"Sit down, gentlemen," the Toon Leader invited, going to a cupboard and producing a large bottle stopped with a corncob and a number of small cups. "It's a little early in the day," he said, "but this is a very special occasion. You smoke a pipe, I take it?" he asked Altamont. "Then try some of this; of our own growth and curing." He extended a doeskin moccasin, which seemed to be the tobacco-container. Altamont looked at the thing dubiously, then filled his pipe from it. The oldster drew his pistol, pushed a little wooden plug into the vent, added some tow to the priming, and, aiming at the wall, snapped it. Evidently, at times the formality of plugging the vent had been overlooked; there were a number of holes in the wall there. This time, however, the pistol didn't go off. He shook out the smoldering tow, blew it into flame, and lit a candle from it, offering the light to Altamont. Loudons got out a cigar and lit it from the candle; the others filled and lighted pipes. The Toon Leader reprimed his pistol, then holstered it, took off his belt and laid it aside, an example the others followed. They drank ceremoniously, and then seated themselves at the table. As they did, two more men came into the room; they were introduced as Alexander Barrett, the gunsmith, and Stanley Markovitch, the distiller. "You come, then, from the west?" the Toon Leader began by asking. "Are you from Utah?" the gunsmith interrupted, suspiciously. "Why, no; we're from Arizona. A place called Fort Ridgeway," Loudons said. The others nodded, in the manner of people who wish to conceal ignorance; it was obvious that none of them had ever heard of Fort Ridgeway, or Arizona either. "We've been in what used to be Utah," Altamont said. "There's nobody there but a few Indians, and a few whites who are even less civilized." "You say you come from a fort? Then the wars aren't over, yet?" Sarge Hughes asked. "The wars have been over for a long time. You know how terrible they were. You know how few in all the country were left alive," Loudons said. "None that we know of, beside ourselves and the Scowrers until you came," the Toon Leader said. "We have found only a few small groups, in the whole country, who have managed to save anything of the Old Times. Most of them lived in little villages and cultivated land. A few had horses, or cows. None, that we have ever found before, made guns and powder for themselves. But they remembered that they were men, and did not eat one another. Whenever we find a group of people like this, we try to persuade them to let us help them." "Why?" the Toon Leader asked. "Why do you do this for people you've never met before? What do you want from them--from us--in return for your help?" He was speaking to Altamont, rather than to Loudons; it seemed obvious that he believed Altamont to be the leader and Loudons the subordinate. * * * * *