Burn urges Travis to be cautious in the wilderness and to protect his family by shooting any animal that behaves strangely or aggressively. After having dinner with the family, Burn takes Travis aside and tells him that a plague of hydrophobia (rabies) has begun to ravage the surrounding area. But when Bud sees how much the boys love the dog, he lets them keep him. One day, a young cowboy named Burn Sanderson arrives and claims that he’s Old Yeller’s true owner-Old Yeller had accompanied him on a months-long cattle drive and recently ran away. After this, Travis becomes even more protective of Old Yeller and enlists the dog’s help in all of his daily tasks around the homestead. Lisbeth also takes Travis aside and tells him that she saw Old Yeller stealing from her family’s stores. Bud informs the Coates family that some kind of “strange varmint” has been ransacking vegetable patches and storehouses around the countryside. The two of them bring their female hound, and Old Yeller mates with her. One afternoon, a neighbor, Bud Searcy, drops by with his granddaughter Lisbeth. When Old Yeller rescues Little Arliss from an angry bear one afternoon, Travis’s attitude toward the dog changes: he finds himself doting on Old Yeller and appreciating his company. Over the next several weeks, Travis is desperate to prove his manliness and responsibility-but he underestimates how dangerous the natural world can be, such as when a pair of fighting bulls nearly destroy the Coateses’ cabin. Mama lets Little Arliss keep the dog-much to Travis’s chagrin-and they nickname him Old Yeller for his humanlike bark. Travis yells at the dog and chases it away, but Little Arliss runs outside and defends the dog. The next morning, when Travis goes out to fetch some meat from the storehouse, he finds a big yellow dog sleeping on the ground-the dog has eaten all of the meat. He immediately sets to work on the many tasks that need to be done around the ranch.
Papa entreats Travis to act like “the man of the family” in his absence, and Travis promises to take good care of his Mama and his little brother, Arliss. Fourteen-year-old Travis Coates is left in charge of his family’s ranch while his Papa sets off on a long cattle drive from their Texas Hill Country home to Abilene, Kansas.
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