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screeched, “Watch out for my fence!”
    Well, that was a good suggestion. It just didn’t work out too well.
    By this time, Socks had left the yard and had gotten back to the gravel drive in front of the barn. He was dragging two strands of clothesline wire and all of Marybelle’s laundry, and he had somebody’s denim work shirt draped over his face. That might have been the only thing that saved Slim from a terrible fate.
    See, the horse was spooked out of his mind but also blinded by the shirt, and instead of bucking some more, he stopped in his tracks. For several seconds, nobody moved. Socks was trembling all over and heaving for air. So was Slim, and his face had turned the color of chalk.
    It was an eerie moment. As quiet as a mouse, Slim swung his right leg over the cantle and stepped out of the saddle. He staggered a couple of steps, blinked his eyes, and checked to see if he had lost his hat. Of course he had. It had come off on the first jump.
    He reached for the Leatherman tool he carried in a little pouch on his belt. It was the kind device that folded out into several tools: a pair of pliers, two sizes of screwdriver, a file, a little saw blade, and a can opener. He used the pliers to cut the clothesline wire and started removing laundry from the horse. He talked in a quiet voice and gave Socks a pat now and then, and the horse stood still, but shaking all over. When Slim removed the shirt from the horse’s face, he heaved a sigh of relief.
    Whew! It appeared that the ordeal was over, and boy, what a wreck it had been.
    Well, this seemed a good time for me to step in and take charge of the situation, and what could be more important than finding and retrieving Slim’s hat? You know how these cowboys are about their hats. Without a hat, they feel undressed, out of costume, you might say, and I was pretty sure that Slim would be thrilled if I showed up with his hat.
    It might even earn me a free turkey neck. I wasn’t wild about his turkey necks and they were no substitute for a good steak, but those neck bones were pleasant to chew and in hard times, I’ll never turn down a turkey neck.
    So I made a dash to the yard, where his hat lay in the grass. With care and tenderness, I picked it up in my powerful jaws. If an ordinary mutt had attempted this, he would have left tooth tracks on the brim, and maybe slobber marks too. Not me. Hey, cowdogs understand cowboys, and the first thing you need to know about a cowboy is don’t mess with his hat .
    You can spill paint on his clothes, shave his head, hide his boots, burn his house down, and wreck his pickup, but don’t mess with his hat . Your average cowboy spends a lot of time, shaping that hat so that it tells the world…to be honest, I’m not sure what it tells the world, but he’s very fussy about the tilt of the brim and the crease in the crown. If you change the shape a cowboy’s hat, you’re shopping for trouble.
    I knew that, so in picking up Slim’s hat, I exercised the greatest of care and handled it as though it were a crown made of gold. His face bloomed into a smile when he saw me trotting toward him, a loyal cowdog delivering his master’s most treasured possession.
    â€œWell, look at this! Thanks, pooch.” He took the hat, turned it around, and gave it a close inspection. “But next time, try not to slobber on it.”
    What? I did not slobber on it! In fact, I had gone to great lengths NOT to slobber on it. What does it take to please these people? I was so outraged, I barked.
    Oops.
    There was a moment of dead silence. Then I heard…yipes…I heard this grunting sound, and we’re talking about grunts that were DEEP and powerful and so creepy that the hair stood up on the back of my neck. At first I thought it might have been a train or a bulldozer, but…no, that wasn’t likely.
    Gulp. I had a feeling that…you know, in all the excitement of