Bolt Upright: Seattle Tales

by Galen Peoples

Stories based on the series Here Come the Brides: Has Aaron won the Bolts' mountain, after all?...Lottie's unexpected windfall proves unwelcome...Jason takes Jeremy on a river run...Seattle has to build a university almost overnight...more.

2. Tales 6 through 8

6. Horsehide

"North!"

"South!"

"North!"

"South!"

The two men docked at the bar as the saloon doors slammed behind them. Ken poured them two beers without asking. He was the acting barkeep while the proprietor was away visiting.

"It was the North, by an ell," he said, "but the South made a good showing at Bull Run."

His jokes were so rare his hearers did not realize at first that this had been one of them. At the far end of the counter, Joshua Bolt gave a chuckle.

"Yeah, very funny," Aaron Stempel said. He took a gulp of beer with no evident enjoyment. "But we were talking about the new landing."

"Didn't know there was one," said Joshua.

"Isn't," his brother Jason said, "because Stempel's too pigheaded to admit the only fit location's south of town."

"Fit for your log race," said Stempel, "not for my mill."

"Do it your way, I'll have to cut a sluice all the way from the mountain."

"Why should I have the worse part of the deal? I'm paying half."

"And I'm paying the other!"

Stempel turned away. "Knew it was a mistake us going partners."

Jason had a bright thought. "We'll ask an unbiased party. Ken?"

Ken was seldom asked his opinion and had to wind himself up to it. "Divide the difference," he said finally, "put it in the middle."

"We have one in the middle!" said Stempel. Ken shrugged.

Jason's eye lit on his brother. "Joshua!" Unbiased party, Stempel grumbled silently. "Don't let our ties of blood sway you unduly," Jason said, with his arm around him.

Joshua pondered the painted nude the men had dubbed Cultus Kate. "Either way," he said, "somebody loses. No solution possible."

Jason removed his arm. "What kind of answer is that?"

"What you asked for," said Ken, "an unbiased one."

"Where's Jeremy?" asked Jason.

Joshua nodded toward the street. "New peddler in town. Jeremy's looking over his wares."

Jason started for the doors in alarm.

"It's all right," said Joshua, "he hasn't any cash. I won it from him last night at poker."

"All of it?"

"All but a quarter."

"And for that quarter," the peddler was saying, "you can acquire the recreational marvel of the age—for those with the acumen to appreciate it." He took a small object out of his wagon.

Jeremy watched with curiosity. The young woman on his arm was also curious, but mostly to find out how he would be made to buy something (as he certainly would) after his express promise not to. "Can't anyway," he had said. "Only got a quarter."

The peddler turned to reveal the item at offer: a genuine Spalding baseball.

Jeremy showed his disappointment. "That's for kids," he said. Candy Pruitt was relieved.

"Kids!" said the peddler. "Where have you been for the past twenty years?"

Jeremy was exactly twenty. "Here in Seattle."

The peddler clucked sympathetically. "How a community can be so far behind the times—!" He informed them that baseball was no longer a schoolyard frivolity but the game of choice for gentlemen, in fact on the verge of becoming professional, although he himself would hate to see that befall. If Jeremy had never seen a proper match—men pitted one against another in a trial of skill and will—the peddler pitied him.

Candy did not like the look in Jeremy's eye. "Let's go," she said.

"Can I see?" he asked. The peddler handed him the ball.

Jeremy hefted it, squeezed it, sniffed it, tossed it in the air.

"What do you say?" prodded the peddler.

"What do you say?" prodded Jason. He was standing at Captain Clancey's shoulder, with Stempel at the other. They had fallen on him the moment he entered.

Clancey pursed his lips in reflection. "Before I make me decision, I wonder—would one of yiz gentlemen be so kind as to stand me a whisky?" Both waved at once and two glasses were set before him. He emptied both and sat looking satisfied.

"Well?" they said together.

"Me decision is," said Clancey, "I'm not goin' to make a decision." He turned and headed for the doors.

"Why not?"

"Because," he said from the doorway, "if I did it'd be a sure t'ing that one or t'other of yiz would no longer be disposed to be buyin' me a drink as ye was so kind to do in the first place. I t'ank ye and good day to ye." With a tip of his hat he left.

"So much for your unbiased parties," said Stempel. "And it's still north!"

Jason glared at him.

Jeremy was still undecided. "Has a firm manly feel, don't it?" said the peddler.

"Won't when it's been batted around a while," said Jeremy.

"In that case—" The peddler turned to the wagon and pulled out a drawer filled with baseballs. Jeremy's eye roamed over them. A patch of balls, a harvest of games... "I'll throw in a set of the Knickerbocker rules," the peddler said, "absolutely free." He took out a small book bound in soft brown leather: The Base Ball Player's Pocket Companion. Jeremy had never heard of those rules but they sounded famous.

"And for the young lady," the peddler continued, combing the wagon's compartments, "—ah!" He said it as if he had found the Holy Grail but it was only another small book bound in blue: The Speller's Manual.

"Just what she needs," said Jeremy.

"Scoff not. This little vade mecum will furnish her with the spelling of any word she's likely to require."

"How do you spell vade mecum?" asked Candy.

"Look it up, it's in the book," the peddler said brusquely. His attention had shifted to a pair of men coming over from the saloon. A sight like that usually foretokened a dissatisfied customer or a legal nicety he had failed to observe, never good news. "Come, young man," he said, "I can't stand here all afternoon."

"Come on, Jeremy," said Candy.

She meant, come on and forget this nonsense, but he interpreted it as encouragement. "I'll take it," he said, parting with the quarter.

It was then his brothers arrived. Jason asked to see what he had bought. Jeremy gave him the Player's Companion and tossed the ball to Joshua, who tossed it back. He had not handled one of those for a while.

"And one spelling book," Candy said, staring at the peddler. He quickly turned it over.

Joshua and Jeremy moved their bout of toss-and-catch into the street. "Of course for a proper game you need a bat," said the peddler. Jason eyed him knowingly. "Don't carry them myself," he said, "but surely somewhere in this town—" He looked toward the general store.

"Got a bat around here somewhere," Ben Perkins called from the back room. The younger Bolts waited at the counter. "Used to get up some scratch games," he continued, "with some fellas from the mill." He brought out the requested article, coated in dust, and wiped it with a rag. "You two startin' up a team?"

"No," said Jeremy, "we just—" He stopped. "Why, you interested?"

Ben took the combined positions of center, right, and left field. Joshua promised him he could pitch next. Jeremy was batting. The wall of the livery stable was standing in for catcher. Its presence was fortunate, since it stopped every ball Joshua pitched. Eventually the stable man stuck his head out to shoo away the noisy boys. Finding them older than he had expected, he made his request more polite, and the players moved down to the fence behind the brides' dormitory.

There Jeremy insisted that Joshua let Ben take his turn. "Can't hit what you throw," he complained.

Joshua laughed. "That's the idea, brother."

He backed out into the street to field. Passers-by circled wide around them.

If Jeremy had expected Ben to take it easier, he was quickly taught otherwise. The first pitch not only passed him without his seeing it but flew over the fence pickets and through the brides' back yard to land in a clearing near the church.

"I'll get it!" a voice shouted. Candy's brother Christopher, who had been watching from the back door, took off at a run.

On his return, Jeremy asked if he would like to pitch. Ben and Joshua laughed.

"Away from the windows, Christopher," said Candy from the door. She had returned home after Jeremy had left her standing by herself in the street. She waited for him to apologize.

He did, in a way. "Sorry," he said, "we didn't think of the windows." Candy shut the door on him.

"That's why me and the boys stopped playin' before," Ben said as they moved to the clearing. Now that they were four, they no longer needed the backstop.

Presently a logger called Corky showed up. "Drummer said there was some fellas playin' ball," he said. He took right field, Christopher took left. Then the peddler led over two of Stempel's workers: Harve, the foreman, and a little, fidgety, obscurely historied character called Woodchuck Jimmy.

"Heard there was a game," said Harve, "but it looks like loggers only."

"Come on in if you're up to it," said Joshua.

"Woodchuck," said Harve, "let's show these mountain boys how it's done."

All afternoon, sounds of the game floated into the dormitory. Some of the brides tried to pull their men away for a sit in the parlor but were rebuffed.

Candy was one of them. Watching the others listen forlornly to the shouts, cheers, and occasional cracks of wood against horsehide, she arrived at a conviction. "We'll entertain ourselves," she announced.

She left and came back a few moments later with Christopher's slate and a piece of chalk, which she handed to Biddie. "You keep score," she said.

"Score for what?"

Candy picked up the Speller's Manual. "A spelling bee." There was a general groan. "We'll take turns selecting the words," she went on. "Each word counts two points. The player who's ahead after two hours—"

"Two hours!" cried a pretty, moon-faced blonde.

"Now, Sally, it'll be fun. You go first. Spell 'recapitulate'."

Sally wrinkled her nose in thought. "R - E -" She paused. "R - E...K..." She paused again. "Sorry, what was it?"

"No points, Sally."

"Sally—0," Biddie wrote.

Her own turn was next. "R - E - C - A - P - I - T - C - H - U - A - T - E," she said with confidence.

"Sorry, Biddie." Candy moved on to Franny, a tall blonde who was not even pretending interest. She reeled off the correct answer. Candy applauded. "Two points for Franny."

"That can't be right," said Biddie. "'Pitch' is P - I - T - C - H."

"No, Biddie," said Candy, "that's different."

"I thought it had something to do with baseball. Pitching and that." The others stared at her. "Well, it could have." She logged Franny's score sulkily.

"See?" Candy said brightly. "Let the men have their fun. We don't need them."

Sally leaned on her chin. "Yes, we do," she sighed. The others hummed in agreement.

Coming out of Lottie's, Jason met Stempel. "My men in there?" Stempel demanded. Jason shook his head. "Never knew so many to miss supper. What are they up to?"

The activity in the clearing had mushroomed into a full-scale game. Two dozen more than the necessary complement were on hand. Those not playing waited their turns or just stood and watched. As Jason and Stempel arrived, they met Candy leading Christopher off, resisting his pleas to stay longer. "Behold," said Jason.

Stempel took in the scene with a mixture of wonder and suspicion. He asked how it had all started. Jason pointed to the peddler's wagon sitting to the side. He was showing off some of his genuine Spaldings. "Out to sell more baseballs, I expect."

"Better have a talk with him," said Stempel. "This won't do."

"Let it alone. They're enjoying themselves."

"Foolish waste of time." Jason shook his head in pity. "Next thing you know they'll be skipping work."

Usually on a Monday morning the walkway was free of hazard. But today a ball sped past Candy's nose, stopping her short. One of Jason's road monkeys jumped in front of her to catch it.

"Aren't you supposed to be up at camp?" she asked crossly. Sam put a finger to his lips and ran away.

As far as the waterfront the street was dotted with miniature ball games. There were young men, old men, boys—and where was her little sister, now she thought of it?

A figure in a black coat strode through their midst, tails flying. "Harve, Woodchuck, the rest of you!" he shouted. "Quit this foolin' and get back to work!"

Half the men fled. Stempel chuckled to see who remained. At least Bolt was losing some too—and he didn't even know it.

"Billy, Sam!" came a familiar voice. "Back to camp!"

Stempel gave him a sour glance. Blaming me, I shouldn't wonder, thought Jason, as if I was responsible for everything that goes on around here. Yet for once it was not Stempel doing the blaming but a young woman with an upturned nose, and it was only guilt by association.

That night it was Biddie's turn to select. "'Marmalade'," she said.

"Oh, Biddie," said a kittenish brunette, "everyone can spell that."

"Not everyone, Ann," said Franny. "What about Sally?"

"Can too!" said Sally. "M - A - R - M - A - R - M - A - R...D. There!"

Candy stared at her. "Sally, how could that possibly spell 'marmalade'?"

"Well, I don't know. All the words look strange when you see them written down. With all those different letters."

The silence that followed was broken by Franny giving the right answer, although she had not been called on.

"Two points to Franny—again," said Biddie. "Next word, 'supercilious'."

"Ask Franny," said Ann. "She's sure to know that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"What do you think it means?"

Franny started for her. Candy quickly interposed herself.

"Here's a word," she said loudly, "'ornery'."

Biddie checked. "That's not in the book."

"But it applies—to every one of us. Our men are paying us no attention and we don't like it. But we can't behave as if they were that important."

"But they are," Sally said desperately.

"Of course. But we mustn't let them know that."

A chorus of male voices made their ears perk up.

Sally ran to a window. "They're coming here!"

"Pay them no mind," said Candy.

Some of the men had begun to yearn for a break from baseball, despite its enticements, and to repent having dismissed the brides so offhandedly. Now they were prepared to make amends, and had picked Jeremy as their spokesman. His knocks on the screen went unanswered, although he could hear unnaturally loud laughter from within.

Candy came on his third call. He informed her he had been knocking for some while. "Didn't hear," she said curtly. "We were having such a laugh!" She demonstrated.

Jeremy realized it had been mainly her laugh he had heard. He wondered if she might have been sampling the brandy on the sideboard. "You feelin' all right, Candy?" he asked.

"Won-der-ful!" she said. Jeremy regarded his suspicion as confirmed. "Something I can do for you and your teammates?"

Jeremy looked back. The others nodded him on.

"We, uh, we figured you and, uh, some of the—"

The chorus joined in: "Ann!" "Biddie!" "Franny!" "Sally!" They drowned out most of the sentence, but Candy got the last three words: "...take the air?" The men waited eagerly.

"Not me," said Candy, "I'm having too gay a time. But I'll ask the others."

They appeared as if poured from the ceiling. She quickly stepped in front of them. "These gentlemen wish to know if you care to take the air." She clutched Sally by the forearm (which the men could not see) to hold her back.

"No. Oh, no," said the others.

"No," said Sally, between clenched teeth.

"Sally," said Sam, "I never knew you to turn down an invite to take the air. You know, take the air? Along the old coal road? In the moonlight?"

"Sorry, Sam," said Candy, "we're having too much fun. Isn't that so, Sally?"

"Fun," Sally gasped.

"Thanks all the same, though. Good night." She shut the door in their faces. The men stood in dismay.

So did the girls on the other side. "You sure we did right?" Ann whispered.

"You bet," Candy whispered back. "They won't be so cocksure next time."

"We'll show 'em," said Corky. "We'll just go on playin' ball." The others agreed.

"Women!" yelled Sam. "Who needs 'em?"

The others took up the cry and repeated it often during their playing, which they did purposely in view of the parlor windows. When Jason and Stempel happened past, those were the first words that reached their ears. The men were out front ignoring the women, who were inside ignoring them.

Jason lowered his eyebrows. "Seems to be precious little courtin' goin' on."

"Never mind that," said Stempel. "We've got to settle this business of the landing. Soon be the rainy season"—it was always that, Jason reflected—"and the longer you delay—"

"Me! You're the one who won't see sense. I put it to you again—"

"You won't change my mind!"

"And you certainly won't change mine!"

"Wait," said Stempel. "There has to be some way to resolve this."

"Flip a coin?" Jason suggested.

"No, I've seen that coin of yours."

"Arm-wrestle?"

"No, you'd win. But a sporting contest—that's not a bad idea. Thing is, what kind?"

The ball players were thick around them. They had nearly got hit a couple of times but had been too deep in conversation to notice.

"Have to be something big," said Jason.

"Something the whole town can witness."

"Something that'll settle this mess once and—"

"Heads!" came a cry. The ball flew toward them. Both reached for it, but Jason made the catch.

He held the ball in front of him. "—for all," he concluded. The two of them looked at each other.

"A single match game," Jason explained to his crew the next day. "The men of Bridal Veil Mountain versus those of Stempel's Mill. Winner to decide where the landing goes."

A big broad-faced chopper asked why they should care. "Because I do, Pebbles, and you work for me."

A cant-dog man about Sam's size asked whether they had to play. "No, Billy, it's strictly voluntary. But not everyone will be able to. Only nine to a side." When that did not have the rousing effect he had hoped for, he threw in a bonus of fifty cents a day. "So who'll join? Who'll play?"

His brothers stepped forward. So did Sam, dragging Billy after him. They were followed by Pebbles and a big good-natured teamster called Canada. That was the lot.

Jeremy beckoned to Corky, knowing of his enthusiasm for the game. Corky was reluctant to speak the question on his mind. "Will I still have time to see Biddie? Kinda been ignorin' her lately."

Jason had hoped this would not come up so soon. "Y'see, the way of it is—"

"You'll be in training," Joshua broke in. "That means avoiding everything that saps your natural energies. Women, drink—"

A loud murmur arose. "Well, I don't know," said Canada.

Jason offered a homily: "Practice hard and when you play you'll be sure to win the day."

Billy answered with one of his own: "Give up women, give up booze, I don't care much if I lose." The others agreed.

"Come now," said Jason, "it'll only be four weeks." His hearers looked as though they had other things on their minds. "For the glory of the camp," said Jason.

"For the honor of the mill," said Stempel. He was looking out over a motley crew. "Were they the best you could do?" he whispered to Harve.

Harve nodded. "Them two I was gonna fire."

"Do it. Send all the rest back but you, Woodchuck, and Perdition."

Perdition was an Indian who had worked at the mill since it opened. His true name was unpronounceable by whites; the closest they had been able to come was Pa-dish-o-wan, which had been corrupted almost immediately to Perdition. He was of no known tribe, and if he had any family he never spoke of it.

Stempel asked him and the others whether they had ever pitched. Harve raised a hand. When Stempel asked if he were any good, he lowered it again. "Ben Perkins can throw it around some," he volunteered.

Stempel was pleased. "He owes me the favor. I gave him his first job in this town." He hurried off to claim him.

The Bolts were hunting players too, but most of those they passed in the street were too old or too young.

"Good thing we're sure of a pitcher," said Jason, and then remembered he had not seen him at the turnout that morning. "He'll play, won't he?" Joshua asked whom he meant. "Obie Brown, of course. No other man with an arm like—" His brothers were staring at him. "What is it?"

"Obie's got three broke ribs," said Jeremy. "He's been laid up for two weeks."

"Hellfire!" Jason roared. "Why doesn't somebody tell me these things?"

"You saw—" Joshua began.

"Now we'll have to find another."

"I know!" said Jeremy. Joshua lowered his eyes in pretended modesty. "Ben! He's—" They came into sight of his store. He was out front, demonstrating his throwing arm to Stempel. "—taken," Jeremy concluded.

"Who else is there?" said Jason. "Think!" Joshua was silent.

Before Jeremy could answer, their attention was captured by the nearby slap of a ball onto a bare palm. Next to the livery stable a half game was in progress. It involved only a few players; how many the Bolts could not see because all except the catcher and the batter were around the corner.

The unknown pitcher threw again. The ball glided past the bat as if it were not there. The catcher called another strike and shook his stinging fingers. The batter cursed again.

"Maybe we've found our man," said Jason. They turned the corner. At the same moment, the catcher sent the ball back to the pitcher.

Joshua laughed. "You mean our woman."

Jason stared. "Franny?"

It was indeed Franny, in an aspect theretofore unrevealed, to them at least. She was clad in a loose blouse and bloomers that did nothing to show off her figure.

"Think Candy knows she's here?" Joshua asked. Jeremy shook his head.

They watched as she reared back and let fly. This time the batter cursed aloud. Evidently that finished the game, for there were whoops from one side and the assembly began to break up.

The brothers approached Franny. She seemed unembarrassed. "Miss West," Jason said courteously, "are you as good as you look to be?"

She tilted her head. "And what if I am?"

"Then we want you for our team. Are you willing?"

"I'm not disinclined."

Jason grinned. "Saucy tongue, fine throwin' arm—what more could a man ask?"

"He could ask Candy's permission," Jeremy said mildly.

"Permission! Who's she to give or withhold her leave?"

"You know she doesn't like the brides making free with the men."

"This is different. It's baseball!" But a little worm of unease had begun to bore its way inside. "Suppose I could mention it to her—just out of politeness."

"She can't," Candy said, not looking up from the table she was laying.

"It'll be perfectly proper—"

"I should hope so," she said, starting on the other side. "But Franny won't have time. She'll be too busy practicing for our spelling bee. Franny, didn't you tell them?"

Franny pouted but said nothing. Jason asked what spelling bee.

"When we heard about your little game, we decided to have one of our own. We arranged with the Reverend to use the church. And we invited Mr. Alvin Ambrosia Huguet to be the judge."

Jason did not know the name. Joshua could not help him. "Alvin Ambrosia Huguet," Candy repeated, as if she had just said "George Washington." She picked up a book from the side table, Everywoman's Guide to Principled Living by A. A. Huguet. Jason gave Joshua a glance. "Franny's our champion speller."

"But she's our pitcher!"

"We saw her first."

Jason noticed Franny biting her lip. "Shouldn't it be her choice?" he asked.

Joshua thumbed through the book and stopped at a passage that seemed apposite. "'Within the bounds of duty and propriety,'" he read, "'every woman should be encouraged to employ her leisure in the manner that she deems most fit.'" He shut the book with a clap.

"You wouldn't want to go against Mr. Huguet?" Jason asked.

Candy sighed. She knew her cause for lost. "Franny?" she said.

"Not my decision," said Franny. "It's up to Canada." Jason remembered that the two of them had been keeping company lately. He considered Canada's temperament and hers. Up to him? he thought.

"Well," Canada said carefully, "I think you oughta do what you want." Franny and Jason had cornered him in a thicket from which there was no ready escape.

"Wouldn't want to do something you didn't think was right," Franny said, fluttering her lashes.

"Come on," Jason said, "satisfy the lady." He was sure what Canada's advice would be. "Nothin' to be scared of."

His confidence overcame Canada's better judgment. "Well," he said, "I druther you did the spellin'. More ladylike."

"What?" Jason barked.

"So you don't think it's fitting a girl should play ball?"

Canada knew he had erred. "Didn't say that."

"You think a girl should sit off in a corner all prim and proper and never show any spunk?"

"Didn't say that either."

"You're scared, that's what it is! You're afraid I'll be better'n all you men." She drew herself up. "Mr. Bolt, I'd be proud to pitch for you." She stamped off through the woods.

"Thanks, Canada," said Jason.

"Yeah," Canada said, scowling, "you too."

"She can't," said Stempel, when he heard about it.

Jason was tired of being told that. "Why?"

"Your men versus my men. Men—that was the agreement."

"It was understood—"

"Not by me!"

One of the hands stopped the lathe and came over to them. "Mr. Stempel? You ain't lettin' women in this game?"

"Not if I have anything to say about it. Don't worry."

Woodchuck Jimmy looked downcast. "Reckon that cuts me out."

"What's he mean?" asked Stempel. Woodchuck removed a rumpled hat no one had seen removed before to let fall a cascade of chestnut hair flecked with silver.

"What she means—" Jason began.

Stempel's jaw fell. "Woodchuck? You're a woman?"

She shook her mane, piled it back up, and covered it with the hat again. "Far back as I can recollect."

"You never mentioned it."

"Don't recall as anyone asked."

Jason was enjoying this greatly. "Well?" he said.

Stempel sighed. "All right. Any man—or woman—who's ever worked for you can play. Same for anyone who's ever worked for me."

Jason did not miss the inclusiveness of his definition and tried to figure out the catch. Then he realized it would allow Ben in. He didn't mind. "Nearly every man in town's worked for one or both of us," Stempel was saying. "Is it agreed?" He extended his hand. After a moment Jason took it.

"Girl still can't play," Stempel said casually.

Jason had forgotten Franny! "Why in blazes not?"

"Never worked for you."

"Has too," Jason said promptly. Stempel asked at what. Jason searched. "Mendin' our long johns—well, Canada's."

"Don't count."

"Then I'll hire her!"

"Oh, no." Stempel was firm. "You start hirin' right and left, there'll be no end to it. Has to be as of the time of the agreement."

Jason started on a different tack. "We did shake on it," Stempel reminded him. That settled the matter. "Don't worry," he said cheerfully, "you'll find—somebody."

"There's nobody," said Jason, pacing outside Perkins Mercantile.

"No?" said Joshua. He was leaning on a barrel fashioning a homemade baseball the way he had as a boy by wrapping a long cotton strip around a cartridge casing.

"Nobody that hasn't been snatched from under our—" He stopped. "Why, I'm a blind fool! Looked every place but in my own family." Joshua stood up, looking ready to forgive. "Jeremy's got an arm!"

Joshua tied off the ends of the strip with force. "Arm?" he said.

His eye fell on the new tonsorial parlor and the hitching post outside it. He hauled back and threw a fast one that lodged in the iron ring.

Jason stared at it in amazement. "That's—" he began. But Joshua had gone.

Jason ran after him. By exhibiting great contrition, admiration, and desire to have him on the team he got Joshua to consent grudgingly to what he had been eager to do all along.

From that morning he spent most of his time in practice. "Think you're better'n Ben?" Jeremy asked. He shrugged.

Jeremy confessed surprise that Ben had once been a mill hand. "He won't be the only one coming out of the woodwork," said Joshua. He meant at the mill, but within the hour they saw it happen under their own noses.

Jason heard his name called out from below, with an indiscourageably cocky air that pervaded every inch of the caller's frame from the tilt of his chin to the breadth of his stance.

"Redmond Bass!" said Jason. "I'll be a—"

"You always were," said Bass, "but I was fond of you anyhow."

He climbed up to him and grabbed his hand. "Hear you're startin' a ball club."

"You a good player?"

"Don't like to brag—"

"Since when?" said Joshua, who had stopped practice to come and greet him.

"You got me," he admitted. "Reckon I'm about the best player I know. 'course I ain't seen Swede yet."

He revealed that Big Swede had come in on the boat with him. Joshua urged Jason to go and enlist him. Bass scratched his chin. "'fraid someone's beat you to it."

The someone was Stempel. Having met Swede at the landing, he was trying to rush him to the mill before one of the Bolts spotted him. But Swede would not be rushed in that, or in anything else. "Don't seem right me playin' against Jason," he said. Stempel explained that was why he had brought him. He had arranged it with Swede's boss and traded two of his hands in exchange.

A sudden fear seized Swede. "I get to go back, don't I?" Stempel said of course, after the game was over.

Swede thought some more. "I better ask Jason. After all, I vass his man."

"Mine too," Stempel reminded him, "that time you and he were on the outs."

"Ya, but he oughta have the first choice of me, I t'ink."

