He clutched his hands tightly in the dog’s hair.  Carlo ran faster and faster after the boys.

“Don’t go so quick!” begged the Monkey.

“Bow wow!  I have to!” barked Carlo.

“Oh, I know something dreadful will happen!” exclaimed the Monkey.  “I just know it!”

CHAPTER V

MONKEYSHINES

Over the green meadow, with the Monkey on his back, ran Carlo the dog.  In front of the dog raced Herbert and Dick, now and then looking back and laughing.  It was great fun for the boys to see the Monkey having a ride on the dog’s back.  And, to tell the truth, Carlo and the Monkey were enjoying it themselves.

“Do I hurt you, holding on this way?” asked the Monkey of Carlo, grasping tightly the dog’s woolly back.  “Do I pull your hair any?”

“Oh, not much,” Carlo barked in answer.  “I don’t mind a little pull like that.”

“You see I’m so afraid of falling off and breaking my tail, or something like that,” went on the Monkey.

“Well, you’re tied on, so I don’t believe you’ll fall,” replied the dog.  “Those boys are used to tying things.  Once they tied Madeline’s Candy Rabbit on the end of a kite tail, and he nearly went to the moon, I guess.”

“Oh, yes, I heard about that,” said the Monkey.  “Only I heard it was a star, not the moon.”

And then he noticed that he was tied on rather tightly, and he felt there was not much chance of his falling.  So he did not hold so hard to the dog’s back, and Carlo was glad of this.

Herbert and Dick, looking back to see if Carlo was running after them (which indeed he was) saw the Monkey bobbing to and fro on the dog’s back.

“It looks just as if the Monkey was holding on, doesn’t it?” asked Dick of his chum.

“Yes, it does,” admitted Herbert.  “Wouldn’t it be funny if my Monkey was really alive, as your dog is, and could ride him whenever he wanted to?”

“It would be funny,” said Dick.  “Very funny!”

Pretty soon the boys came to a little brook that ran through the meadow.  They stopped on the edge, and looked down into the water in which tiny fishes were swimming.

“Shall we jump across the brook and run in the field on the other side?” asked Dick of Herbert.

“If we do, won’t Carlo jump over, too?” asked Herbert.  “And if he tries to jump over, he may fall in and get all wet, and so will my Monkey.”

“Carlo won’t mind getting wet!” laughed Dick.  “But it might not be good for your Monkey.  Perhaps we’d better stay on this side of the brook, and then everything will be all right.”

“I think so, too!” agreed Herbert.

So the two boys did not try to jump over the stream, but waited on the edge of it for Carlo to catch up to them.  Along came the fussy little dog, barking and yelping, for he did not like to be left very far behind.  And on his back, still bobbing about, was the Monkey on a Stick.  No, I am wrong.  The Monkey was not on his Stick just then.  Herbert had taken him off to give him a ride.  It was easy to take the Monkey off his Stick and put him back on.