Free The Case of the Midnight Rustler by John R. Erickson Page B

and wagging his tree-limb tail. And get this. When the rustler had loaded up all his portable corral panels and was ready to go, Brewster hopped up into the back of the pickup, just as though they had become the best of friends!
    When I asked him about this later, he said, “Stealing Uncle Johnny’s cattle? Aw heck, is that what he was doing? He sure seemed like a nice feller to me.”
    I guess if the rustler hadn’t kicked him out and told him to go home, Brewster would have become an outlaw dog, and probably never would have known the difference, since he slept most of the time anyway. If you’re always asleep, it doesn’t make much difference which side of the law you’re on.
    Well, the rustler was a slick operator, but he made one little mistake (they always do, you know). He should have disconnected the lights on his license plates. But he didn’t. Slim got a good look at the tags on the trailer and the pickup, and wrote the numbers down in the palm of his hand.
    â€œHis goose is now cooked,” said Slim with a smile. “Let’s see, this is Wednesday. He’ll be taking them calves to the livestock auction in Beaver. I have an idea that old Chumpy Cates of the Cattle Raisers will be waiting for him at the sale barn when he backs up to the chute.”
    And that’s pretty muchly the way things turned out. Slim climbed on Dunny and rode the two miles down to Loper’s hay field, where he was baling the hay he’d mowed the day before. They drove to the house and put in a call to Chumpy Cates in Canadian (got him out of bed, I’ll bet).
    And with that, the wheels of justice began to roll.
    When daylight came, Slim and Loper combed the pasture on horseback and found Uncle Johnny’s pickup, right where he had parked it in a washout. (I found him, actually, but don’t expect the cowboys to remember it that way.)
    Uncle Johnny was spread out across the seat, with his boots sticking out the window and his head pillowed on a rolled-up gunnysack. Slim and Loper woke him up by banging on the hood of the pickup and yelling, “Hey, wake up in there! You’re parked in a fire lane and we’re fixing to tow your vehicle!”
    Always making jokes, those two. How I manage to run this ranch with . . . oh well.
    Uncle Johnny came out wearing a sheepish grin. “I figgered you old boys would find me sooner or later. Sure enough, it was later. Has anybody seen my dog? Brewster quit me after the wreck and I ain’t seen him since. I hope the coyotes didn’t eat him.”
    Coyotes? Eat Brewster? Ho, that was a laugh! Who can eat a dog that’s always stepping in your face? Rip and Snort would have gotten a big chuckle out of that.
    As a matter of fact, Brewster had already reclaimed his spot in the back of Uncle Johnny’s pickup and was throwing up a big long line of Z’s.
    Well, Slim and Loper tied onto Uncle Johnny’s pickup with ropes and horses and pulled it out of the wash, and then we all headed down to headquarters for coffee and the ritual known as “The Telling of Tales.”
    Gathered in Sally May’s backyard, we all listened as Slim told and retold of our adventures up in the canyon. And yes, even I was admitted into the yard—under a temporary visa, you might say—although I could hardly relax and enjoy myself with Sally May standing nearby.
    I went out of my way to smile and wag my tail at her, but she was bad about holding a grudge, you might remember, and I found it convenient to, uh, camp beneath Slim’s chair and cast glances at her from afar, so to speak.
    Reading the expression on her face from afar, I certainly got the feeling that my temporary visa would be very temporary, and that if I so much as set foot in her flower beds, I would feel the sting of her tongue, and then of her broom.
    Slim told about how he’d gotten bucked off his horse—although he neglected to say that it happened TWICE,