The Case of the Kidnapped Collie by John R. Erickson Page A

and the mornings were cool and crisp. The china­berries had shed most of their leaves and the days were getting shorter.
    And on one of those lovely autumn afternoons, I happened to overhear a conversation between Slim and Loper, the two cowboys on this outfit.
    Or let’s put it this way. They think of themselves as cowboys and they take pride in their cowboy skills, but on this particular afternoon they found themselves involved in some serious noncowboy work.
    They were doing some reconstruction work on the feed barn, see, and they had reported to the job site in their carpenter costumes. Instead of the usual cowboy boots and hats, they showed up in caps, overalls, and lace-up boots.

    Instead of arming themselves with ropes and spurs, as usual, they had brought hammers and saws and pry bars. They had even brought a device that I had thought was against the law on our outfit: a tape measure.
    No kidding, Slim and Loper had actually brought a tape measure to the job site! I was dumb-foundered. I mean, after years and years of wood-butchery and the very worst displays of cowboy carpentry, why had they suddenly decided to measure their boards?
    I couldn’t understand it. Maybe Loper had read an article on woodworking and had run into a reference to something called a “tape measure.” It must have given him such a jolt that he decided to buy one at the lumberyard and try it out.
    Slim set the tone for the project when he pulled out a foot of tape and squinted at it for a long time. “Say, do these little marks between the inch lines mean anything?”
    To which Loper replied, “Those are for brain surgeons.”
    â€œGood. I can’t hardly see ’em.”
    And away they went, hacking and sawing and pounding. Would you care to listen in on one of their high-tech conversations? Okay, they had just sawed two boards and were putting them in place.
    Loper: “Do they fit?”
    Slim: “Nope.”
    Loper: “Are they close?”
    Slim: “Nope.”
    Loper: “Do they touch?”
    Slim: “Yep, barely.”
    Loper: “Nail ’em. We ain’t building pianos.”
    I don’t mean to scoff or make fun of their pathe­tic efforts, but if you think I’m exaggerating, just take a tour of the feed barn sometime and pay close attention to the west side.
    Anyways, it was November and I had noticed the many signs of fall. The locust and chinaberry trees had . . . I’ve already mentioned that, but I didn’t say anything about the cockleburs.
    You know for sure that fall has arrived when all the horses on the ranch start wearing cockleburs in their tails, manes, and . . . whatever you call that bunch of hair on their foreheads . . . bangs, forelocks, padlocks . . . I’m sorry I brought it up.
    The horses get involved with cockleburs, is the point, and even we dogs collect a few of them. In the fall of the year, it’s almost impossible to conduct ranch business without picking up some cockleburs.
    Other signs of fall: The hawks and kites have left and other types of birds have moved in, such as your crows, your bluebirds, your robins, and your sandhill cranes.
    And wild turkeys, but we’ll get to that later on.
    Oh yes, and the wasps. All at once, they were everywhere and they were lazy and it didn’t take much talent to get stung by one, the hateful little things.
    Oh, and one last symptom of fall in our country is that you begin seeing tarantula spiders. You never see them until the fall of the year (which is sure okay with me), then all at once you see them crossing the road.
    Me, I can get along just fine without tarantulas. They are big and hairy-legged and ugly, and let’s change the subject. They give me the creeps.
    Where were we? Oh yes, the Board Butchers were trying to repair the west side of the feed barn. Around two o’clock, they stopped and took a break. And it was then that I heard the bad news.
    I happened to be