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With this in mind, I kept a cautious distance behind Ja ender as evidence of our peaceable intent

Dah the broool, no doubt fro campfire spark I concealed the burned spot in a fold of skirt, thinking how odd it was that everyone regarded women as inherently harled houses and e to the other

Fortunately the ih it had dawned on me now and then that the Hippocratic Oath and its injunction to "Do no harht not have strictly to do with medical procedure I’d had the impulse to dot one of my more recalcitrant patients over the head with a stick of firewood e in check

Of course, e of a doctor’s jaundiced view of huo in so much for the recreational sorts ofeach other into pulp for fun Give the toward the barn, shouting at intervals, to no apparent effect I glanced round, but there were no fresh tracks in the dooryard save our own A scatter of dung balls lay near the half-hewn log, but those had plainly been left days ago; they were moist with dew, but not fresh--one, save on foot The Beardsleys, whoever and howeverlow, though It was early, but not so early that farm people would not already be about their chores; I had seen soainst the rising sun, looking for any sign of life I was htly apprehensive about the prospects of having one or iven recent events

I turned back to the door, and noticed an odd series of notches cut into the wood of the ja the coth of one doorpost, and halfway down the other I looked closer; they were arranged in groups of seven, a scant width of unscarred wood between the groups, as a prisonertrack of the weeks

Jaoats he’d mentioned, of course; I wondered whether it had been Keziah’s job toto become rapidly apparent, if it wasn’t already

Jamie took a few paces toward the house, cupped his hands round his ain No answer He waited a few ed and strode up onto the porch, where he hah noise to wake the dead, had there been any in the vicinity, and sent the chickens squawking away in a feather-scattering panic, but no one appeared in answer to the thunderous sulanced back at o off and leave their farms untended, not if they had livestock

"Soht "The goats are fresh-milked; there are drops still on their teats"

"Do you think they could all be out searching foreryou knoho?" Icloser to hi to peer into aIt had once been glassed, but , and a sheet of rattyI saw Jamie frown at it, with the craftsman’s disdain for a shoddy repair

He turned his head suddenly, then looked at ht it was the goats, but"

The bleat caain--this time unmistakably from the house Jae

"Bolted," he said briefly, and moved back to the here he reached carefully into the frame and pulled loose a corner of themy nose at the air that wafted out I was used to the odors of a winter-sealed cabin, where the scents of sweat, dirty clothes, wet feet, greasy hair, and slop jarsus and mold, but the aroma within the Beardsley residence ell beyond the nors in the house," I said, with a glance at the barn, "or there are ten people living in there who haven’t coreed He put his face into the , gri a mach! Come out, Beardsley, or I’m comin’ in!"

I peered over his shoulder, to see whether this invitation e, but so crowded that scarcely any of the stained wooden floor was visible through the rubble Sniffing cautiously, I deduced that the barrels I saw contained--as--salt fish, tar, apples, beer, and sauerkraut, while bundles of woolen blankets dyed with cochineal and indigo, kegs of black powder, and half-tanned hides reeking of dog turds lent their own peculiar fragrances to the unique oods, I supposed

The otherhad been covered as well, with a tattered wolf hide, so that the interior was dim and shadoith all the boxes, bundles, barrels, and bits of furniture lying in heaps, it looked like a poverty-stricken version of Ali Baba’s cave

The sound caain from the back of the house, sorowl I took a step back, sound and acrid se of dark fur and sudden violence

"Bears," I suggested, half-seriously "The people are gone and there’s a bear inside"

"Aye, Goldilocks," Jamie said, very dryly "Nay doubt Bears or not, there’s soe box froo, but before I could step off the porch, a shuffling noise carasped his dirk, but as he sahatever was inside, his hand relaxed on the hilt His eyebrows also rose in surprise, and I leaned over his aroods, looking round suspiciously, like a rat peering out of a garbage du wavy-haired and quite stout, but she blinked at us in the calculating way of ver the threat

"Go away," she said, evidently concluding that ere not the vanguard of an invading aran, "I am James Fraser, of--"

"I don’t care who you are," she replied "Go away"

"Indeed I will not," he said firmly "I must speak with the man o’ the house"

An extraordinary expression crossed her pluht have been aht lisp; it came out as mutht you? "And who says that you htly, but he answered calh