The Case of the Midnight Rustler by John R. Erickson

Chapter One: A New and Exciting Mystery Unfolds

    I t’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. This mystery just might win the prize for chills and thrills, for you see, it gets me involved with a genuine cattle rustler who stole cattle and slipped around in the deep dark of the night and did things that came very close to scaring the liver right out of me.
    So get yourself prepared. Do some push-ups. Drink some vinegar and water. Suck on a lemon. Walk around in a circle and say to yourself, “I am NOT going to let this story scare the liver out of me, because living without a liver is worse than no liver at all.”
    Say that five hundred times and maybe you’ll be ready.
    Okay, here we go. It all started one morning in the late spring—May, I think it was. Yes, it was around the first of May, or maybe it was the middle of May. Or the end of May.
    Let me think here. We’d had our spring round­up and branding, as I recall, and the cowboys were trying to get the first cutting of alfalfa out of the field, and we can pretty well date it from that: the first week in June, just as I suspected.
    It all started one morning in June, over in the alfalfa field. Slim and Loper had mowed, raked, and baled half of the alfalfa, and we were trying to get the bales hauled out of the field.
    Sally May and Baby Molly drove the old truck, while Slim pitched the bales and Loper stacked. Drover, Little Alfred, and I were in charge of checking beneath each bale for lizards, snakes, crickets, and mice, but especially mice.
    It was a happy time on the ranch. Everything was going well. The boys had cut the hay just right, while it was tender and in the bloom. The windrows hadn’t been rained on. The machinery was working. The mice were under control. And it was a beautiful morning.

    The boys were dripping sweat but happy and working hard, and while they worked they sang an old church hymn they had converted into their Official Hay Haulers’ Song. It was called “See the Morning Sun Ascending.”
    See the morning sun ascending,
    Radiant in the eastern sky.
    Hear the angel’s voices blending
    In their praise to God on high.
    Alleluia, alleluia.
    Alleluia, alleluia.
    I won’t say it was a great job of singing. Slim and Loper had their little talents but nobody had ever accused them of being great singers. Still, the song fit the mood and rhythm of the work, and somehow it made us all forget about the sweat and blisters and sore muscles that just seem to be a part of alfalfa hay.
    Once we got the bales hauled, it was time to mow down the other half of the alfalfa. Slim climbed on the tractor, made half a round, and broke down.
    The mower had thrashed a bearing, several sickle blades, and other items too numerous to mention. And at that very moment, the entire ranch was plunged into darkest gloom and despair.
    You ever spend any time around a cowboy who’s forced against his will to repair farm machinery? It’s no fun, let me tell you. No more singing, fellers. All at once everyone on the ranch is wearing a long face and kicking things and going around MAD.
    Broken machinery seems to have a bad effect on a cowboy’s disposition. That’s especially true on our outfit because all of the machinery is junk.
    Now, if I was running the ranch, I’d go out and buy some haying equipment that stayed in one piece and actually WORKED—you know, tractors that didn’t leak water and oil and grease and diesel fuel, and didn’t have to be pulled every time you wanted to start ’em.
    And a mower that didn’t eat bearings for break­fast every day. And a baler that could tie ten bales in a row without being overhauled. And a hay truck with brakes.
    Little things like that.
    But did the cowboys ask my opinion? Oh no! I was just a dumb dog, and what did I know about running a ranch? So they kept their junky old farming equipment, and every year at haying season we witnessed the same wreck, the