Petrie to the Rescue
"They did what?!" Petrie asked Fredestaire after he'd told him the story.
"They kidnapped him!" Fredestaire exclaimed, still panting from the long run.
"Well, if he's an archaeologist, a fellow friend, and coming with us too, I'm going to get him back."
Lady Coventry was amused. She liked William very much and she especially liked it when he did things like this.
[Illustration: Lord Dufferin, Fredestaire, Lady Coventry, and Petrie, standing around a table; Dufferin looks surprised, Fredestaire looks worried, Coventry looks flirty, and Petrie looks righteously angry. Both Dufferin and Petrie are dressed in suits/tuxedos (the tail of Petrie's tux is visible), the way I imagined that upper-class men dressed back then. They are both totally anthropomorphic dogs who walk upright on straight legs. Fredestaire wears only his pith helmet, while Coventry is wearing a dress with a lace collar and a little jeweled crown--again, how I assumed ladies dressed. Fredestaire is only partly anthropomorphic (he doesn't wear full clothes and walks on bent legs like animals have); I think Lady Coventry might be only partly anthro too, but I'm not sure, seeing as she's wearing a dress. The caption reads: "'If he's a fellow archaeologist, we're going to get him back!'"]
"Yeah, but what about the humans?" Lord Dufferin asked.
"Oh, they're too stupid to know anything that we're up to." Petrie looked around. "We'd need stuff to help us get him back. Any ideas?"
Dufferin looked around, too. "We could use some rope," he suggested.
"And some disguises," Fredestaire said.
"And my white powder to throw in their faces," Coventry said, perking up.
"Now we're getting somewhere!" Petrie put on his backpack and waited while the others did the same, being equipped with rope, disguises, and the powder. And it was then that they got on their way.
"Okay dog, give," another nasty dog, belonging to the humans, said. [Note--I had no understanding of the importance of scene shifts back then.]
Lord Carnarvon looked at the group of dogs around him, confused. "What are you talking about?"
A gun was shoved right underneath his chin. "You know what. What's this treasure that you've found?"
"Treasure? I'm sorry, but I've heard of no such thing!"
The gun poked him harder.
"Tablets!" Lord Carnarvon said. "We found Egyptian tablets at Stonehenge!"
"Egyptian tablets?" repeated one dog.
"At Stonehenge?" said another.
"That's impossible!" said a third.
"You asked, and I told you!"
"Yeah, and people drive on the left side of the road," one dog muttered.
"Yes, we do," Lord Carnarvon said. "What's so strange about that?"
"Tell the mutt to shut up!" the leader snapped.
Lord Carnarvon liked that about as much as Fredestaire liked being called Freddy. He puffed out his chest and said, "I am not a mutt, I am a purebred Airedale, son of Lord Carnarvon, the fourth earl of Carnarvon, son of Lord Carnarvon, the third earl of Carnarvon, son of--"
"Son of an idiot!" the leader screeched. "I do'nt [sic] care how far back these earls of Canervon or Cenarvon or whatever it is go, or how many there are, or how famous you may be, all I care is that you tell us what you're hiding!"
Coventry finally managed to see what was going on inside by standing on Petrie's shoulders, while Petrie stood on a ladder.
"What's going on?" Dufferin whispered from below.
"They're pointing a gun at his head."
"They're what?" Dufferin let go of the ladder. It swayed back and crashed over Fredestaire's back. Petrie landed flat on the ground and Coventry went into the bushes.
"What was that?" a voice from inside asked.
Coventry peered into a hole in the wall, hidden by the bushes.
"Who cares. Just knock him out and let's go."
"Where?"
"Stonehenge, you dolt! To see if this is true!"
Coventry watched as one of the dogs swung a thick stick up and then brought it down, cracking it against Lord Carnarvon's skull. His head dropped. He was knocked totally unconscious.
The dogs gathered some picks together and rushed out the door just as Petrie, Dufferin, and Fredestaire managed to hide in the bushes.
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