The fence of his home had been mashed down and the terrified boy raced around to the back. The dogs knew his footsteps and set up a great commotion. They were safe but he had arrived in the nick of time, A fiend had forestalled the looters. The dogs were thickly coated with tar and oil. That meant a slow, agonizing death. The boy had latterly seen many animals dead by that torture. The filth on the boy's clothes and body showed how he had hugged the! dogs in happiness of finding them alive.
It was time for at, and the queerly assorted party got under way the boy: the police dog and setter, Jackie and Flock; the chicken called Murphy because that was nearest to the Hungarian "march" picked up, and the caged canaries At the Whangpoo Wharf they met a kindly police sergeant with a car. The menagerie was unloaded outside the Shanghai Club and another police car took them to the temporary S.S.P.C.A. headquarters at the Race Course for very necessary care and cleaning and a full recounting of the adventure.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.