"Guess we can go, Tammie, and you'd better rest a bit. You're going into the hills tonight." Tammie wagged an agreeable tail and trotted out to the pickup with his master; Ted eased the little truck onto the road. He'd sent Tammie, with a load of food, the night before the Beaulieu party arrived and everything had gone without a hitch. Tammie had left shortly after midnight and returned two and a half hours later. The pack was empty save for the note Al had thrust in it. Dear Ted: Tammy cum al rite. This works good, huh? I got enuf to last me anyhow 2 weeks mor. Don't send Tammy befor. The les you got to send him, the beter it is. Good luk and thanks. Your dad Ted sighed wearily. He'd hoped that, with passing time, the situation would clear itself or be cleared. If anything, it was worse. Definitely out of danger, but due for a long convalescence in the Lorton hospital, Smoky Delbert had told everything. Starting from the Fordham Road, he had gone up Coon Valley with the intention of finding good places to set fox traps. He'd carried his rifle because there was always a chance of seeing a fox or bobcat, predators upon which there was a bounty. He'd known Al Harkness was ahead of him, for Al's distinctive boot marks had been left in the soft place where the spring overflowed the Coon Valley trail. Nearing the three sycamores, and without any warning at all, Al had risen from behind Glory Rock and shot. It was a simple, straightforward story and one that bore out other known facts. By his own admission, Al had been in Coon Valley the same day. He did wear boots with soles of his own design, and therefore they were distinctive. Smoky Delbert, a woodsman of vast experience, might very well have seen these tracks, in spite of the fact that Loring Blade had missed them. Ted sighed again. The papers had printed Smoky's story and most were sympathetic. There had even been a couple of resounding editorials demanding that Al be brought in--regardless of the cost and effort that might be expended to apprehend him--and face the justice he so richly deserved. But editors were not the only ones who had swung to Smoky's side. Time, John McLean had asserted, made people forget. Only, in this instance, it had made too many of them forget that Smoky Delbert was a vicious poacher. He had, instead, become the wronged innocent, and when Ted went into Lorton now there were those who averted their faces when they passed him or even crossed to the other side of the street to avoid meeting him at all.