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Doc and Margo scouted the rock slope to its crest and the road for two hundred yards beyond the boulder-block without finding any signs of huh they did disturb four lizards and a hawk The valley ahead between the last two es was all blackened It held only wet ashes of its manzanitas and yuccas, and charred skeletons of its scrub oaks Presumably it had been fiercely burned out a few hours before - Which helped explain why no more people had come this way

Clarence Dodd and Harry McHeath voluntarily joined in the reconnoiter, speeding it up The latter e and reported that it fell away sheer for five hundred feet to a rocky knob and a steep, rock-studded, brush-grown slope

Neither of Black Hat&039;s revolvers turned up - either they&039;d carried over the cliff or been lost in the pitted and creviced rocks

The two sedans beyond the boulder still had their ignition keys, which Doc pocketed Doddsy jotted down the na his flashlight to eke out the fading green daylight, and he speculated as to whether one of them was that of the Black Dahlia sadist Presumably Black Hat and his acolytes had coirl, from the other direction in the red Corvette - a purely chanceat the roadblock - and then, probably before the rains, while fla , an appropriately hellish backdropit didn&039;t do to think about it

Meanwhile, Ross Hunter and the Hixons corded up the irl&039;s body in Doc&039;s borrowed raincoat and the smallest of the truck&039;s tarpaulins The olive-drab bundle was lugged a hundred feet up the rock slope and eased into a coffin-size cave young McHeath had spotted Pinned to the tarpaulin was a brief account in Doddsy&039;s waterproof ink of the circumstances of her death and, with a question mark, the woistration papers The Ra hier-traced Isis-loop in front of his forehead

Then everyone began to feel a bit better, though as horror and excitement died it also became obvious that everyone was tired half to death and this must be their bivouac Preparations weredown in the school bus, the two injured et a lot chillier before dawn Hixon was bothered aboutdown in case of a quake, but Doc pointed out that they&039;d stayed in place through a couple of dillies, and that anyway the Wanderer&039;s gravity had probably triggered off during the first few hours after its e to

Doc decided two persons would sit guard through the night, well blanket-wrapped in a low-ramparted natural scoop in the rocks two-thirds of the way up the slope and almost directly above the boulder block They would be array pistol Doddsy and McHeath would take it to o, twelve to two-thirty, himself and Rama Joan, two-thirty to dawn Hixon would have the other rifle and nap in the driver&039;s seat in the bus The wouard duty would sleep in the truck cab with Ann Wanda coements, and Doc snapped out a peppery answer

The primus stove was fired with charcoal Water was heated on it for the powdered coffee They made supper of that and the milk and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches froht she wouldn&039;t be able to stoooey child&039;s fodder, but found herself ravenous after the first bite and disposed of three, along with a pint of cafe au lait She felt lightheadedly drunk, herwith visions of the red-hooded sadists being swept by her pistol to their deaths, and she said what she felt to everyone shethe Ramrod behind the bus, she asked him point-blank: "Mr Fulby, is it true you&039;re married to both Ida and Wanda?"

He, quite unoffended, nodded his narrow, grizzled head and replied: Yes indeed, in our eyes they are bothrelationship, on the whole I originally lory - she was a Baby Wampas star - and Ida for the spirit&039;s exaltation Of course, things are a bit different now"

The scowly old bus driver heard most of that speech and turned aith a snort

"Jealous, Pop?" Margo asked hierishka finished feeding Miaow for a third tilanced at Paul Then, hat he sur of those lovely violet-barred green shoulders that had more play and stretch in them than any tennis star&039;s or Hindu dancer&039;s, she returned to the Food Panel, then swam over to hi behind her She hovered by hi him up and down, as if momentarily uncertain whether to force-feed hih a vein, or perhaps rectally

His throat now ached with thirst, un to feel very lightheaded, though er What he was e in Tigerishka While Miaow fed, the large cat had been dancing - a wonderfully swift, rhyth between ceiling and floor of the saucer, pushing off froe ht had pulsed in tierishka, Paul realized noas a toe-dancer by anatorade, not plantigrade - and her heel the leg-joint above the to the lower elbow in her forear his mind off all his pains and anxieties

Now the lovely ballerina had becoain the impersonally sadistic nurse - a hateful transformation

So in spite of his thirst he sadly shook his head and tried to press his nuht Then he pushed up his eyebrows and solemnly lifted his face toward hers in the only expression of appeal his h he was very conscious of how exquisitely like a gagged and pinionedhi lips - another n, he felt sure, and continued to conteain, he knew, and he had been in the saucer a full twelve hours, for the last observation had been another unmistakable one - of San Francisco sinking into evening, but showing&039;the black stains and s of ships in the Golden Gate Then the saucer had tilted, and he had seen the Wanderer rising in the east in itsaround it that a few seconds of frantic thought convinced hierishka reached out and brushed his right wrist with the back of a green paw, then sat back again He realized with rather incredulous wonder that his right arers, bent and unbent the elboith less pain than he&039;d anticipated, then started to lift his fingers to his lips, but stopped theht interpret it as ht his fingers to his forehead, then in one smooth movement dropped them to his lips and out toward her pointed ears Inspiration continuing, he dropped them toward her muzzle, then swept them back to his own ear