Stempel had half-expected that, and launched his attack. He hadn't liked to tell him so but Jason had said he didn't want Swede on his team. He was afraid Swede might run out on him again.

Swede nodded. "Ya, I useta did that a lot. But he don't have to fret this time. I'll tell him." He started off toward the mountain.

Stempel grabbed the crook of his arm. Jason also had said he could never keep him fed.

"That's true," Swede said. "Essie, she says the same. But he don't need to fret about that neither. I'll—"

Stempel kept a tight grip on him. Jason also had said he let a woman lead him around by the nose.

At first Swede did not know what woman was meant and when he found out he laughed. "Ya, she does a bunch of leadin'. But she alvays knows v'ere ve're goin'. The other day ve vass takin' a buggy ride—"

Stempel felt almost like strangling him. He looked for words Swede would understand. "He says in your family she's the one who wears the big top hat—"

"Never seen her in no—"

"—while you wear a little calico bonnet."

Swede thought, then thought longer, and then still longer. All at once his eyes took fire. "I'll punch him in the nose!" he said.

"No!" said Stempel. "Much better you join my team. Imagine his face when he sees you playin' for me."

"That's right!" Swede agreed. "That'll show him!"

Jason ran up with his brothers. "Swede," he said, "it's grand to see you."

"Oh, ya?" Swede leered at him. "I'll show you who vears the big hat and the little lace bonnet!" He pumped Stempel's hand fiercely. "Mr. Stempel, I'll play for you for sure!"

Stempel freed his hand. "Show you where you're to bunk." He smiled apologetically at the Bolts. "Temperamental athletes."

"Why?" Jason kept repeating. He was sitting Lottie's window, staring into his beer. "Why would he go with Stempel?"

"Stempel fed him a story," said Joshua.

"We had our differences," said Jason, paying him no mind, "but we parted friends. Doesn't he remember?"

"Swede sorta reads things one word at a time," said Jeremy.

Joshua was looking out the window. "Here's another," he said.

Jeremy looked too. It was Steve Weller. Jeremy said he had thought Weller was in prison. "Kicked out for stirrin' up the guards," said Joshua.

Jason asked which way he was headed, mill or mountain. It was the mill. Jason felt relieved despite himself.

"Figure Stempel sent for him?" asked Jeremy. Joshua said he would take what he could get.

Jeremy smiled with more pleasure than the comment warranted. Joshua asked the reason. "Something he doesn't know, " said Jeremy. "Swede hates Steve Weller."

Sure enough, within a day after Weller's arrival Harve had to separate the two of them. The stinky pig, as Swede called him, had passed a remark about Essie, which he was happy to repeat for Harve, inflaming Swede all the more. "Stow that talk," Harve said.

"Man's free to talk," said Weller.

Harve looked at him. "Why, you're right. Swede too. Go on, Swede, tell Steve some of those stories you was tellin' me the other day. The ones about his mother." He winked at Swede.

"What about her?" Weller said sharply.

Swede finally got it. "Oh, ya, they vass sure good vuns. The boys in the bunkhouse used to call her—"

"You shut up about my ma!"

"And you about my Essie!"

"What say you both watch your tongue from here on out?" Harve suggested.

After a moment both agreed. "Besides," said Weller, "that was before she come out here. Woman's gotta make her way somehow."

Harve grinned after him. "Guess character runs in families."

That evening Weller, still brooding on life's injustices, found his way to Lottie's, where he laughed to see the Bolts sipping soda pop. He ordered a beer.

"Shouldn't you be in training?" Joshua asked him. Weller swore he could whip all the Bolts, drunk or sober. Joshua raised a fist. Weller put up his guard.

"No fightin' in here," Ken warned.

"Who's fightin'?" said Weller. "Nobody's—"

Just then one of the other customers broke a chair over someone else's head. Like all the chairs, it had been furnished by Stempel free of charge, and so was incapable of doing serious injury, but it stung enough to rile the victim into picking up another one to even the score. Ken ordered him to drop it. The man spun and heaved the chair at him.

In an instant Ken had picked up the club he kept behind the bar for "hard cases," and with one swing sent the chair banging into the corner, where it broke apart at a safe distance. The man who had begun the fray joined the other in pitching bottles and glasses at him. Ken batted them all into the same corner. Weller tossed down the rest of his drink and left.

Ken shooed out the troublemakers with a swat to each of their backsides. He had worked for the Bolts, and Stempel too. Jason's brothers urged Jason to grab him first. "We have a full team," said Jason. "Stempel doesn't. And I'll wager in about a minute—"

Stempel burst in with Weller on his heels. "Miscalculated," said Jason.

Within moments it was evident Ken was Stempel's. What was not evident was that Stempel had promised to arrange for him to keep working at the saloon yet get in plenty of practice time, for only a fraction of which he would be paid. "He's already drawing a salary," Stempel explained to Harve later. "This is just gravy."

"That make nine?" Jason asked. He and his brothers deposited their glasses on the counter.

"Darned right," said Stempel. "—minus one," he added in a low voice as they went out.

Weller stared after them. "Leave it to me," he said. "I'll find you your ninth man."

Of all Jason's men, Pebbles had always been the one, next to Weller, most often out of sorts over one thing or another. Weller guessed he could turn that to his use. From his days at the camp he knew all the back ways in and so he was able to sneak up to where Pebbles was cutting and draw him apart.

"You worked for Stempel once, didn't you?" he said.

Pebbles nodded. "Penny-pinchin' old miser."

"Got a high regard for you. Wishes he had you back so's you could play on his side."

Pebbles was unimpressed. "Jason's just as glad."

Jason was a liar, Weller said. Once they had had to wait two weeks for the pay he had promised them ("but you never saw him and his brothers starvin', did you?"). He always cheated the immigrant jacks because they could not tell the difference. And he had bragged to his brothers he was paying Pebbles two dollars a day less than he was worth.

"Two dollars! That's—that's—how much is that?"

"If I was you I'd have it out with him before practice starts," Weller said. "But don't say it was me told you."

Pebbles did keep that quiet but was public enough with the rest. Jeremy judged the sun must have gotten to his brain. "You eat while we starve," Pebbles parroted.

Jason looked at the giants surrounding them. "Healthiest bunch of starvin' men I ever saw."

"'tain't funny!" said Pebbles, stepping close to him. "You're a thief and a tyrant and a double-dyed liar—and you're gonna give me what I got comin'!"

Jeremy averted his eyes.

"You're hired," Stempel said when Pebbles presented himself at the mill office. His jaw was blue and he worked it around continually while Stempel was talking. He was ordered to start work the next day and start practice that evening. His pay would be half of what it had been under Jason.

He sought out Weller and told him so. "Shoulda come to him while you had a job," said Weller. "Wasn't smart up and quittin' like that. What ever got into you?" He left Pebbles feeling more out of sorts than ever.

That would have pleased Jason, who now found himself one player short.

"Know just the fella," Bass said over supper. "Still workin' here when I left. Tall hillbilly—Jim Boy?"

Jeremy overheard. "Not Jimrick Jute? Jason, no."

"Heck of a fast runner," said Bass from the other side.

"Yeah, run after anything in sight. Remember, Jason? Every time he saw a bull team he'd drop work and follow it."

"Needs a little watchin', is all," said Bass.

"Where is he now?" asked Jason.

"Back at his cabin."

Jeremy shot Bass a dirty look. He knew how hard a climb it was up there and that when they arrived the mountain man would be off somewhere hunting or trapping, and would likely end up saying no anyway.

He was right in all things but one. The ascent to the outlook where Jimrick lived taxed Jason's legs, and the thin chill air dizzied him. He had come by himself, not to spare his two brothers, who could take the hills like mountain goats, but to give himself a space to think up ten good reasons Jimrick ought to come back with him.

That space lengthened while he waited outside the cabin. By late afternoon, when Jimrick climbed into view over the crest with a brace of squirrels on his shoulder, Jason had a hundred arguments on tap. As commonly happened, he used none of them but made up new ones on the spot.

"Don't like ball," said Jimrick. He was engaged in the messy business of skinning, dressing, and cutting the game. Jason had promised himself to leave before supper.

"Why, there you're wrong," he said. "Town ball—or baseball, as they call it nowadays—it's like the singin' of a river, the runnin' of a jackrabbit, the sparkle of a lady's eyes. Ain't natural not to like it. Might as well say you don't like hotcakes—"

"I don't like hotcakes."

"What do you like?"

Jimrick considered. "Hog skins."

"Might as well say—hog skins?"

"Fried in a mess of fat."

Jason tried not to think too long about that. "Ever thrown a baseball?" Jimrick shook his head. "Then you can't—"

"Jason," said Jimrick, pointing with his knife, "ain't no baseball up here. No flatland. It's all mountains and hollers. In the hollers, come mornin', it's dark as pitch till the sun shows. You set on your porch and watch the light move down the mountain till it's all revealed—revealed by the hand of God." Jason had seen it himself, and still could in his imagination. "These mountains is what I love," Jimrick declared. "Ain't no mountains in baseball." He brought the knife down on a squirrel head. "It's all flat—flat as can be."

"Yes, it is," said Jason, "and I'll tell you why. That ball—that ball is like the mountain—it's like the valley. Keep your eye on it and before you know it's sailin' up into the blue, then fallin' down, down, down onto the soft grass. It's every kind of up and down all rolled into one." He clapped Jimrick on the shoulder. "Give me a month of your time, and before you're done I promise you'll like baseball. Like it better'n hogfat." His face radiated a conviction that seemed like simple truth, to a simple soul.

Jimrick sighed. He sure would miss his cabin.

The next morning the two teams assembled at the mill.

Jason walked up to Stempel. "The Bolt Timber Wolves challenge—"

"The Sawdust Eaters," Stempel supplied.

"—challenge Stempel's Sawdust Eaters to a match game to take place on the 27th. Winnin' team decides where the landing's to go. Losin' team buys supper."

"Agreed," said Stempel. They shook on it. The teams cheered.

"You'll have to change the day," Candy told Jason. He was looking out over a field that seemed an ideal practice site. "Didn't you hear me?" she asked.

"Only clear day for two weeks," said Jason, "if you trust the almanac."

"But we've planned our spelling bee for that day. And we've invited Mr. Huguet. How would we look if we took back our invitation now?"

"Like a passel of silly fe—"

"Jason," Jeremy said quickly, "why couldn't they be the same day? Spelling bee in the morning, game to follow."

"Fine," said Jason.

"On one condition," Candy said. Jeremy had figured it had been too easy. "That all your men attend." Jason opened his mouth to refuse. "The brides deserve an audience just as much as you do."

He sucked in his temper. "All right," he said, "if Stempel agrees."

"He will," she said. "You'll see to it. Good afternoon." She left.

"Huguet," Jason said as if it were a swear word. Then a thought struck him. "We'll need a judge too." He smiled. "And I know just the man."

He found the man at Lottie's as usual. "Him!" Stempel said.

"Fair-minded. Refused to take sides in our dispute."

It sounded almost like a good idea. "Will he do it?"

"He'll be proud to serve," Jason said confidently.

"Why should I?" Clancey growled when it was put to him.

"For love of the game."

"I don't love the game! I don't know a diddly ding-dang about the game!"

Jason produced the Player's Companion. "This will repair that."

Clancey took it and examined the contents. "Reminds me of me Seaman's Guide," he said. "One of the proudest moments of me life was when I mastered the Seaman's Guide. Took me near a year. And I could still quote you chapter and verse." He folded his arms. "Go on, ask me."

"Faith needs no proofs," said Jason. Stempel suppressed a smile.

Clancey studied the book further. "So these is the rules?" They nodded. "And the umpire gets to say what's accordin' to them and what ain't?" They nodded again. "And what he says goes?"

"He's the last word," said Stempel.

"Like bein' captain."

"Exactly."

Clancey considered for less than a second. "I'll do it."

Behind his back, Stempel pantomimed the act of imbibing. Jason was about to speak to that point when Clancey said, "One t'ing—if I'm goin' to do this I got to do it proper. Keep a clear head." He held up his glass. "This will be me last drink from this till the game's over."

He drained it in one and plunked the glass down. "Kenneth, me man," he said, "lay in a case of your best whisky. 'cause come that night I'll be havin' me a tear such as was never seen outside the ould sod."

Ken did as instructed. Clancey set to studying the Companion night and day. The Bolt woods swarmed with men sawing off limbs to be made into bats of maple, cherry, and, most popularly, white ash. These were turned and sanded at the mill. Corky hollowed out his and filled it with (what else?) cork.

At the camp the men found ways to do their jobs and practice the game at the same time. They threw blocks at one another and batted them with their axes; they set rocks around the falling sites and ran along routes that passed them, touching each in turn.

"It's no reflection on you, Corky," Jason was heard explaining. "Shortstop is what the position's called."

He ended the workday early to lead the team down to the training field but found to his annoyance that Stempel had claimed it already. Another field lay adjacent, past a row of trees. "We'll set up next door," he said.

For the next four weeks Stempel saw to it his players trained every long summer evening till past dark, and all day on weekends. Alone of them, Perdition was less than willing. He swung only at those pitches that satisfied him in some imperceptible way, took the bases (when he did take them) at something between a run and an amble, and ignored Stempel's coaching altogether. Stempel did not push him any harder than he had to. That never worked, and truth to tell, when he let him be, things generally ended well enough.

Toward the close of training he got an unlooked-for vote of thanks from Swede. "Glad you stopped Jason puttin' in that Franny," he said. "Vomen got no place on a man's team." Stempel thought it best not to tell him about Woodchuck.

The Bolt training field soon attracted enthusiasts. Candy had relaxed her rule of ignoring the men because she herself wanted to watch. But when one of them, after muffing an easy catch, began to express his disappointment in language that might have been familiar to Clancey's ears but not (she hoped) to the brides', she was forced to lodge a protest.

Later that evening Jason sat the men down and informed them he expected them to behave in a fitting manner. No swearing, no drinking, no arguing with the captain (who was Jason) or the field umpire (who was Jason too), and "no general cussedness." Each transgression would cost the offender fifty cents.

One of them spat in reply. "No spittin' either," Jason said. "From now on we behave like gentlemen."

On his assurance Candy allowed the brides to return, and they became a daily fixture. Some brought their own stools or parasols.

They held practice too. One afternoon, while Candy was absent on some business connected with the bee, the brides gave Ann charge of the Manual. They always liked it when she picked the words. Today the first one was "muscular." Ann was admiring the men on the field as she said it.

"M...," Biddie pronounced in a slow drawl, "U...S..." The other brides gave a sigh after each letter. Biddie paused.

"C," Ann whispered.

Biddie continued: "C...O...O...L...E...R."

"Wrong as can be," said Ann. "Two points. Sally, 'caress'." They all shut their eyes.

"C..." Sally said, sounding as close to swooning as a conscious woman could, "A...R...R..."

Someone grabbed the book out of Ann's lap. She opened her eyes to face Candy, who had returned unexpectedly. Some of the others blushed. "That will be enough spelling for today!" said Candy.

There was a pasture at the edge of town that was of the perfect size for a baseball diamond. Jason persuaded the owner to allow its use in exchange for a new fence. They paced out the bases—42 from first to third and from second to home plate—and mowed the grass to make the baselines and a pitcher's box 45 feet from home. Two of the players helped the smith carry over the plate, a 12-foot square of iron, and place it so two corners pointed to the pitcher's and the catcher's stations.

The peddler directed the placing, as he had the pacing out and the mowing. Running from one end of the field to the other, ensuring that all details were according to form, he was working harder than anyone else there, an oddity that did not escape the team captains.

"Still think his only interest is selling baseballs?" asked Stempel. He was suspicious by nature, but Jason wondered if he might be right this time.

That made him readier to follow one evening after Stempel approached him at Lottie's to confide that he "had the goods on that fella." They crossed to the livery stable and stopped by the door. From inside they heard Swede's voice and one that Jason did not recognize. "Gambler," Stempel whispered.

Jason knew whom he meant, a big-city sharper who had appeared in town two days before. He was trying to explain the concept of point fixing to Swede, who seemed determined not to grasp it.

The gambler tried a more basic approach. "You'll win a lot of money," he said, "if everyone does as they're told." Swede said that would be unfair to Stempel. "You don't think he knows?" said the gambler.

"He does now," said Stempel, stepping into the doorway with Jason.

Swede jumped up in alarm. "Mr. Stempel, I svear I didn't—"

"I know, Swede," said Stempel. "Get to bed."

As soon as he was gone, Jason grabbed the gambler by his silk collar. The gambler protested. "Tell us how you come to be here," said Jason.

"You're in league with that peddler, aren't you?" said Stempel.

"Haven't had the pleasure," said the gambler. "No, as a matter of fact the party that invited me was your man Weller." Jason let him go. He re-centered his collar and disappeared.

"Might have known it'd be Weller," said Jason. Stempel had not expected he would sink that low. On the other hand, he had always held that every man was entitled to look after his own interests.

"He's always stirrin' the pot," said Jason. "About time for him to start pickin' your team apart. Take the men aside by ones and twos, get 'em worked up over some injustice, real or not." He paused. "'course in your case—" Stempel started to answer him. "Just sayin' some of 'em might have an honest grievance. It's all one to Weller. He's only doin' it for the sheer malicious joy of makin' trouble."

"I remember. But what can I do? He's needed for the team."

"Call him on it. At the first sign. I didn't, I let it fester. Worst mistake you'll ever hear me own to. Don't repeat it."

Stempel was studying him closely. "Why are you so concerned for my welfare?"

"Because without a team there'll be no game. Without a game there'll be no winner. And the winner—" Jason flashed the easy grin that so irritated Stempel. "—that'll be me." He nodded good night and started off.

"Whatever your reason," Stempel called after him, "thanks."

He applied the lesson the next day. Weller was off by the trees doing as Jason had predicted. Stempel went over and asked what it was all about.

Woodchuck, ignoring Weller's signal, said he had been reminding her and Pebbles of the bonus they had been promised.

Stempel had to think for a second. "After the game," he said, "and only if you win." Weller looked smug. "Tell you what," Stempel said on second thought, "I'll pay you win or draw. Or if we lose on a bad call. What could be fairer than that?" It seemed to satisfy them.

Harve complimented him on how he had settled the matter. "I have Bolt to thank," he said. "He's dealt with Weller before."

Weller was not quite out of earshot when he said it. Is that so? he thought. Well, come game time I might have some surprises for Mr. Bolt.

Perhaps he laid a curse on the weather, for the sky on the morning of the 27th did not augur well. Over the hilltops a rack of black billows lowered.

The men turned out as promised for the spelling bee. In fact the whole town was there, with one visible exception: Judd Wesley. Judd had been around since as far back as the next generation could remember and he had been an old man then. He must have worked at some time, for he was not penniless, but he also cadged drinks and meals when he could and dressed in castoffs barely altered. Despite his age, he was a vigorous walker and was often seen hiking in the hills. His long years in the Northwest had seemingly made him impervious to the elements. Jason had once voiced the general opinion that he would outlast them all.

Today he had slept late as always and emerged in mid-morning to find the town empty. Even Lottie's was closed. Then he remembered the bee. A few minutes later Jeremy and some of the others whose attention had wandered from the proceedings at the front saw Judd's head rise into view at one of the windows. A moment later it was gone.

"Don't like spellin' games," he said. His eye turned to the playing field. "But town ball's no better."

Making his way back up the street, he saw someone else who apparently shared his aversion. Coming closer, he recognized him as the peddler with the wagon. He was in front of Ben's store angling a pry into the doorjamb. Hearing voices from the church, he slipped behind the building and into the trees. Judd followed him.

Keeping to the trees, the peddler circled in back of the church and then, when he could be sure (he thought) of not being seen, cut southwest toward the Sound. Judd kept on his trail all the way to Fauntleroy Cove. The shoreline was a site of considerable activity, although Judd had barely heard a sound till he was upon it. Now ain't this interestin'? he said to himself. He hid in the shade of a tree to watch.

The rest of Seattle's male population raced one another out of the church, happy to see sunlight. "Thank heaven that's—" Jeremy began, but stopped as Candy dodged through to him.

"Bet you're you glad you came now," she said.

"Oh, it, it, it was, uh, exci—exci—"

"Like sap drippin' from a sugar pine," Joshua finished.

"Sap," Jeremy echoed. They walked on. Candy looked doubtful.

Franny emerged carrying a blue ribbon and a heavy Webster's, which the Ladies' League had donated. It defeated Candy's effort to hug her. "You did us proud," she said.

"Wish I was pitching," Franny said sourly. She walked on.

Behind her came Ann, looking sullen. Candy expressed condolences. "If it hadn't been for that C in 'scintillating'—"

"Humiliated," said Ann. "I've been humiliated. I'll never play in one of these stupid contests again." She walked on.

Biddie came behind her. "I don't want to talk about it," she said. "I just don't want to talk about it!"

Candy sank glumly onto a stump.

A few seconds later she became aware of Christopher beside her. "It's all right, Candy," he said, "I liked it."

Candy's face brightened and she gave him a hug. "Let's go watch some baseball," she said. Hand in hand, they took off at a run.

The teams were gathered at opposite bases. Along two sides sat the spectators, some on kegs, crates, and logs, the others on the grass. One of them, flanked by wide-eyed acolytes, was an overdressed, lemony-smelling man whom everyone but Judd Wesley knew to be Alvin Ambrosia Huguet.

Jason and Stempel stepped out to home plate. Jason took out a coin. "We'll use mine," Stempel said. "Your call."

Jason called heads. The coin rose and fell.

Stempel gave a huff of exasperation. "You're first up," said Jason.

A shadow fell over them. The black breakers had rolled closer. "Almanac said fair," Jason objected.

"Sure you were looking at the right day?" said Stempel.

The two returned to their teams to whip them into a fighting humor.

"This game means a lot to us," said Stempel, meaning himself, "and I expect each of you to do whatever it takes to win."

"The day'll never dawn when Stempel men can beat us at anything," said Jason. "The Timber Wolves!" The others echoed the cry. Bass held out his bat and each grasped it with his hand one above the other, the Bolts at the top.

Clancey stepped out onto the diamond. He handed the ball to Mr. Huguet, as had been arranged previously, and Mr. Huguet threw it to the pitcher. It landed a little short. Joshua went to fetch it.

"Play ball!" Clancey shouted.

Those of the Sawdust Eaters not at bat or next up stood and sprawled along the baseline. Bats strewed the lawn like dominoes. The men were not uniformed, although some wore shirts with curious emblems, applied by the brides. Bass, as catcher, stood thirty feet back from the batter. Clancey stood another twenty feet in back of him. Canada, Jason, and Jimrick were manning the bases, and by custom would be fixed there when not chasing the ball. Harve was first to the plate.

Two people stopped him on the way. Weller slipped a handful of small items into his shirt pocket and whispered instructions on their use. Then Stempel urged him to set an example as a foreman ought—"if he expects to stay foreman." Harve felt an invisible yoke weigh on his shoulders. He had his choice of a high pitch or a low. He chose high. Joshua would have liked to pitch to him overhand, but it was against the rules.

First-inning jitters sent his first throw wide. Two more like that would make a ball; three balls would walk the batter. Joshua resolved that would not happen today.

On the next pitch it was Harve whose nerves misled him. Fretting too much over Stempel's caveat, he swung when he should have waited, and took a strike. He saw Stempel scowling. That was normal, but this time Harve read a personal meaning into it. He promised himself to make the next one count.

He did, with a line ball to center. Jeremy grabbed it up and threw it to Corky, the shortstop, who relayed it to first.

Canada missed it; his attention was elsewhere. Coming up on the base, Harve had taken one of Weller's gifts from his pocket and thrown it out onto the grass. "Hey, there," he shouted, "a gold nugget!" Canada turned to see. The ball passed him, and so did Harve.

Jason, watching from second, shook his head in disgust. By the time Canada got the ball to him, Harve had taken that base too.

He was leading off by seven yards when Woodchuck stepped up to bat. Joshua looked from one to the other. Without foretoken, he shot the ball to Jason. Harve raced back ahead of it. Nothing ventured, Joshua reflected.

"Pitch 'er high!" Woodchuck yelled, but Joshua's high ball proved too high for her. At Stempel's order, she changed to low, whereupon she singled to the infield.

Approaching third, Harve sowed another gold nugget. Jimrick turned away as if to fetch it, but turned back holding the ball (which he had just got from Joshua) and tagged Harve out. Then he fetched the nugget and pocketed it. "I'll be durned," he said to Harve, "you 'us right."

Harve cursed Weller under his breath. He did not use the trick after that.

Pebbles hit a grounder, which Jimrick fielded and passed to second. Jason saw Woodchuck closing on him. She dove for his legs, not with the expectation of saving herself but to spoil his throw to first. She failed, and she and Pebbles were both put out. The Sawdust Eaters retired to the field. Weller, Ken, and Swede took over the bases.

First up for the Timber Wolves was Corky. He made a job of setting his hat, hitching up his pants, wiping his nose, and sundry other preparations. After all that, he hit a foul tip to the catcher, who was Stempel.

"Shucks," said Corky.

"You're up, Sam," said Jason. Jeremy corrected him: it was Billy he was talking to. Both were small men with long noses, they bunked and chowed together, and Jason had never been able to tell them apart.

The real Sam came to the plate. He swung at everything, sometimes in a full circle, and by rights should have struck out, but Stempel muffed what would have been the third strike. That delighted Jason doubly.

"Run, Billy!" he yelled.

"Sam," said Jeremy.

"Whoever you are, run like fire!"

He did, but Stempel got the ball to Weller first.

Sam started for second regardless. Weller grabbed him by the back of his pants. "You're out!"

"I'm out?"

He headed back heartbroken. "Sorry, Billy!" he called.

Jeremy swung next. He hit a line ball to left that should have guaranteed him at least one base. But Weller blocked him at first while the ball caromed from Pebbles to Ken to himself. Clancey called an out. It was their third.

Jason marched back to him. "That was plain interference," he said. "Are you blind?"

"Mr. Bolt," said Clancey, "apparently yiz is unfamiliar with the rule which states that the umpire's decision is final and neither man, woman, nor child in whatsoever shape, kind, nor breed shall detract from nor take exception to it nowise." He brandished the Pocket Companion.

"It says that in there?"

"After a manner o' speakin'." He waved his arms. "Out!"

