Clem led them into the woods while the Dragon sank down among the rocks, ready to come if called. A deep blanket of pine needles silenced their footsteps as they circled the rise in the middle of the isle and followed their noses toward the cook fire. Under the trees it was getting darker by the minute, now that the sun had dropped behind the thunderheads. A fresh breeze smelled of rain as well as frying fish.

"There!" whispered Clem. He had crawled on his stomach up to the edge of a sharp rise, gently pushing aside the lower boughs of a young cedar. The others followed his example and peered over the hill, down into a hollow at the tip of the cove.

They saw the fire immediately, a bright eye in the gathering gloom. It took a few more moments to make out other details in the camp. Two figures hunched over the fire, doing things with pots and a frying pan set on the coals. Others worked to pitch tents well back from the fire, among the pines. The watchers on the hill heard the low murmur of voices and the crackle of the fire.

"Just fishermen?" whispered Tom to Trover, prepared to be disappointed.

"No, look off to the left, under that steep bank, between the two white birches," said the trapper. "What do you see there?"

His companions stared intently at the spot. Just then one of the cooks laid a piece of dry pinewood on the fire and it flared, momentarily lighting the tiny hollow brightly.

Between the birches five people crouched in a row, their hands behind them, their heads bent low, looking very tired. Before the light died, the searchers saw their wrists were bound behind them and they all were threaded on a stout line stretched between the two trees. The arrangement allowed them to sit or crouch, but not to stand erect, unless they all stood at once.

"The one on this end?" Trover said in a choked whisper. "That's Boscor!"

r 214.

DRAGON COMPANION 215.

Don Callander "And the other passengers from Maiden," answered Tom with a nod.

"No, wait," Clem exclaimed. "There were five crewmen on Maiden, right?"

"Correct, counting my brother as one of them," answered Trover.

"And I heard six passengers. Nobody knew who they were."

"That's what was said at the inquiry," Tom agreed. "What's your point? I count eleven there, which accounts for all."

"But just eleven, you see? No more than eleven, which meansa"

"a that either the crew a or the passengers a were the pirates!" cried Tom, clutching Trover's arm.

"Certainly not Boscor!" grated out the lake man. "He's tied up with the prisoners. And his crew has been with him ten, twenty years. They're, most of them, our cousins. They're the ones tied up!"

"Do you recognize the captors?" Clem wanted to know.

*Too dark!" replied the lake man with bitterness. "We'll find out who they are, before we hang them."

"Back to the Dragon, then," Tom decided, sliding backward down the ridge on the slippery needles. "We need to plan a bit on this."

As they moved silently back through the wood, rain began to drum heavily through the dense pines, accompanied by jagged flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder.

Refinance, as the rain began to splash his back scales, found a shallow cavea-a mere overhanging rock, reallya- that would shelter his friends. He gathered a clawful of driftwood and laid a fire in a natural chimney at the back of the alcove, ready to fire up when they returned.

He heard them cominga-a Dragon has four very sharp earsa-and stuck his head and neck out of the shelter to hail them between crashes of thunder.

"Who would go adventuring without a Dragon!" exclaimed Tom. The three were soaked to the skin. The wind had chilled them, but in a few minutes the Dragon's close presence and the small fire warmed them and dried their clothes.

"We can be thankful for the rain," said Trover, wringing out his socks. "If they were planning to leave any time soon, they won't now. This wind will kick up a wicked chop on the lake."

"Not to mention the lightning," said Clem. "We'll want to move against them at once."

"I see no reason for delay," Tom agreed.

"Maybe let them get settled down for the night," Clem said. "To tell you the truth, I'd just as soon get this over with and go back to your house. Trover! It's going to be very uncomfortable here if we wait very long."

The rain had been increasing steadily and the storm was moving closer and closer with each thunderclap.

"I don't have any sleepy spells to cast over them," said the lake man regretfully. "How about you. Sir Dragon? Got any amulets to make us invisible when we attack? They outnumber us two to one, and I think they're heavily armed. How will we get close enough to release the captives?"

"No magic amulets, but something much better," boast-ed the Dragon. He laid a foot-long claw gently on Tom's shoulder. "I have a human!"

Trover gazed at the Librarian intently for a short moment and then laughed.

"I thought there was something different about you. Mas-ter Librarian! I feel much, much more optimistic about rescuing Boscor, now!"

Tom shrugged self-consciously, not yet fully accustomed to being thought of as different. The Dragon's words had the immediate effect of putting him in sole charge of the expedition.

"What we'll do," he said quickly, "is use the elements we've got to hand."

"Elements? Oh, you mean the rain?" asked Clem.

"The raina and surprise. We'll hit them in the worst of the storm, while they're huddled under their tents, wishing they could get dry and warm, hearing nothing but the rattle of rain and the roar of thunder."

The other two and the Dragon's head drew close as he outlined a simple plan. After a suggestion or two, it was agreed to and set in motion.

