Free Children of the Gates by Andre Norton Page A

small knife, blade bared.
    Linda had Lung on a leash again. The Peke kept close to his mistress, but he held his head high, turning it from side to side as if he were defining and cataloging the various scents of the land.
    The Run’s bank was their road. And along it they went in an order that apparently was customary to them, Hadlett and Stroud to the fore, then Mrs. Clapp and Jean Richards, with Linda, Crocker and Lady Diana playing rear guard. Nick joined the latter.
    “Running water.” Lady Diana looked down into the Run. “That has more than one use here, young man. You drink, you wash, and it can be a barrier for some of the Dark Ones.”
    Crocker grunted. “Except you never know with a new type whether it’s water-shy or not.”
    “There’s that of course,” Lady Diana agreed. “But here every-
thing’s really a matter of luck or chance. We’ve had more than our share of luck so far. There have been very difficult times—”
    Again Crocker had an addition. “That’s one way to see it. I’d say we’ve just squeaked through, more than once. I’d thought we’d used up all our luck when we walked away from the crash.”
    “What is that? ” Nick had been only half listening, more intent upon the land around them than the conversation. He was staring with stark amazement at what lay half on the bank, half in the Run on the opposite side of the water.
    A boat, canted over a little so its lower deck was awash on one side. But such a boat! And how had it come into the Run, which was manifestly too narrow and shallow to give it water room?
    Now that they were closer he could see that it had been nearly gutted by fire, which had eaten in places into the great stern wheel that had been its method of propulsion. But how had it come here—and when?
    He had seen a cruising sternwheeler on the Ohio River that took passengers for nostalgic rides during the summer. One such caught now in time?
    “It’s too big for this stream—” He protested against the evidence his eyes supplied.
    “Not in flood time.” Lady Diana carried a stout staff and with this she pointed to evidence, higher up the bank they traveled, that some time in the past there had indeed been a far greater rush of water here.
    “We went over that coming down the first time,” Crocker supplied. “Looks as if there had been an explosion. Hadlett said those things often blew up if they were pushed too hard. If there were any survivors”—the pilot shrugged—“they must have gone off. It’s been here for some time.”
    “This stream must join a larger one farther south.” Lady Diana nodded. “It drains the lake and flows southeast. If they came through and were lost, they could have turned into it, hunting—” She shook her head. “Panic came, and they pushed the engines harder all the time—then the end here.”
    “Those were in use,” Nick had no desire to view the charred hulk closer, “more than one hundred years ago.”
    “We’ve seen stranger than that.” Lady Diana strode along at an even pace Nick was trying hard to match.
    “Overseas.” She did not enlarge upon her statement and Nick did not ask questions.
    About a mile beyond the wreck of the sternwheeler, their party turned aside from the riverbank, to shortly after climb a rise overlooking fields. There Nick had his second shock of the morning.
    For there were lines bisecting this open land. They were straggling and in some places nearly gone, but this had been walled once, with fieldstone divisions, into recognizable fields! And down the slope directly before them was evidence of a road, drifted with soil, overgrown by grass, yet still a road that had once run straight between those deserted fields.
    Stroud’s arm swung up. In instantaneous answer the whole party dropped, flattened themselves in the shrubs growing here. From across the fields came another band of wanderers.
    There were horses, undersized when compared to those Nick knew—some bearing riders,