In the laughter, the matter was forgotten.

But Jerry remembered it that night, sitting on the porch of his house. There must be hundreds of items—tools and nails and hinges and glass and wire and sandpaper and oil and rope and seed and salt and sugar—that the tribe needed. How could they—?

There was a step on the path. "You there?" Caruso called.

"Yep."

The barber sat in the other chair, hoisted his feet to the railing. "You know how kids are."

"Um."

"That boy of mine, he couldn't stand it about Dark Valley. He was out there with a couple of pals, poking around."

"Yes?" Jerry didn't realize his voice was sharp.

"Oh, no trouble. But the middle fork of the river's started to run again!"

For a long time after Caruso had gone, Jerry sat with his cold pipe in his mouth. There were reasonable explanations for every one of the small oddities that had cropped up with Joe Merklos and his people. But he couldn't shake a growing feeling of uneasiness.

Jerry went to bed muttering, for he was a man trained to keep emotion and fact well separate. But the feeling was still with him when he awoke, and he recognized it later on Henderson's face.

"We got to get the boys together and talk this thing over," the feed and fuel owner said.

"What's up?"

"This stuff that's missin'."

Jerry gave a start. He had just spent at least half an hour looking for this garage lock.

"Every day of this week," Henderson went on heavily, "I've had people in to replace some little thing that was lost. Hatchets and feeding troughs and spare parts and panes of glass and things like that. A couple of old chicken brooders that was stored. Ten salt blocks Anderson had in his barn."

Just then MacAllister stepped over from his drugstore to join them. "Dammit," he said plaintively, dusting off his store jacket, "I been in the basement the last hour looking for an old pipe wrench. I swear I left it there!"

Jerry met Henderson's glance. "All right," he said. "Let's get the gang together 

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