Jeremy vowed to repay Weller in the next inning. But he only got back a little of his own then. His chance would come later.

Weller was first up. He hit a fly to left, which gained extra zing from the spike at the tip of his bat. Sam ran to help Billy catch it. While they danced around each other, the ball landed between them. "Sorry, Billy!" said Sam. Jeremy stepped in and hurled it to Jason in time to keep Weller from making a double.

At first base Weller had taken occasion to elbow Canada in the stomach. And once more he had got by with it. When he returned, Canada greeted him with his fist raised. But Clancey's stern eye was on them now. Canada dropped his arm and looked toward Jason helplessly.

Swede bent over the plate. He locked eyes with Joshua, each trying to outguess the other. Joshua was aiming for a grounder that could yield a double play, Swede for a long ball.

Pebbles was standing near the plate. At a signal from Weller, he drew out a small shiny object. As Joshua drew back his arm, a flash of light dazzled him and he threw wild.

Bass ran after the ball. "He's goin'!" shouted Canada as Weller started for second. There was no way they could stop him. But once there, he knew better than to try any of his tricks on Jason.

Joshua made another pitch. Another flash of light from the sideline threw it off. Huguet's spectacles, he thought, dang him! Swede achieved the long ball he wanted.

Heading for third, Weller knocked off Corky's hat. Corky started after it just as Jeremy threw to him. The ball hit him in the seat of the pants. He bent to pick it up.

Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. It was Swede. "I t'ink you lost this," he said. He was holding Corky's hat. He had interrupted his run to retrieve it, although Stempel was screaming at him from the sideline. Now he returned to his course.

Corky looked after him, touched. Now it was Jason who was screaming. Corky regained his senses. He scuttled after Swede and tagged his leg. Then he felt obliged to apologize.

"That's okay," said Swede, "you and me is friends."

Stempel was waiting for him when he came in. "What did you think you were doing?" he demanded.

"Helpin' my friend," Swede said innocently.

"He's the opposition! He put you out!"

Swede shook his head. "He vouldn'ta done that if Jason hadn'ta said."

Stempel stared at him wonderingly. Then his eyes narrowed. "Yes, you keep thinking that. Anything that happens, it's all Jason's fault."

As Swede rejoined his teammates, Stempel noticed Harve watching. "Never hurts to spread a little ill will," he said with a laugh. His eye fell on Weller at third. The laugh died. Harve did not say a word.

Perdition walked heavily to the plate and surveyed the sky. What he saw there seemed to satisfy him and he raised his bat. He asked for a high ball.

Joshua did not know what to make of him. Maybe a low high ball would baffle him. He decided to try it, but was thwarted by another flash of light.

This time Jeremy saw it too. From where he stood he could also see its source. He caught Candy's eye and directed it toward Pebbles. By the motion of the hand at his waist, she divined instantly what he was up to. She whispered in Christopher's ear.

"Oh, Pebbles!" she called sweetly. As he turned, a rock from the spectators' row smashed the mirror he was holding. He drew his hand back and looked around with suspicion. "Good one!" Candy whispered to Christopher.

The rest of the inning belonged to the Sawdust Eaters. As long as Perdition was at bat, Joshua's pitches kept sinking mysteriously. The two strikes he did make, he knew Perdition could have hit but chose not to.

"Swing!" Stempel shouted. "Swing at something!"

The next ball crossed the plate at the same point as the strikes, but this time Perdition's bat engaged it with a loud crack and sent it flying into left field. Billy was there—without Sam for once—and seemed sure to make the catch. But the ball struck a rock and rebounded over his head.

Perdition traversed the baseline with the same slow lope he had used in training. Stempel was running alongside him, shouting at him to hurry. Perdition smiled distantly. The ball reached first far ahead of him but was fumbled somehow and he took the base.

Unexpectedly, he kept going. "Stay! Stay!" Stempel shouted.

Canada threw to Jason. The ball swerved, as if Perdition contained some magic within him that warded it off. From second he looked toward third and then toward the sky. Whatever oracle he consulted told him to stop there. Stempel relaxed.

Meantime Weller crossed home plate to make the first run of the game. On a blackboard borrowed from the schoolhouse, Biddie, the official scorekeeper, wrote a "1" under "Sawdust Eaters."

Bass had been waiting for Weller. He did not have the ball, to his regret, but did have a pair of good hard-soled boots and brought one of them down on Weller's foot, while making sure also to block Clancey's view of the contact.

Weller yowled. "Was that you down there?" said Bass. "I am plumb sorry." The resulting limp would slow Weller up considerably for the rest of the game.

Compared to Perdition, Ken moved like a hummingbird. Joshua sent him the fastest pitches he could, underhand. On the third one Ken chopped down so that the ball hit the grass some way in front of him and then rolled outside the baseline. He was not the world's fastest runner, but this dodge gave him enough time to clinch one base.

As before, Perdition refused to stop at one. Stempel renewed his screaming. Canada's throw to home missed, and while Bass was off retrieving the ball, Perdition made the team's second run. The men in the crowd who had bets down looked glad or mournful, depending.

Perdition went off to sit by himself in an attitude of meditation. Stempel watched him doubtfully.

"He's some kind of ball player, huh, Mr. Stempel?" said Harve.

"Some kind," said Stempel, "yes."

His magic did not carry over to his teammates. Seconds later Ben was put out, and then Ken and the whole side. It did not matter; the Sawdust Eaters had established an early lead.

"Might as well concede now," Stempel said as he passed Jason, "save us all a lot of time."

"Crow while you can," said Jason.

Bass led off for his team in the second. A favorite of the brides', he acknowledged their cheers with a bow. He bowed to Ben too. The first pitch, he caught and tossed back, protesting that it had been too easy. He had always got under Ben's skin, now more than ever.

"Simmer down," said Stempel. "He's trying to rile you."

But Ben was determined to show him up. He tried to sneak in a fast ball while Clancey was not looking. Clancey looked back in time to spot it, and ruled it a balk. The brides booed. He ruled the next throw unfair. The brides hissed.

Finally Ben got so worked up he sent one just where Bass wanted it, and Bass hit a fly to right field. The brides cheered. To their disillusionment and his disbelief, Harve caught it on the first bounce. The brides made no sound at all.

Stempel's team had not previously noticed the bat Jimrick plied, a mahogany monster 44 inches long. "That's no bat," said Stempel, "it's a wagon tongue." In fact it was, but reshaped by Jimrick to his use.

As he lifted it, his gaze was drawn to something at the side. A dog was scampering across the grass. Jeremy saw her too late. Jimrick's eyes went queer and he took off after her. Stempel's team broke into laughter.

Jason dragged him back. "No more of that," he said. Jeremy dragged the dog away. In the end, their labors led only to a long ball that Perdition caught without moving from his place.

"Two outs," Joshua warned Jason. "Don't try anything flashy." Jason looked reprovingly at him. His brothers resigned themselves to what would follow.

Jason was not a good player. He liked big plays that would bring the crowd to their feet, and took big swings trying for that one spectacular hit. Accordingly he was prone to be struck out, and was on this occasion. Stempel had foreseen it and was pleased when it happened.

On the walk to the field, Jason gave his own account of the matter: "Nearly had that last one. She was comin' right at me—all of a sudden a big puff of wind blows 'er shy, and where she woulda been I'm fannin' the breeze. Freak of nature you'll never see again in a million years."

"Big wind is right," Stempel said as the team passed him.

Jason said nothing then. But before separating from his brothers he made a comment of his own. "Stempel's up next. You watch—his weakness is, he never lets go of anything."

That was a fact. It made Stempel a good catcher but a poor batter, who hung back too long before swinging. He hit a fly that fate sent into Jason's hands. And Jason caught it without a bounce, earning the customary applause. "It would be Jason," said Stempel.

Harve observed it had been a mighty handy catch. "Just see you do better," Stempel growled.

He did not. Neither did Woodchuck, who came after him. So the Timber Wolves were up again.

Their luck was mixed. Joshua, who gripped his bat high on the handle (choking, Bass called it), hit a solid single down the middle. But Canada's pop-up flew straight into Ben's hands.

"You'll do better next time," Jason consoled him.

"He won't, will he?" Jeremy whispered. Jason shook his head.

Billy—at least Jason believed it was Billy—had a special difficulty. A rule required the batter to keep one foot on the plate. Billy kept stepping forward into the swing. Clancey would call no hit, and Billy would try again, and step forward again.

In the end Jeremy planted his own foot on top of his to anchor it. "Sure it doesn't hurt?" he asked. Billy shook his head but was blinking back tears. In spite of his suffering, he hit a grounder that got him to first and Joshua thereby to second.

Woodchuck, the shortstop, flitted around Joshua, poking him and cackling indecorously. "We'll git you, Bolt!" she taunted. "Git ever' one of you Bolts! One, two, three!"

Jason asked Stempel if his players could leave off molesting his own and play fair for a change.

"All part of the game," said Stempel.

"So be it then," said Jason.

Following another foul tip by Corky, he expressed a conviction that there was something wrong with the ball and asked to inspect it. Ben obliged, too fast for Stempel to stop him. "He's just askin' to see it," he said. "No harm in that."

Stempel nodded toward the bases, where both of the runners were in motion. Ben was shocked. "That ain't fair," he said.

When each was a base ahead, Jason tossed the ball back. "Musta been seein' things," he said. "Looks fine now."

The two of them glared at him. Jason grinned at Stempel. "All part of the game, you said."

Inspired by his brazenness, Sam managed to drive a line ball far enough to bring Joshua home for the team's first run. The score was 2-1. It was as much as anybody could have expected, and Billy was put out at third.

"Sorry, Billy!" said Sam.

The Sawdust Eaters counted for nothing in the fourth. In the Timber Wolves' turn, while Jeremy waited at first, Bass went through the lengthy process of earning a walk, and hisses from the brides, who regarded it as distinctly unheroic.

Stempel had seen him and Jason conferring beforehand, and was sure they had something more cooked up. When Jimrick came to bat, Bass was leading off from first, his eyes fixed on Jason. With a bare glance back, Jason pinched his nostrils. It was only for a second but that was enough for Stempel to form a hunch. He ambled over next to Jason, dug his toe in, and kicked up a cloud of dust. Jason sneezed.

That was the signal Bass had been watching for. He took off. Jeremy had no choice but to do the same. Ben threw to Swede at third, and Swede to Ken at second, putting both runners out.

The last chance to redeem the inning fell to Jimrick. As he stepped to the plate, Joshua spied a passing horse cart and ran out to halt it.

Jimrick hit a long ball for a double. Weller tried to keep it to a single by hanging on to Jimrick's suspenders, but this time Clancey saw the infraction and directed Jimrick to take his base.

Woodchuck had removed her hat to scoop up the ball, and in so doing had let her hair fall. Swede peered at her with growing suspicion. Finally he approached for a better look.

"You're a voman!" he said in horror.

"And proud of it," she replied.

"Olaf Gustavson don't play vith no voman!" he declared, and he marched off the field. Stempel ran after him. The Bolts watched with enjoyment.

"So Jason was right," said Stempel. "You are a quitter."

Swede turned on him. "Olaf Gustavson ain't no qvitter!" He stared at Woodchuck, his cheek twitching, but after several seconds allowed himself to be led back.

Ben kept Jason waiting on the mound till they returned. Joshua took advantage of the time to venture more advice. "Try for a ground ball. It's our best chance." Ground ball! Jason thought disdainfully.

Having found his weakness, Ben tried to draw him into hitting wide. Instead Jason hit a long ball just inside the foul line, which sent Harve on a merry chase and gave Jimrick plenty of leisure to complete the circuit in his long, loose stride. The score was now even. The betting men reversed their expressions.

In the next inning Perdition scored in the same trancelike fashion as before. This time he was aided by a cow, who had obviously been used to grazing there and was not about to allow the trespassers to keep her away. First she passed in front of Sam, cutting him off from the ball Ben had sent in his direction, and then she stood over the ball so Jeremy had to crawl beneath her to retrieve it. Finally her huge mate came out in search of her and cleared the field.

Almost cleared it, that is: Perdition remained. He strolled without apparent concern to third and then home.

Jason lodged a protest. "As I recalls," said Clancey, "there's nothin' in the rules pertainin' to the presence of a cow or any other livin' creature." The run stood. Stempel's team led 3-2.

Shortly the bull persuaded his partner to return to the farther meadow. The Bolts held Jimrick back to keep him from following. The fielders resumed their places, and Jeremy made the last out by catching a fly ball from Stempel.

Their next go was over almost before it began. The only event of note was Sam's colliding with Billy and knocking him out. "Sorry, Billy!" he shouted as his teammate was carried off.

In the first half of the sixth, with Harve and Woodchuck on base, Pebbles flied to center. Jeremy brought his hands together as if to make the catch, then parted them, letting the ball strike the grass. He smiled. Pebbles swore as he set out, knowing he was already too late.

Woodchuck had started for second. Harve was following suit. Jeremy touched third, shot the ball to Jason for the same at second, and watched as it flew to Joshua, over by first, who tagged Pebbles to complete the triangle.

Jason smiled in satisfaction. "Now that's Bolt brothers business!"

The storm clouds that had settled over the field broke open at last. The ground soon turned to sludge. The players began sliding and falling. They were turning an indistinguishable shade of brown. Jason appealed to Clancey to call off the game. Stempel was in favor of continuing, but his vote was not sought.

"Call this rain?" Clancey said, turning up his collar. "If ye'd been through the squalls I have this'd look like a trickle."

Perdition clearly disagreed. When his turn arrived he would not swing but stood gazing stonily at the grey sky. It was the team's last out.

With the players keeping their heads down, and increasingly unable to tell one another apart at a distance, Weller was free to practice more devilment. He got hold of the ball, already the worse for wear, and malformed it further. "Let 'em try to score with that!" he said. Then for good measure he trod Jimrick's bat—"Damned wagon tongue!"—into the mud out of sight.

Unable to find, Jimrick borrowed Jason's, which hefted differently. Also, the ball was taking somewhat wobbly paths. Unaware of Weller's improvements, Ben was having a time controlling it. One pitch hit Jimrick in the chest. He picked up the ball and studied it a while, and on his next swing he hit it dead on. But it did not travel far and he never reached first.

As the warm soaking rain grew denser, the hits became fewer and more due to luck than to skill. The players were floundering and falling about, and half-blind with water.

Stempel would almost have surrender his sight when he saw who had caught his pop fly. First Jason, then Jeremy, now Joshua. And this had been his last turn. "I give up, I really do," he said.

He was not the only one. By the end of the eighth, most of the spectators had deserted. Jason pleaded with Stempel to call off the match.

They were near third, and Swede heard him. Jason's right, he said to himself, this is crazy.

Stempel refused. He was tasting victory already. "Almanac says it's a fair day," he said, "fair it is."

Perdition had also overheard. After referring to the sky a last time, he left the diamond. Swede saw him go. By gum, he said to himself, if that ain't the right way to do! Since both had finished their turns at bat, their absence was not immediately remarked. But when the Sawdust Eaters took the field for the last time, Pebbles found himself quite lonely out there.

Soon Stempel noticed it and assigned him to cover center field too. And third base, but Pebbles did not trouble much about that. After three innings it seemed unlikely the other team would ever reach it again. Nobody could hit the ball far enough.

At the bottom of the ninth, with one out, Jeremy managed a single. In the course of taking the base, he knocked Weller on his backside. Weller was disinclined to put up a fight. Jeremy expected to be thrown out of the game, and would as soon have been, the way it was going. But Clancey had not seen. In the rain he had deemed a trickle, he could make out little of what was happening thirty yards away.

Bass aped Jeremy's single, and with the two of them on base, Jimrick had his last go at bat. To the dismay of players and spectators alike, he hit a fly—the first one they had seen since the ball had crumpled to nothing.

As Jeremy slogged toward third, he saw a figure crossing the infield. It dropped suddenly as if shot. The base was empty. Still ignorant of Swede's defection, he wanted desperately to see if it was him who had been hit, but duty pressed him on. Bass followed, a leg behind. Pebbles did not notice either of them; he was busy hunting for the ball.

Now he spied it, half-sunk where it had rebounded. Dredging it out, he looked up and saw Bass was a stride away from third. He dived frantically for the base and landed a half yard from his boot. Bass tumbled over him. Pebbles raised himself free and threw to home.

The grey blot emerged from the lighter greyness and landed at Stempel's feet. He crouched to pick it up. Fumbling in the mire, he found a hard surface and tagged it. "Out!" he said. At the same time Jeremy felt his foot touch iron. "Safe!" he said. He was four feet away. "Look to Swede!" he called to Jason. "I think he got beaned." Jason, Joshua, and some others rushed to see.

Clancey squatted beside Jeremy. "Where'd you touch base?" He asked the same question of Stempel, inspected first one site and then the other, dug away the mud at Jeremy's feet, and found the plate. "Safe!" he declared.

"But if that's the plate..." said Stempel.

They did some more digging and found the object he had tagged. Clancey lifted it into view. It was Jimrick's bat.

Jimrick was still at second. His mind worked slowly around to a fact everybody else had overlooked: if Jeremy was safe, the ball was still in play. He broke into a run.

The men in the infield paid no attention. Their concern was with the man on the ground. Jason turned him over. "Ain't Swede," he announced as Jeremy and Stempel arrived. They saw it was the peddler, not dead but unconscious.

The rain was letting up. A figure waving from home plate was revealed to be Jimrick. "I scored!" he shouted.

"Good on you!" Jason shouted back. Then the news penetrated. "You scored?" He did some fast figuring. "You scored!" He grabbed his brothers. "He scored!"

"He scored?" said Jeremy.

"He scored!" said Joshua.

Jeremy turned to the crowd that was no longer there. "He scored! We've won! The Timber Wolves have won!"

Stempel was still holding the soggy ball. He handed it to Jason with regret.

Biddie, sticking to her post, alone and bedraggled, tried to record the victory, but the wet chalk would not write and the marks she had made earlier had become a blur. She gave up and went home.

The men's thoughts returned to the peddler. "What was he doing here?" asked Joshua.

Judd Wesley, appearing from nowhere, had the answer. "Look in his pockets," he said.

Jeremy reached in and yelped as something like a pin pricked his finger. He cautiously drew out a wad of jewelry. Judd told them the peddler had sneaked back and pilfered it from Ben's. When Judd surprised him at it he had fled, and between the blinding rain and his own blind panic had strayed onto the ball field.

"A jewel thief," said Stempel. "So that's it."

Ben looked doubtful. "But that stuff's all fake."

"He wouldn't have gone to this trouble for a few trinkets," said Jason.

Judd enlightened them again in his expansive way. "Might be it's got somethin' to do with them pals of his off Fauntleroy Cove. Then, maybe it don't."

"What pals?" asked Jason.

"Got a tug settin' there loadin' a power of logs. Seemed kinda funny, I thought—considerin' the brand on 'em." Drawing in the mud with his foot he made the sign of a triple B with the backs forming a triangle: the Bolt log mark.

"They still there?" asked Jason.

"Figger you got time to stop 'em," said Judd. "Then again—"

The men set off and shouted to the rest to follow. The rain had thinned to a drizzle. Soon it stopped altogether.

"Well, we got our logs back," said Jeremy. He and Candy were sitting together on a log, savoring the end of the long day, in the otherwise empty ball field.

"Yes, you did," said Candy.

"Guess I sorta got caught up in this baseball furore."

"Yes, you did." She added after a moment, "I sort of got caught up in things too."

"We lost track of the most important thing," said Jeremy. Reaching his hand up under her chin, he brought his lips close to hers and kissed her. "Stealing a kiss is easier than stealing a base," he said.

"If you read the signals right," she said. They laughed. "Glad it's finally settled about the landing."

He nodded. "Tomorrow I'm taking a crew north to—north to—" He heard himself. "North?"

"North," Jason confirmed. Jeremy had run to Lottie's to let him know, only to find that as usual everything was as he had meant it to be.

"I thought Stempel looked awful happy," said Joshua.

Stempel was taking supper after almost everyone else had finished. The exception was Clancey, working through the whisky laid aside for him. Before joining them Stempel had taken care of some business: fired Weller (who would surely have brought down a shower of threats on his head if Swede had not been there to deter him), paid the promised bonuses, and begun plans for the landing, thoughts of which had swelled his appetite.

"He got what he was after," said Jason.

"But why?" Joshua protested. "He lost!"

"Because, younger brother, if we'd had a landing where I wanted, that tug would be away now, and our logs with it." Joshua waited for more. "Besides," Jason continued presently, "I got a rail engineer to inspect the site last week. Bottom's too slopy to build the track there."

It took a moment for Joshua to realize what that meant. "You knew before the game? Then why'd you go through with it?"

Jason held up the battered game ball. "For the satisfaction of beating Stempel."

Jeremy grabbed it. "Knew there was something this reminded me of." He walked over and laid it on Stempel's plate. "Cookie's biscuits!" His brothers laughed. Stempel looked up with raised eyebrows.

"Enjoy it, Aaron," said Jason.

"Might be a little hard to chew," said Joshua.

"But spread a little jam over it," said Jeremy, "it'll go down fine." They went out, still laughing.

Stempel moved the grisly item onto the table and sat staring at it as he munched his asparagus and listened to "The Baseball Polka," which a hired accordionist had been playing all evening.

"Biscuit!" he said suddenly. People turned to look. "That's very funny." He began laughing in spite of himself. Everyone was looking now. "That's really—" He could hardly speak for laughing. "—very—" He nearly choked on his vegetables. "—funny!"

Outside under a clear pink sky, the rest of the Timber Wolves were playing catch-up, making it up with their girlfriends, or just sitting and basking in victory. Their captain called to them. "The games are done," he said. "It's time to head home."

He and his brothers laid arms on one another's shoulders. The men joined them three to a side. A full nine abreast, they started up the path to the mountain.

7. Lamentation of the Leaves

There were no cobwebs in the corners. Candy kept a tidy house, Jason had to allow. She even had the brides sweeping the attic. Or maybe that duty fell to her siblings, one of whom was now searching through the storeables with a sureness that implied long acquaintance. Jason was doing his best to help Molly, but the ceiling was too low, even at its peak, for him to do more than pick among the few objects within reach of where he knelt crouched by the trap door.

The largest such object was a horsehair-covered trunk, which opened to reveal four clean handkerchiefs neatly laid atop the other contents. He lifted a corner, exposing a mysterious tangle of lace, taffeta, and whalebone, and was about to explore further when Molly's voice startled him.

"You found it?" she asked, clambering back to him.

He quickly pulled his hand away. "No, I was only—" He seemed flustered. "This'll be some kind of female makin's, I daresay."

"It's what we use for the wedding dresses." Molly looked primly at him and began to shut the lid. Jason stopped it with his hand as his eye was caught by a card stuck to the inside. Molly bent forward to read the hand-scripted lettering: "'Miss Emmeline Canfield and Mr. Donal McGee request the honor of your presence...'"

"I'll be..." said Jason. It was from the first bride's wedding, at which Reverend Gaddings had done the honors. Molly did not recognize the name. "Our first preacher," Jason said, and then corrected himself. "First ordained preacher." She asked what had happened to him. "He moved on."

She shut the lid. "Men aren't supposed to be up here," she said by way of apology. And just as well, thought Jason, we don't fit anyhow. "We were looking for the May Day banner," she reminded him. She went back to rummaging, and Jason, within his close confines, did the same.

In a few seconds he lifted out a large object from behind the trunk. This was not the banner either but a piece of wood on which were carved the words "A. Wright M.D." "Our first doctor," Jason said, and added, before Molly could ask, "She moved on too."

"She?" said Molly in surprise.

"The inexpressive she," said Jason. He remembered that the man who had first said it had been carving his true love's name in wood. As he returned the shingle to its place, he noticed another sign behind and slid it out.

The message on it made Molly start. In forbidding letters it blazoned "Loggers Keep Out!" "What was this for?" she asked.

"This?" said Jason. "From this hangs a tale."

He deposited his rump on the floor and stretched out his legs. Molly sat alongside with her legs pulled up. She knew how his stories went. The banner would have to wait but she didn't mind.

"After the brides came to Seattle," Jason began, "the men were—they were—" He searched for the right way to put it. "Let's say they were in high spirits."

McGee gave a whoop, Frank gave a holler, and Corky emitted a sound halfway between. Other whoops, hollers, growls, howls, and less classifiable emanations spanning the entire audible spectrum down to grunts, belches, and other expulsions so indecorous they could not be named in public echoed through the town and surrounding hills from everywhere Jason's men were, which was everywhere. Some of the hands from Stempel's mill contributed to the din too, but with nothing like the same fluency. Like moths to the flame, the lumberjacks flitted around the new dormitory, and any of the residents who ventured out, with an absence of restraint that upthrust even their normal level of hellraising by so much some of the townspeople, shrinking as they edged by, wondered if perhaps the cavalry should be called.

They were showing off and knew it, and each was sure he had more to show off than his fellows. Even in staid, steady New Bedford the brides had not been unacquainted with the follies that could accompany the male craving for attention (and other less mentionable things) and guessed soon enough this was the same phenomenon manifesting itself in more vigorous forms. Yet often they had to wonder whether that accounted for all of it because never before outside a circus had they seen such an exuberant physical display.

The men ran, they overleapt the fence, they balanced on the fence posts, they turned handsprings and cartwheels, they ran up to the girls and touched their sleeves and then ran off again giggling. Occasionally one of them made a bolder grab and earned a slap for his boldness. Some of them took courage in liquid form, and these got progressively more courageous as the day wore on. Of course they fought, none too long or too hard since their interest was in the girls and not themselves, but long and hard enough to demonstrate their prowess, to beat their chests, to stand out as cock of the walk if only for a moment. Some of Stempel's men tried to mimic them but could not keep it up. Jason's mountain exuded a vital, vibrant air that made men feel like giants. Not a few actually were giants.

