She escorted the boy into the living room, where, pajama-clad and with a pile of magazines beside him, Loring Blade lay on a davenport and sipped lazily from a cup of coffee. He looked up and grimaced. "Whatever you want, I'm ag'in' it. I aim to stay here for the next nineteen years." Ted grinned. "Have they been pushing you pretty hard, Loring?" "I've been on the go forty-seven hours a day and, at a conservative estimate, I've walked nine million miles since deer season opened." "Was it bad?" "No worse than usual. Most of the hunters who came in were a pretty decent lot. But there always is--and I suppose always will be--the wise guy who thinks he can get away with anything. I caught one joker with nine deer." "Wow!" "He was fined," Loring said happily, "a hundred dollars for each one and suspension of hunting privileges for five years." "Smoky Delbert give you any trouble?" "You know better than that. Smoky can't walk a hundred yards from his house and won't be able to for a long while to come." "I feel kind of sorry for the poor cuss," Ted murmured. Loring Blade looked at him sharply. "You didn't come here to ask me about Smoky." "Oh, yes I did. Who talked with him after he was shot?" "I did, for one. Why?" "What did he tell you?" The warden shrugged. "You know that as well as I do. Smoky was walking up Coon Valley when your dad rose from behind Glory Rock and shot him." "Can you tell me the exact story?" Loring Blade looked puzzled. "What do you want to know, Ted?" "Did Smoky hear any shooting?" "Come to think of it, a half minute or so before he got to Glory Rock he heard two shots." Ted's heart pounded excitedly. The two shots had been for Damon and Pythias. Smoky wouldn't have heard the one that got him. Ted continued his questioning. "Did Smoky have any idea as to who was shooting at what?" "He thought your dad was banging away at a varmint." "Then he did know Dad had gone up Coon Valley ahead of him?" "Why yes, he saw his boot track in the mud. But you knew that." "Was Smoky afraid to go on?" "Why should he have been afraid? Who expects to get shot?" "Tell me exactly how he said he saw Dad shoot him." "Smoky was near the three sycamores when he thought he saw something move. A second later, your dad rose from behind Glory Rock and shot him." "Smoky's very sure of that? It was Dad that rose from behind the rock?" "He told the same story at least a dozen times that I know of. It never varied." "Dad didn't step out from beside the rock, or anything like that?" "No, he rose from behind it." "Loring, has it occurred to anybody, except me, that the back of Glory Rock is a sheer drop? Anyone who could rise from _behind_ and shoot over it would have to be at least nine feet tall!" "I--By gosh, you're right! I knew Al never bush-whacked him! He must have been standing in plain sight when Smoky came up the valley!" "Smoky never saw who shot him." "That's not the way he told it."