The Big Question
By John Erickson and Gerald L. Holmes
5/5
()
About this ebook
Related to The Big Question
Titles in the series (78)
The Further Adventures of Hank the Cowdog Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hank the Cowdog and Monkey Business Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Faded Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Case of the Double Bumblebee Sting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Missing Cat Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's A Dog's Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Saddle House Robbery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Let Sleeping Dogs Lie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Case of the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Swirling Killer Tornado Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Every Dog Has His Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Curse of the Incredible Priceless Corncob Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Fiddle-Playing Fox Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Case of the Falling Sky Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Hooking Bull Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Murder in the Middle Pasture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Case of the Black-Hooded Hangmans Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lost in the Dark Unchanted Forest Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Case of the Raging Rottweiler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Halloween Ghost Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Case of the Car-Barkaholic Bog Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mopwater Files Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lost in the Blinded Blizzard Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wounded Buzzard on Christmas Eve Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Phantom in the Mirror Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Slim's Goodbye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Case of the Vampire Cat Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Vampire Vacuum Sweeper Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related ebooks
The Case of the Saddle House Robbery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wagons West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Moonlight Madness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secret Pledge Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Monster Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Case of the Prowling Bear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Disappearance of Drover Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Kidnapped Collie Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Raging Rottweiler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Booby-Trapped Pickup Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Christmas Turkey Disaster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Almost Last Roundup Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Case of the Hooking Bull Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Vampire Cat Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Car-Barkaholic Bog Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Frozen Rodeo Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Midnight Rustler Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Case of the Lost Camp Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Case of the Halloween Ghost Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Incredible Ice Event Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLocked in the Attic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Colorado Kidnapping Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Three-Toed Tree Sloth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Case of the Falling Sky Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Mysterious Voice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Troublesome Lady Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Case of the Tender Cheeping Chickies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case of the Night-Stalking Bone Monster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Quest fort the Great White Quail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ghosts of Rabbits Past Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5
Children's Mysteries & Detective Stories For You
Sideways Stories from Wayside School Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wayside School Is Falling Down Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Tower Treasure: The Hardy Boys Book 1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Egypt Game Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spy School British Invasion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5City Spies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fixer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Once Upon a Tim Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Charlie Thorne and the Curse of Cleopatra Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Spy School Goes North Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles (AD Classic Illustrated) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whale Done Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Double Identity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sherlock Holmes: A Study In Scarlet (AD Classic Illustrated) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Zoo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret in the Old Lace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spy Ski School Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sisters Grimm: Fairy-Tale Detectives Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mystery at Skeleton Point Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Evil Spy School Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sisters Grimm: Once Upon a Crime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book I: The Mysterious Howling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Doll Bones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mystery in Rocky Mountain National Park: A Mystery Adventure in the National Parks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Terror of the Bigfoot Beast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Big Question
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
The Big Question - John Erickson
The Big Question
John R. Erickson
Illustrations by Gerald L. Holmes
Maverick Books, Inc.
Publication Information
MAVERICK BOOKS
Published by Maverick Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 549, Perryton, TX 79070
Phone: 806.435.7611
www.hankthecowdog.com
First published in the United States of America by Maverick Books, Inc. 2012.
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © John R. Erickson, 2012
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012931090
978-1-59188-160-5 (paperback); 978-1-59188-260-2 (hardcover)
Hank the Cowdog® is a registered trademark of John R. Erickson.
Printed in the United States of America
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Dedication
For Carlos Casso, in appreciation for his great work on 60 Hank audio books.
Contents
Chapter One A Very Bachelor Christmas
Chapter Two Miss Viola Brings a Present
Chapter Three A Creature Under Slim’s Bed!
Chapter Four Drover Gets In Big Trouble, Hee Hee
Chapter Five The Dreaded Phone Call
Chapter Six Viola Comes To Help
Chapter Seven Attacked By Snow Monsters!
Chapter Eight Cold, Snow, and Misery
Chapter Nine Cheap-Shotted By a Scheming Horse
Chapter Ten Feeding Cattle in the Snow
Chapter Eleven Slim Passes Out in the Pasture
Chapter Twelve You’ll Never Guess How This Ends, Never.
