nd a key. Val took it from
her and hobbled up the cabin steps. For a wonder, he thought thankfully,
the key was the right one. The lock clicked and he went in.

Like the clearing, the interior of the one-room shack was neat, a place
for everything and everything in its place. Under the window in the far
wall was a small chest of some dark polished wood. Save for its size, it
was not unlike the chests the Ralestones had found in their store-room.
Opposite it was a wooden cot, the covers smoothly spread. A stool, a
blackened cook stove, and a solid table with an oil lamp were the extent
of the furnishings. Lines of traps hung on the walls, along with the
wooden boards for the stretching of drying skins, and there was a
half-finished grass basket lying on top of the chest.

Val hefted a stoneware jug. They had no time to hunt for a spring. And
if this contained water, they would need it. At the resulting gurgle
from within, he set it by the door and returned to rob the cot of pillow
and the single coarse but clean sheet.

Ricky tore the sheet and made a creditable job of washing and bandaging
the ugly bruise. Jeems drank greedily when they offered him water but he
did not seem to recognize them. In answer to Ricky's question of how he
felt, he muttered something in the swamp French of the Cajuns. But he
was uneasy until Val locked the cabin door and put the key in his hand.

"How are we going to get him to the boat?" asked Ricky suddenly.

"Carry him."

"But, Val--" for the first time she looked at her brother as if she
really saw him--"Val, you're hurt!"

"Just a little stiff," he hastened to assure her. "Our late visitors
play rather rough. We'll manage all right. I'll take his shoulders and
you his feet."

They wavered drunkenly along the path. Twice Val stumbled and regained
his balance just in time. Ricky had laid the pillow across their
burden's feet, declaring that she would need it when they got to the
boat. Val passed the point of aching misery--when he thought that he
could not shuffle forward another step--and now he came into what he had
heard called "second wind." By fixing his eyes on a tree or a bush a
step or two ahead and concentrating only upon passing that one, and then
that, and that, he got through without disgracing himself.

At the bayou at last, they wriggled Jeems awkwardly into the boat. Val
had no doubt that a woodsman might have done the whole job better in
much less time and without a