And the brides loved it. The town men saw this and hated the loggers all the more for it. The girls were scared, naturally, and hid their delight as far as they could, but the men sensed it and it fired their courting games; for such they were, although a visitor from a more settled metropolis might not have recognized them. The brides' leader, Candy Pruitt, was trying hard to keep to her role but it did not come naturally to her. Not that she would have succumbed, even were she not spoken for, to any of these rough characters playing the fool; it was rather that inside herself she longed to be out there whooping it up with them. But decorum forbade it, and more important, her duty to the other brides. She clearly saw that the wildness in the air, the pleasure of letting go they were witnessing, beckoned to them with a force years of proper upbringing and churchgoing and jaw-setting could only barely withstand. But she would do her part to help. And those three brothers, wherever they were, if they would just do the same—

Aaron Stempel, of all people, was having the same thought. From his office at the mill, even with the door shut, he could hear the clamor at the other end of the street. Where's Jason, he thought, and those brothers of his? It's their duty to put a stop to this. He certainly did not need Dexter Chase, one of the few town men not in his employ, to look in and report that the men from the mountain seemed to be getting out of hand and that as (unelected) head of the (nonexistent) town council Stempel ought to take care of it. But having now been so advised he had no choice but to act, or to appear to. He got up with a sigh.

"Can't you do something?" Ben Perkins pleaded as Stempel walked up. As the largest business in town, excepting the mill, Ben's general store was a natural focus of activity. Three of the men were taking turns jumping over the apple barrel. Another had climbed on the roof and was dancing on the edge.

"Get down from there!" Stempel ordered. The man looked for a soft landing place. Two of his campmates ran up and held their arms out. He took a soaring dive and they caught him between them, but the weight was greater than expected and sent them stumbling forward propelling his feet through the window.

"Now see what you done!" said Ben. The man pulled his legs out unharmed. The three of them reached into their pockets, pulled out what coins were there, made a quick count of them, and pressed them into Ben's hand. Two of the brides passed and the men ran off after them. "It's like this all over town," Ben said.

Stempel could see that for himself. "Has been since these women arrived," he said. He was wondering if that hadn't been a mistake. Not that he was impervious to their charms: he had brought two to supper at the mill already. But he felt a man in his position could not be seen to pursue anyone too ardently; besides, at all the welcome parties and socials, the best-looking ones always turned up with Jason Bolt, and always under Stempel's nose, as if Jason were parading them for his benefit. Stempel watched closely for any impropriety, as Jason himself did, for that matter. Neither man could do much genuine dallying, and both would have given up even the appearance of it if each had not still secretly hoped somehow to outdo or undo the other's efforts. Today Stempel was feeling almost sure the women Jason had brought were too heady for Seattle and it would be best if he could persuade them to leave. The other citizens would thank him. As a side benefit he would acquire Bolt's mountain, but his primary motive in getting them gone, if it came to that, was his concern for the commonweal.

So he was musing and was fancying himself quite the altruist when a pack of men rushed past and knocked him off his feet. Without realizing it he had placed himself square in the path of a foot race. He sat up and dusted his sleeve as another man ran up beside him, hopped onto the town pump, and began kicking at the handle. Stempel watched with a growing sense of powerlessness.

It became even stronger when, after picking himself up and brushing himself down, he saw Mrs. Dale advancing on him. Lucy Dale had lived in Seattle forever, was the self-appointed czar of its morals (she had personally inspected the brides upon their arrival to make sure they were the sort of girls the town wanted, and she would have sent them away in a trice had they fallen short of her standards), and as the founder and president of the Ladies' League was Stempel's staunchest ally in the establishment of order and, after the Bolt brothers, his fourth biggest annoyance.

"Is this the sort of thing you permit?" she said. "Rowdyism and license?"

"I feel the same as you," said Stempel, although in her presence he was less certain of that, "but remember, this is the first time most of these men have seen any attrac—" He stopped. "—so many new additions to our community. Stirs 'em up more than usual. But I'm keeping my eye on 'em." He tried to sound like a man in charge.

"See you do," she said crisply. "You're not the only businessman in town, you know. If you won't uphold the proper standards I can take my trade elsewhere." With that she marched off.

The threat hit him where it counted. Only after she no longer impinged did he feel free enough to ask himself when she would have occasion to trade at a sawmill.

The town men were competing for the brides' attention with scant success. Two of the mill hands, Gene Hill and Riley Duff, stood together with Dexter in the shade of the general store, glaring at their rivals and muttering dark oaths.

Their language and countenances brightened when two brides hurried past. Dexter called to one of them to ask if she would care to go for a walk. "Not now," Mary Ellen called back. "The men from the mountain are having a contest."

"Contest!" said Riley. "We'll show them!"

Mary Ellen and Deborah gave each other a look and broke into laughter, which did nothing to placate their would-be admirers. They ran on and the men followed to where a crowd had gathered near the wharf. The girls edged in between the onlookers to see what was going on.

Two loggers were engaging in what they called rooster-fighting. Each had his legs bent and a pole lodged in the crooks of his knees and fixed there by being tied to the hands on both sides. It forced the men into attitudes resembling those of chickens. Swinging their shoulders from side to side, they pummeled each other with the pole ends, each with the object of toppling the other. The brides watched in fascination. Two blows from the left set one of the men off balance, and a final blow finished him.

As he was untied, Frank called for a new opponent. Riley took up the challenge. It didn't look so tough. But the weight of the pole strained his knees more than he had anticipated, and keeping them bent tried his forelegs. Every time he tried to swing his trunk around he found some other part of his body holding him back. Before he could discover the trick, he was struck in the ribs hard enough to keel him over.

Gene Hill followed. He quickly gained the knack of maneuvering while trussed up but spent most of his time dodging Frank's attacks and was too much outweighed for his own blows to have much force. He also was put out.

Then Dexter stepped forward. He could barely keep on his feet even before the bout started, and the few seconds of burning pain that surged through the muscles of his legs while he was in the arena made his quick defeat a reason for gratitude rather than disappointment.

That did not, however, diminish the resentment he felt when Frank, having exhausted the available competitors, became the center of a ring of admiring brides. McGee, Corky, and others who had acquitted themselves well were attracting their share of giggles, simpers, and blushes also. Adored heroes, each with a lovely girl on either arm and others waiting in line, having no more need to strive for attention, recipients of as much feminine company and coquetry and flattery as a man could dream of—it was more than the losers could stand.

"We'll show them," Riley repeated. Gene's eyes, and then Dexter's, met his in understanding.

A few seconds later Frank felt a jab in the ribs. He turned to see a town man passing as Gene retreated into the crowd. "What'd you mean by that?" Frank asked.

"Mean by what?" the town man said.

"Smackin' on me that way."

"I didn't smack on you."

"Well, don't do it again."

"I didn't do it the first time!"

"That's good 'cause if you do you'll be sorry."

"If I smack on you you're the one who'll be sorry."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, I'm sorry too!" Frank swung at him.

Emmeline, standing beside McGee, felt a brief but unmistakable encroachment on her person and turned on the town man standing behind her as Riley slipped away unseen. "How dare you?" she said.

McGee asked what the man had done.

"He took a liberty," said Emmeline.

"I never touched her!" the man said.

"You wouldn't lie to me, now?"

"If I was gonna take a liberty it wouldn't be with her."

"Of all the nerve!" Emmeline slapped him. "How dare you not take a liberty with me?"

The man lifted his hand in defense. McGee took it for an attack and struck first.

"Town boys ain't real men!" a voice yelled.

Corky turned to see Dexter pointing at him. "Hear that? He says we're not real men." Half a dozen townies crowded in on him.

Dexter stepped back to join Gene and Riley and they watched contentedly as man after man ran to join one or another of the fights, which soon merged into a single big fight. Stempel and some other neutrals plowed bravely through the middle and parted the combatants. They asked who had started it. A row of fingers pointed to the three loggers. Another finger, Mrs. Dale's, wagged at them. "It's jail for you, you runagates!"

With a quick look at one another to confirm they were of one mind, the three bolted for the path that led to the mountain. The town men took chase.

Jason and his brothers, descending the path, heard the shouting before the town rose into sight. "More trouble," said Joshua. Jason was half-expecting it. Time was he had enjoyed coming down, but these days Stempel's influence and that of others like him—if there were anyone else like him—had so far pervaded that paying a visit was like putting on a high collar. Seattle still had its pockets of disrespectability, which Jason made it a point to enjoy while they lasted. That would not be long: these bluenoses would see to it.

On the other hand, he had himself gone along with measures they had taken to make the area less hospitable to scapegraces and scalawags. His younger brothers were too easily tempted, and for their sake he had supported Mrs. Dale and the ladies of the League in their reforms. He had drawn the line, however, at Lottie. Her saloon was a constant target of Mrs. Dale's, but for the same reasons it was his favorite spot in town, one of the two pleasures that brought him down from the mountain in spite of all the inconveniences; a haven of fellowship, neighborliness, and absolute democracy. It was a pleasure he shared with many of the old settlers.

The other one was personal, and probably sinful, as he occasionally reflected. That was the perverse joy he took in tormenting Aaron Stempel. All it took was Jason's presence and a few deliberately chosen words to send Stempel into a whirlwind of discomfiture. He saw himself as one to be taken seriously, and to take him seriously was something Jason could never do. He made a bad example for his brothers, who had come to regard Stempel in the same way.

This morning as they rounded the bend they met three of their men racing toward them with a mob at their heels. The men's joy at seeing Jason was unmistakable. Between pants, Corky explained the situation.

"Throw you in jail for what?" asked Jason.

"For nothin', that's what. It was them started it."

The crowd halted at the foot of the path. Stempel came to the fore. Jason stepped out between him and the three men. "Turn 'em over," Stempel said.

"To you?" Jason said in a voice edged with scorn.

"They assaulted our good citizens."

"Way they tell it, your good citizens attacked them."

"That's for a judge to decide."

Jason's eyes glinted. "I'm judge over my men. They say they're not to blame. I believe 'em."

"And you expect me to do the same."

Joshua stepped out beside Jason. "No matter. Our men aren't your concern."

"They are when they start invadin' our streets and causin' trouble. Brawling, drunkenness, vandalism—"

Jeremy stepped out on Jason's other side. "Who—who got v-v-van—"

Ben stepped up. "They broke my window."

"Did they pay you for it?"

"Well, yeah, but—"

"That's not good enough," Stempel broke in. "Not any more. Next time there's trouble you'll all be barred from town for good."

"Then how, how, how do we b-bring our logs?"

"Long way around, by the cove."

Jason stared stonily at him. "You think you have the right to decree this all on your own?"

Stempel asked the crowd. "Good for you, Aaron!" shouted Lucy Dale.

Jason turned to Ben. The Bolts were his biggest customers. "Well?"

"Well—" He cowered. "They did break my window. I go along with Aaron."

"Not me!" Lottie Hatfield marched up to Stempel. She had not been one of the pursuers but had followed them to find out what they were up to. "And mine's the most popular business in town."

"A saloon!" Mrs. Dale said luridly.

Lottie ignored her. "I say leave 'em be." A few voices rose in support.

"You would say that," Mrs. Dale retorted. "They're your best customers."

Lottie spun on her. "Lucy Dale, if you utter another word I'll tear your corset off and wrap it around your head."

Mrs. Dale began to say "Well!" but got no further than "W—" as Lottie made a move toward her.

"She's right," said Stempel. "Rest of us want a law-abiding community—don't we?"

The crowd returned a loud "Yes!"

Stempel turned back to Jason. "One chance," he said. "That's all you get."

Joshua grinned. "Sounds like a thimblerigger, don't he?" The Bolts laughed.

If there was one thing Stempel hated worse than any other it was laughter at his expense. He felt himself flushing and flushed all the more for it. "You've been warned," he said.

Jason tried to take the warning seriously but found it impossible. Something in Stempel struck him as irreducibly preposterous and always kept him from recognizing the worst implications of his cavils and caveats. He dutifully admonished his men to avoid trouble while in town but down deep he did not credit Stempel with the strength to make good on his threat, and his men sensed that. So he was responsible as anyone for what came to pass.

"Remember," McGee told Corky on the way to town, "Jason said no trouble."

He reminded him again as they were taking two of the brides out for a stroll. There was nowhere to take them to, Candy having so far declared the saloon off limits and the old coal road (of whose existence she was so far unaware) being the kind of place the loggers would never imagine a nice girl would consent to go, and so they took them on a circuit of the town proper and then, with dusk falling, repeated it.

"No trouble, now." The final repetition came after they had seen the girls back home and in coming away found their path blocked by Riley and Gene, one of whom addressed Corky as "tree frog."

The admonition brought a laugh. "That's right," said Riley, "do like your mama says."

"How can he do that?" said Gene. "Ain't none of them boys from up the mountain know who their mama is."

McGee decided the time for quoting Jason was over. "Now, you should know better than to be sayin' a thing like that to a pair of Irishmen." He brought his palms together. "May Himself and Jason forgive us."

The two of them passed a restful night in spite of varied bruises, a black eye, and the hardness of the cell floor. The satisfaction of victory led to a sound sleep. Stempel's order of incarceration did not worry them, for they knew once Jason learned of it he would put everything to rights.

Stempel was waiting at the jail. He could surmise the events of the morning: someone at the camp would have remarked the absence of the two men, someone else would have remembered their leaving for town the evening before, Jason would have sent a man down to find them, the man would have rushed back with the news, which would have sent Jason into a fury, which he would have kept kindling all the way into town, and ultimately he would descend on the jail like an avenging angel and demand their release.

When he did, Stempel was prepared for it. "This time they go before the judge." The judge was not due for fourteen days. Jason asked what the bail was. "No bail. Want to be sure they show up at the hearing." Jason gave him his word. Stempel grinned. "Like I said."

Jason started toward him. "Fifty dollars," Stempel said immediately. Jason pulled a fold of bills from his pocket. "Each," Stempel added.

Sighing, Jason handed it over. "I'll see they steer clear till then."

"Not just them," said Stempel as he opened the cell door. "All of you, unless you have business here. I warned you."

Jason faced him squarely. "You don't bid me whether to come or go."

Stempel made a conciliatory gesture. "I'll make an exception for you and your brothers. You've always stayed within the law. For the rest, unless they're here on your say-so—"

The loggers turned to Jason. "What about Emmeline?"

"And Mary Ellen?"

"Springtime's takin' its natural course," Jason said to Stempel. "You mean to stand in its way?"

"They shoulda thought of that before."

"It's a bitter man deprives others of what he can't have himself," Jason said but he did not argue further. "Ain't like the brides are jailed up," he told the men. "They can come visit you any time."

"Won't come that far," said McGee.

"And they'll be mad when we stop comin' to see 'em," said Corky.

"Then they'll give us over."

"Start goin' out with town boys."

"Might even decide to go back East," said Stempel, smiling at the thought.

"Go to 'em, Jason," Corky begged, "tell 'em why we can't come. Tell 'em we'll be waitin' for 'em up on the mountain."

"They'll be waitin'," Jason reported to Candy in his best poetic manner, "up on the mountain."

Candy was unmoved. "You expect the brides to trudge all that way? They don't wear cork boots, you know."

"Then they can meet in the woods. Plenty of those about."

"Meet men secretly in the woods like—like the sort of women who do that sort of thing? Not on your life, Jason Bolt. Either the men come calling as etiquette dictates or the brides will have nothing to do with them. That goes for you and your brothers too."

"They can't," Jason said impatiently. "I told you—"

"Then it's their own fault for behaving like hooligans. Teach them a lesson."

Jason was silent for a moment. "Miss," he said, "I'm not one to make matches, but if I was I'd have the perfect partner for you." She asked who. "Aaron Stempel," he said, in a tone usually reserved for descriptions of crawling things. "You're two of a kind."

Candy knew she had been insulted but had known Stempel for too short a time to understand just how.

As soon as the town men learned of the prohibition they leapt into the breach. Riley, Gene, and Dexter appeared at the brides' door on Saturday morning carrying a hamper and a tablecloth and invited Emmeline, Deborah, and Mary Ellen out on a picnic.

"'course if you'd rather wait till those law-breakers come back..." said Dexter.

"You're in for a long wait!" Riley said, and the three laughed.

The girls sought Candy's advice. "You can sally forth flags flying," she advised, "or you can turn away all callers and die a lot of old maids. It's your choice."

They chose to go. Neither they nor the men knew the woods and after an afternoon of fruitless traipsing they returned worn and footsore.

"Have a good time?" asked Candy. Their looks gave the answer.

"Town men!" said Mary Ellen.

"We want loggers," said Emmeline, "big handsome loggers."

"Who know their way around the woods," said Deborah.

"And around a girl's heart."

"Not everyone feels that way, Emmeline," Candy said, nodding toward the parlor, where two of the others were entertaining young men with slicked-down hair and shirts buttoned up to the collar.

"Well, we do," said Deborah, "and it's not fair."

McGee said the same to Jason the next morning. He and some of the others approached him after breakfast. "Town men can come courtin' and we can't."

"And the brides won't come to see us," said Corky.

"Ain't a matter of won't," said Jason, "they're not allowed. Now, if someone could talk some sense into that mother hen of theirs..."

They turned to Jeremy.

"I t-tried. She, uh, we, uh, we're not t-talk—" He gave up with a sigh. "I t-tried."

Jason said it was up to her.

Candy said it was up to Jason. Some of the brides had approached her before breakfast.

"Go talk to him," said Emmeline, "please!"

"Talk to her," McGee begged Jason. The other men agreed.

"No offense, Jeremy," said Corky, "but Jason's got a way with women."

Coming down the mountain path, Jason met Candy on the way up.

"Miss Pruitt," he said.

"Mr. Bolt."

"Men are unhappy."

"So are the brides. Some are talking about going home."

Jason guessed correctly that Stempel had been around to see them that morning. "This can't keep up," he said.

"It certainly can't."

"Then you'll let the brides come visit the men?"

"No, indeed. You'll talk Mr. Stempel into letting them visit the brides."

He sighed. "I can't."

"Why not? You talked us into coming here."

"And you came. Halfway round the world you came. Can't you come a little farther—far enough to see the men who want so badly to see you?"

Candy grew quiet. "It's because we have come so far—far from our families and everything we've ever known—the girls need rules to protect them."

"Protect them? From what them and the men are both keen on doing?"

"That's exactly what they need protecting from. And the keener they are, the more they need protecting."

"Then you won't bend."

"And you won't try."

"I been tryin' till I'm blue in the face."

"And Mr. Stempel's too clever for you. I see."

"Stempel! That stick of wood?"

"Then you can do it," she said, staring at him with her huge questioning eyes.

"'course I can!" No sooner had he said it than he realized he was not sure at all.

He successfully hid his doubt from Stempel. Indeed, the boldness with which he demanded an end to the ban nearly provoked the mill owner into having him thrown off the premises. "Come bargin' into my place of business givin' orders," he said. "Who do you think you are?"

"I'm a Bolt, and the son of a Bolt. And our people were loggin' these woods before you ever heard a steam whistle. You got no right declarin' us trespassers in our own country."

"It's not only me. It's all good citizens."

"They listen to you. You say it's all right, they'll go along."

"It's not all right. We haven't had so much peace in a month of Sundays. We've seen what it's like to have a town without Bolt men."

"A dead town. In another fifty years it'll be the haunt of deadwood and ghost wind. That what you want?"

"In fifty years it'll be a proper city. And you and your kind will be relics of an era well lost."

"Good enough for you to do business with."

Stempel shook his head. "You're just handy."

"You wouldn't last a week without us!"

"I'd like to try. One week—just one—where I don't have to put up with your mocking and—clodhopping and—and big fancy talk." He was so badly agitated he could hardly find words.

"That so?" Jason was getting hot too. "Want to cancel our contract?"

"It'd suit me to the ground."

"Me too."

They stared at each other for a moment. "We'll have to shake on it," said Jason. They did so reluctantly, and let go fast.

"I'll find another logging outfit," said Stempel. "Territory's thick with 'em."

"And I'll find me another mill. From this day forward I'll have nothing to do with you."

"And your brothers?"

"My brothers too. And every man on Bridal Veil Mountain."

"Good!" said Stempel. "Then you got no more business here."

For once Jason was stumped for a reply. He glared at him for a moment and then exited. "After today," Stempel said, when Jason was out of hearing, "this town is closed to the Bolts and anybody that sits down to supper with them."

He realized the mill was quiet and looked around to find the hands paused, listening. "What do you think this is," he shouted, "a waxworks?" They immediately resumed work.

That afternoon he assigned two of them to make up a sign to read "Loggers Keep Out!" The next day he had it planted by the totem pole at the entrance to town and then recruited volunteers to stand guard there till further notice.

"Oh, dear," said Candy when she heard the news.

"What's the idea?" said Corky when he and Frank were met by two of Stempel's men, one of them armed.

"You can read, can't you?" the man said.

"Remember, Riley," said the other, "he's one of them mountain boys. Better read it to him."

"We come for supplies," Corky protested. "That's legitimate business." He started forward. Riley clicked back his rifle bolt.

Frank laid a hand on Corky's shoulder. "We'd best tell Jason."

"Supplies!" Jason thundered, slamming Stempel's desk for emphasis. "This is where we get our supplies! You going to deny us food and drink?"

Stempel sat back. "All right," he said, "long as it's you or your brothers."

"And cash. The men have to be paid. Ben's is the only safe."

That was not so: Stempel had come to distrust a safe with five sides and acquired his own. But he thought Bolt need not know it. "Fair enough," he said easily.

"You love this, don't you? Lordin' it over everybody?" Stempel had to concede he did. "Why don't you take over the whole territory while you're at it?"

"I might," said Stempel. "Thanks for the idea."

Jason left in a fit of disgust. "By the way," Stempel called after him, "you found another mill yet?"

He did the next day. Turley Mill, its front read. It was a ramshackle frame that bore marks of long neglect. So was its owner. Jason and Joshua had been pointed toward him by one of the handful of scarcely employed workers inside.

"You in charge?" said Jason, in a tone that invited denial.

The man rose with effort. He appeared to have taken too little food or too much of something else. "How can I help you gentlemen?"

Joshua was surveying the state of the equipment. "This is a working mill, isn't it?"

"Things may appear slow at present, but in peak season—"

"This is peak season," said Joshua.

"Got three or four jobs I need you to take over." Jason tossed the contract onto the desk. Turley skimmed it vaguely. "First is due in a week. Can you manage it?"

"Leave it to me."

The week was more than half up. "A week, I told you!" Jason roared.

Turley shrugged helplessly. "Show us what you've done," said Jason.

"Come see for yourself," said Joshua. He pointed to a stack of unmilled timber they had delivered four days before.

"And the other jobs?" Jason demanded.

Turley shrugged again.

Joshua shook his head. "How do you make a living here?"

"I don't!" said Turley.

The brothers agreed their next best hope was to float the logs over to Port Gamble. It would take more time, and the mill there charged more; on the other hand, as Jason pointed out, they had no choice.

The mill owner welcomed them with unexpected enthusiasm. A job he had been counting on had just fallen through, making their unexpected visit a happy chance on both sides. Although expensive, his factory was also efficient, and within a day or two it appeared even the late-started job might get done on time.

Jason had every reason to feel hopeful as he and the others shuttled back across. He was just telling Jeremy they could probably meet all their obligations—"if nothing else happens"—when McGee, at one of the oars, doubled over. Jason raced to him to find out the matter. A musket ball in the gut, said McGee, judging by how it felt. Jason ordered Jeremy to make for the pier.

Jeremy hesitated. That meant town, and town meant Stempel and his armed men. "We b-been steerin' c-clear—"

"The pier, I said!"

Two of Stempel's men were waiting at the dock. They ordered the crew to change course.

"You'd turn away a sick man?" Jason shouted. At that the men looked less certain. One of them went to fetch Stempel.

"What's wrong with him?" Stempel asked.

"I'm no doctor," said Jason. "I'm takin' him to the only one we have." By now the boat was docking and he had jumped ashore.

"All right," Stempel said, too late, "if he needs doctoring."

As Jason and Jeremy helped McGee onto the landing, the two men on the boat were struck with the same idea at once. Each caught the other at it and they smiled in shared perfidy.

Dr. Wright traced McGee's stomach ache to the mutton he had eaten that morning, which the cook had been about to throw out. The doctor said he would likely recover in a day or so. "But he shouldn't make the trek back tonight. I'll have a bed made up here." Emmeline was there to bring him broth when he was able to take it and otherwise tend to his needs up till curfew (Candy's, that was, not the town's).

Jason was grateful the trouble was no worse. But he did not expect it to become epidemic. By the middle of the following morning half his force had gone missing and he inquired of his brothers why. He learned the absentees had all repaired to the doctor's office. The news of McGee's ailment had spread—not of its nature, only of its having allowed him into town—and many of the hearers, who by coincidence were among those most actively courting the brides, had reported coming down with the same thing, whatever it was.

Dr. Wright guessed otherwise. "You're sure the pain is here?" she asked, touching her stomach. The men nearest her clutched theirs in unison. "Not here?" she suggested, moving her hand up six inches and to the left. They took their hands away and hung their heads.

She appeared to consider for several seconds. "As your physician," she said soberly, "I prescribe—" They waited, apprehending the worst. "—a visit to the dormitory." They looked at her in surprise. "That's all the medicine you need." The news was passed down the line and they all let out a cheer.

"What if we see Stempel?" asked Corky.

"Tell him it's doctor's orders." They cheered again and ran off. She laughed watching them.

Jason arrived in time to see their retreat. He had come to end the sudden plague with a few well-aimed words but found the job done for him. "Miracle cure?" he asked.

She smiled. "Spring fever's not a difficult diagnosis."

He gazed wonderingly. "You can stare right into a man's heart and know what's hid there." He gazed a little too long and she turned away. "I see you can."

It was a few seconds before she spoke. "I've been offered another position. At a hospital in San Francisco." She looked at him. "My fiance is there. So, you see, I know how the men feel."

"There are those," Jason said quietly, "that'd accuse you of taking this job under false pretenses."

She colored. "I fully intended to honor my obligation. I shall if you insist on it. But I hope you won't. I've been in touch with a colleague of mine—a very able man—who's eager to come West. His wife will come with him as his nurse. You see, you'll be getting two for the price of one. You can't do better than that."

"But we have," he said.

"Oh, no." She was looking toward town. Jason turned to see his men being herded back by Stempel and his guards.

Stempel glanced at Jason. "'Doctor's orders,'" he said. "You'll have to do better than that."

That evening he unfolded his plan at the chow table over the clanking of tin plates.

"But how's that gonna help?" Corky asked.

"Strongest motive in the world's a guilty conscience," said Jason. "Make the town men beholden to you, they'll see how downright unfair they've been."

Jeremy and Joshua looked at each other but said nothing.

"You think it's a daft notion," said Jason, after the others had left, "and so it is. But it'll buy me time to think up something else. And who knows? It might work, at that."

