John R Erickson
10) Faded love
A terrible winter storm strikes the Texas Panhandle. Down at Slim's place, Hank and Drover listen to the wind howling outside, watching the snow pile up outside. The phone rings. It's High Loper. Baby Molly has a bad cough and needs medicine. Can Hank go out into the blizzard and make it all the way to Headquarters with the cough medicine? Or, will he be captured and eaten by Rip and Snort?
Against her better judgment, Sally May leaves the ranch in Slim's care. While Slim naps, Hank and Little Alfred subject strawberry ice cream to rigorous product testing and then go for a ride in a mysterious spaceship. But, it's when Slim finally awakens that their adventures really begin. Hank saves Slim from sure death, endures a terrible whipping from the Hooking Bull, and much, much more.
Hank is literally at the end of his rope in his tenth adventure. It's roundup time at the ranch and Hank is left behind, tied to a post, while a high-bred border collie named Bennie takes Hank's place and runs the show. How can Hank restore himself as Head of Ranch Security and reclaim his fame and fortune?
Someone has been stealing feed out of the feed shed, and Hank knows that it's his job to do whatever he can to help nab the culprit. Slim sets a live-animal trap in the shed, and Hank checks it in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, the trap is a little trickier than Hank anticipated, and in the process of his investigation Hank manages to get himself...well...trapped. Can Hank find a way out of this sticky situation?
Wonder if cattle rustlers still exist? Well, they do. Hank and Slim go on a camping trip to see if they can catch the mysterious stranger who is stealing calves. Hank devours all of Slim's camp meat (weenies) and chews the tent rope in half during a thunderstorm. Slim gets soaked, but fortunately he never figures out why the rope broke.
Hank the Cowdog has seen dry summers in his years as the Head of Ranch Security, but nobody on the ranch has seen a drought like this. Ponds have dried up, the creek is down to a trickle, pastures have turned to burned toast, and the cows are kicking up clouds of dust. Then, to top it all off, Pete the Barncat hatches a dastardly plot to ruin Loper's birthday! The last thing the cowboys need is a prairie fire, but that's what they get, and it begins
...Hank finds himself the proud owner of three precious steak bones, and so he decides to protect his fortune by burying them in Sally May's garden. However, shortly after he meets Dog Pound Ralph, he returns to the garden and discovers that the bones are gone! He finds an empty Vienna sausage can in each hole. A night-stalking bone monster is loose on the ranch!
When Hank, Slim, Drover, and Little Alfred head over to the Hodge's place to feed the cattle, Hank encounters the weirdest cat he's ever seen. Then, when Hank gets bumped out of the back of the Cammo-Stealth army truck, Mary D. Cat is the only one around to help keep Rip and Snort at bay. Will Slim realize Hank is missing in action? Is Mary D. Cat really a vampire? Or could it be—gulp—that she's a good cat after all?
Hank makes a foolish bet with his archenemy, Pete the Barncat, that he can catch the Lumberpile Bunny. He loses the wager, his job, his pride, and even his gunny sack bed under the gas tanks. Hank begins to plot revenge. He must dispose of the cat. That sounds simple, but, without Pete, Hank discovers scrap time has lost all its joy and meaning.