Chapter One: A Very Bachelor Christmas
It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. At this point, you don’t know The Big Question and I’m not in a position to tell you, not yet. See, it’s classified information, very secret, and we can’t go public with it until later in the story.
Can you wait? Good. Let’s get on with the story. It’s a dandy.
Okay, Loper and Sally May had gone to Abilene to spend Christmas with Sally May’s kinfolks, so Slim Chance was holding down the ranch by himself. Actually, I was running the show, but you know how it is with these cowboys. We let ‘em take most of the credit, but everyone knows who’s really calling the shots.
The Head of Ranch Security.
It was a clear, warm day, kind of unusual for December, and we spent the afternoon hauling a hundred head of steers to a wheat field about five miles west of ranch headquarters.
Have we discussed wheat pasture? Maybe not. Around here, our pasture grass stops growing and turns brown after first frost, which comes around the middle of October. After frost, we don’t have a sprig of anything green on the ranch until the middle of April when we get the first grass of the spring.
Over those long dark months of winter, the only greenery you’ll find in the Texas Panhandle will be in wheat fields, because wheat grows and stays green over the winter. Why? I have no idea, but it does, and it makes excellent grazing for yearling cattle.
That’s why, every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we haul yearlings from the main ranch and dump them out on wheat fields. They’ll stay on wheat pasture until the middle of March, when we have to bring them back to the ranch and put them out on grass again. In a good year, they’ll gain two or three pounds a day on green wheat.
It’s pretty impressive that a dog would know so much about ranch management, isn’t it? You bet, but there’s even more. See, you probably don’t know that most wheat fields don’t have permanent fencing, so before we turn out the cattle, we have to put up a temporary fence made of small steel posts and a thin strand of wire.
It’s called an electric fence. (You might want to take some notes on this). We call it an electric fence because it’s hooked up to a battery that…I’m not sure what it does, but somehow it puts a little jolt of electricity through the wire, and if a steer touches the wire, he gets a shock.
That’s the whole point of an electric fence, don’t you see, it keeps the cattle inside the wheat field, where they belong. If an electric fence ever shorts out or quits working, that’s bad news, because cattle are so dumb, they’ll walk through the fence and then you’ve got stray cattle running loose.
That was a special concern on this particular wheat field. It lay on the north side of a highway, and a guy never wants his cattle walking down the middle of a busy highway, because guess what you find on a busy highway. Cars and trucks. You know what happens when an eighteen-wheeler meets a five hundred pound steer in the middle of the road? It’s not pretty, and that’s the kind of thing that causes cowboys to worry in the middle of the night, cattle on the highway.
You’ll want to remember this because later on in the story…actually, I’m not supposed to reveal this information, so forget that I mentioned it. In fact, I didn’t mention it. Thanks.
Where were we? Oh yes, the day before Christmas, we delivered the last trailer-load of steers and kicked them out on a wheat field five miles west of ranch headquarters. And naturally, before we left, we had to make sure the fence was hot.
Under ordinary circumstances, a cowboy checks the electric fence with a little device called a fence tester, a plastic thing with two wires attached. He sticks one wire on the fence and the other on a steel post. If the fence is hot, it makes a little light come on.
But you might recall that on our ranch, we have these cowboy-jokers who love to pull pranks on their dogs. While all the normal people in the world are thinking about the weather or the stock market, our cowboys are scheming up new and exciting ways of playing childish tricks on their dogs.
That’s what Slim Chance was doing. While Drover and I were busy checking out a gopher mound, Slim was messing with the electric fence. Vaguely, I heard him say, Dern the luck, I forgot my fence tester.
I thought no more about it.
I should have known that he’d do something crazy, and sure enough, he did. He disconnected the battery and wired a piece of beef jerky to the electric fence, then hooked up the battery again. Do you see where