For the next few evenings and through the weekend, whenever any of the mill hands ventured outside the town limits, especially in company with the brides, they became unusually prone to hazard: a rattlesnake (if it were not a certain local shrub that imitated its rattle), a driverless wagon that was somehow set rolling, a hawk no one else had seen. And always a man of Jason's was there to save the day: crushing the rattler (which looked remarkably like a grapevine), stopping the wagon (unless it had stopped of its own accord, tethered as it was to a stump), and waving away the hawk (wherever it might be).

"We're beholden to them," the hands told Stempel. They described the threats so narrowly averted. "Almost like we had a guardian angel."

"Angel in buckskins," said Stempel.

That afternoon, when he saw one of the hands leaving with one of the brides to go berrying, he followed. Sure enough, they soon met a bear, or at least Corky shouting about a bear and pointing at a bearlike shape among the trees. He pulled out a pistol and fired. The thing disappeared. "I scared him off!" said Corky.

A moment later, Stempel emerged carrying a bearskin rug. In a nearby clearing stood McGee, looking surprised.

"You did better than that," said Stempel. "You scared him clean out of his skin."

When Jason heard the story, he shook his head.

"It woulda worked," Corky insisted, "if he hadn'ta been there."

"You gotta look for another plan," said McGee.

"I've looked in all directions," said Jason. Then a thought struck him. "—all but one." He raised his eyes heavenward.

"Goodness," said Reverend Gaddings, "you must have been spreading the Word something fierce." One lumberjack after another, attired in his Sunday best, filed past him into church. They all took seats next to the brides, to the evident displeasure of the town men, and proceeded to indulge in as much courtship as was proper to the setting, and maybe a little more. "Never saw so many men get religion all of a sudden," said Gaddings.

"Glad you persuaded Stempel to let 'em come," said Jason.

Gaddings half-smiled. "Considering his fondness for referring to himself and his circle of acquaintances as God-fearing folk, he couldn't very well refuse."

The number of new worshippers exceeded Stempel's expectation, and their proximity to the brides made him suspect he had been made a fool of. He sat at the rear looking grimly out over the assembly.

Gaddings took the pulpit to welcome everyone, especially the newcomers. He said it was the finest turnout he had seen since the last raffle. Then he introduced the guest speaker. Stempel was about to leave till he realized how it would look to people like Lucy Dale. Gaddings asked Jason to remind him again what text he had chosen.

"Second epistle," said Jason.

"The second—" Gaddings stopped. "Which one?"

"Oh, one's about like another," Jason said as he stepped up. Gaddings, in some puzzlement, gave place.

"Ladies—gentlemen—and Stempel," Jason began. Stempel contained himself with some effort. "The Good Book," Jason continued, laying a hand on the tome in front of him, "tells us a lot of things, yes, sir. Turn the other cheek, it says. Take an eye for an eye. And—ah—the grass is always greener." Gaddings began to correct him and then let it go. "But the thing it says that concerns us here today is this—this piece of wisdom straight out of the Holy Book, right here—'Whosoever shall come knocking, let not the town gates be shut to him.'" Gaddings searched his mind in vain for the passage. "'Let him be one,'" said Jason, "'with the—the whole baggage of you.'" Stempel folded his arms in open disbelief. "Now what this means is, let's join together and be one town like we were before. Forget our differences"—the town men were baring their teeth at the loggers, who were doing the same in return—"and live side by side like the Good Book says. Thank you."

He stepped down to scattered applause. Most of the congregation had hardly heard him.

Gaddings remounted, looking more puzzled than ever. "Well," he said. "I don't think I've ever heard a passage explicated so—pointedly. I can't claim to match Jason's oratorical skill"—then you're mighty small potatoes as a preacher, Stempel was thinking—"but I believe my text today is a piece of advice we can all profit from. Proverbs 20:13: 'Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.' Or in other words, 'Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise.'" He laughed. The spectators were silent.

"Well," he said. Stempel noticed for the first time how fond of the word Gaddings was. "There's no one who doesn't like his sleep—I'm sure I do—and there are some mornings I feel like not getting up at all." Too bad this wasn't one of them, Stempel thought, and then checked himself. Bolt's appearance had really put him in a bad humor. "But then I wouldn't get much done, would I? Take today for example. I got up bright and early at five-thirty. And you know the first thing I did? I put on a pot of tea..."

"We have to set through a speech like that every Sunday?" Corky asked after it was over and they had come out into the warm spring morning with an overwhelming sense of release from captivity. Gaddings had probably chosen the wrong lesson to expound to them since they got up at first light every working day.

"Well," said Jason, "that's the reason you're here."

"Ain't worth it," Corky declared.

"Not even for the brides?"

The men looked at one another. "No," they said together.

"We wanna be out courtin'," said Frank, "not settin' in church listenin' to some old—"

"Reverend!" Jason greeted him. "The men were just saying how moved they were by your sermon." The men immediately dispersed. "Too shy to tell you themselves."

"They won't get to hear many more, I'm afraid." Jason was about to assure him of their steadfastness when Gaddings explained. "I've been offered a teaching post at the divinity school in Topeka commencing in the fall. But I won't be leaving you unshepherded. A colleague of mine in Port Orchard is willing to come take my place. I'd have been gone by now—the offer was originally for the spring—but to tell the truth—" He reddened. "—I'd hoped to find myself a bride. The trustees prefer a man who's settled, you see. As soon as I can fulfill that requirement I'll wire them my acceptance."

Jason smiled ruefully. "It was me talked you into coming here."

"That's why I've told you first. Odd you should have gone to the trouble, I see you so seldom."

"I'm not much for Bib—" He stopped himself. "—settin' indoors."

"Guess I'd better let Aaron know," Gaddings said, having caught sight of him, "since he has charge of my wages."

"Well, he doesn't have charge of me." He left as Stempel walked up.

Today, as it happened, Stempel was wanting to speak with him. Since dissolving their agreement he had been unable to find another lumberman who would strike a deal. He had been doing business with the Bolts for so long everyone expected they would soon reconcile and anyone who had filled in meantime would be left with the scraps. Stempel wondered whether it would have made any difference if he had told Bolt and concluded it wouldn't.

Jason was feeling fairly abandoned himself. Lottie came upon him after dark on the pier listening to the plash and gurgle of the water beneath. He was in open violation of Stempel's decree but seemed untroubled by it.

He asked her what she was doing out that time of night. "Came to talk to you," she said.

He gave a short laugh. "Don't tell me you're leavin' too."

"I've had my chances. But my home's here. So's yours."

He continued to stare into the blackness as if looking for a sign there. "What's it all for, Lottie? Seems like the harder I work to build things up, the quicker they crumble. My men are exiles, the people I bring in sail off—"

Lottie cocked her head toward the dormitory. "A hundred brides. And how many more children—two, three times that? You've brought Seattle its next generation, Jason. That's legacy enough for any man."

Jason smiled gratefully at her. She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. "If I'd been born sooner..." he said.

"I know, I'd be kicking you out every night instead of that reprobate sea captain. There's one to your credit, if it's any comfort to you. Suppose there's no chance he'll leave too?"

Jason grinned. "I've a hunch he'll be around for a good long time."

Lottie nodded in resignation. She said good night and left him to his own reflections. She could not have guessed they now centered on her, as the one person he knew who was always able to rescue him from his headlong plunges into gloom. These were rare but powerful, and in her absence they could be crippling. Thank God for Lottie, he thought.

Turning to go, he was startled to see another figure standing a few feet away. After a second he recognized it. "Come to arrest me, Stempel?" he said.

Stempel looked out toward the Sound, invisible but still there, yet unmindful of the business of men, a model of disinterest. "You and your brothers," he said, "have been a pain in my craw since I started here."

"Then we haven't lived in vain."

Stempel continued as if he had not spoken. "But I'm aware of what your family has contributed to the town. More than me, all told. Wish I'd known your father."

Jason tried to make out his face, but it was shrouded by the night. "You wouldn't have got on. He was rather partial to his sons."

"What I mean to say is"—why was it so hard to pursue a sensible conversation with the man?—"in view of your standing here, it wouldn't be right to let a few ill-considered words put an end to our business dealings."

Now the other shoe had dropped. "You can't find a supplier."

"Your name echoes loud in these hills."

He sounded contrite, but experience had taught Jason to be cautious. "Then you'll ease up on the men?"

"Your men," Stempel said, his voice rising, "are a threat to this community."

"What threat?"

"We want decent folk—God-fearin' folk—not a bunch of border ruffians."

"They'll come whether you'll have them or no."

"Then we'll turn them out."

"They'll come again."

"We'll throw 'em in jail!"

"Your jail's not big enough!"

"We'll build one bigger!"

"You can't!"

"Why not?"

"Because," Jason said with relish, "you have no timber." He turned to go.

"I'll get timber!" Stempel shouted. "Plenty of it! Build a stack of timber higher'n your mountain!" Jason kept walking. Stempel shouted louder. "Show your face here again, I will arrest you! Throw you in with the other blacklegs where you belong!"

The perennial lack of occupants in the jail blunted the threat, but the calumny was one too many to shake off, pretend indifference though Jason might. "Blackleg," he muttered all the way up to camp. "Border ruffian. Threat to the community. I'll show him a threat."

His was not the only discontented soul that night. As Stempel made his way back to the mill where he worked, slept, ate, and bathed (courtesy of the adjoining waters), a sound came to his ears. It was borne on the wind to all the houses in the vicinity, pierced him through and chilled him to the marrow, and almost had him believing in ghosts till he discovered its source. It was the sound of weeping. Around it rose a counterpoint of interwoven moans, wails, groans, and sighs.

It grew nearer as he approached the main street (what there was of one), and then more distant as he started along the street. He walked back a few paces. Now it was nearer again. A few paces more and it was nearer yet. The only large building at that end was the dormitory. He went and stood in front of it. There could be no doubt: it was issuing from the brides' bedroom.

It had started with Emmeline. Many of the others also lay awake. Distressed by their separation from the men, they had been sleeping fitfully for many nights. Those who were asleep were brought awake by the convulsive sobbing. It soon spread to Deborah, who shared Emmeline's bed, then to Mary Ellen, who lay in the next bed over, then to another bride and another, and finally to Candy herself, who would not allow it to have its way but could not prevent its creeping out in trickles from her eyes and nostrils. It fed on itself and ran rampant from bed to bed till it held sway over all and filled the house and echoed from the rafters.

Listening, Stempel was actually moved but, like Candy, resisted the grip on his feelings. Damned bawling women, he said to himself. Should learn to keep better control of themselves. He shut his ears and hurried away.

The weeping did not end with the coming of day. It varied a little in tone as some of the brides bathed or ate, and now and again it promised to subside entirely, but always it rose again like the tide and kept the entire town submerged in despair.

It penetrated to Lottie's too. "Won't it never stop?" Riley asked the other men who had resorted there at noon seeking an elixir with power against salt tears.

"When one of 'em comes down with it, they all do," said Gene.

"Don't know how long I can take this," said Riley, "I truly don't." Lottie smiled.

They were roused from their mutual commiserations by Dexter bursting in the door. "Men coming down from the mountain," he said, "a whole army!" They jumped to their feet. Riley sent Dexter to tell Stempel.

The army was Jason's and was the culmination of his night's broodings over the wrongs Stempel had done him. The more he pondered them the more enormous they seemed. He half-hoped daybreak would bring with it the light of reason to quench his wrath, but it only exposed their monstrosity the more. The full awareness of it picked at him like a vulture. He bore it as long as he could and finally in the middle of the morning took up cookie's stamping hammer and began pounding fervidly at the iron hanging alongside. Only those at the outermost fallings failed to hear the summons.

Men came running from all sides, Jeremy and Joshua among them. "What's happened?" asked Joshua. Others were asking the same question.

"Judgment day," said Jason. His brothers looked at each other. They had heard that tone before.

He waited till the men stopped coming. He began by apologizing for having let them down, and himself too. He had allowed Stempel to hound them, shame them, banish them from the town they had built with their own hands. Were they going to let him and a lot of starched collars and old maids steal what was theirs? They answered with a deafening no. Jason charged them to grab weapons—ax handles, cant dogs, anything they could carry—in case the town men raised arms against them. Otherwise they would settle them with their fists. The men gave a cry that resounded from hill to hill. They were ready for battle, the timber boss most of all.

"Jason, th-think what you're doing," said Jeremy.

"Have been thinkin'," said Jason. "Been doin' nothin' but thinkin' since I brought those women in." We brought, Joshua said silently. "They've had me hocused—had me sayin' yes ma'am, no ma'am, please can I leave the table now—nearly had me forgettin' who I am. Stempel? Who's Stempel? World ain't his to order as he sees fit. We're not his bond slaves to wait on his beck and—"

Jeremy interrupted. "It's not just him—it's everybody in town. The brides too."

"You mean Candy."

Jeremy would not be put off. "They think we're too rough. We come b-bargin' in like this, it'll prove they're right."

Jason turned to Joshua. "What about you? Never knew you to back down from a fight."

Joshua looked from one to the other of them. "This time I'm on Jeremy's side."

"Then go! Go stand with 'em, the pair of you."

"You know I can't do that," said Joshua.

Jason raised a clenched fist. After a moment Joshua laid his hand on top of it.

"And you, little brother?"

Jeremy weighed the matter. Finally he laid his hand on top of Joshua's. "Sorry, Candy," he said, in a voice so quiet only Joshua heard him.

Stempel had brought most of the mill hands with him. Other men had come out from the shops and the nearest houses to join them. A few were carrying rifles. The two bands met outside the dormitory.

Stempel stepped forth. "State your business," he said.

Jason stepped out to meet him. "Stempel, you've persecuted us long enough. After today we'll come to town when and as often as we choose." He looked around. "The man who lays a hand on any of us will be called to account. And the accounting starts now."

The men raised their weapons. Stempel began to remove his coat.

"Stop!" came a voice. "Stop this minute, all of you!" Candy ran out from the dormitory, where the brides were huddled in the door and at the windows.

She turned to Jason. "Is this the kind of town you promised us—a haven for street brawlers? Do you suppose that's what we came all this way for? We expected better than that—we deserve better. Refined ladies deserve refined gentlemen." Jason cast a doubtful glance at his men. "If you keep this up," she concluded with a display of chin, "you can pay our passage back to New Bedford."

Hearing this, Stempel eagerly finished pulling off his coat. After a moment he realized those around him were not moving but were looking at one another uneasily.

"'pears now you're the only one spoilin' for a fight," said Joshua.

Jason shook his head. "He's spoilin' for a mountain."

Candy turned a stern eye on Jeremy. "And you?" she asked. "You knew how I felt and you still came with them."

Jeremy forgot that originally he had been on her side. "That's right," he said, "I c-came. Because sometimes a m-man has to stand with his family—his friends—the people he's responsible for." The last phrase made Jason proud. "To see they get what's coming to them. Fair treatment. Don't you think that's worth fighting for?"

Candy did not have an answer. Suddenly she was not sure she was right or wholly right or whether both of them might not be equally right.

"Tell you what's worth fighting for," said Stempel, making a last stand. "A decent community! Place where you feel safe walking the streets. Place where you can sleep sound."

"I can't sleep at all!" Riley burst out. "Their caterwaulin's drivin' me crazy." The other men agreed.

"Let 'em back in, Aaron," said Ben, whose trade had fallen off lately.

"We can handle 'em," said Gene, and then added, with an eye to the brides, "In a refined gentlemanlike way."

Stempel reviewed his neighbors' faces. They all carried the same message. Reluctantly, and feeling smaller than he liked, he bent and picked up his coat.

The crowd cheered—all except Lucy Dale. "Are these the kind of men they're making nowadays?" she cried. "When I was a girl they knew how to handle scofflaws. A smart blow to the jaw to lay 'em flat—then as soon as they got up they'd knock 'em down again!" She acted it out as she spoke. Stempel stared at her in some dismay.

"That was another time, Lucy Dale," said Jason.

The estranged couples reunited. For once it was Candy and not Jeremy who looked penitent.

McGee ventured up to Jason to ask, "The Reverend ain't leavin' for a while yet, is he?"

"No, why?"

McGee looked at Emmeline, who was hanging on his arm. "Looks like we're apt to need him pretty quick." As if to prove it, Emmeline seized him by the neck and claimed him for hers with a kiss of which Candy did not approve.

"To Lottie's!" rose the cry, and they all flocked off together, even Candy and the brides.

—all but the two men who had started the whole thing. Stempel shook his head. "They were set to leave," he said. "I coulda had your mountain."

Jason felt a certain sympathy for him. "But then you woulda had to fetch more. Men woulda insisted. These were the pick of the crop—think what the second batch woulda been like."

Stempel was considering the prospect quite seriously when Jason proceeded to the main topic. "You been right all along," he said, "much as it galls me to admit it." Stempel had not expected to hear such a concession and watched him mistrustfully. "This ain't the town it was," said Jason, "now the brides are here. Can't be—oughtn't to be. It's up to us to make it a fit place for them and their children. Stop our feudin' and work together side by side for the good of the town. What do you say?" He offered his hand.

Stempel stared at it and then at him. Glimmers of a dozen different thoughts crossed his face. "Speak for yourself," he said, almost in a snarl. He left, not for Lottie's but for the mill, where he would work till dark while the others celebrated.

Jason smiled as he watched him go. The two of them live in harmony? Crackbrained fancy! Things were likely better as they stood. Before heading up to Lottie's, he took a deep whiff of the town air with its mingled smells of brine, fir, and earth, now his once more.

"—and that's how we were let back in," he said, "and lived happily ever since."

Molly did not look happy. "That second batch," she said, "the ones who didn't measure up—that was us. Me and Christopher."

Jason reached over and gave her a hug. "Molly-o, you were the rarest find of all."

She heard no more than an echo, too faint for her to recognize, of the wild airs and wilder graces of an earlier day. Much was gone now, if she had known, but much had taken its place.

Jason pointed to a roll of muslin by the wall. "Speakin' of finds..." Molly climbed across and paid out enough to see it was what they were after. With his help, she dragged it to the trap door.

"Now that's done," he said with measured gallantry, "may I have the honor of escorting you to our new ice cream parlor for a chocolate sundae?"

"Can I have strawberry?"

"Strawberry it shall be. Always say a town ain't truly civilized till it has its own ice cream parlor."

As he was about to climb out his eye fell on the sign that had prompted his narrative. He studied it for a moment. Then he laid it on top of the bridal trunk, where it could remain for eternity to perform the task for which it had been created in a better time and a worse: warding off those on the outside.

8. Fabulous Beasts

The sea captain began his tale:

"Off the Tobago coast we was, where the bottom's so deep only Davy Jones could tell ye what bides there." Most of the saloon's other regulars listened enthralled. One of the exceptions was a hawk-faced man at the bar whose countenance implied he had heard this one before, or a hundred like it. His face stood in sharp contrast to that of the young man beside him, whose cheek was flushed with excitement. At his elbow stood a young woman whose attention wandered every few minutes to the clock on the wall.

"Strange waters are those," the captain went on, "where the gales will crack your bowsprit before ye've unbent your backstays." He paused to sip his whiskey. "A lovely spring mornin' it was, sea smooth as glass—"

"No gales, then," the hawk-faced man interjected without looking at him.

"Eh?" The captain was lost for a moment. "Ah, no, y'see, this was the balmy season." The hawk-faced man showed the ghost of a smile. "We was layin' becalmed," the captain resumed, "prayin' for a breath o' wind, when the ship commences to shiver, then heels over on her beam-ends. To starboard rises a gigantic green prow covered over in scales, with two great flashin' eyes and two long rows o' teeth. 'twas no ship, me buckos. It was the great sea serpent himself, there to bring down the wrath of Saint Anthony on the heads of a hundred worthy seamen."

"A hundred?" questioned the hawk-faced man.

"Another instant and he'd be after preyin' on us like a grey reef shark. A southerly'd riz up, but he was takin' it from us. So I gives an order I hopes I may never give again the rest o' me seafarin' days. 'Give him the grog!' says I, and a dozen hands rolls the barrel to the rail and pries it open, with that great snake hangin' over 'em all the while. No sooner does he get a whiff of it than he dips his nose in and commences suckin' it up till he's drained the barrel dry. And afore ye know it he's swayin' like a pendulum"—thus reminded, the young woman consulted the clock again—"and may Himself strike me dead if he don't fall back and float away in utter drunken abandon. The mains'l fills and we're off like a bolt—not referrin' to the present company," he added, with a nod at the young man—"and that is how I lived to tell the tale." He drained his glass. "Which puts me in mind of another time—"

The young woman pulled at the young man's arm. "I have to see the brides to bed."

He put her off with a gesture. "Clancey, was that true?" he asked. "About the sea serpent?"

"Jeremy," said the young woman.

"Jeremy," said the hawk-faced man, shaking his head.

Clancey stared at him in surprise. "True?" He rubbed his chin. "I'll tell ye this—it's as true as most of the things ye hear"—he winked at the young woman—"of an evenin' at the alehouse."

Jeremy's face fell. "So there are no sea monsters?"

"Now, I won't say as much as that. The sea was the first woman o' God's creation, older'n Eve, and with all a woman's secrets. The wonders I've seen—strange lights, shapes in the night..." He leaned closer. "D'ye know, in these very waters—"

Unexpectedly a hand clutched his shoulder. "Clancey, enough!" said the hawk-faced man. "We don't want to excite the boy too much."

The words seemed to carry an unspoken meaning. "Eh?" Clancey said, and then, "Ah, no, Mr. Stempel's right."

"Time you turned in," said Stempel. Clancey's intended protest sputtered out in a sigh of submission.

"But he was about to—" Jeremy began.

"Another night," said Stempel.

"Yes," said the young woman. "We have to leave, too."

"But, Candy—"

"This minute," said Candy, and Jeremy knew he had no choice.

"See you to your ship," Stempel said to Clancey. By the door, in a voice not quite low enough to avoid their hearing, he added, "You old fool!"

The rest of the crowd dispersed, and the proprietor made ready to lock up for the night. Her lights were the only ones still burning, not counting those from Stempel's mill at one end and the brides' dormitory at the other. Toward the latter the young couple picked their way, avoiding the craters that lurked in the dark. Jeremy was only half-attending to them, still musing over the last exchange. "Never knew Aaron to care whether Clancey got home safe," he said.

"Probably afraid he'll fall into a pothole," said his companion, daintily skirting one so big she had remembered it from last time, "and spend the night in the street."

"He has before," said Jeremy. He paused in his steps as he glimpsed, or fancied he did, a figure slipping between two buildings on the wharf side. It was only visible for a moment, if it had been there at all, and under a moon that had waned almost to nothing he had been unable to make it out in detail, except that it had seemed abnormally small. "Did you see it?" he cried.

Candy had not, and was of the opinion that Clancey's story had him seeing things. He agreed vocally while keeping to himself a different view. "You wanted it to be true," she said. "And coming from the family you do! Haven't you heard enough tall tales?" She was alluding to his eldest brother Jason, who had been known to stretch the truth at need, while Jeremy, as even she had to admit, was almost pitiably earnest.

"Sea stories are different," he said as she pushed him on.

"Mm-hmm," she said slyly. "They're wet!" She fluttered her fingers before his face, shocking it with cold water lifted from the rim of a rain barrel. They were now within the circle of the dormitory lights, and she could safely run for it and he could run after, threatening to get her back, till they reunited on the steps. "Caught you!" he crowed.

"I let you catch me," she said.

He regarded her with a kind of wonder. "You did, didn't you?" Both knew they were not only speaking of this evening. "How'd I come to be so lucky?"

"Well," she said, running her finger along his cheek, "it had something to do with those big blue eyes, that smile—and that glow." Jeremy repeated the word as a question. "Jason has the flash," Candy explained, "Joshua the spark—but you've got the glow."

"Saint Elmo's fire," said Jeremy. The words came as a surprise to both.

She laughed. "You're still at sea," she said, not chiding him. She kissed him lightly on the lips. "Let me know when you regain dry land." He returned her good night, a little sheepishly, and they parted, she to tuck in the young women under her care, he to take the long lonely walk back up to the lumber camp he owned with his brothers.

His destination changed at the foot of the path. He was still lost in his thoughts—half seas over, as it were—when chance turned his eyes to the row of storefronts. He did not at once log what he was seeing there, which was what he had seen before: a figure, little more than a shadow, of a child's height, but moving too heavily somehow for a child. It darted along one building, then across to the next, and so by fits and starts to the mill. Jeremy, sure by now of what his eyes were telling him, followed at a distance.

Stempel always kept a light burning outside his office. The practice was at odds with his habitual frugality, and Jason had laid it to superstition, but Jeremy saw it had a practical use, for by the ghost light he could clearly see the man he was following. He was about three feet tall and dressed in a suit that was dandyish by Seattle's standard and perfectly tailored to his proportions. From his vest he took a ring of keys and fitted one of them to the door. With its turn the door squeaked open. Skeleton key? Jeremy wondered. Moving as swiftly as he could without being heard, he stole up the steps far enough to peer in.

The little man lit the lamp, unlocked a side drawer of the desk, and lifted out an oilskin envelope. From this he slid out a paper which he unfolded and held to the light. Jeremy saw that it was a map. The man returned it to the envelope and extinguished the light. Jeremy hopped down and hid against the wall. The man came out envelope in hand. As he paused to lock the door Jeremy debated what to do next. Probably he should find out where the man was bound and who his confederates were. On the other hand, he could easily grab him alone, not so easily a whole gang. But if he could get a look at them—

Luckily or not, the question was settled when his foot slipped on a rock. The scrape was enough to alert the man to his presence. He ducked under the banister, jumped down, and took off at a run for the harbor. Jeremy took after him. "Stop, thief!" he shouted. There was no one to hear, at any rate no one who came out. The man must have been a prodigious athlete, for although his legs were half as long as Jeremy's he kept up a lead of several yards and negotiated the rutted ground with ease. Nearer the dock, where the ground was smoother, he increased the distance, and where it dipped down at the landing he disappeared altogether.

Jeremy came up panting. The salt smell penetrated his nostrils. The little man reappeared, and Jeremy saw with amazement he was running onto Clancey's ship. Jeremy reached the gangway in time to see him disappear into the companion hatch. Stepping onto the deck, he felt a momentary conviction that it had sunk under his weight, but knew immediately it was only the ship's normal sway at anchor.

