The Return Read Online Free

Callie there.”
    Shep pressed Fuzz for better details of the space, but the cat had little to offer.
    â€œFuzz no have time to scratch out plan of whole space,” he meow-barked. “If Shep-dog want explain better, he go sniff out building himself.”
    â€œThen that’s what I’ll have to do,” Shep grumbled.
    The others were waiting on the other side of the fence around the toppled tree trunk. It looked like in all those heartbeats, they hadn’t moved a paw.
    â€œWhat did you — snort — find?” barked Daisy.
    â€œYeah-Shep-did-you-find-Callie-and-can-we-go-home-yet-huh?” Snoop leapt against the metal rings of the fence and sent the whole wall shivering.
    Rufus nipped Snoop in the hind leg. “Get down before you set the whole mess of humans on us!” he snapped.
    Shep smelled that the pack was feeling equal parts anxious and excited. “Did something happen while I was gone?”
    â€œHumans,” woofed Dover. “A few drove by in one of those open-backed Cars. They marked the tree.” He waved his nose, and Shep saw an orange X painted on the trunk.
    Daisy pawed closer to Shep, chest out like she was trying to appear taller. “I ordered the pack to jump into a bush,” she grunted. “We stayed hidden.”
    Daisy was all that was left of Shep’s defense team, and apparently she thought this meant that she was in charge when he was away. If the others didn’t raise their hackles over the arrangement, Shep wasn’t going to make anything of it.
    He wasn’t sure why the humans painted a mark on the tree, but it couldn’t be for anything good. Shep had to get his trapped packmates out of this place and fast.
    â€œWe found Callie, so the others can’t be far,” barked Shep. “Our pack will be back together by sunrise.”
    Â 
    The dogs moved away from the fence for the rest of the afternoon, not wanting to attract any more attention to their entry-tree. They began searching the gully alongside the wide street for water and food, and found a few slurps and bites to swallow down.
    Daisy strutted to Shep’s side. “What’s the rescue plan?” she yapped.
    â€œFuzz found Callie in the tube building,” Shep woofed. “We start there, and then open as many cages as we can on our way out.”
    Daisy gave Shep a snaggletoothed head tilt. “Not to smell insubordinate, but that’s all you’ve got for a plan?”
    â€œI didn’t sniff out the place; Fuzz did.” Shep turned over a moldering box and found only more trash. “When we go back in tonight, I’ll get a scent for how the whole kennel is set up and think of something better.”
    Daisy snorted and kicked back in the dust. “Blaze was better at this than you are,” she barked. “Callie, too.”
    â€œThanks, Daisy,” Shep growled.
    â€œAnd Virgil.”
    â€œI said thanks .”
    Shep spent the rest of the afternoon digging around his brain for a better plan, something to shove Daisy’s snout in, but nothing came to him. He was the kind of dog who worked best in the heartbeat — he was a doer, not a thinker. But he didn’t have Callie to think for him now. He had to think for both of them, to save her.
    It would be silly to bring every dog in with him to investigate the building — better for only him to get caught than the whole pack. He could sniff things out with Fuzz as lookout, and probably Oscar, since the pup was such a stubborn tick in the fur. The rest could wait by the fence until he had a plan in place. Something even better than what Blaze would have come up with. Probably not as good as what Callie would have thought up, but something.
    As the sun began to fall, Shep barked that they should head back to the fence.
    â€œWait!” howled Ginny. “I’ve found a den!”
    She stood in front of a huge tube, a stretch across at least. It was