d truck outside, I bought
cheap."

Mrs. Huprich and son walked through the oddly twisted doors of the
Jordon Building and into the gray twilight that awaited dawn. The
_Honeychile Bakery_ truck waited too.

* * * * *

Gary Abston peddled his bicycle against the flow of cars carrying
day-shift workers through the half-light. He whirled into Walnut Street,
twisted a fresh copy of the _Morning Herald_ into a fiendishly clever
knot, and hurled it in the general direction of a front porch that
flashed past on his right. Never slowing, Gary threw the next paper
entirely across the street. He chuckled as it cleared a picket fence.
"Bang, bang!" he blurted. His red shirt, with a picture of a mounted
cowboy on the back, ballooned in the early morning breeze.

"Whoa!" Gary roared. He stopped, held the bicycle upright with one foot
on the pavement. A tall, lanky, slightly bowlegged man with squinting
luminous green eyes stood on the sidewalk. Gary looked at the man. The
newspapers fluttered to the parkway. The bicycle clattered in the
street.

"Howdy, partner!" the tall man said. "The rustlers are headin' for the
plateau! We'll take the short gash and head 'em off at the canyon!"

"Ramrod Jones?" Gary chirped.

"Here's the truck I haul Quizz-kid, the I.Q. Horse, in! Let's get after
the rustlers!" Jones said.

"Gee, I've seen all your pictures, Ramrod," Gary said. "_Silver City
Raiders_, _Rustlers of Silver City_, _Silver City Rustlers_--"

The great cowboy lifted the newsboy into the _Honeychile_ truck.

* * * * *

Pink and rose clouds drifted through a brightening sky as the
_Honeychile Bakery_ truck careened along a narrow road badly in need of
rock and grading. From the road, the truck rattled into a rutted track
through dewy woods and skidded swaying to a stop at the side of a long,
low, grassy hill.

The tall creature dressed in black, red-spotted fur stepped from the
cab. An opening appeared in the hillside. Four machines--dull metal eggs
balancing on single tractor treads--rolled silently through the opening.
Jointed steel arms darted from recesses in the eggs. One machine opened
the truck doors.

The creature walked up a ramp inside the hill and entered a shimmering
metallic compartment.

"Greetings, Eo. I have returned."

Eo, who wore a suit of white fur, hummed, "None too soon, Za. We
miscalculated dawn. What success?"

"An excellent grou