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he’p out, Fud, me, an’ him.
    “You see somebody with money, you just come to us. No townsfolk, mind you. Only travelers, folks goin’ through on the pike or the river.” “Those folks who travel,” Jean suggested tentatively. “Don’t they have rifles sometimes?”
    “Now.” Sam slapped his leg again. “There’s a lad! Eye right on the main issue!” Sam chuckled, winking at Jean. “Make a team, you an’ me. We might even go west together, that’s what.”
    “I can see that!” Fud sneered. “Sam, you’re talkin’ fool talk.” Sam lifted a thick, admonishing finger. “Don’t take the boy lightly, Fud. Nobody in town is friendly to him, slurring his mother like they do, figuring his father no good, ready to clap the boy in the workhouse. No, sir! The boy’s with us, aren’t you, boy?”
    “I hear things,” Jean agreed, “an’ folks don’t pay me much mind.” Sam puffed on his pipe, his mind far away. The fire crackled on the hearth and the man in the bunk turned over, moving uneasily in his sleep, like a cat.   Jean’s ears strained into the darkness, striving to hear sounds he did not wish to hear. Was Rob safely out of earshot? How much time had passed?   “While you’re doin’ this plannin’,” Fud’s voice was sarcastic, “s’pose you figure what we’ll do with him while we’re gone. You goin’ to leave him loose?” Sam shook his head regretfully. “Not that I don’t trust you, boy, but for safety’s sake we’ll lock the door.”
    Outside the wind was lifting. Sam got out a deck of worn playing cards and shuffled them. The man on the bunk fumbled at his face with a lax hand, and then his eyes opened and he lay for several minutes adjusting himself to the scene, his eyes continually returning to Jean. He was younger than the others, a lean, savage young man with dark hollows beneath his eyes and a yellowish cast to his face. He sat up finally, watching Sam handle the cards. Fud gestured Jean from the chair and sat down himself. The younger man, scratching his ribs and yawning, joined them.
    “You slept long enough,” Fud commented.
    The young man turned his black eyes on Fud but made no comment. Sam began dealing the cards and Jean guessed that Sam was wary of this man. Fud he treated with casual contempt but there was something about this young man no one in his right mind would treat casually.
    “Who’s the boy?” he asked suddenly, without looking up from his cards. Sam explained, taking his time and attempting to make all the details clear. The young man did not look up nor did he interrupt, he just listened.   “We got to have information,” Sam finished, “and we can’t keep showing up in town. Certainly not you, nor me with this scar. There’s men in town will remember how I come by this scar.”
    “They’ve never seen me.”
    “They know your family, Ring. They saw your father and brother, and you’re like them as can be.”
    Jean’s head nodded wearily, then jerked awake. The others still played cards.   Sam glanced at him kindly, then nodded his head toward the corner. “Take a rest, boy, you’ll need it.”
    There was nothing he could do. Wherever Rob Walker was, all was in his hands now, and Jean was terribly tired. His head no sooner touched the blanket than he was asleep.
    A long time later he opened his eyes and the house was dark. He listened, but he heard no sound of snoring or breathing. Carefully, he sat up and looked around in the darkness. He was alone ... the stone house was empty but for himself.   Rising quickly he went to the door. It was fastened on the outside. The earthen floor was packed hard, like cement, and he knew the stones of the house were sunk deep into the ground. Even if he had something with which to dig it would require hours to make a hole big enough for him to crawl out. The window was solidly boarded and too small, anyway. When he had exhausted all the possibilities of escape he sat down on the floor and stared