Zip Unearths The Stolen Silver

"Listen, Tabby! I hear the sound of wheels and of horses' feet on the road," and stopping to look and listen, Zip spied the Judge's fat, white horse trotting down the road toward home. And he also recognized the village constable sitting beside the Judge.

"See, Tabby, he has brought the constable along with him to help get a clue to the burglar. Let us hurry along and we can get there first by going across lots."

This they did, so when the Judge arrived home and went to show the constable the window where the burglar got in, he found Zip sitting demurely beside it.

"Hello, Zip! What are you doing here?" he asked.

You may think it strange the Judge knew Zip's name, but not so in a little village. Generally everyone knows the name of all the dogs and cats and call them by name when they chance to meet them in any unlooked-for place, as now.

"Did you hear them talking of my burglar in town and come to see for yourself where he got in?" asked the Judge.

Zip stopped the Judge's questions by jumping up and down on the window sill, smelling the bundle of clothes, jumping up and down, nosing around the tracks and then running with nose to the ground, barking as he went.

"What in the dickens does the dog mean by such behavior?" said the Judge.

"Looks as if he were following the scent of some person," replied the constable.

"Perhaps he is!" from the Judge.

"See, he is jumping upon the stone wall as if trying to get over it."

"That would appear as if the person whose track he is on had climbed the wall at that point."

Here Zip came back with head up.

"Well, what do you want, Zip?" asked the Judge, for Zip had caught his trouser leg in his teeth and was trying to pull him after him.

At this Zip let go the Judge's trousers, jumped up and down on the constable as much as to say, "That is just what I mean!" and then darted off down the path again. Seeing the men did not follow him, he came back and jumped up and down on the Judge and then ran down the path once more.

"Surely that is what he wants," agreed the Judge, and so the two walked just behind, following the dog until he stopped and began to scratch the dirt away from the roots of a clump of trees. And as he dug spoons, knives, forks and sugar-bowl lids began to fly out from under his feet. When a big tablespoon landed at the Judge's feet, he exclaimed, "By all that is wonderful, see this spoon! That dog has discovered where the burglar hid my silver. Pretty clever work for a little dog!"

"One would think he was a police dog and had been trained to hunt down thieves," said the constable.

"Well, Zip, you shall have a silver collar for this, made out of one of my solid silver spoons," promised the Judge, as the men went to the hole Zip was digging and helped push away the earth. Soon they counted the pieces, and found they had recovered all that had been missing.

"Hello!" exclaimed the constable. "Whose cat are you? I never saw such a large cat in my life!"

"Where is any cat?" asked the Judge.

"Up there on the wall," replied the constable, pointing his finger at Tabby, who was quietly sitting on top of the wall enjoying the unearthing of the stolen property.

"Oh, that is Zip's playfellow! I have often seen them playing together when I have been at the doctor's," said the Judge.

"Just like a smart dog to select a cat as a chum instead of another dog. And I tell you what, I should like to own that dog myself, but I suppose the doctor would not sell him at any price."

"I should say not!" replied the Judge. "That little dog has been his constant companion for three years when visiting his patients. Be the day ever so hot or cold, it is never too hot, never too cold for Zip to go along. In winter he sits up beside the doctor wrapped to the chin in a big, warm robe, and in summer in a light one to keep the flies from biting him.

"Here comes my wife down the garden path. She must have heard us drive in and our not coming to the house has aroused her curiosity and now she's coming to see what we are doing. Won't she be surprised and delighted when she sees we have found her silver?"

And she surely was, but even more surprised at the way they had found it than at the discovery. She looked around to pet Zip and take him to the house and give him some cake and milk, of which he was very fond, but he and Tabby had both disappeared.

The next day it all came out in the Maplewood daily paper, telling how Zip, Dr. Elsworth's little fox terrier, had tracked the burglar to the spot where he had buried his booty, and that they had recovered it all, not losing so much as a spoon. It also recounted how the Judge had ordered the jeweler to make a solid silver collar for Zip with his name engraved on it and what he had done to deserve this honor.

When Zip and Tabby came trotting up the front path on their return from the Judge's, the doctor was sitting on his front porch, reading the afternoon paper. On seeing Zip, he put it down and exclaimed,

"Well, you rascal, where have you been all this time? And what do you mean by making me take all my rides alone? You look all draggled and dirty and as if you had been in mischief. Perhaps you have been getting Tabby into mischief too, for I see she is with you."

"So you think he has been in mischief, do you?" mewed Tabby in a cross voice, and she avoided his hand when he attempted to stroke her. She thought to herself, "The doctor will feel badly when he reads in tomorrow's paper that Zip, instead of being in mischief, has made himself the hero of the town."

But Zip did not mind. He knew his looks and behavior were against him, but that on the morrow all would be explained and the doctor would be as proud as Punch of him. So he quietly trotted around the corner of the house and went for a swim in the horse trough.

The next day when the doctor drove into town with Zip by his side, everyone wanted to pet him and talk about how clever a dog he had been. And they gave him so much candy, cakes and sweets that he had a high fever the next day. However, he went with the doctor just the same, only instead of running around visiting all the dogs and cats he knew wherever the doctor stopped, he just lay still on the seat and slept.

At last the doctor noticed and said, "Zip, I believe you feel sick today, you are so quiet. Let me feel your nose!"

This is what a doctor does for a dog, just as he feels the pulse in a person. If the nose is hot, the dog is sick; if it is cold, he is all right.

Being a homeopathic physician, Dr. Elsworth opened his case and gave Zip three little sugar pills, or so Zip thought, but they had medicine inside of them, and he swallowed them just as if he had been a sick little boy. Inside of two or three hours he felt better and before he went to bed that night the doctor gave him another dose, so when Zip awoke the next day, he was feeling as frisky as ever.