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excellent results.”
    “Better introduce ourselves,” the woman said briskly. “Adrian Hadlett, Vicar of Minton Parva.” The clergyman gave an old-fashioned and rather majestic inclination of his head. “Pilot Officer Barry Crocker, and I’m Diana Ramsay—”
    “Lady Diana Ramsay,” Stroud growled as if that was important.
    She made an impatient gesture with one hand. The other, Nick noted, held a third slingshot.
    “There’re a couple more of us,” she continued. “You’ll meet them at the camp.”
    Once more, this time with Nick and Linda in the midst of this energetic group, they pushed on, to come out on the bank of the Run. And not too much farther on was their camp.
    Logs had been rolled into place and reinforced with rocks, forming what was half-hut, half-cave. Lung set to barking as a huge, gray-furred shape, which had been sunning by the entrance, reared back and showed a brush of tail. With ears flattened to its skull, the cat faced the excited Peke with a warning hiss that deepened into a growl. Linda dropped her bag to catch up the willing warrior, holding him despite his struggles.
    “Now then, Jeremiah, m’dear, that be no proper way to say good day, not at all it ben’t.”
    From the door issued a small woman to catch up the cat, a hefty armload, and soothe him gently with hands crook-jointed by arthritis, patched with the brown spots of age. Her hair, as white as the Vicar’s, was twisted into a tight little bun above a round face with a mere knob of a nose that gave very precarious perch room to a pair of metal-framed glasses.
    She lisped a little as she spoke, perhaps because her teeth seemed uncertainly anchored in her mouth, but there was a bright and interested welcome in the way she regarded the newcomers. Her dress was covered in part by an apron of sacking and an old mackintosh which swung cloak wise from her shoulders. On her feet were the same kind of crude moccasins as the Vicar wore.
    “Jean,” she called back over her shoulder. “We’ve got company.”
    The girl who came at the summons was perhaps only a little older than Linda herself. She also wore a dark blue uniform, though over it she had pinned apronlike a piece of dingy cloth, as if she hoped so to protect the only clothing she had. Her hair was brown and sprang in waves about her tanned face, a face that was pretty enough to make a man look a second time, Nick thought.
    “Americans.” Lady Diana again carried through the ritual of introductions. “Linda Durant, Nicholas Shaw. And this is Mrs. Maude Clapp and Jean Richards, who is a WREN.”
    “WREN?” repeated Nick, a little bewildered.
    The girl smiled. “Women’s Royal Naval Service—I believe you call yours WAVES.”
    “Well now, didn’t I tell you that the dream I had me last night was a true one?” Mrs. Clapp’s voice was cheery with open friendliness. “Company comin’, that it was. An’ we’ve fish all ready to fry out nice’n crisp. Couldn’t have been luckier, now, could it?” she asked of the company at large, but not as if she expected any real answer. “Jeremiah here, he won’t take at your little dog, Miss, if the dog don’t take at him. Jeremiah, he ain’t a quarrelsome beast.”
    “I hope Lung isn’t.” In Linda’s hold the Peke had become quiet. Now she swung him up so she could view him eye to eye. “Lung, friend, friend!” She spoke with emphasis, then turned the dog around to face the big cat whom Mrs. Clapp had put on the ground once more. “Friend, Lung!”
    The Peke flashed his tongue across his own nose. But when Linda set him down he settled by her feet, quiet, as if he had not been only moments earlier in a frenzy against a tribal enemy.
    Nick offered his own supplies.
    “Bread!” Mrs. Clapp opened the bag and sniffed ecstatically at its contents. “Fresh bread! Lands, I almost forgot what it smells like, let alone tastes.”
    Nick had grounded the bike. Now he stood a little to one side glancing from the pilot