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gone too far; the owners’ll smash you like they smashed the union. Oh, you’ll have things your own way awhile longer. You can blame that boy and get a jury that’ll do what you tell ’em. But you’ve outsmarted yourselves. I smell it comin’. Your days are numbered!”
    Phin’s pulse thundered in his ears. Next came the murder.He’d never be able to stop it. He opened his mouth with that dream-feeling of a shout that wouldn’t come. Mahoney cocked his head, as if listening to some deeper meaning within Dennis’s words. There was a long pause.
    Then Mahoney shoved his hands back in his pockets, glancing around the yard. “You got a good nose, Dennis,” he said. “Ain’t sayin’ you’re wrong.” Thoughtfully he went out between the gateposts and turned down the Street.
    Phin leaned there watching him go. The blood thundered in his temples. The shot hadn’t come, no blows even, but his body didn’t seem to understand that. He felt flooded with fear and shock. Dennis had taken a risk—
    And Dennis, Phin realized suddenly, was standing down in the yard, staring straight up at him.
    Phin jerked back, thinking Stop! Stupid.
    He was almost stupid enough to come back and look out again. But a second mistake wouldn’t put the first one right. He waited, listening. After a moment the splashing resumed.
    How could he have been so stupid? His instincts were all wrong for this. Hide. Rest. Maybe his mind would start working again. He crossed to the stairs and eased silently down them.
    They brought him to the back row of stalls, empty now. Only the stallion was stabled here, and Phin had just seenhim leave. The barn was quiet, dim, and from the old days of hide-and-seek with Jimmy, Phin knew just where to hide. He dropped to his stomach and wormed into the open area under the stairs. It was like a little room, festooned with cobwebs and floored with a deep litter of chaff. Cracks between the stairwell boards gave a view of the corridor and stalls.
    Phin hunched there, cradling his arm, staring: at nothing, at the boards, at the cracks between the boards, at the day as it had already happened. Time slowed, blurred. Events happened again in broken flashes, out of sequence. People said their lines over and over.
    You’re tougher than this, right?
    Do you ever sleep, boy?
    Tell Ned I said you’re to have a penny for your trouble…penny for your trouble…
    Tell Ned—
    The wallet. Dangerous. Get rid of it. As long as he had it, he was guilty of a crime. It seemed important not to be guilty.
    But it was hard to move. He had to force himself to dig into his pocket and bring out Margaret’s package.
    The paper had been pounded as he ran and fell and climbed. It was bruised thin, and one corner of the wallet poked through, leather and a fringe of bills.
    Phin shuddered. Sometime this evening, down at Murray’s, Plume would find out.
    A sound in the outer part of the barn came nearer; footsteps, Dennis’s distinctive dot-and-carry limp. He turned down the aisle with a bucket and went into the stallion’s empty stall. The gray cat followed, taking her own route over the partition and tightrope-walking along it. Phin watched glassily, feeling a hundred miles away.
    The cat miaowed at Dennis. He ignored her—worried, or listening. He hung the bucket on its hook, fluffed the stallion’s bedding. Bored, the cat jumped down and trotted toward the stairs.
    Suddenly she stopped in the middle of the aisle, tail lashing and puffing out till it looked like a raccoon’s.
    Phin sat rigidly unmoving. The cat growled, a low, throbbing sound that brought Dennis to the stall door. She turned and scuttled toward the other end of the aisle.
    â€œHere, Puss.” Dennis reached down and snapped his fingers. She hesitated.
    â€œNow you know there’s nothing under there.” Dennis spoke in the gentle voice he used only with