all were running. "Hide quickly
until he passes!"

As the man passed them, they heard him muttering to himself: "I never
saw so many cats and dogs in my life as I have seen to-night in this
alley. I did not know there were so many in the world! And when I get
up to where I saw them they are all gone--disappeared--vamoosed. They
must be the ghosts of the dead and gone dogs and cats that used to
live in the warehouse."

Just then the bulldog, whose name was Buster, sneezed, which so
startled the man that he ran as if he had been shot.

"Nice brave watchmen they have!" said Billy.

"Plague take my nose!" said Buster. "It is so short and stubby that
all the dust gets into it and to save my life I can't help sneezing.
And I always do it at the most inopportune moment."

Just then a whistle sounded, and Tiger said, "We must hurry! There
goes the twelve o'clock whistle at the factory down the river. It is
the signal for the night shift to come on."

[Illustration]

The warehouse being near where they were, in about five minutes they
found themselves entering the low window Buster had spoken about. When
they looked inside, it was pitch dark and as if they were looking into
a coal pit. But their eyes being such that they could see in the dark,
they had no trouble in walking the plank and soon found themselves on
the floor of the cellar. It looked a black square in shape and there
was absolutely nothing in it, Tiger said. Still in the distance they
could see black shapes moving about.

"What in the world is over in that corner?" asked Billy.

"Oh, they are only wharf rats," replied Tiger. "Shall we charge down
on them just for fun?"

"Say we do! But I hate rats as I do poison," said Billy.

"So do I, but they are our natural enemies," answered Tiger.

"Ours too," from Stubby.

"You stand and watch the fun, while we rat haters kill a few,"
suggested Tiger.

"Very well!"

"When I say _three_, all of you run for the bunch and kill as many as
you can," instructed Tiger.

For the next ten minutes you never in all your life heard such
squealing, snarling and snipping of teeth as there was in that cellar.
Two unusually big cats and two dogs all bound to kill rats were
fighting these fierce wharf rats. But what made the battle such a
bloody one was that wharf rats are braver than house rats and will
fight to the death when attacked. Being large, and having long, sharp
teeth, more often than not they get the better