He ran to the companionway. A dim light showed below. He took the stair in two jumps and rounded it to face the captain's cabin, which was the source of the light, now partly shuttered by the small figure in the entranceway.

Jeremy ran up behind him. "Gotcha!" he shouted. The little man scrambled away behind Clancey, who Jeremy now saw was sitting at his desk. The man cowered by one of the portholes. Clancey regarded Jeremy with dismay. "He robbed Aaron," said Jeremy. It sounded foolish here.

The little man looked across to the bunk, where Jeremy became aware of another figure standing—a familiar one, he sensed. "Sorry, Mr. Stempel," the man said. Jeremy's eyes met Stempel's. They were dark and questioning. He had the envelope in his hand. Seeing that Jeremy saw it, he moved to slide it into the inner pocket of his coat, and when it would not fit hid it behind him. "He's the one who spotted me," the man said, unnecessarily. The others stared at Jeremy as if wishing him gone. His embarrassment kept him from noticing how odd their behavior was, to say nothing of their meeting there so late. That oddity he felt as an uncertainty what to say next. If not egotistical, he had at all times an acute awareness of himself and all he did and, especially, said: a holdover from a childhood of unsuccessful struggles to speak as other children spoke, without fear of humiliation. Many girls had drifted to him, drawn by his looks and his soft quietude, and then drifted away once he had dared to speak, or not dared. Now he could do it of course, but when in over his head he still hesitated, and his throat did the same. "You, you, you know him?" he asked.

Stempel, nearly as uncertain on his side, had Jeremy but known, recovered the composure to normalize the situation, to the extent possible. His first step was to make introductions. "Jeremy Bolt, General Tom Thumb—of the Barnum Circus," he added.

That was too much for Jeremy to swallow in the circumstances. "And I guess you're P. T. Barnum," he rejoined with heavy irony.

He was answered at once by a new voice, mellifluous and precise. "That honor, sir, is mine."

Jeremy turned to the corner between the bunk and the door, where he saw to his surprise a round figure with a round beaming face surmounted with a fringe of brown curls. His black suit and waistcoat set off a stainless white shirt front. He introduced himself more formally, and Stempel did the same for Jeremy. "Bolt!" Barnum exclaimed. "Not—"

"Brother," Stempel said wearily.

Barnum rubbed his hands together. "Your sibling is a man after my own heart. A man of imagination, of bold assertion—"

"Of blarney," Stempel interjected.

Barnum smiled. "As you say."

He addressed Jeremy with the evident intention of asking a question. Clearer-eyed than before, Jeremy saw that this would be the first of a battery contrived to lead him away from the one he had been about to ask. He was not to be so easily sidetracked. "What, what are you doing in Seattle?"

If the question was unwelcome, Barnum did not show it. "Mounting a—" He appeared to consider momentarily. "—hunting expedition."

"What are you hunting?"

Barnum stepped closer. "The silkie, young man, the silkie," he said. His voice was wrapped in mystery. "The seal that goes in the shape of a man. You've heard the legend, surely?"

Jeremy's breath had stopped for a second. "But that's just a story." He looked at the others. "Isn't it?"

Barnum upraised a finger. "It is a shallow philosophy that says the existence of this or that is contrary to the laws of nature." He pointed toward the envelope. "Produce the documentary evidence." With seeming reluctance, Stempel brought it out and took from it a newspaper cutting, which he handed to Jeremy. Under the headline FABLED BEAST SEEN IN WASHINGTON STATE, it offered the representation of a squat, owl-like body with a seal's tail and a human face. It was less beautiful than Jeremy had imagined, indeed rather grotesque. "Transmogrifying, you see," Barnum explained. A caption disclosed that the original drawing had been brought in by a sailor who had sighted the creature in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which separated Washington from Canada's western islands. Jeremy realized with growing excitement that that was only a day's sail away.

"If it exists—if," said Barnum, "it will make a magnificent exhibit for the Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, Hippodrome and Circus I am presently at the business of assembling. Like the Seven Ancient Wonders—"

"Can I come with you?"

The question came so suddenly it took them by surprise. "No," Stempel said at once. The others were silent. "No!" he repeated.

Stung, Jeremy appealed to Clancey. "It depends," Clancey said, wriggling a little. "When ye boarded now, which foot did ye set down first?"

"Left," said Jeremy. "I think."

Clancey shook his head. "Bad luck. I concurs with Mr. Stempel."

"Not so hasty," said Barnum. He grasped Jeremy by the shoulder rather hardly. "Now Mr. Bolt has been apprised of our endeavor, it appears to me he must join us." He laid stress on the "must." Jeremy said he would have to ask Jason. Stempel looked even worse pleased than before.

"You can't," Jason said simply. He was too busy overseeing the work of the camp to give the request much more attention than that. As he strode from cutting to cutting, barking the occasional imperative, Jeremy dogged his heels. "Why not?" he persisted.

"Look about you. Hundred and fifty thousand board feet due by the first. Got the men workin' day-round, and I need a brother to oversee each crew startin' tonight."

"Only be for a couple of days."

"Not a couple of hours." He stopped in a shaded thicket away from the bustle. "Cash is short," he said in a low voice. "Put most of it into the new landing. Yesterday I started issuing scrip on my promise it'll be redeemed before long. If the men are to trust us, you and me and Josh have to be seen to be workin' alongside 'em. Else—well, I don't know." It was a rare possibility that defeated Jason's powers of description. "You see now?"

Jeremy nodded. Jason kept staring at him till Jeremy met his eyes. He nodded a second time. "It's only—Mama used to—" He stopped. How could he expect Jason, even Jason, to understand what this meant? He dared not betray a hint to his partners, who already regarded him a mere boy. Of all the stories his mother had told, that had been his favorite: the tale of the silkie and the fisherman who captured her, but lost her when the call of her people proved stronger than her love for him.

Jeremy remembered his mother as very beautiful, and her portrait showed she had been so. And never more beautiful to him than when she played the silkie rising out of the sea, tossing her hair to shake off the foam. She would pick him up and, holding him tight, dive under and jet down, down, down to the bottom, and then up, up, up to the surface. Then they would laugh. Then one day the laughter was gone and the stories were gone and Jeremy was alone, not to the eyes of others but in the place where it mattered most. And now, all these years later, he had a chance—had had, nearly—of finding the silkie again.

Jason guessed much of what he was thinking. He remembered the silkie, too. "It was only a tale," he said gently. "A fine tale, but—" He thought of something else. "Look here, a scheme hatched by P. T. Barnum—doesn't that give you to wonder?" Jeremy could not help smiling. "Besides," Jason went on, a little too heartily, "how do you hunt a silkie? Can't be done." Jeremy mentioned Stempel's map.

Jason's jaw fell. "Stempel! Stempel's mixed up in this?"

"Might belong to Barnum," said Jeremy, on more consideration, "but—"

"Stempel!" Jason repeated. "De Fuca Strait, you said?"

"S'pose you're right. Map wouldn't be much use."

Jason's eyes shone. "Not if it's silkie they're after." He put his arm about Jeremy's shoulder. "You know what, I believe you should go. Josh and I can take over your shift a day or two." He winked at him. "You might find something to your profit, at that."

Jeremy was astonished, but was not about to give Jason time to change his mind. "I'll tell 'em! Candy, too!" He headed off at a run. He was almost out of earshot before he remembered to look back and thank him.

Leaving the thicket, Jason met Joshua, whose presence he had not noticed before. He jerked a thumb after Jeremy. "'pears you and I will be doing double duty."

"Why's he always the favored son?" said Joshua, with a fury that caught Jason by surprise. He did not wait for an answer. It was always something, ever and forever.

Joshua woke before first light to find Jeremy dressed, with a ditty bag at his side. It was a souvenir of the time he had planned to go to sea. He noticed Joshua watching him. "Wish me—" Joshua rolled away from him. "—luck," he finished hollowly.

He stepped out into the cool morning and took in the mountain air. He would be depriving himself of it for two days; odd that it should feel like years. He met Jason coming in from his night's work and thanked him again.

"Only two days, mind," said Jason, loud enough for Joshua to hear. Jeremy slung the bag over his shoulder. "And one word more," Jason said. Jeremy smiled: with Jason it was always one word more. "When a man has dealings with Aaron Stempel, it's always wise to turn up the light. I'd have a good look at that map if I were you."

Jeremy promised he would. Farther down the hill, he wished he had not. That was odd, too, for he was eager to see the map himself; perhaps he was trying to justify the apprehension he felt. He decided he was only anticipating the seesaw he knew he would soon be riding.

He felt nonetheless the mariner as he passed through town with his bag on his shoulder. Only the early hour prevented him from whistling a chantey as he went. He lengthened the route by way of the brides' dormitory. As he had hoped, a girl was waiting at an upstairs window to add one more goodbye to those of the evening before. "Come give me a kiss," he whispered.

"It wouldn't be decent!"

He grinned. "That's the idea."

"You!" She waved him off, and then waved him back. "You still won't say where you're going?" He shrugged helplessly. "Then shoo!" She waved him off again, and then back again. "You will take care?"

He hefted the bag. "Don't I always?"

She drew her head in and leaned against the papered wall, eyes wide with unspoken fear. "No," she said, and she shivered a little.

It was after four bells when Jeremy climbed on board. The Sound lay gurgling under a slack tide. A faint halo overtopped the lower hills. He found Stempel awaiting him on the forecastle. "Here's our laggard," said the burly man beside him, who Jeremy soon learned was the new mate, Mr. Frye. He had been hired at the insistence of P. T. Barnum, who had judged the former one too lax.

"High time," said Stempel.

About them moved the crew, dispatching what appeared to Jeremy's unpracticed eyes a confusion of tasks. As always, they looked like a different race, with their ruddy faces, thick forearms, and rolling gait, the last accentuated by their wide-bottomed trousers. With clawlike hands they lifted the ropes off their pins and laid them along the deck. Jeremy tripped over one and then, backing away from it, bumped his head on a dangling wood block. Stempel and the mate stared at him.

Clancey was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the rest of the hunting party. Jeremy had no occasion to ask about them, for Frye fell on him at once. "When the old man says four bells," he said, "four bells is when you're expected. There's sitchyations where five minutes' delay'll cost the ship."

He returned his attention to the deck and ordered all hands to the windlass. "Don't see what we had to leave in such an all-fired hurry for," Jeremy muttered.

"It's the 12th," Frye answered, surprising him. "Ill luck to cast off tomorry. Besides, tonight's the dark of the moon. That's what we want."

"Why?" Jeremy asked. Again Frye heard, but this time chose not to reply. He stopped the second mate, a Mr. Selden, and told him to show Jeremy to his quarters. As they descended the companionway they heard Frye bellow, "Heave, now! Put your backs to it!"

The emptiness of the lower deck felt a relief from the strenuous activity proceeding above. It was not altogether quiet, for they could hear the tramp of feet at the windlass, the clank of the chains, and the windlass as it began to groan. Jeremy felt the wind that always surprised him here. The portholes were kept open, perhaps to combat the scent he fancied he could still detect from her days as a mule boat. When she was refitted to carry timber and passengers, the stalls had been removed, except for one row where the crew continued to hang their hammocks out of habit.

The afterguard had their quarters to starboard. Across the way were the passenger cabins. "You'll bunk with the General," said Selden. Not till Jeremy saw the small figure writing at the desk in a compartment shared with the next cabin did he understand who was meant. Laying his bag on the upper bunk, he asked where Barnum was.

"Mr. Barnum won't be accompanying us," said the General. "He has delegated me to look after his interests."

"Lubber," Selden opined.

From above they heard Frye's roar. "Mr. Selden!" With a grin Selden vanished, and Jeremy found himself looking across the cabin opposite, where Clancey was sitting over a chart with a set of parallel rulers, glancing occasionally at what Jeremy judged by its size and folds to be the map from the office. Above, more orders boomed out. "'vast heaving, now!"—and the windlass stopped. "Clear the jib!"—footfalls, and the scrape and slap of line and sail.

One of those sounds, or an instinct, caused Clancey to lift his head. He took up the map, crushing a hope that had sprouted briefly in Jeremy's breast, and departed for the upper deck. The General made to follow, with a look back at Jeremy that left no doubt he was expected to do the same.

Clancey was met by Frye. "Cable hove short and ready to weigh anchor, sir," he reported.

"Weigh anchor, Mr. Frye," came the expected reply.

"Up anchor!" The men returned to the windlass and pulled hand over hand till the fluke lifted, unseen, and the ship began to move. Jeremy felt the wind stronger at his back.

Now came another battery of orders, and the sailors labored to carry them out, falling into pace automatically like the parts of some elaborate clock. "Rig the cat! Man the cat! Walk away! Belay, now! And haul taut! Rig the fish! Man the fish! Walk away! Belay, now!" Straining at the tackles, the men hoisted the huge black iron anchor up over the side and secured it to its bed on the gunwale.

The two largest sails were furled for the moment. They were not a match: Clancey's was a hermaphrodite brig, a designation Barnum relished and repeated as often as possible, but all it meant was that the foresail was fore-and-aft, the mainsail square. Joshua knew more of this than Jeremy, having as a boy noticed the differences in rigging as ships began to visit the harbor in increasing numbers and having pestered the sailors with innumerable questions about them till he had had every one explained to his satisfaction. Jeremy lacked that sort of curiosity. All of it excited him, the whole romance of seagoing; had when he was younger, and did still.

Now began the real business of setting to sea. "Hoist the jib!" the mate cried. "Haul out spencer!" A pair of triangular sails at and near the fore rose into position. The ship leaned a little. Jeremy could hear the splash of water under her bows as she gained headway. "Anchor's aweigh, sir," Frye informed Clancey, who could not have been unaware of it.

"Thank you, Mr. Frye," said Clancey. "Prepare to make sail."

"Aye, aye, sir," said Frye, and then, turning back, "Aloft sail loosers!" At once a team of men hopped onto the ratlines and began scaling them like monkeys, much as the Bolt loggers scaled their trees. Those on the foremast swung themselves with frightening speed around the inverted shrouds at the top, like hill climbers swinging around overhanging rocks. Jeremy could only gape at their lack of fear. "Loose tops'ls!" Frye shouted. "Loose t'gallant!" Men ran onto the upper yardarms and, straddling them, undid the bindings. "Let fall!" The masses of canvas dropped against the masts.

Without pause, Clancey took over. "Lead along sheets and halyards! Sheet home!" Men ran down the deck carrying the lines. "Hoist away!" They drew the sails full out against the counter-pull of the wind, and then made the lines fast. "Set courses!" Men ran to the last two large sails. The one was lowered, the other hoisted into place, and their sheets belayed. The Seamus O'Flynn was truly underway. "Haul down jib and spencer!" Those sails were lowered, furled, and lashed. Clancey turned to the helmsman beside him on the poop deck. "Set course nor'-nor'west."

"North by northwest, sir," the man acknowledged. Guided by the binnacle next to him, he brought the wheel a little to starboard. The ship responded in the opposite direction, so gradually Jeremy barely noticed. As the hubbub subsided, his thoughts returned to the map. Clancey had it now; who would have it next? He resolved to keep an eye on it if possible.

He watched the town slide slowly away, as Candy, at her window, watched the ship retreat up the Sound. Now she understood a little of how it must feel to be a sailor's wife. When Jeremy had gone to bid on the logging contract, it had not worried her like this. Maybe she had been too young. Or maybe—she tried to push away the thought—maybe that time there had been nothing to worry about.

She downed at a gulp three-fourths of the sarsaparilla Lottie Hatfield placed before her. "Little early for you," Lottie remarked. "You're usually sweeping down the porch about now."

"Can't work," Candy said dolefully, "can't think, can't anything. Sugar!"

That was as strong an oath as Lottie had ever known her to utter. "Is it Jeremy?"

Candy described a dream of the previous night in which he and she had lost each other in a dense fog. "I knew he needed help," she said, "but I didn't know how to find him."

She heard the doors shut and footsteps behind her. Barnum strolled up beside her and nodded cordially. He ordered what she was having. "Sarsparilla?" Lottie said doubtfully.

"I have forsworn hard spirits before five o'clock," he said. "A tenet of my creed."

"Admirable," Lottie pronounced, not without a tinge of wryness. "Bad for business—but still admirable." As Barnum sucked at his drink, he cast his eye over the objects on the walls, appraising them one by one. Candy started to address him and then closed her mouth again. "Ask," Lottie prodded.

"Eh?" said Barnum, bestowing his attention on her. "Ask what?"

"Her young man shipped out with Clancey this morning."

"They're not in any danger, are they?" Candy was surprised at her own breathlessness.

Barnum patted her sleeve, an act that would have aroused her ire under most circumstances. "Set your mind at rest, my dear," he said. "They're safe as babes in the cradle." The practiced smile she received with gratitude did not work the same spell on Lottie, who met it with one so obviously false a sensitive soul might have suspected an intent to ridicule. Barnum showed no such cognizance. "If I may inquire in return," he said, "does this locale, by fate or design, boast any curiosities deserving of my interest?"

Brother, Lottie thought. She had heard a lot of smooth talk, but this took the cake. "What kind of curiosities?"

"Oh, odd flora or fauna, freaks of nature—anything in that line." She was ready to tell him no when, by fate or design, Pilak walked in. To Barnum's eye he certainly qualified as a curiosity, as he would have to anyone who did not know him. He was an Inuit from somewhere up north who had sailed his kayak in one day and never left. That was all Candy was able to tell Barnum in answer to his questions, and indeed there was little else anyone knew.

"Chopped your wood," Pilak reported. Lottie promised him breakfast would be right up. He nodded to Candy and took a seat in the corner. "Is he—ah—" Barnum asked, tapping his temple. Pilak appeared unaware he was being discussed.

"He's not crazy," Candy whispered back, "if that's what you mean. He's like a child. Makes his living at odd jobs."

Barnum studied his dark, immobile face. "I may have one for him." Candy suspected Lottie would not have liked the sound of that. She knew she didn't.

Barnum's partners meanwhile were cruising at ten knots past Apple Cove. With the sails in trim, the men had been set to mending old ropes and braiding new. Jeremy took advantage of the lull to traverse the vessel from stern to stem. He looked out over the expanse of water on all sides, which looked exactly as it had when he had last checked, a few minutes before. Since the overcast had dissipated the day had turned warm. He remembered too late he ought to have brought a cap. He knew he could look forward to tender red cheeks by the time they got back. The reflections that would work that mischief flashed and glimmered on the rippling sea. He could feel it moving under him, though three decks and a keel lay between.

He started back down the leeward side; the other, by custom, was the captain's. His walk took him past ropes of assorted thicknesses fanning out at angles between the huge stretches of canvas. Arriving at the quarterdeck, he heard the voices of his fellow conspirators from the opposite side. "All I propose," Stempel was saying, "is to send in a few men to take the lay of the land—"

"I insist!" Tom shouted, his voice even higher in pitch than usual. "Mr. Barnum was emphatic I be included in the shore party!" Stempel was about to answer when Clancey nudged him. Jeremy had just come into sight around the boat davits. The group ceased conversation at once and regarded him with uneasy looks. The companion hatch beside him offered a quick exit; his instinctive reaction was to take it. "D-don't mind me, I'll just, uh, just—" No one ventured to stop him. As he started down he heard Stempel say, in a voice so low he thought he might have misunderstood, "Don't worry, we won't break ground without you."

Below, he found himself alone among the scattered squares of sunlight that fell through the hatches. Here the rocking of the vessel was less pronounced, and walking easier. He stopped outside the captain's cabin. Here was an ideal chance to look for the map while the others were arguing above. He did not like to abuse Clancey's trust, yet he had promised Jason. He was working himself up to it, throat pulsing, when footfalls on the companionway startled him. A voice muttered, "Circus people!" He stepped back and hid behind the stair as Stempel walked past to his cabin. Forgetting the low entranceway, he struck his head and cursed. "How'd he fit a hundred women on this scow?" he grumbled. Jeremy almost laughed, but remembered himself in time. He was glad he had when Stempel turned down his blanket to reveal the envelope hidden beneath it. Satisfied, he flipped the fold back.

Perhaps the sight caused Jeremy to draw an audible breath, or perhaps Stempel happened to look up just then. In any case he spotted Jeremy, and his face assumed a wary cast. Jeremy was now sure Jason had been right in his suspicion, whatever it was.

Before either man could speak, they were broken in on by a shout from above: "Call out the watch! All hands!" There followed a clatter on the companionway and Selden poking his head in to inform them they were wanted topside. Both were reluctant to move. Jeremy forced himself to keep from looking at the blanket. "You heard him," Stempel said gruffly. He waited till Jeremy started up the stair before proceeding himself. A sudden tilt made both grab the rail.

Stepping on deck, Jeremy was surprised to feel the wind strike his cheeks from a direction opposite what he had expected. A fifteen-knot northerly was blowing out of the Strait. The sun came and went through tears in the white blanket above. The men were hurrying to take up the lines. Frye's eye fell on the new arrivals. "You two—three," he corrected, noticing Tom behind them, "man the heads'ls."

Jeremy began to protest he had never sailed anything larger than a skiff. "No excuses, now," said Frye, sweeping them forward. "We're a small crew with no leeway for idlers. Being green hands, I shan't send you aloft—yet," he added, seeing Jeremy's look of alarm as he lifted his eyes to the impossibly high topyards. Frye smiled to himself. "Heads'ls!" he repeated, and then, turning to the more seasoned men, "Lee fore brace!"

"Sharpen t'gallant and tops'l yards," Stempel said promptly, to Frye's astonishment no less than Jeremy's, "and bring her full and by—am I right?"

"You've sailed before," said the mate.

"Three years, merchant marine."

"That qualifies you for an efficient deckhand. You're in charge of this party. Man sheets and brails."

"Aye, aye, sir." Jeremy noticed how natural the response sounded. Aaron led him and the General forward, edging around the other men on deck. Jeremy blinked as they came into the wind. Aaron directed him to take up the nearest sheet. Jeremy clutched a fold of canvas. "The rope," said Aaron. This drew a derisive laugh from Tom. Vexed with himself, Jeremy did as directed. Always before on this ship he had been a passenger; now he was a part of it. The respect he felt for Aaron's experience, a determination to prove his worth, and the excitement of the voyage, with the chance it promised of finding what he had never imagined it possible to find, temporarily removed all thought of the map from his head.

Joshua was feeling less happy over his share. He had risen soon after Jeremy and gone out to manage the cutting before breakfast. By resolving an argument over the amounts of scrip to be issued, which had required him to recalculate the entire schedule, he had succeeded in arriving at the chow table after all the eggs, ham, flapjacks, and biscuits were gone. He would be working into the night, too, through the hours that would have been Jeremy's.

His head full of discontent, he was not paying as much attention as he should have been: that was the charitable explanation for what happened. A rushed order, a misjudgment as to which of two opposing cuts was deeper, an insufficient consideration of where the big spruce was located—at the crest of the hill overlooking the base camp—these were reckoned to blame when the tree fell on the wrong side, hurtled end over end, and slid down the rest of the way into camp, bringing a dust storm with it. That and the rumble of its approach alerted those in its path to clear aside. One of them was Jason. As the dust cleared, he saw Joshua on the ledge high above studying the scene. A few seconds later he walked away.

"What in blazes you up to?" Jason demanded, when after some toil he had reached the top and tracked him down. Joshua was back working as though nothing untoward had happened. "You mighta kilt somebody!"

"Jeremy should be here to keep lookout." Joshua glared at him. "But he isn't, is he?"

Jason started to raise his hand. What that boy needed— He saw the men watching and thought again. Better to let Joshua reprimand himself, as he would once he came to his senses. "It's each man's duty to look out for all," said Jason, "no matter his grievance." The change in Joshua's eyes showed the message had struck home. Tonight, when he was willing to listen, Jason would explain everything.

The two of them barely figured in Jeremy's present thoughts. He had heard Clancey warn the mate to look sharp now they were coming up on the Point. Inquiring, Jeremy learned this was Point Wilson. The headsails being hoisted, he was free to stand by and watch the approach. They were sailing close-hauled. As she rounded the headland Clancey backed the foresail, brought the mainsail round, and then sharpened her up again to bring her into the strait. Far to either side lay a range of woody hills.

The new tack also revealed a turmoil of foam where a stiff westerly from the Pacific fought the northern pull of the ebb tide. Breakers tossed at each other by the currents met and broke and dissolved into the spiraling waters. The only patch of calm lay square in front of the point, too close in to negotiate safely. But Clancey had expected these conditions and immediately gave the order to reef the mainsail.

The ship plowed through the choppy sea, her prow slamming down on and into the high breaking waves. She rose and fell, rose and fell again, always rolling, as she had done since setting sail, but more steeply now, port to starboard, stem to stern. Standing by the bows, Jeremy got the salt spray full in the face. He did not mind.

At his side, Selden was hauling in a headsheet. "We're making her, aren't we?" Jeremy shouted over the wind. "We're making the Point?"

"No fear, lad," said Selden, "we've weathered her a thousand times." His unconcern was a bit disappointing. "We'll harbor at Dungeness before nightfall. And you know what that means." Jeremy did not. "Crab supper!" Selden said with unexpected fervor.

Splashing across the bear-colored flats after the elusive delicacies, Jeremy felt inclined to doubt the prophecy. They scrabbled this way and that amid the gleams from a myriad small pools and bubbles that caught the light of the low, crab-colored sun. Also, they pinched, as he found out too late. While he sucked his wound Selden demonstrated how to pick one up single-handed and transfer it to a pail. But first he held it up to address it directly. "Won't you be tasty, though," he said, "with lemon, parsley, a dash of capers...?"

That was what he served that night in Clancey's cabin, where Jeremy was among the invited guests. Selden doubled as cook in the tiny galley. Jeremy asked if that were a second mate's usual duty. "Lost me last cook when he jumped ship in Acapulco," said Clancey. "Mr. Selden took over on the instant—and I've not had cause for regret since." He picked between his teeth with a crab claw.

After supper they repaired to the deck, where the men relaxed on the forecastle, swapping yarns to the strains of "We'll Go No More a-Rovin'" on a concertina. It gave all the stories a sad cast, and they called for something livelier. This they got in the form of "I'll Go No More a-Roving with You, Fair Maid." The player had recently been disappointed in love, and that no doubt accounted for his choice of airs.

