Pete called Joe Lavelle, told him to meet him across from Maria's at once. Joe arrived in time to watch Maria being carried from the apartment on a stretcher.

"God Almighty, look," Pete cried. "Al Finch, framed by canaries."

Executing an intricate shuffle step, the gang leader was maneuvering the elaborate five-foot cylindrical triple birdcage through the door, all the while bellowing conflicting orders at his subordinates. That kept them bobbing so solicitously between Al and Maria that they all got royally in each other's way.

Then the rear stretcher-bearer tripped on the uneven sidewalk. He went down on one knee, losing his grip on the handles. Maria, her tiny body strapped to the stretcher, was jolted. The forward bearer, unaware for a moment of the accident, continued on and pulled the handles out of his companion's grip so that Maria, head downward, was dragged jouncingly along the sidewalk. With a yelp, Al leaped forward, unceremoniously depositing the canary cage on the lawn, where it rested at a dangerous tilt. He collided with one of his cohorts who had also jumped to the rescue. The two of them succeeded in startling the forward bearer and the front end of Maria's stretcher dropped with a second jarring jolt.

Like the incredible noise that issues from a cyphering organ played full through faulty stops, a chorus of strident howls arose. Starting with the piercing yelps of nearby dogs, it grew in intensity and volume as Maria, battered and pain-racked, summoned aid. It came bounding in answer to her call. With uncharacteristic ferocity, three poodles and a terrier launched themselves at the stretcher men. Before Finch could touch Maria, a collie and two boxers cut him off, snapping and snarling. The indignant doorman was tripped by a frantic cocker, who plunged at him from the lobby.

"Christ Almighty, she's called all the dogs," Joe cried.

A yelping, yapping, yipping vortex of sound with a rumbling, roaring ground-bass enveloped the area. The street soon became a seething mass of dogs, from ragged Scotties to leaping Dalmatians. More kept arriving on the scene, many dragging snapped ropes and chains, towing stakes, one even hauling a doghouse.

"She's called too many! She'll get hurt," Pete groaned.

As one, Pete and Joe started across the street, stepping on and over dog bodies. Pete caught a glimpse of a protective ring forming around Maria's manabandoned stretcher.

"Maria! Maria!" he shouted over the tumult. "Call off the dogs. Call them off!"

The sheer press of numbers would overrun her. Kicking, flailing, Pete waded on. A cat, leaping from a stopped car roof, raked him with her claws. Joe reached the curb and fell, momentarily lost under the bounding bodies.

Suddenly, as if cut off by an invisible conductor, all sound ceased. The silence was as terrifying as the noise, but now the momentum of the charging animals faltered. Pete made it to the sidewalk in that hiatus. Neither Maria nor stretcher nor sidewalk was visible under the smooth and brindled, spotted, mottled, rough and smooth blanket of dogs and occasional cats.

Cursing wildly, Pete and Joe labored, throwing the stunned animals out of the way until a space was cleared around the overturned stretcher. The upset bird cage rolled down to the sidewalk, coming to rest with the bent door uppermost. A flurry of orange and yellow feathers, frightened canaries flew hysterically aloft, their frantic chirps ominous and shrill.

Unable to move, Pete watched as Joe carefully turned the stretcher over. The two men stood looking down at Maria's crushed and bloodied body, trampled by the zeal of her would-be protectors. Then, moved by some obscure impulse, Pete joined her hands.

At this point, the dogs, released from the weird control that had summoned and then immobilized them, remembered ancient enmities. The abortive rescue mission turned into a thousand private battles.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Pete saw Wizard coming hell-for-leather down the street. Finch staggered to his feet, clawing his way up, using the bird cage as a support. With a howl, Wizard knocked him down again. Pete grabbed the man and arrested him for disturbing the peace. Wizard stood guard, in much better shape than any of Maria's other protectors, thanks to his late arrival.

The news story never mentioned that a human had been killed in the great dog riot. But it was noted that the unearthly canine choruses that had been plaguing Wilmington ended with that unscheduled concert.

But sometimes now when Pete Roberts is walking the beat with his K-9 partner. Wizard will suddenly start acting itchy and nervous. He whines and pulls, straining against the lead.

"Heel," Pete says stolidly, pretending nothing's happened.

One of these days I'll really put on the pressure.

"Finder's Keeper," "A Proper Santa Claus," and "Smallest Dragon-boy" were written at Roger Elwood's behest. He wanted short stories by McCafFrey. My estimable agent, Virginia Kidd, said that it was best not to limit McCafFrey, so I had to. The original ending of "A Proper Santa Claus" did not suit its intended market. I have reinstated my downbeat ending because it is logical.

Peter turned in four dozen golf balls including the monogrammed ones that Mr. Roche had been yelling about. The course manager was almost cheerful as he counted out Peter's finder's fee.

"You've got a positive genius for scrounging balls,

Pete. Don't know how you do it."

"My mother says everyone's got something they're good at," Peter replied, and began to edge out the door of the stuffy office. Comments like that made him nervous: he half-expected he'd given away his secret, and that he and his mother would be forced to run away again.

The manager only grunted and muttered about keeping the members happy. Peter ducked out, running home with his pocketful of dollars. Mother would be pleased, although she didn't like him using his trick of "finding" for "material gain," as she put it. But since she'd been too sick to work at the diner, they had precious little choice. Peter had wanted to get a fulltime job as a caddy but his mother had resisted.

"You can't be like me, Peter. You got to have education and training. Your father was a smart man, but he didn't have enough education." Dedication made her eyes bum in her thin face. "It's education that matters in this world, Peter. You got to go to school." She emphasized her last statement by stringing the words out and enunciating them clearly.

Peter adored his mother but he hated her attempts to imitate a "country club" accent: her habit of quoting country cliches'only ruined the effect she wanted to produce.

Seven dollars he was bringing home today. Not bad, added to the twenty-two he'd made caddying over the weekend. This week's rent, food, and some of the medicine were now paid for. If he could just talk Mother into letting him take a week off school now that the rains had stopped and spring sun was drying the greens, he'd really make some money! Mr. Roche always tipped a fiver, especially when Peter kept track of those monogrammed balls of his that he always swatted into the rough.

"Son, if you could patent that ball-homing instinct of yours," Mr. Roche had said more often than Peter liked, "you'd be a millionaire!"

It had made Peter almost scared to continue caddying for Mr. Roche, but the money was too tempting.

He came around the comer of their house trailer and skidded to an abrupt stop in the mud. Ken Fargo's green Mustang was parked on the concrete apron. The only good thing about his mother being sick, in Peter's estimation, was that she didn't have to be pleasant to creeps like Ken Fargo.