deep in conversation, with the other leaders of the two gangs walking behind them and the small blond boy sticking closely to the Professor’s side, until they reached the door of the Humane Society on Wellesley Street some fifteen minutes later.
The rest of the group, who had hurried on ahead, were all standing around in front of the building looking at a new half-ton Ford panel truck, with the words CITY OF TORONTO—ANIMAL CONTROL painted on it.
“That looks like it, King,” one of the boys said to the leader of the Spadina Gang, as he came up. “That’s what the dog-catcher took our dogs in, I bet.”
“Okay, okay,” King said to the excited group. “You kids simmer down a bit, hey? Me and the Professor here and Blackie’ll go in and see if they know anything about our dogs. The rest of you wait here. Don’t anyone go away, because we may have an important announcement to make when we come out, whether the dogs are here or not. And don’t make a lot of noise and start attracting attention to yourselves either.”
In fact, several passers-by on Wellesley Street had already stopped to look at the crowd of girls and boys who were standing around outside the Humane Society, staring at its empty Ford panel truck. The Spadina leader glared round at them all again and then went and stood beside the Professor as he rang the Humane Society’s bell.
After a few minutes, the door was opened by a man in a long white coat and, when they had spoken a few words to him, the Professor and King and Blackie went inside. The man stared at the group on the sidewalk for a moment and then the door was closed.
Five minutes later the three boys were out again, shaking their heads at the eager questions of the gang members who crowded around them.
“No, the dogs aren’t there,” the Professor said. “In fact the truck hasn’t been anywhere near our part of the city today. Anyhow, the man said that as long as the dogs have got their tags on, we’ll be notified if they’re brought in. They’ve got a record of every licensed dog in the city. I guess Sput had his tag on all right, didn’t he Blackie?”
Blackie nodded.
“So did our dog,” King said. “So we don’t have to worry about that.”
“What about all that stuff about electrocution?” Red said, looking at the small blond boy scornfully. “Did you ask about that?”
“Well, Blondie just got his facts mixed up a bit, that’s all,” the Professor said. “He’s right, they do have a machine for electrocuting dogs. It’s a big kind of a box, not an electric chair. It’s the latest kind of humane killer. But they only use it when there’s nothing else they can do for a dog. Even if a dog’s brought in without a tag on, they always keep it seven days to give the owner a chance to claim it. Then, if no one has claimed it, they try to get it adopted by a new owner.”
“What do they suggest we do now?” Red’s Sister said. “Do we just have to wait and see if the dogs are brought into the Humane Society? Isn’t there anything else we can do?”
“They said we could advertise, if we were really worried,” Blackie said gloomily. “The man said we could put a two-line advertisement in the Want Ads of one of the Toronto newspapers for just over a dollar, in the ‘Lost’ section. Then someone who had found the dogs might return them, especially if there was a reward offered. I don’t reckon it’d be much use, though. How many people are going to see one little advertisement, even if we put it in all three papers? And anyway, we can’t afford to offer a big reward.”
There was some murmuring at this, as the gangs began to argue about whether it would be any good trying to track down the dogs through an advertisement in the papers, and once more it was the Professor who settled things.
“I vote we do put an ad in the papers,” he said quickly. “We’ve got to do something to try and help find the dogs, and a dollar for each paper isn’t very much. The Annex Gang’s got over fifteen dollars in its treasury, and we’ll pay for an advertisement for both dogs if the Spadina Gang hasn’t got any money collected. We can offer a small reward, too. It only needs to be a couple of dollars. All in favour, put their hands up.”
He stuck his own hand up and Fatty and Red and Red’s Sister copied him. Then the leader of the Spadina Gang put his hand up too.
“We’ll get up a collection tomorrow, to pay our share,” he said. “We’ll pay the same as the Annex Gang pays.”
At once, all the other members of the Spadina Gang put their hands up too, followed by Blackie, who was still doubtful about it doing any good. The vote was unanimous.
“Right!” the Professor said. “Let’s do it now, then. If we phone an advertisement in right away, we might even be able to get it printed in tomorrow morning’s Globe and Mail We can phone the same ad in to the Star and Telegram tomorrow morning, after we’ve seen whether the first one gets any results.”
He led the group of boys and girls along to the corner of the street, a few yards away, where there was a phone booth just across from the subway entrance. After he had made up a short message, describing the two dogs and offering a small reward, he went inside the phone booth, looked up the number of the newspaper in the phone book, and then closed the door of the booth to shut out the noise of the busy stream of traffic. The other members of the two gangs gathered round outside the booth, peering in through the glass sides.
The Professor put his dime in the slot, dialled, and then waited as the number rang. Then they saw him begin to talk, stop to listen, and then talk again. After another period of listening, he put the phone down slowly and looked at it, frowning. Still frowning, he turned and opened the door of the phone booth and stepped outside.
The others gathered round him anxiously.
“What did they say?” Fatty asked. “Did you get the advertisement in the paper for tomorrow?”
The Professor shook his head. “We were too late for that,” he said. “They won’t be able to print it until the day after tomorrow. But there was something else very strange.”
“What?” Red’s Sister said. “What was strange?”
The Professor shook his head from side to side in bewilderment, then looked at her and frowned again.
“When I told the woman who’s in charge of the advertisements that I wanted to put in one about a lost dog she was very surprised. She asked me if this was some kind of game.”
“Game?” Red’s Sister echoed. “Why did she say that? What’s a game about losing your dog?”
The Professor shook his head again. “When I asked her what was wrong with an ad for a lost dog, she said ‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just peculiar, that’s all. Until a couple of days ago, we’d carried hardly any advertisements for lost dogs for months. Now, suddenly, in the last few days, we seem to have had dozens of them!’ ”
He paused for a moment, then went on. “It seems that a lot of other people have suddenly started losing their dogs, too—all over town!”
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