The ship was moored in mid-channel, a little nearer the south shore. The only sound out to sea was the occasional cry from one of the black long-necked birds that perched and pranced and occasionally wheeled above a cluster of low bare rocks bedaubed with white. On the largest of these stood a hundred-foot granite tower painted in alternating bands of white and black: the Race Rocks light. A mile beyond it, the mist-swathed face of a small island stood out from a wall of cloud.

Tom and Frye were talking together by the forward ladder. Frye appeared to be undergoing an inquisition. More than once he shook his head firmly. Clancey and Aaron were looking across to the rocks. "This fog will be a godsend," said Aaron. Again Jeremy wondered if he had heard right.

He joined them at the rail. "What are those?" he asked.

"Race Rocks," said Aaron.

Jeremy had known that. "The birds, I meant."

"Cormorants," said Clancey. "It's where they nest."

That was all either would say. Plainly they were waiting for him to leave. He obliged them by slipping below. This time their eyes followed him.

Having missed breakfast, Joshua had also slept through supper. As Jason retired to the tent for what he considered a well-earned rest, a campstool flew past his ear. Joshua was clutching the shin he had just banged against it. "'stead of throwin' things," said Jason, mildly enough in the circumstances, "I'd sooner you got it all off your chest."

"Would it matter?" Joshua challenged.

"Might save someone an injury. Me, principally."

Joshua was silent for a space. Finally he came out with it. "He's not a baby any more, Jason! Time he stopped getting special favors. You wouldn't have let me go. And all on account of some fairy tale Mama told him. Time he grew up and forgot about—" He stopped.

"Forgot our mother?" Jason said softly.

"I didn't mean that." Joshua's voice was softer, too, now. But he would not surrender the main point. "He has to shoulder his part of the load. It's only fair."

Jason sat beside him. "He is, in his way. Just ain't aware of it yet."

Joshua stared at him. "You're as much of a mystery as these woods, you know that?"

"I didn't let him go out of sheer softheartedness, or softheadedness. There's a chance—just a chance—he may find a cure for our pecuniary ailment."

This was the story: Jason had been at the general store the day before to talk Ben Perkins into accepting their scrip. Clancey's mate was there, too. Jason had paid him little mind, but on the way home it struck him that the mate had carried out a set of digging tools, which Ben had special-ordered from Olympia. Still Jason had thought little about it, but together with the secret map, the information that Stempel, who only ever involved himself in any undertaking for one reason, was bankrolling the enterprise—"Does that sound to you," he asked, "like a quest for a mythical beast?"

As the light dawned over Joshua, it crept up on his younger brother, as well. Jeremy found the envelope where Stempel had secreted it, carried it to the desk, and spread out the map under the lamp. In the little cell with its curving wall, he felt as if he were inside a bowl. He leaned forward to examine the map. It was yellowed, with tears along top and bottom. The legend was in French. The area pictured was obviously the one they had been looking at before. At the top was a large body inscribed "Île de Vancouver." Below was a smaller body, and further below and a little apart, the rocks. His first impression was that they looked unlike what he had seen of them, but he knew maps often did look odd. His eye was drawn to the smaller island, the northeast end of which was marked with a cross. French notwithstanding, that gave up the secret. "This—this is—"

"A treasure map," Aaron finished. "Quite so." He was standing at the threshold. The others, including Frye, were with him. Jeremy realized they must have expected this; at any rate Aaron had. "Gathered the Bolts were short of cash," he said, in the ironic drawl he knew got on people's nerves, "but really, I didn't think you'd taken to burglary."

Besides being embarrassed, Jeremy was outraged he should be the one accused. "You tried to cheat me!"

"Nobody's cheated anybody. You'll get your fair share of anything we find. We were planning to let you in on it tonight, anyway. Didn't before," he said, anticipating the question, "because we couldn't have the whole town finding out." Meaning Candy, thought Jeremy. He could not contest the logic.

They repaired to Clancey's cabin, and Aaron set forth their plans. The partners numbered six, counting Frye. The two investors and Clancey, as supplier of transport and labor, would receive double shares. Those of the crew who aided in the digging and carrying would earn what proportion the partners deemed fair. Of their purpose the others would be kept ignorant but in the event of success would each receive a bonus whose explanation he probably would not seek.

By estimate the treasure might amount to as much as $400,000 in gold eagles. The story of its laying had been famous sixty years before, but the territory had been too unsettled then for many people to come in search of it. Those who had had given up, and were probably now dead.

It was the lifetime acquisition of Jules Fournier, a Canadian. Pressed into the British army during the War of 1812, he deserted to the United States, where he volunteered his services as a privateer. The calling suited him so well he continued it into peacetime, earning the title of pirate. But as he averred to his death, he never changed allegiances; if by mischance he stopped an American vessel he let her go untouched, and insisted all hands salute the flag as she departed. He and his surviving crew were eventually captured and hanged but as far as was known never revealed where their plunder was hidden. On some island, no doubt; those waters were rife with islands. Bentinck was thought the most likely, and the map proved that out—if it were real.

Aaron had not believed so at first. The more Barnum strove to persuade him, the tighter he shut his ears. Not till Barnum had vouchsafed the map to his keeping with the urging that he investigate it himself had he begun to consider its authenticity as barely possible. He tried to put it out of his mind, but it kept burrowing its way back in, as Barnum had foreseen, and in the end he was unable to rest till he had made every effort to satisfy himself about it one way or the other.

He never did satisfy himself fully. Barnum's account of its provenance he rejected out of hand: a vaguely described stranger in a waterfront saloon, whispering a promise of riches. The facts were doubtless more prosaic, but that mattered hardly at all. The paper and ink, he had examined by an expert, who attested they were of a suitable age. In the end he could discover no evidence against it, and calculated the odds to be about sixty-forty that it was the genuine article. That was not the kind of chance he usually sank his money into, but the lure of buried treasure, appealing alike to his well-known avarice and a hidden romantic streak, he finally found irresistible. Two months after Barnum's initial proposal he wired that he was prepared to bear half the costs of the expedition.

Barnum wired back acceptance at once, but almost queered the deal when he revealed the reason for his haste. Across the Haro Strait, the boundary between the two nations was in dispute. The Americans and the British both had garrisons at opposite ends of San Juan Island, and British men of war were likely to be seen patrolling around Victoria. On the other hand, while their attention was occupied with the possibility of a skirmish, the Seamus O'Flynn might sooner pass unobserved. Also, this would be their last chance to lay claim to the treasure. Although the boundary lay east of where they proposed to dig, Barnum thought till it was settled they might conveniently regard the entire area as up for grabs, whereas afterward the British would surely seize anything they would recover.

Absorbing all this intelligence, Jeremy was slow to arrive at a disappointing realization. "There's no silkie," he said. "It was one of Barnum's fakes."

Tom corrected him. "He was investigating that report when he fell across the map."

"So we may find our gold," Clancey concluded, "and you may yet find your silkie."

Joshua considered the treasure hunt as much a wild goose chase as the other, and said so. "Worth a shy," said Jason. "Pirates have been known in those waters." That made Joshua rather uneasy, but Jason assured him there was nothing to fear nowadays: the buccaneers of old were dead and buried.

The trawler Amazon took up her nets and started home. With the advent of dusk a sea fog had rolled in, all but obliterating from sight the Vancouver coast. Off her starboard quarter the southwest end of what they knew to be Bentinck Island reached out from under its cloak of invisibility. Captain Blackett trimmed her two gaff topsails to pull the most out of a fitful quartering wind.

A cry arose from the starboard side: someone was on the island. The captain came to the rail. On one arm of the shallow bay, on the outermost rock, reclined a small form just visible in the twilight: round face, black body, black tail—tail? "Bear nearer!" Blackett ordered. The man at the wheel said aye, but with strong misgivings; those rocks were perilous. Blackett strained to see better. At once the thing slid off into the water with a splash and was gone.

"Heave to!" came a cry, in a voice richly accented. The captain searched the fog in vain.

"Heave to, damn your eyes!"

The voice was nearer now, and now its owner and his craft emerged to reveal themselves. Blackett's eyes grew round. This was stranger than the vision on the rocks. "About!" he yelled. "Hard a-port!" The men ran to the braces, but before they could act, the thirty-foot sloop was upon them. And the figure at its prow with a boot on the bulwark and a glove on his cutlass grip, to all appearances a phantom from a hundred fifty years gone by, shook his coiling black mane and roared with laughter. Blackett was terrified, and his men with him. But his chief fear was that he had lost his reason.

"No cause to fret over Jeremy," Jason assured Candy. Dog-tired as he was, he had made the trek down to Seattle for this purpose, as well as to make sure all was peaceful in the absence of the other city father.

He found only one situation that called for his attention. Pilak was returning from a day of largely unsuccessful fishing, his nets and his scanty catch slung over his shoulder, when two men he had not seen before came up on both sides of him.

"What's that?" said one, sniffing the air. "Smell like fish to you?"

"Naw," said the other, "fish smell better."

"That's a fact. You know what I reck'n it is?"

"What you reck'n?"

"I reck'n this 'un don't warsh as often as he orter."

The other leaned closer. "Why, you're right. I reck'n we orter give him a bath, don't you?" They were nearing the horse trough.

"We'll see he gits good and clean!"

They grabbed hold of his arms. Pilak tensed himself to resist, shutting his eyes against his inevitable disgrace. Then a pleasant voice spoke his name, prefaced with "Mister," which was unknown in his experience. The hands on his arms let go. He opened his eyes to a roly-poly man standing in the way. "Mr. Pilak, I believe? Barnum, Phineas T. You'll have heard the name, surely. No?" He clapped Pilak on the shoulder. "Gentlemen of our stamp ought not to ply these streets unaccompanied. So many low, crawling things about." He shouldered the others aside. "You will excuse us?"

The two were still baffling over him when they felt their collars grabbed. A big broad-shouldered man thrust his face into theirs. "New in town?" he asked. They nodded, cringing a little. "Then you'd best know that round these parts we set a deal of store by our neighbors. Don't take kindly to strangers bullyraggin' 'em in the streets. Following me, are you?" he asked, with a hard shake. They nodded vigorously. "Good," Jason said, dropping them. "Then be off."

He overtook Barnum outside Lottie's and thanked him for stepping forth. "But it wasn't needed," he said. "In Seattle we look after our own."

"I see that," Barnum replied, casting an eye over Pilak's patched hand-me-downs. "You won't object to my standing one of your own to a hot supper?" Pilak smiled, showing a gap where his front teeth had been. "In the course of which," Barnum continued, "I shall acquaint him with the multifarious attractions of circus life." He bade Jason a good evening and escorted Pilak inside.

Joshua wondered what was bothering Jason. "Is it Jeremy?" he asked. Around them the new shift was replacing the old. Despite the late hour the camp blazed with light and in a few minutes would be whining and thumping once more.

"Pilak," said Jason. "I believe Barnum plans to make a show of him."

Joshua shrugged. "That's his trade."

"I mean to stop it coming about if I can. I owe it to Aaron."

"Why him in particular?"

"Tell you something most people don't know—and I only found out by accident." Joshua then heard for the first time that Aaron Stempel, famous for screwing out the last penny at the bargaining table, had a flaw that worked against the hardheaded calculation he prided himself on. "Haven't you wondered why he's not the richest man in the territory by now? Fact is, he gives back half of what he gains in good works. Must feel in peril of his soul"—then a bright thought struck him—"or maybe it's our influence." Joshua laughed. "Keeps Pilak and a half dozen like him housed and fed, but in roundabout ways so as not to shame 'em. Charges 'em a scant rent, gives 'em a little work now and then. It'd pain him to see Barnum undo all that. Pain me, too," he added. He went out to join the crew. Joshua retired to his cot, where he lay for a while meditating on the complex nature of man.

On board the Seamus O'Flynn, the sailor at the helm watched the last bit of sand funnel through the waist of the glass beside him. He turned it over and reached for the clapper of the bell that hung from the poop forerail. Another hand stopped his. It was Frye's. He raised a silencing finger.

The partners had agreed to approach the island from the east. Any other course would bring them too near the lighthouse, whose beacon made a second moon, albeit a dim one in the persisting fog. They would have to keep clear of the Race Rocks—so called, as Frye explained, because the water made a tide race around them—or risk joining the dozens of craft that had foundered there. Jeremy asked why not take the channel between the two islands. Frye shook his head. "That's Choked Passage. It's the very devil to navigate. Shoals, rocks, kelp beds...a bad sitchyation altogether."

The landing party would be larger than the one Aaron had argued for, the General having steadfastly rejected the idea of an advance guard. Since he insisted on going himself, Aaron would be going, too. For the remainder of the party he proposed Jeremy, Frye, and two oarsmen who would help with the digging if necessary. Jeremy elected to stay behind; he was more hopeful of what might be found in the sea, if one were looking for it. Aaron accepted his offer gladly, and only wished he could reduce the number by one more.

The plan was to camp on shore till morning. No one relished the prospect of sitting out all night hunched against the cold, but they thought it likely they could find shelter among the rocks, or even in a small cave. The map was silent on such matters. After depositing them the ship would cross the strait and moor off Port Angeles till the following night. When she returned the shore party would signal her by lantern, fog permitting: up and down to wait, back and forth to leave them another day.

Having worn around east, carrying just enough light to sail by, and further hidden by the fog, which was now mingled with a light rain, they crept up on the island and lay to off the east shore. They brought out the sailor's third eye, as Clancey called it, to take a sounding. Along its lead line the lengths were marked with bits of rag and leather. A man standing abaft of the weather beam swung the line over his head and then cast it out to sea. The lead sank far enough to show, by a lowered lantern, a strip of leather but not the white rag beneath. "And a quarter four!" Frye whispered. "We dare bear no closer, Captain."

All at once the deck bucked under them, sending Jeremy sideways onto a hatch coaming. The ship was riding a swell that could not be accounted for by the tide. Waves slapped against her bows. "Ship off the port quarter!" cried the lookout, forgetting the order to observe quiet. The fog was punctured by a jib boom pointing straight toward them, followed by the bowsprit, head, and wedding-cake foresails of a man-of-war that outweighed, outmasted, and outgunned—by the fact of having guns—their own. "British," said Clancey, "divil take her!"

"Douse lights," said Frye, almost forgetting to add, "Sir."

"Eh? Oh, aye. Off all lights!" The men ran fore, aft, and to the sides. In not much more than a wink the decks went black. The company could not see each other, and many grabbed the nearest fixed object to get their bearings. But before long they could make out forms, however darkly, and many wondered whether the British could do the same. "If her lights show us up, that will do for our treasure hunt," said Aaron.

"Stand by to wear ship," Clancey ordered. "Quiet-like," he added.

Frye acknowledged both halves of the command and set about making it so. "In gaff!" he whispered. "In tops'ls! Up courses!" The men hurried to obey. "Softly!" they would hear from time to time, and then tread lighter. Jeremy could not see what they were doing—they could not themselves—but under the creak of timbers and the flap of sailcloth the ship turned slowly; too slowly, with the larger one fair to sight her at any moment. "Helm up!" Frye ordered. "Haul round head yards! Set courses!"

On this heading there was a wide bay. Without stars or moon, or time to take a sounding, Clancey had to guess at its contours from his recall of the chart. Hearing the few words passed between him and the mate, Jeremy realized there was a real danger of their running aground or worse. They piloted blindly for some minutes. The captain muttered a prayer, of a kind. At last he thought he saw an answer from above, and then he was certain. The English vessel was being eclipsed, though very slowly, behind what could only be the shoulder of the bay. She was sailing on past them toward the west; either she had not seen them or she had more pressing business elsewhere. Whichever it was, he and the others were glad to see the back of her. They dropped anchor for the night in Pedder Bay, as it was called, while the H.M.S. Fairlead, out of sight, proceeded majestically down the strait, on what errand they never did learn.

She was still on Clancey's mind the next morning. The fog having dispelled, Selden had had resource enough to cast for Chinook salmon, with which the bay swarmed. "Sure," Clancey muttered, "if them bloody English sees us we'll be took for poachers."

"That's all right," said Aaron, sipping his coffee at the rail. "I'm partial to poached salmon." Jeremy's expression showed his struggle to make sense of the remark, and Aaron could not help laughing. Jeremy realized that, improbable as it seemed, Aaron had make a joke. That encouraged him to ask about his maritime career, of which he was eager to hear more. "You must have been awful young when you set out," he said.

"It was a hard life for a boy," Aaron acknowledged, "but it was what I wanted." Venturing farther, Jeremy asked why he had given it up. "My father died," he said. Then he shook his head. "That wasn't it. A voyage brought us up along this coast, and when I saw these miles of forest, and found out there was no logging industry to speak of, I knew the right fella could make his way here." He smiled ruefully. "By the time I got back I found a few had climbed on board ahead of me. Like you Bolts. But you were wanting a proper mill." Jeremy was old enough to remember Jason's try at establishing one. None of them ever mentioned it. "So I still got in first, in a way. Your brother woulda stuck his head in a hornets' nest sooner than contract with me, but he didn't have a choice."

The satisfaction in his voice recalled the Aaron Jeremy knew. "Did you?" he asked.

Aaron laughed again. "You once had an urge to go to sea yourself." He forbore mentioning he had done all in his power to aggravate it. "Ever come back to you?"

It was one of the impulses that had brought Jeremy there, but he did not say so. "I've got Candy to think of now. And the kids. And Jason counts on me."

Aaron nodded. "Once you're tied to the land, you stop heeding the sirens' call."

Now it was Jeremy who laughed. "You're sounding like Jason."

"Jason isn't the only—"

The lookout gave a cry. Another ship was entering the bay—not the man-of-war, to their relief, but a two-masted trawler. Perhaps they were taking her accustomed place. The men stowed their nets. The others waited at the rail with trepidation. The Amazon backed her main yard, set her jib, and hove to. Captain Blackett shouted across a request to speak with his fellow skipper. He asked whether they had met any other vessels recently.

"Oh, aye," Clancey began. Aaron elbowed him. "I mean, no. No, sir. Not a one."

"No..." Blackett paused. "...pirates?"

"Pirates!" Jeremy exclaimed. Aaron and Frye looked at each other.

"Are ye jestin' with me, sir?"

"I wish I were. Pirates they fancied themselves—a gang of fantastical madmen who overtook us off Bentinck Island. Mad enough to let us go unharmed, Lord be thanked. But they took our catch. We'll go home empty-handed this voyage." Jeremy thought of offering him the salmon they had gathered, and then scotched the idea.

Clancey was still skeptical. "How was it ye didn't see their approach?"

"I lay it to the fog, and my own folly. I saw—thought I saw—something on the rocks. 'twas like a seal, yet it wasn't." He shook his head. "You'll think me mad, too."

Jeremy could hardly believe what he had heard. "Wh—wh—wh—"

Before he could finish, Tom had jumped up onto the rail, to the astonishment of Blackett and his crew. "How many were they?" he piped out. "The pirates?"

"Why—ten or twelve, I judge. 'twas hard to say, they leapt about so." At that, Tom's face took on an expression quite like Jeremy's. Aaron wondered what it signified.

"Thought I'd best warn you," said Blackett, "happen you're bound that way."

"No!" Clancey said quickly. "We're sailin' through the San Juans up to—ah—somewheres up in that vicinity, and returnin' as we came. Stayin' clear of the island entirely. Aye, sir, if there's one place we'll not be goin'—"

"Clancey," said Aaron, "that'll do."

"It would be wisest, I judge," said Blackett. If he wondered about their business there, he did not show it. Bidding them good morning, he trimmed his sails and tacked out of the bay.

"Pirates!" muttered Clancey. "Fine kettle of fish!" Aaron murmured assent, but his thoughts were on the General.

A little later Jeremy came upon him in his cabin holding the map up to the lamp. "You think it's a fake?" he asked.

Aaron gave it up. "Who can tell? One thing I know—it's a mistake to trust circus people."

Jason was working around to the same conclusion. On his way into town he found Barnum inspecting the municipal totem pole with keen interest. "Not for sale," he said, before the question could be put.

"Ah," said Barnum with obvious disappointment. "Well, well."

"Mr. Barnum—"

"Phinny."

When they're sledding over the lake of brimstone, Jason thought, as he continued the overture he had composed on the walk down. "I've made quite a study of men at their wooing—had a professional interest in it, you might say—and I've observed they generally have matrimony as their object. So I can't help but wonder: what brand of marriage do you foresee for yourself and Pilak?"

Barnum had had a long experience of dodging intrusive questions and felt relieved to hear one he did not mind answering. "I shall offer him a place in my circus. As—let me see now—an Inca soothsayer, fetched at untold expense from the snow-tipped Andes."

"That wouldn't be quite truthful, would it?"

Barnum met Jason's hard gaze with one of his own. "The truth of an utterance lies in the hearing. You yourself, I recall, have practiced this philosophy on the odd occasion." He was referring to an effort Jason had made the year before to sweet-talk Barnum's prize dove Jenny Lind into a special engagement in Seattle.

"Shouldn't like to see him taken advantage of, is all." Barnum pointed out that Pilak would enjoy more money and celebrity than he could hope to see in his present circumstances. "And his dignity?" asked Jason. "What of that?"

"I draw your attention to the little General," said Barnum. "Short in stature, to be sure. But is he lacking in dignity?"

Jason found himself at a loss to answer. "You won't press him?" he said, aware he was falling back to a weaker position. "Allow him to make up his own mind?"

"Of course," said Barnum in surprise, or a good imitation of it. "And I trust you'll show him the same courtesy." He offered his hand. Jason took it, but with misgivings.

"Abandon the search?" Aaron's own similar doubts had led him to make the proposal, which the smallest of the assembled partners now echoed back shrilly. "Out of the question!"

Clancey scratched his side whiskers and asked Aaron's reasons. "It's a pipe dream," said Aaron, "and too dangerous. You heard that captain." Tom started to rail again. Aaron hushed him; Tom was beginning to get on his nerves. He tried to get Clancey to take a stand one way or the other. Failing, he turned to Jeremy.

"May turn out a waste of time," said Jeremy, after thinking it over, "but since we've come this far—"

"There!" Tom trumpeted.

Jeremy had more to say. "We should go back to Aaron's first plan. If there are pirates out there, we don't want them surprising us in the dark. And it's not smart to risk a large party." The others nodded. "I say we send in two or three at first light." He volunteered himself as one of them. "The captain saw—" he began, and then stopped, coloring.

Before Aaron could nominate himself to accompany him, Tom had claimed the place. And he refused to consider taking a third, for reasons that to Aaron's way of thinking did not parse. The others voiced doubts about his ability to shoulder an oar, but he insisted he had the strength of a man twice his size. "One could manage her," Frye allowed, "with an effort." Tom let the slight pass, and in the end they left it at that.

"I suppose," Aaron said, "between the two of you you'll be able to tell if the map's a fraud." Tom gave him a sharp look.

"And if it proves true?" said Clancey.

"If so..." He let the sentence finish itself. "But I shouldn't get my hopes up."

Clancey left an order to rouse them at the end of churchyard watch, and they went to their beds—all but Tom, who said he would stay up a little yet. Aaron felt another qualm at leaving him alone but was reluctant to say so out loud. They were partners, after all.

The silkie floated in the lizard-hued depths through streams of liquid sunlight, sifting the flow with sinuous flexings of her slender fingers that brought her nearer, ever nearer to Jeremy till at last she was clasping him by the shoulders. But why was she shaking him so hard? "Time to rise," she announced in a man's voice. A shift in her features transformed them into the second mate's. "Come on, now," he said. Jeremy woke fully into the dark of the cabin. Lowering himself to the floor, he noticed that the other bed was still empty.

Back on deck, he saw they had resumed their previous position off Bentinck Island. Abeam of them lay the mouth of what pretended to be a passage through but was not, being cut off by a natural bridge that connected the main body of the island with a spur to the south. Both bridge and spur were invisible for the surrounding fog. The inky night showed a harbinger of grey. The air was cold but the wind was still.

The crew lowered the quarter-boat, released the runners holding her, and dropped a rope ladder. Tom descended first. He hopped onto one of the thwarts. Jeremy followed more clumsily. He unhooked the tackle at the stern and then made his way forward to help with the other. They unshipped the oars, and Jeremy cast off the painter, setting her adrift. Clancey called down to them to watch for tide rips. No other words were spoken.

Once settled on their seats, they took up their oars and paddled around till she pointed toward the twin faces of grey rock. The darkness was going faster than Jeremy had expected. The same could not be said of the cold, but the work of pulling soon warmed him, and Tom at his back. They fell into rhythm almost at once. Jeremy found that Tom's boast had been only a little exaggerated: if he could not make as much way as a grown man, he could rival two good-sized boys. Jeremy was grateful for that. He would not reach shore as weary as he had feared.

The morning was eerily quiet. The only sounds apart from their own were the cries of the cormorants, the creak of the ship at anchor, and the splash of water against the rocks that stood arrayed on both sides like hostile deities who might come to life at any moment.

"Land!" Tom whispered. Jeremy craned to look. He knew they could not have reached the bridge yet. Two strokes farther on, the fog slid back to reveal an islet in midstream. Jeremy heard what he was sure was the rattle of footfalls against a pebble beach. He raised his oars and whispered to Tom to do the same. They sat motionless, letting the channel cradle them while he listened. He did not hear it now.

They rowed on. Both were feeling the strain in their shoulders and chests. By unspoken agreement they veered south of the islet. Clearing the tall rocks on that end, they hove within sight of the beach beyond. Tom shouted. Its narrow reach was covered with lumps of black fur. It was a bed-and-board for seals! This so excited Jeremy he nearly dropped an oar.

In the next second he did just that. For on one of the rocks, turning in the half-light, lay what looked at first to be another seal but was not; was, impossibly, something else. It had not only a tail but a face, the most saintly face Tom had ever seen—for he was gazing spellbound as Jeremy was. The face was framed with black fur, not the long hair Jeremy had imagined, but that did not matter, it was what the engraving had promised. "Silkie!" he shouted, or tried to, but tears choked him.

Yet the others had heard. "Did he say silkie?" asked Clancey.

Tom made hushing noises, but Jeremy paid no attention. "Bring her around!" he said. "We've got to land!" Standing, then stumbling, he dropped his other oar. He sludged through the bit of water they had gained to take one of Tom's. He looked back. If the silkie were metamorphosing, as Barnum had said, by now it should have taken on more human, or more sealish, form, but it seemed not to have changed at all. It turned and stared at Tom as if it had never seen anything like him, rather than the opposite. Then it dove off the other side. At the same time the footfalls returned. There was no mistaking them now.

