as soon as they were in and had
pulled the door shut behind them, he was lifting again. For a moment, the
hill swung giddily as the car turned, and then Jack saw them, climbing the
steep slope among the rocks. Only four of them, and one was helping
another. He wondered which ones they were, what had happened to the other
two and if the one that needed help had been badly hurt.

The car landed on the top, among the rocks, settling at an awkward angle.
He, Gerd and the pilot piled out and started climbing and sliding down the
declivity. Then he found himself within reach of a Fuzzy and grabbed. Two
more dashed past him, up the steep hill. The one he snatched at had
something in his hand, and aimed a vicious blow at his face with it; he
had barely time to block it with his forearm. Then he was clutching the
Fuzzy and disarming him; the weapon was a quarter-pound ballpeen hammer.
He put it in his hip pocket and then picked up the struggling Fuzzy with
both hands.

"You hit Pappy Jack!" he said reproachfully. "Don't you know Pappy any
more? Poor scared little thing!"

The Fuzzy in his arms yeeked angrily. Then he looked, and it was no Fuzzy
he had ever seen before--not Little Fuzzy, nor funny, pompous Ko-Ko, nor
mischievous Mike. It was a stranger Fuzzy.

"Well, no wonder; of course you didn't know Pappy Jack. You aren't one of
Pappy Jack's Fuzzies at all!"

At the top, the constabulary corporal was sitting on a rock, clutching two
Fuzzies, one under each arm. They stopped struggling and yeeked piteously
when they saw their companion also a captive.

"Your partner's down below, chasing the other one," the corporal said.
"You better take these too; you know them and I don't."

"Hang onto them; they don't know me any better than they do you."

With one hand, he got a bit of Extee Three out of his coat and offered it;
the Fuzzy gave a cry of surprised pleasure, snatched it and gobbled it. He
must have eaten it before. When he gave some to the corporal, the other
two, a male and a female, also seemed familiar with it. From below, Gerd
was calling:

"I got one, It's a girl Fuzzy; I don't know if it's Mitzi or Cinderella.
And, my God, wait till you see what she was carrying."

Gerd came into sight, the fourth Fuzzy struggling under one arm and a
little kitten, black with a white face, peeping over the crook of his
other elbow. He was too stunned with disappointment to look at it with
more than vague curiosity.

"They