"And right you are, for a fact!" Freddy Farmer breathed, and tied the last shoelace. "Your way suits me quite all right. As you Yanks say, there's no need to have somebody pull our necks out." "You and Yank lingo!" Dawson groaned. "But skip it. Let's go, and ... But, hey! What about your feet, Freddy?" "They'll last," young Farmer assured him, and stood up. "It was only a pebble, anyway. Let's get going." Only a pebble. Just a tiny fragment of stone. Yet the presence of that pebble in Freddy Farmer's shoe was to send them both into the Valley of Death, and perhaps even to change the entire course of the war in the Pacific! CHAPTER THREE _The Talking Shack_ "It's the next shack beyond this one, Freddy," Dawson murmured softly as he laid a restraining hand on his friend's arm. "Just hold it a second, and see if we can hear anything. Somehow I like this even less. The door shut, and every shade drawn, such as they are. Or am I just getting jumpy?" "Well, anyway, shut up, if you want us both to listen!" Freddy Farmer breathed back at him. Dawson grinned, made a face, and then with Freddy standing motionless at his side, he listened intently for any sounds coming from inside the shack just beyond the one behind which they crouched. And he did hear sounds. So did Freddy Farmer. The muffled and completely indistinct sound of two people talking. A tremor of excitement rippled through Dawson, and he squeezed Freddy's arm. A moment later, though, he frowned silently and wondered if perhaps he and Freddy weren't just being a couple of fools. After all, this wasn't the war zone. They weren't behind the enemy lines, or even their own lines. This was California, and what if they did see a soldier and a civilian go into one of the crop pickers' shacks? So what? And maybe that gun wasn't a gun after all. Freddy and he would certainly look awfully foolish if the pair inside that shack should suddenly come out and see them crouched there gaping wide-eyed like a couple of kids playing cops and robbers. Those and other disturbing thoughts floated through his brain as he frowned at the shack. He turned his head and looked at Freddy questioningly. And the look young Farmer gave him in return indicated clearly that the English-born air ace was entertaining pretty much the same thoughts. "Maybe it's stupid, huh?" Dawson formed the words with his lips. Freddy nodded slowly, but at the same time a sort of half puzzled and half stubborn look glowed in his eyes. And then in the very next instant what indecision either of them may have had was wiped away by a cry of anger coming from the shack beyond. At least it sounded like anger to them both, although the sound was still too muffled to permit them to pick out individual words. "Well, that tears it as far as I'm concerned!" Dawson grunted. "I'm going to get a better look, whether it seems screwy or not."