The Big Front Yard and Other Stories by Clifford D. Simak Page A

his shoes, for he was fully dressed. Probably Henry and Beasly, he told himself, had dumped him into bed and pulled off his shoes and let it go at that. But he couldn’t remember a single thing of it. He must have gone dead to the world the minute Henry had bundled him into the back seat of the car.
    He found the shoes on the floor at the end of the bed and sat down upon the bed to pull them on.
    And his mind was racing on what he had to do.
    He’d have to get some gasoline somehow and fill up the truck and stash an extra can or two into the back and he’d have to take some food and water and perhaps his sleeping bag. For he wasn’t coming back until he found his dog.
    He got on his shoes and tied them, then went out into the living room. There was no one there, but there were voices in the kitchen.
    He looked out the window and the desert lay outside, unchanged. The sun, he noticed, had climbed higher in the sky, but out in his front yard it still was forenoon.
    He looked at his watch and it was six o’clock and from the way the shadows had been falling when he’d peered out of the bedroom window, he knew that it was 6:00 p.m. He realized with a guilty start that he must have slept almost around the clock. He had not meant to sleep that long. He hadn’t meant to leave Towser out there that long.
    He headed for the kitchen and there were three persons there – Abbie and Henry Horton and a man in military garb.
    â€œThere you are,” cried Abbie merrily. “We were wondering when you would wake up.”
    â€œYou have some coffee cooking, Abbie?”
    â€œYes, a whole pot full of it. And I’ll cook up something else for you.”
    â€œJust some toast,” said Taine. “I haven’t got much time. I have to hunt for Towser.”
    â€œHiram,” said Henry, “this is Colonel Ryan. National Guard. He has his boys outside.”
    â€œYes, I saw them through the window.”
    â€œNecessary,” said Henry. “Absolutely necessary. The sheriff couldn’t handle it. The people came rushing in and they’d have torn the place apart. So I called the governor.”
    â€œTaine,” the colonel said, “sit down. I want to talk with you.”
    â€œCertainly,” said Taine, taking a chair. “Sorry to be in such a rush, but I lost my dog out there.”
    â€œThis business,” said the colonel, smugly, “is vastly more important than any dog could be.”
    â€œWell, colonel, that just goes to show that you don’t know Towser. He’s the best dog I ever had and I’ve had a lot of them. Raised him from a pup and he’s been a good friend all these years –”
    â€œAll right,” the colonel said, “so he is a friend. But still I have to talk with you.”
    â€œYou just sit and talk,” Abbie said to Taine. “I’ll fix up some cakes and Henry brought over some of that sausage that we get out on the farm.”
    The back door opened and Beasly staggered in to the accompaniment of a terrific metallic banging. He was carrying three empty five-gallon gas cans in one hand and two in the other hand and they were bumping and banging together as he moved.
    â€œSay,” yelled Taine, “what is going on here?”
    â€œNow, just take it easy,” Henry said. “You have no idea the problems that we have. We wanted to get a big gas tank moved through here, but we couldn’t do it. We tried to rip out the back of the kitchen to get it through, but we couldn’t –”
    â€œYou did what!”
    â€œWe tried to rip out the back of the kitchen,” Henry told him calmly. “You can’t get one of those big storage tanks through an ordinary door. But when we tried, we found that the entire house is boarded up inside with the same kind of material that you used down in the basement. You hit it with an axe and it blunts the steel –”
    â€œBut, Henry, this