“There’s a man out there,” explained Jack. “I don’t want him to see us, or he might chase us.”
Don looked, and when he saw the man he exclaimed:
“Why, he’s a good man. He drove away the boys who were throwing stones at me.”
“Then he didn’t know you were there,” said Jack, “for he doesn’t like dogs, and he won’t have them in this lumber yard. We must wait until he goes away.”
So, though Don would have liked to go up to the man, and be patted on the head, he thought perhaps Jack knew best.
“Things are so different in the city from the country,” said Don, with a dog-sigh.
Pretty soon the man went out of the lumber yard, and then Jack and Don could go down to the edge of the river, near the piles of boards, and get a drink of cool water.
“Oh, that’s fine!” cried Don. “That’s the best water I’ve had since I ran away.”
“Yes, it is good,” agreed Jack. “That’s why I have a place near it. We can’t always get all we want to eat in the city, but water is not so hard to find. Now let’s go and hunt up our dinner.”
“I know we did,” spoke Jack, as he washed his face with his paw, “but we may have to hunt a long time for something more to eat, and then it will be dinner time.”
Once more Don thought how very different this was from his farm kennel.
There, after he had had his breakfast, he could play around, or perhaps drive in a runaway pig, or go after the sheep or cows. He did not have to worry about his dinner, for he knew Bob, or some one, would bring it to him. But now Don had to go out and look for a bone in an ash can. Oh, it was very different!
This day Don and Jack were lucky. Together, as they ran about the city streets, they found a large piece of meat, which some cook had thrown out at the back door of a house.
“Oh, this will be fine!” cried Jack. “We’ll take this to the lumber yard, and put it in a new hiding place. There will be enough for dinner and supper too.”
It was not a very good piece of meat, being old and tough, but it was just as good to those dogs as roast turkey would be to you.
Jack took the meat in his mouth, and started off with it.
“Keep a watch out for other dogs,” he said to Don. “They may try to take it away from us. And, if they do, drive them off.”
“I will,” said Don. And he had to, several times. But Don was now a big dog, and he was braver and bolder than ever before. So, when two or three dogs ran up, Don growled and showed his sharp teeth, so that the other dogs were glad enough to run away.