WRACKEY, the largest and strongest of the Bloodthirsty Band, as they rather vaingloriously called themselves, 216.

DRAGON COMPANION 217.

Don Callander checked the bonds that held the prisoners before crawling back into a tent made of a tarpaulin stretched over a piece of line between two trees. The hollow was already inches deep in cold rainwater and what clay soil there was had turned to thick, slippery mud. First mate Splitter had neglected to lay a tarp under the tent to keep the inside dry.

The pirate chief cursed viciously and kicked Splitter, who was already sound asleep on one side of the skimpy shelter, oblivious to the wet and cold. Drawing no response, the captain launched several other, progressively more foul curses at the sleeping mate before settling down in a damp and smelly blanket.

Lightning blazed close by, making the pirate cringe. It was followed immediately by a tremendous crash. A close strike! the pirate thought. Almost on top of me!

Rain, rain, go away! An old rhyme came back. Come again some other day! Wicked Wrackey wants to a sleep! The thought, if not the rhyme, made the pirate grin uneasily into the darkness.

A DOZEN yards away, deep in the piney wood, the rescuers huddled under a spreading hemlock, as much out of the rain as possible. They had to shout to make themselves heard over the hammering of the rain.

"Give them a few minutes more to get to sleep," advised Clem. They had watched by lightning flashes as the pirate chief checked the prisoners. These unfortunates were left out in the weather while the pirate crew crawled into their tents near the drowning fire.

"Remember your assignments," Tom cautioned. "Clem, the far end of the picket line and cut it clean. Trover, speak to your brother and tell him to keep his fellows quiet, while you strip the tether through their arms."

"Understood!" replied Clem, drawing his sheath knife. He tested its keen edge for the fifth time since they had left the Dragon's cave.

"Aye, aye, sir!" replied a nervous but determined Tro-ver.

"Quickly but quietly," cautioned the Librarian. "Don't take time to free their wrists until you get them away. I don't think their feet are bound."

The others nodded.

"The Dragon and I'll keep the pirates busy. If anything goes wrong, call for help in a loud voice and Retruance will come to your aid at once. Ready?"

Not waiting for a reply, he slid down the bank into the hollow, darted across the open ground about the drowning fire, and took station between two of the three tents, facing the prisoners.

If the captives noticed his dash, they didn't show a sign of it. They were either asleep, or blinded by the torrential rain.

Tom watched as two blacker shadows moved swiftly to either end of the prisoners' line and waited until he saw the glint of Clem's hunting knife in a flash of lightning. There was a faint murmur as Trover spoke to his brother, shaking him alert and awake. The rope slithered through the bound arms. All five were suddenly on their feet, shakily, but they followed Trover up the gentler back slope of the hollow. They disappeared at once under the confusing shadows of the wind-whipped pines. Clem turned to wave a signal.

"Now!" yelled Tom into the rain-filled air.

One of the pirates gave a snort and a grunt but before any of the six could squirm from soggy blankets and out of their tents, a green-and-gold Dragon dropped out of the sky falling across all three tents at once, snapping the supporting lines. The pirates within were squashed flat by a ton or two of hard, slippery scales pushing them into the pine needles and mud.

They screamed, choked, and struggled, but Retruance lay atop their shelters, grinning broadly and humming a cheerful country air under his breath. Wisps of smoke and flickers of fire came from his wide nostrils, lighting the scene like some version of pirate hell.

"When you're finished floundering about," Tom called to them in a loud voice, "the Dragon will release you, one at a time, to be disarmed and bound."

Most of the pirates began to beg for mercy, wailing piteously, especially those with enough of a view to see they were being squashed under a tremendous, fire-breathing Dragon. The leader who had checked the prisoner's bonds a moment ago lay sobbing in frustration and fear. Clem returned to help Tom. "You!" growled Tom, prodding the first pirate figure 218 Don Callander with his toe. "Up and shed your weapons. Quick! Or the Dragon broils you alive. No tricks!"

One by one the pirates clawed their way from under the wet blankets and collapsed canvas.

When Clem at last coaxed Wrackley out from the last tent, they were sure.

Each of the six pirates was a a woman!

^20^.

Judgment at Lakehead BLEARY eyed, foul tempered, and more than a bit hung over, Bailiff Kedry drove his posse onto City Pier at six in the morning. They had spent most of the previous day picking flotsam and jetsam from the lakea-what Kedry called "sig-nificant clues"a-and the night drinking and talking about their adventures, mostly imaginary.

"Dear, dreaded bailiff!" called one of the back rank-ers, before the official had a chance to speak, "we were on the lake over twelve hours in rain and storm yesterday. It's pure, blind luck nobody drowned. Several of us lost valuable boats. Did we find anything that made it all worthwhile?"

"Of course we did, you damned fool pigeon seller!" yelled Kedry. "We found a ah, er a thirty-two pieces of rope, seven torn gill nets, forty-three glass floats of various sizes, a stove-in scuttlebutt, an empty beer barrel, and over a hundred empty wine bottles. That's not nothing!"

