this.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “It’s very simple. We’ll approach the frog in a kind and reasonable manner, and we’ll tell him to . . . well . . . move out, leave our pond, and never come back.”

  “Yeah, but what if he doesn’t?”

  “In that case, Drover, we’ll resort to the bottom line of property law. We’ll beat him up. We’re bigger than he is, and we’ve got him outnumbered.”

  “Yeah, and it might be fun, ’cause frogs don’t bite.”

  “Exactly my point. Come on, son, let’s get this thing settled once and for all. The nerve of that frog, trying to steal our pond!”

  We marched down to the banks of Emerald Pond, and sure enough, there he was—a big fat green bullfrog, sitting on the edge of the water. He looked very smug and sure of himself, just the kind of frog who needed a few lessons from the School of Hard Knots.

  I halted our column and gave Drover the signal to be quiet while I did the talking. I moved a few steps closer and gave the frog a friendly smile.

  “Good morning, froggie. Nice day, huh? Listen, bud, I’ve got a little favor to ask. I wonder if you’d mind moving out of our pond and never coming back.” No response. I mean, the frog didn’t even look at me. He just sat there. “Smart guy, huh? Okay, pal, we tried the course of reason. Now we’ll go to sterner measures. Drover, get him!”

  Drover stared at me. “Me? What about the mud?”

  “The mud is muddy. So what? Jump in there and beat him up!”

  “Well, you know, this old leg’s been giving me fits, and I’m not sure—”

  “Drover, this is your big chance to rack up some Combat Points. It’ll look great on your record.”

  “Yeah, but . . . what if he’s really a handsome prince?”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “A handsome prince! Drover, look at him. Is he handsome?”

  “Well . . .”

  “No. He’s a frog, and he’s even uglier than you.”

  “Yeah, but they can change—I’ve heard all those stories—and if he turned out to be a handsome prince . . . they have swords and knives and . . . oh, my leg! It’s killing me!”

  He began limping around in a circle and then—you
won’t believe this part—and then he fell over on his back and began kicking his legs in the air. I heaved a sigh and shook my head.

  “Drover, I’m very disappointed in your behavior.”

  “I know, I’m a failure, but this old leg—”

  “It’s disgraceful beyond words. Okay, I’ll do your dirty work, but I must warn you. This will go into my report.”

  “Oh no, not that!”

  “Yes, Drover, every word of it. I’m sorry, but the world must know that you’re not just an ordinary weenie. You’re a chicken weenie who’s afraid of a frog.”

  “Oh, the guilt! Oh, my leg!”

  “Now pay attention and I’ll give you a few lessons on beating up fat arrogant frogs.” I turned my massive body forty-three degrees to the left and began punching in the targeting data. Behind the computer screen of my mind, I could hear Data Control chewing on the numbers. Then the secret targeting information flashed across the screen.

  Do I dare reveal our targeting codes? They’re pretty complicated and highly classified. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to give you a little peek, but don’t go blabbing this stuff around. Here’s the very message that flashed across the screen of my mind:

  “JUMP.”

  There it was! Data Control had crunched all the numbers, and we had our plan of battle locked into the computer, and now it was time to launch the weapon.

  I went into a Deep Crouch Position, sprang upward and outward, and launched myself right into the middle of that . . .

  SPLAT!

  . . . Green yucko mud where the alleged frog had been only seconds before. Do you see the meaning of this? The frog had cheated! Perhaps he had broken into our data systems and desniveled our launch codes and . . .

  He jumped into the water, the hateful thing.

  Okay, this meant War! I pried my nose out of the green yucko mud and whirled around to my assistant. “All right, Drover, we’re moving into Stage Two! Get up off the ground and prepare for Ultrasonic Barking!”