The Case of the Kidnapped Collie

Plot

The book starts off with Hank watching Slim and High Loper working on the machine shed. Later on Hank and Drover are sleeping under the gastank when Pete the local barncat comes around and begins playing with Hank's tail. Pete then begins talking to Hank in his sleep and Hank wakes up and gets angry at Pete. Later on a Chevy pickup truck comes up and on the back is the collie, Beulah, and her boyfriend the English pointer, Plato. Plato is here to sniff out birds such as quail and pheasants so the humans can shoot them. With Plato scaring up birds, Hank tries to scare up birds as well, but he decides that quails and pheasants are too small. So he scares a group of turkeys and while most of the turkeys go running, one fights with Hank. Sally May then gets angry at Hank for scaring up the turkeys. Later on Plato comes to Hank and says that Beulah has been captured by a coyote or as Hank usually calls them 'cannibals'. He and Plato go off into the wilderness and find that Beulah has been taken captive by the coyotes, Scraunch the Terrible, who has a half-scarred face. Beulah says that Scraunch jumped her while she was getting a drink. Scraunch then says that he's going to make Beulah one of his wives. So, Hank via song tells Beulah that once he's done singing he'll punch Scraunch. He and Scraunch get into a fight while Plato and Beulah run. In the end the humans come in time to find Scraunch walking away after stuffing Hank into a log.

Major characters