sir; on the way, sir," the bird chanted into Hartford's ear. He let the bird rest on his shoulder; it would have to fly back to the scout who'd sent it soon, to tell him to join the rest of them at the ambush-point.

The sun was low in the sky. H-hour was near. The signals began coming closer-together. "Saw one Stinker off your left flank, Miller.... Left flank-guard reporting, sir. That Gook took off due east. Blabrigar on his shoulder.... Lieutenant Felix here. Anything on the right flank?... Nothing, sir.... Keep moving, Lieutenant." This last voice was the colonel's.

Hartford frowned. If Nasty Nef had come out in person, the game would have to be played fast and dirty.

Hartford set his bitcher low. "Abunai yo!" he said to his guerrillas, sprawled out all along the ledge like figurines on a mantlepiece. "Be cautious. Shoot your dart and get behind something. From now on, be silent. The enemy is near."

Takeko spoke: "You mean, Lee-chan, that our brothers draw near." The other Kansans smiled. Some saluted, a gesture they'd observed among the Axenites they'd been spying upon for the past few days.

The first of the scouts came galloping up the gullet of the canyon. Without a sound he signaled his watching comrades, invisible above him. He made a circle with his hand, pointing up. That meant the Regiment's veeto-platform was scouting ahead of the approaching Axenites. The first man slapped his giraffu to hasten it up the pass, past the Daibutsu. Two other scouts, the foxes urging on the hounds, came shouting into the canyon. Neither of them was Ito Jiro. As his name signified, Jiro was the youngest son of Ito-san, the knife-maker. He was the darling of the family. Where was he? Hartford worried.

The radio, no longer masked by the rocks, was filled with information. Hartford heard the veeto-pilot reporting: "They're headed up the gulch past the big idol, sir," he said. "There's a village up there. That's where they're probably headed. What do you want me to do, sir?" The platform hovered over the canyon, unwilling to work its way into the jagged, bamboo-and-pine-prickly fissure.

"Keep in touch, Sky-Eye," Nef ordered. "We're coming right up."

"Felix here, sir," the lieutenant reported. "We've got one of the Gooks prisoner. He's just a kid. Doesn't seem to know a thing."

"Hold him till we get someone who talks Stinker," Nef said.

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