Rags' mutterings became deep and angry. Finally he gave vent to a short sharp bark.

Instantly Eddie quieted the dog. Lights or not, his mother had made it plenty clear about Rags' being in the house.

Crouching on the floor, both arms about Rags, Eddie whispered words of reassurance while he stared up at the strange sparklings. The oak tree—the one with his tree house—was a scant quarter mile from where he knelt, and he wondered if its being so high on the ridge had caused it to draw some sort of lightning to itself. He'd read of that happening ... chain lightning. Or was it called Fox Fire? Eddie couldn't remember. Anyway, it looked something like that, he imagined.

But no lightning, he remembered, made a noise like a machine. Unconsciously, he'd hooked sight and sound together.

Frowning, Eddie let go of the dog. If the lights had been over the barn or garage, he'd have gone to tell his father. Or over the garden, his mother. But the tree house didn't concern them. It was his, and even if it hadn't been an hour before dawn he wouldn't have told his parents. He had things in there he shouldn't have, and it wouldn't do for either mother or father to go snooping around, even if they couldn't find his secret ladder and climb it.

He returned to the window.

Something thrashed in the highest branches of the oak. Rags began his whining again.

There was but one thing to do. He found his moccasins by the night table and pulled them on, threw a leather jacket on over his pajamas. From the wall above his desk, Eddie took down his .22, broke it, slipped in a shell, and tiptoed from the house.

The humming was stronger outside. Not louder, exactly, but more easy to feel. He crouched down, the way he'd seen commandos do in pictures, and began to run, holding the rifle at ready before him. And for once, Rags seemed content to stay at his side and not go dashing along ahead up the path. As they took the turn by the big rock a startled nightbird plunged out of the bushes and took wing. The bird's violent rush brought caution to Eddie and he slowed his run to a walk. Suppose, he thought, that someone in a helicopter or maybe a balloon was hanging over the tree house. Spies, probably. And suppose they wanted the tree house for a headquarters.

He stopped, looked back down at the house dimly outlined in the starlight. Suppose, he continued, that 

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