The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog Read Online Free

up the fight much longer.
    The gun exploded, lit up the night. The monster ran and I started after him, ready to give him the coop de grass, as we say, but Loper called me back. I figgered he didn’t want to risk losing the Head of Ranch Security, which seemed pretty sensible to me.
    So I went back to him, limping on all four legs at once because they all hurt, and so did everything else. Wagging my tail, I went up to him, ready for my reward.
    I didn’t get no reward. To make a long story short, Drover had sent me into battle against the milk cow and I got cursed for it.
    I thought very seriously about terminating Drover—I mean his life, not his job—but I couldn’t find him in the machine shed. So I dragged my battered carcass down to the gas tanks and curled up on my gunnysack bed.
    I could have sworn that was a monster.

Chapter Four: The Boxer

    I slept late the next morning. To be real honest about it, I didn’t wake up till sometime in the early afternoon. Guess all that monster fighting kind of wore me down.
    What woke me up was the sound of the flatbed pickup rattling up to the gas tank, right in front of my bedroom. Loper got out and started filling the pickup. He looked at me, gave his head a shake, and said something under his breath. I tried to read his lips but couldn’t make out what he said. Probably wasn’t the Pledge of Allegiance.
    Slim went around to the front of the pickup and opened up the hood. I was just getting up, right in the middle of a nice stretch, when I heard him say, “Hank, come here, boy.”
    Geeze, at last a friendly voice. How long had it been since someone had spoken to me in a kind voice? In my job, nobody ever says a word when you do something right, only when you make a mistake, and then you hear plenty about it.
    I trotted around to the front of the pickup—limped, actually, because I was pretty stove up from the battle—wagged my tail and said howdy. Slim bent down and rubbed me behind the ears.
    â€œGood dog,” he said.
    Good dog! I just melted on those words, rolled over on my back, and kicked all four legs in the air. It’s amazing what a few kind words and a smile can do for a dog. Even as hardboiled as I am, which is something you have to be in my line of work, I respond to kindness.
    Slim rubbed me in that special place at the bottom of my ribs, the one that’s somehow hooked up to my back leg. I’ve never understood the mechanics of it, but if a guy scratches me there it makes my back leg start kicking.
    Slim scratched and I kicked. Felt good and made Old Slim laugh. Then he told me to sit. I sat and tried to shake hands. Shaking hands is one of the many tricks I’ve learned over the years, and I can usually count on it to delight an audience of people.
    But Slim didn’t notice. He reached under the hood, pulled out the dipstick, and wiped it off on my ear. “Good dog.” And that was it. I waited around for some more scratching or handshaking, but he seemed to forget that I was there. He slammed the hood and stepped on my paw. “Oops, sorry, Hank, get out of the way.”
    The sweet moments in this life are fleeting. You have to enjoy them to the fullest when they come, before some noodle steps on you and tells you to get out of the way.
    Slim and Loper got into the pickup, and Loper said, “Don’t you dogs try to follow us.”
    He gunned the motor and pulled away from the gas tank. Drover suddenly appeared out of nowhere and hopped up into the back of the pickup.
    â€œCome on, Hank, we’re supposed to go.”
    In the back of my mind I knew that wasn’t right, but I didn’t have time to think about it. I chased the pickup until it slowed down for the big hill in front of the house, and jumped up in the back.
    â€œWhere we going?” I asked.
    Drover gave me that famous empty-headed look of his, the one where you can gaze into his eyes and see all the way to the