"Ol' Man Bennett said said Mollie Mule's 'round back.?  A piece of grass wiggled from Phil's mouth as he spoke.  "He said she ain't for sale, though."

     Caleb belched sarsparilla  and through a rock at a darting digger squirrel.  "Everything's got a price on it."  He stretched out on his back and yawned.  "I mean everything.  Just wave your nuggets under Bennett's nose."

     The dry air hissed and crackled as if a giant straw were sucking moisture from every leaf and stem this side of the coast rang.  Sophie gathered the remnants of their lunch off the ground.

     "We need to keep moving," she said.  "I don't know how we're ever going to make it back up Knownothing before nightfall."

      "It's too hot to move," Caleb said groggily.  "You two go on ahead and check on the mule.  If you don't mind I'm set on napping right here with these pesky diggers."

     Ol' Man Bennett's cornfield sprawled beyond the store, shimmering like green waves in the hazy heat.  Sophie and Phil admired the healthy stalks swollen with ripe husks.

     "Are you sure your mule is back here?"

     "Naw, thought he said--"

     POW!  The sudden blast from a shotgun made Sophie and Phil hit the ground as quick as heat lightning.  across the field they heard barking and a man yelling, "Why you no-good-son-of-a-flat-footed-squaw!"  POW! went the gun again.  Down went their heads, their bellies hugging the earth tightly.  "Stealin' from me!  You better get out of my corn patch if you        know what's good for you?"  
                                                                                                                     Photo courtesy Siskiyou Historical Society

     Sophie lifted her head.  "What's going on?"

     Phil pulled her back down as a pair of legs streaked past them, followed by more barking.   Then the dog was on Phil like wildfire, hot-tempered and out of control.  Phil grimaced with pain and tried to get away, but Bennett's hound had her fangs in his leg and wouldn't let go.

     "Oh my word!"  Sophie screamed.

     She jumped up and gave the hound such a wallop with her heavily booted foot that the beast of a dog flew back into the cornstalks, knocking over a half a dozen stalks.  Then, hand in hand, she and Phil bolted.  They dodged digger and rattlesnake holes that appeared like booby traps in the open field.  They scrambled over mining tailings, bruising knees and gouging shins as Bennett's hound gained on them, fangs glaring like knives, eyes crazed and blood-thirsty.  They felt the hounds hot breath at their backs.  But instead of experiencing doom in that next instant, the dog's sickening shriek pierced the hot air.  Blood suddenly oozed from the hound's side as she recoiled and limped off, back into the shimmering corn.

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