Those on the ship heard only a little of this. Now there came to their ears a sharp cry, cut off suddenly, and a splash, or crash. The fog partly cleared, and they saw the boat upturned, with neither of her crew in sight. "Jeremy!" Aaron shouted. "We're coming for you!"

"Stay away!" came the immediate retort. The savageness of it, following on the morning calm, came like a galvanic shock. A moment later they heard "Tell Jason if I could swi—" And that was all. They called Jeremy's name, and Tom's, but without answer.

"If he could what?"

"Swim," said Aaron. "He's drowning!"

Frye ordered the crew to clear away the spare boat. No one bothered about quiet now. On pulling back the cover they discovered the boat was useless, its bottom boards cracked. When or how it had been done no man knew, but to the question of who had done it Clancey had a quick answer: "A mite." That would explain why they had heard nothing from him. He must be in league with the pirates; Barnum too. But why? They could not hope to capture the Seamus O'Flynn. For that matter, Barnum could probably buy her six times over. They called Jeremy's name again, hopelessly. The fog was dissolving, the sun was about to arrive—and Jeremy, it seemed certain, was gone.

They could not see behind the east face of the islet to the beach, to which a wet but breathing—nay, gasping—Jeremy lay pinned beneath the tip of a cutlass.

At Aaron's insistence, Clancey landed him and a handful of others on the southeast shore of Vancouver. Two men swam in a line, tied its end to an oak on the shore and the other end to the bows of the damaged boat, and floated her in. If Jeremy had seen Aaron he would have admired the atypical dash of his appearance, with his trousers rolled up and his chest partly bared. Clancey left them with tools and a day's provisions. If they could not repair the boat they would make a raft, or swim, but one way or another, Aaron vowed, they would cross over and search for their shipmates. Clancey was bound to honor Jeremy's request to inform Jason, but promised to return in a day with him and as many others as were willing to aid in the search.

The voyage back was long and silent. Candy was at the head of the crowd that assembled to meet them. She saw at once that Jeremy was nowhere to be found. When Clancey stepped off the gangplank and slowly, unwillingly met her eyes, she knew without his saying a word. And in fact he said none, could not conjure up from the depths of his Irish soul what had to be said. She had been frightened of this moment but had determined to meet it without crying. She almost succeeded, but rivulets broke forth unbidden from the corners of her eyes and refused to stop. She pretended they were not there, and out of an illimitable respect for her, so did everyone else.

Jason arrived after her and, grasping the one fact to be grasped, demanded to hear everything. Clancey had barely begun when Joshua grabbed him by the lapels. "And you didn't go after them?" Jason pulled him away.

"T'other boat was sabotaged." Clancey was almost in tears himself. He added, in a voice only they could hear, "By Barnum's little fella." Jason spotted Barnum at the outside of the crowd. "Belike he's lost, too. Mr. Stempel stayed behind to search for their—search for 'em."

"I'll not believe he's gone," said Jason. "You hear?"

"Poor lad called for ye at the last. Said to tell ye if he could swim—"

"What?" Joshua cried out.

Candy looked up in confusion. "But—"

Jason pressed down on Clancey's shoulders. "What were his words? Exactly?"

"I—" Clancey gulped. "He said—he said—if I could only swim—alas the day! Never will I see ye more this side. Tell Jason—Jason, me own dear brother—"

"Sure you're not embellishing?" asked Joshua.

"But—" Candy repeated.

Jason saw Barnum edging toward them. He all but picked up Clancey and pushed him onto the gangplank. "Below. Now." He clutched Candy's waist in a tight cinch, an impropriety that she would not have expected of him and that many of her fellow brides would have envied her. In the circumstances she did not think to be shocked.

"But he can swim!" she said finally when the four of them were out of the others' hearing.

"Like a duck," Joshua added.

"'course he can. That message was to let me know he's not really drowned."

Clancey stared in amazement. "Then why—" The truth flashed home. "He'll be in some trouble."

"And wanted to keep you out of it."

"And the midget?" asked Joshua.

Jason shook his head. "I can't guess what his part in it is, or his master's. But we'd best be wary of 'em." He ordered Joshua to return to the mountain and round up a dozen men. "Looks like you'll be getting that trip you coveted."

Joshua declined. After all, one of them had to keep the family business going. "Besides," he said, "I trust Jeremy to land on his feet."

Jeremy was lying with his feet and hands bound. His trousers and brogans were still damp and clammy. Tom was beside him in the same state. Like two trussed turkeys, Jeremy thought, and then erased the thought, disliking its implication. From the islet they had been led through the shallows and up a spire of rock onto the bridge, against whose sides the sea pounded below. A beach of pastel pebbles spiked with big grey stones stretched out in either direction. They crossed to the spur, which was like a gatehouse cut out of the rock. In a bay to the south they saw the top of a mast swaying with the tide.

They descended by a path to a fissure in the rock, invisible till they were upon it, and then entered a large grotto whose walls were smeared with a bright green fur. The rush and shush of the waves, before they ever saw the foam flying up in small bouquets where the flat part of the floor ended, told them the sea ran in and out there. Trails of old seaweed nestled on the bank. The wall on the sea side hung down almost to water level; the others stood ten yards back from the ledge. Light entered through a wide chimney at the top. Gaps in the rock made pipes for the wind to sound, all together, making new chords that moaned and droaned. The sound was soft because this side of the island sat sheltered, mainly, from the seaborne westerlies.

So the wind music floated, half-heard, through the air, and together with the emerald walls made the place seem like a sorcerer's cave. Jeremy remembered a story of Shakespeare's Jason had told him once about a magician on a magic island; he might have made his den here.

Certainly the denizens were outlandish enough. Clad in bright motley, they had seemed like mirages when they appeared from nowhere to pull Tom and Jeremy out of the water, only to silence them a moment later with blades at their throats. They had allowed Jeremy to warn off his comrades but stopped him when it sounded as if he were about to say too much, not realizing he already had.

There were eight of them, most having olive skin and black curly hair. They reminded Jeremy of Seattle's Greek colony. The most visible exception was a pale blond giant, who had carried Tom and Jeremy without straining across the shallows and who relaxed of an evening, it now appeared, by lifting large stones in the same way. On the far side of the cave two men stood abreast, supporting two others on their shoulders. By them sat a man whose legs appeared to be wrapped around his neck. Jeremy lifted his head to see from a straighter perspective; the position looked the same. Having been asleep for many hours, he wondered whether he were still dreaming. Beside him another of the pirates held up a sword—a straight one, not the captain's curved cutlass—and, gripping it by the point end, thrust it into his mouth. With this clue the scene was transformed.

"Circus people," said Jeremy. "They're circus people!"

"No more," said a voice beside him. He looked up to see the pirate captain standing over them, hands on his waist. He was tall and supply muscled, with eyes like black opals. "Now we are da terror of da seas!" De Fuca Strait, anyway, Jeremy could not help amending. "Winter come," the captain went on, in a half-apologetic tone, "a man make his living as he may."

"If he may," said the blond man.

Tom wriggled to sitting. "I take it I am in the presence of the brothers Zampolli and"—he nodded toward the strong man—"their colleagues, late of Dan Rice's Great Show?" The captain showed pleasure at being recognized. "Permit me to introduce myself. General Tom Thumb, of the Barnum circus."

"Ah!" The captain bowed. "Zampolli has heard of you."

Tom looked about. Like Jeremy, he had been napping. Before, most of their captors had left—to go pirating, Jeremy had assumed—and not presented a chance to see them together till now. "Surely one of your number is missing?" said Tom. "A little fellow like me? We saw him on the rocks." Jeremy realized he was talking about the silkie.

"Ah, si." Zampolli nodded toward the tide pool, really an enclosed pocket of the strait, where a figure was circling on its back. Tom had not been in a position to see it before. "Mercy!" Zampolli yelled. Jeremy wondered whom he was begging mercy from. "Little, si," he said, as he gave the figure a hand out, "but no man." The figure removed its sealskin headdress—obvious enough in the light, though it was fading—and revealed itself as the most beautiful little woman either man had ever seen. In truth Jeremy had never seen one before; Tom had, but none to match her. "Cara mia," said Zampolli, "permit me—"

"Tom Thumb," she said, in a tone of awe. Her eyes glistened as brightly as her bathing dress, which was also made of sealskin. Below it she wore a pair of sealskin boots shaped to resemble fins. Jeremy wondered how he could ever have been fooled. "I have y—that is, I've seen your picture." Tom bowed as well as his bonds permitted. It struck Jeremy for the first time that he was a famous man, the most famous of his size in history, and no doubt a hero to other little people. He was obviously one to Mercy, who stood before him in a devotional attitude, eyes steeped in adoration.

For once, Tom lost his self-possession. "I—where—" he stammered.

Zampolli put an arm around Mercy, as around a favorite child. "She is our lorelei. Da boatmen sail close to see—then we plunder. Idiote!" He threw his head back and laughed. His captives did not think it so funny. Zampolli ran his fingers along a strand of her auburn hair. "Bellissima, no?" he said, glancing slyly at Tom. Mercy's cheeks turned crimson.

Oddly, so did Tom's. He said, in a voice louder than necessary, "I heard that you quit Rice while he was up here on tour." He seemed to know a power about them, Jeremy reflected.

Zampolli shook his head mournfully. "Big jump. His partner say to us he will make up a new show and we will be da stars." He raised a fist. "Sia maledetto! He's-a only desire to ruin Signore Rice. We go, then he's-a go—and Zampolli is abandoned. We try to make up a show, but—" He made a "poof" noise. "No people, no money. So Zampolli turn brigante. And now we eat."

"Not much," said the strong man, munching a bit of hard bread.

"My friend says true." Zampolli extended his hands helplessly. "We are too kind. Zampolli kill nobody. But now you see the pirate's lair"—he glowered at them from under his curling brows—"perhaps Zampolli think again." He strolled off, pulling at his mustache.

"This is utterly unnecessary," Tom began. He was working his wrists busily, and Mercy took the complaint to refer to his bonds.

"Are the ropes hurting you?" she said in alarm. "But they mustn't!" She crouched behind him and began pulling at the knot. Jeremy asked Tom if he had not intended to say more. Tom considered, and then shook his head. Mercy leaned around to see his face. "Better now?"

His lips broadened in a dreamy smile. "Much," he purred, "especially when your hands are over mine, warming them." Mercy quickly drew her hands away and dropped her eyes. Slowly she raised them again, and then moved her hands back. She and Tom smiled at each other. Jeremy sighed and rolled over. He sure missed Candy.

At dawn the crew of the Seamus O'Flynn returned to find Aaron and the others exhausted and ill-kempt. Aaron looked as if he had been marooned for weeks rather than hours. They had just finished making their boat seaworthy, or so they hoped: the first trial had been a disaster. Now it did not matter, for Clancey and Jason had brought in a dinghy taken on board before sailing.

At the sight of Jason, Aaron staggered up and hugged him. "Your brother," he said woefully, "your valiant brother..."

Jason eased out of his grip. "He'll be pleased to hear your high opinion of him."

"Poor man." Aaron shook his head. "Wracked with grief, you're denying the truth. I understand." He patted Jason's arm. Jason winced. He was unused to being patted. "Jeremy's gone—and all because of my greed. I'll sell my mill—no, I'll give you a third of it in his memory. How would that be?"

Jason regarded him with wonder. "Never seen him so," he said. "Seems a pity to spoil it."

Aaron stared, uncomprehending. "Jason..." said Clancey.

"Yes, well—" Jason patted Aaron's arm in return. "Moved as I am by your generosity, 'twouldn't be fair to take advantage of you. Jeremy's alive."

"Alive! No, I saw him—that is, I heard him. He said—"

"Said if he could swim, yes. And so he can. Like a—" Joshua's earlier comparison seemed too tame somehow. "—like a slitherin' eel."

"Alive!" The relief in Aaron's face was swept away at once by a wave of outrage. "What'd he want to pull a trick like that for?"

"Shouldn't wonder if he'd met up with that pirate band," said Jason.

After the scanty supper of last night and an even scantier breakfast this morning, Jeremy did not doubt the account Zampolli had given of their hard times. Mercy was still by Tom's side. She had changed to a plain skirt and blouse, with a scarf about her shoulders. The outfit was simple, but Tom thought it most fetching—especially the scarf, which she had spent an hour digging for in their costume trunk. "I'm sorry you've come to this," she said. "What are you doing in these parts, anyway?"

Jeremy half-turned. Tom hesitated. "Seeing after Mr. Barnum's affairs," he said after a moment. "He trusts me implicitly."

Mercy rested her chin on her hands and gazed at him. "I imagine a person could trust you with 'most anything."

Before Tom could answer—and just as well, in Jeremy's opinion—Zampolli returned. "Zampolli decide," he announced. He picked up his cutlass. Tom and Jeremy shrank back. Mercy screamed. Zampolli brought the cutlass down on Tom's bonds, snapping them. Then he did the same for Jeremy's. "We find a new lair," he said. "You come, too."

Jeremy did not favor that idea. "Let them go, Paolo," Mercy begged. "They've done us no harm."

"But, cara mia, they procure da grand ransom!"

Jeremy heard himself saying, "I know something better than a ransom," and then, "I know where there's treasure buried."

"Treasure?" Zampolli's eyes gleamed.

"You still have the map?" Tom said in surprise.

The others had heard and begun to gather round. "That's what pirates are usually after, isn't it? Only you have to promise to let us go." He had a flash of inspiration. "On your honor as circus men."

The captain looked around at his company. "Bene. You have Zampolli's word."

"This may not be a good idea," Tom muttered.

Ignoring him, Jeremy indicated the pocket of his jacket that held the map. "But I'll have to show you the—"

Zampolli's huge hand snatched it out in a grand sweep. "You stay. Lorenzo, Massimo, Nicolo, Ottavio! Venite!" He led his brothers to the rift in the rock.

The strong man called after him. "And us?"

"You guard da prisoners," he captain shouted back. "We find treasure, we let you know."

As he left, the remaining men—those who were not brothers—exchanged looks that suggested they had heard something of the sort before. One of them made a comment Jeremy could not hear. They gathered in a circle by the entrance and spoke together in low voices, forgetting their captives entirely.

"Jeremy, about the map—" Tom began.

His attention was arrested immediately by Mercy clasping his hand. She pointed to a square of light in the wall. "Flee!" she whispered.

He hesitated. "Very well," he said, "but I shall return for you." He cast a sidelong glance at Jeremy. "You, too," he added as an afterthought.

"Thanks," said Jeremy unhappily. He had seen that the hole was too small for him, and the entrance was blocked by the pirates. Tom scurried to the wall, at whose foot he found the bathing dress Mercy had shed the previous evening. A sudden worry over whether the proprieties were being observed when she undressed was swallowed up in the urgency of the moment. He paused long enough to hold the dress aloft. "According to the legend," he said, "when a man steals a silkie's skin she's his." Mercy thrilled at these words.

"Hi, you!" In the toils of love, Tom had forgotten all caution. The others had heard him. He quickly scaled the rocks and slipped out through the hole. Mercy clasped her palms together and pressed them to her cheek with a sigh. Jeremy sighed, too, for his own reasons. The pirates looked at one another uncertainly.

They heard a voice outside. The Zampollis were returning already. "Imbroglio!" Paolo shouted as he entered. "Inganno! Inferno!"

"Some, uh, problem?" asked Jeremy.

Paolo crumpled the map in his fist and threw it down. "Contraffato! The man who make-a this never see this island!" So Aaron had been right to distrust his partners.

Now Paolo noticed Tom's absence. "Da pygmy—where is he?" One of his brothers made a quick search and shook his head. "Find him!" Paolo roared, and they started out again.

Only the others blocked their way, the strong man at their head. He had the sword swallower's blade and was fingering the tip menacingly. "Let him go," he said.

"What is this?" the captain demanded. "Mutiny, by the Great Horn Spoon!" Jeremy wondered what dime novel he had found that in.

"We're tired of being pirates," said the strong man. "We're striking out on our own."

"We have a covenant," Paolo declaimed. "You sign in blood!"

"B-blood?" Jeremy whispered.

"That was Paolo's idea." Mercy sighed. "He so likes to be dramatic."

While he was preoccupied, Jeremy got to his feet and headed for the entrance. Paolo blocked him. "Avast, scurvy dog!" He drew his cutlass.

"Arm yourself, boy!" cried the strong man, flinging him the sword. Paolo raised his blade. Jeremy met it almost without intending to. Suddenly he was in the middle of that dime novel.

When Paolo hesitated to lay on, Jeremy ran to the back wall, where a set of natural steps led two-thirds of the way up to the skyhole. He took them in three leaps. Paolo was on each step almost ahead of him, and trapped him at the top. With no other way open, Jeremy climbed out on the rock wall, sword tucked under his belt. Holds he could not have guessed at till he reached them, he wedged hands and feet into, trying not to look at the green water below. They led by a zigzag path to within three feet of the top and then ended. He took a deep breath, tensed, and sprang, reaching high.

He felt a jabbing pain as his hands met the hard rock. But he had made it. With all the strength his shoulders and back could summon he heaved himself up and partway over the rim. His hands scrabbled across the rock, gripping first one protuberance and then another, as he pulled himself out the rest of the way. His body lifted, then fell, lifted and fell, and each time it dropped onto the brutal surface it took new scrapes and bruises. But he was free.

He had not reckoned on Paolo's training. In a flash he had taken the wall and catapulted over it. He landed at Jeremy's feet as if dropped from above, cutlass between his teeth, scarlet blouse a-billow in the breeze. Ignoring a thousand aches, Jeremy scrambled to his feet and drew his sword, fumbling a little; it was a long reach. Paolo feinted at him. Jeremy stepped back. Another feint; another step back. Paolo thrust. Jeremy parried and counter-thrust. Paolo chopped down. The shrill clash of steel rang out over the island.

Jeremy did not believe Paolo would kill him. But he plainly did not mean to let him leave, and might be willing to inflict great injury for the prospect of a ransom. In size and dexterity he had the obvious advantage, and he had had practice in using a cutlass, or playing at it. But Jeremy was used to swinging an axe, and wielded his sword in the same way. Neither knew enough to tell good technique from bad, and so they posed a considerable danger to each other and themselves.

They fought strenuously, moving over the rocks and down onto the shingle beach, where their feet slid on the loose rocks. Within the cave, the other Zampollis were trying to get out and get to their brother, but the rival faction, now including Mercy, were unwilling to yield the exit. At last they broke through onto the beach and surrounded Jeremy. Paolo shouted at them to stand back and let him fight free.

At that moment a rifle shot brought the action to a halt. The Seattle men, led by Tom, were at the edge of the sand cliff above. All were armed; it was Jason who had fired.

Tom clambered down the cliff face and reached the bottom as Mercy emerged. "I have come for you, my fair!" he cried, and he grabbed her in his arms. Most of the others chose to descend by the path, which took hardly any longer. Two of them routed out the remaining pirates, or former pirates, huddled in the cave, and soon the entire band was under guard.

Some of the rescuers expressed relief that Jeremy was alive, a feeling he shared after his swordfight. But he was still a little disappointed he had not been able to see it through. Paolo always maintained he would have won, but Jeremy was not so sure, and truthfully, neither was Paolo.

Only now an unforeseen question presented itself. "What do we do with them?" Aaron asked. Tom was ready with an answer. Barnum had authorized him to offer all the members of the band long-standing engagements with his circus. The effect of this announcement on the beneficiaries was no greater than the impression it made on some others, Jason for one, whose stare made Tom squirm a little. "Why didn't you say this in the cave," Jeremy asked, "and spare us a fight?" Tom's bashful glance at Mercy told the story. He had been about to do so, but that would have deprived him of the chance to play the hero and bask in her attentions.

"A woman," Aaron said in disgust. "I might have known." He had a sudden thought and peered at Jason. "You have anything to do with this?" Jason half-shook his head. He was hardly listening.

With a zeal Barnum would have lauded, Tom presented the case for clemency. These were Canadian waters; Americans had no jurisdiction there. If they turned the pirates over to the British, they would have to explain their own presence, and Tom would not feel right if he allowed their poaching to go unreported. He assured them Barnum would make reparations to any victims who applied. "Zampolli kill nobody!" Paolo protested. Everyone ignored him.

Then Tom addressed Jason singly. "Only once in a man's life does he meet the right woman," he said. "Many men never know that blessing. If you turn in these good people, I'll have lost my one chance of happiness. I appeal to your sense of romance—"

"That does it," said Aaron. "You're letting them go."

"All but one," he said. At the first sight of Jeremy, safe and whole, he had displayed perhaps the biggest smile of his life; he was not smiling now. In fact he looked downright grim.

Barnum had no choice but to allow himself to be marched from the dock where the voyagers had just disembarked to the pump house at the foot of the sawmill pier. Jason had chosen the location deliberately: it was small, out of the way, and unoccupied, and it had only one door.

"There was never any treasure," he said, "nor silkie neither. It was them you were after, to hire for your hippodrome show. And for that you nearly got my brother killed. I've a mind to—" He took a step toward him. Barnum lifted his hands protectively. "—to turn you over to the law," Jason finished.

"What—" Barnum found his tongue too dry to work as nimbly as he was used to. "What crime," he managed to say, "can be laid at my door?"

"Got a lawyer working up a list," said Jason. "Swindling, soliciting under false pretenses, aiding and abetting of piracy, kidnapping, attempted murder, and—and malacopterygy in the first degree." He threw in the last for good measure. It was something to do with herring; he liked the sound of it without knowing much what it meant. But that hardly mattered since he had manufactured the whole story. Seattle did not have a lawyer—yet.

Barnum did not know that. "Suppose," he said, in some nervousness, "suppose I was to propose, propose you overlook my faux pas? And offer in exchange a small contribution to your lumber enterprise?"

He should not be let off so easy, Jason well knew. On the other hand, this would end their financial crisis. And he could name his price. He needn't make it all that easy. "Cash?" he said finally.

He could hear Barnum exhale his relief. "I shall wire my bank at once."

"And one more thing." Barnum's breath caught again. Jason grinned. "I think you owe us a show."

And what a show it was! It began at 7:30 on Wednesday evening. Practically all of Seattle was there, although Aaron begged off, saying he didn't like circuses. A tent was raised in the middle of the street, with seats, a ring, and an acrobatic frame produced by Stempel's mill for the occasion. Ben was hired as a candy butcher, Candy's little brother to stand outside and beat a bass drum before the show. Music for the show itself was furnished by Clancey's concertina player. Barnum was the ringmaster.

The proceedings were opened by Lottie, riding sidesaddle in a dress so daring she had never allowed the town to see it before. Mercy performed equestrian feats of her own, with Tom leading the horse. Pilak made his debut as an Andean sage; the sight caused Jason great disappointment. The strong man, the sword swallower, and the contortionist each took his turn, and then the Zampollis (who had made it up with them by now) disproved the law of gravity with their unrestrained ups and downs and rounds and abouts.

For the finale the entire company returned and each in turn encored his feats to a tumult of applause and "Bravo"s. Then they retired to the sides, and Candy's little sister entered, strewing flower petals. Behind her, looking as if they had stepped off a wedding cake, marched Tom and Mercy, arm in arm. The town minister met them in the middle of the ring, and there, beneath the big top and the towering trees of the great Northwest, they were joined. The show was over. The crowd descended on the newlyweds to bathe them in congratulations.

It had been grand, the finest thing Seattle had ever seen, yet it had not dispelled all worries. Jason approached Pilak to see if, even now, he might be talked into changing his mind. The pair who had hectored him got to him first. Jason was about to turn them out when he heard one of them inquire if Pilak really did hail from all the way down in Peru. Pilak answered with a formulation he had learned from Barnum, together with the occult air proper to it: "All will become clear." The newcomers were vastly impressed. So his new life would have its compensations. That eased Jason's mind.

He saw Barnum watching him, as if expecting a concession he had been right. Jason would not give him that satisfaction, and anyhow he did not believe it. But he had witnessed an instance of the one spiritual truth he did believe in firmly: the operation of grace. That kept him from begrudging Barnum his success this trip. He granted him as much of a smile as the sentiment moved him to.

He spied Jeremy sitting alone, lost in his thoughts. Candy was below with the wedding couple, finding out everything she could about the arrangements for the honeymoon. Jeremy heard a voice beside him. "For a boy who's just been to the circus, you look uncommon dour."

"We didn't find it," said Jeremy. "Not the real thing." He said it reluctantly, afraid Jason would laugh.

Jason understood him too well for that. "You may yet," he said. "And look there." He pointed to Tom and Mercy. "True love. Ain't that wonder enough?" Jeremy allowed he might be right. "Follow your heart," Jason moralized. "That's the only map you'll ever want. Lead you to pure gold every time."

Jeremy looked at Candy and saw in her the proof of Jason's words. He already had the object of his quest and had not realized it. Or if he had, it had slipped his mind, in the same way words occasionally slipped his tongue. He must never take her for granted again. He loved her more than his brothers, more than the trees or the rivers, as much as—yes, he could admit it, and knew that other beloved would not have minded, that she would have loved her, too. If only they could have met! That would always be his great sorrow. But to have known and loved them both was his great joy.

The concertinist, who was standing by the exit, struck up "I'll Go No More a-Roving", and in it Jeremy found a moral. Promising himself he would never again neglect love's service to chase moonbeams, he went down to Candy's side.

"You just can't help yourself, can you?"

The voice was at Jason's back, but he could not mistake the dash of bitters in it. "Thought you didn't like circuses," he said.

Aaron came up beside him. "'Follow your heart,'" he repeated. "I followed mine all the way to Vancouver, and see what I got for it."

"A grand adventure," said Jason. "Isn't that what you were really after?"

Aaron stared at him. "No! I was after the four hundred thousand!"

Hearing that, Jason gave a laugh that caused even the lovers to turn. It resounded to the very tip of the tent pole and, for all one may know, to wherever the silkie still reclined in the moonlight and tossed her sea-washed hair. We humans, Jason mused—when all's tallied, it's we who are the fabulous beasts.

...and so the tale would be told for years by the captain of the Seamus O'Flynn when an audience was to be had, of an evening at the alehouse.