The posse wearily pretended to be impressed. They were paid five coppers a day to serve and were having a good time all in all.

The pigeon seller, always the gadfly, retorted, "What do these pieces of trash mean. Bailiff? Do you know where Boscor and his crew and passengers are being held?"

"Not yet," admitted the bailiff. "But we're working on it."

DRAGON COMPANION 219.

"Who," someone else asked plaintively, "is *we'?"

"Listen up!" Kedry shouted him down. "Here are my orders for the day."

They would again search on the lake, he said, this time calling at every island. Where there were no inhabitants, Kedry said, search parties would fan out and examine every square foot of ground for signs of the pirates.

"Do you realize how many islands there are?" the pigeon merchant scoffed, incredulous. The posse murmured its agreement, but not too loudly.

"Police work takes time and patience," Bailiff lectured them, "and attention to the smallest details. Don't get discouraged! This is only our second day of the manhunt!"

Most of Kedry's searchers had been chosen from his close acquaintances and drinking companions. They had no objection to a pleasant voyage on a sunny day to visit island hamlets. It they were lucky, the fishermen's women would be alone and well stocked with the particularly potent liquor they distilleda-or so the rumors saida-against their isolation and lack of menfolk through the long days of the summer fishing season.

Despite the defection of a sensible handful, more than twenty posse men filed down to the end of City Pier and were scrambling playfully, like boys on a school picnic, into a sloop and two ketches Kedry had commandeered, when someone looked out over the lake and yelped in fear.

"Dragon! Dragon! A Dragon!"

The word flew through the crowd. A number of would-be pirate hunters immediately remembered promising their wives to clean their cellars that day and began to shuffle away across the square.

Kedry was so crowded in by his posse that there was no room for him to faint, fall, or flee. As a child, his mother had frightened him with tales of fearsome Dragonsa and all the things she warned him never to do again or "the Dragons would get you," he'd insisted on doing, anyway.

Retruance came winging grandly out of the rising sun, beating straight for City Pier. His wingtips slapped the water on each powerful downstroke, flicking up towers of spray to sparkle in the backlight.

On the Dragon's scaly head rode four mena-the two Overhall travelers, and another pair, recognized at once DRAGON COMPANION 221.

Don Callander 220.

as the long-feuding Sacksa-although their fight seemed now forgiven. They were grinning broadly, nodding to the crowd, and clinging firmly to a Dragon ear.

Trailing the Dragon on long lines were the two boats missing from sloop Maiden, skipping over the waves at a breathtaking pace; Retruance's slowest flying speed was considerably faster than anything a Carolna boat had ever achieved before.

In their bottoms huddled a ragged, disheveled band. Clinging grimly to the thwarts, as guards, were Boscor's four sailors, grinning from ear to ear.

The Dragon, in a move that almost caused the bailiff's demise from pure fright, settled himself in the water and lowered his massive head to allow his passengers to step dry-shod onto the stone mole mere yards from where Kedry was rapidly turning to quivering, pink jelly.

"Ahoy! Bailiff!" called Trover in a jovial and carrying hail. "We've rescued my beloved brothera-the Librarian, the woodsman, the Dragon and I. We captured the pirates, too! Think of the trouble we've saved you!"

A ragged cheer went up from the onlookers. Towns-people roared their approval at such a brave and daring rescue. Posse men applauded the fact that they would not have to spend the day rowing and sailing among a hundred islands, chasing a fierce crew of pirates. They seemed, all at once, glad to forgo their fees, the lonely fisher wives and daughters, and their homemade booze.

The crowd surged forward, despite the nearness of the immense Dragon, and carried their leader, willy-nilly, right up to where the brothers Sack and the young strangers were standing, modestly accepting congratulations. "Er," said Kedry. "Ah? Ugh!"

"Words fail the bailiff!" shouted Trover to the crowd. "He's overcome with gratitude and relief that all are safe and sound."

This brought a loud laugh from the throng. Boscor clapped the gasping bailiff on the back, as though he were chokinga- which he was.

"You had no righta," coughed the bailiff. "You had no authoritya you should have come to me, not gone off on your own!"

"You were busy with your own search. Master Bailiff,"

put in the Librarian. "The opportunity arose to capture the pirates, and we seized it, knowing that to delay would be to allow them to escape with their prisoners."

"That makes great sense to me," said a new voice. Mayor Fellows shouldered his way to the end of the pier, smiling broadly at the rescuers. "I think they did just right," he said to Kedry. "You'd have done the same, in their shoes, Bailiff!"

"Ah, and well, er. Your Honor," gulped Kedry, lamely accepting the soothing compliment. "I suppose you're right, Lord Mayor!"

"Of course I am!" cried the mayor, and he shook hands cordially with the Sack brothers, and nodded cordially to Retruance, Tom, and Clem.