"When we bed, it has to be a proper bargain. What will you give?" she prompted breathily. And when he focused on her face, his congealing reason threatened to melt away beneath him again. Her eyes were shimmering pools of desire, her lips were love-stung, her face glowed in the moonlight as though she were some night-conjured goddess of temptation.

His guts contracted sharply around the core of need burning in the middle of him. And with each passing heartbeat, the "Townsend" in him recovered lost ground. A bargain. He quivered, not wanting to believe his ears. She wanted to bargain him with her body... bribe him with her own tempting flesh?! He went rigid in her embrace and dragged his hands down the splintery barn wall into fists. Anger welled within him, alloyed with humiliating betrayal and lingering desire.

She had assaulted him, made him a laughingstock before his own men, tricked and finagled and "bargained" him. And now she was shamelessly wheedling and bartering her own body... to get him to pull his men out of Rapture, to get him to slink back to Boston empty-handed-in disgrace!

"I want the liquor," he rasped, finding that each word ripped vital connections in the middle of him, isolating that core of desire in his center, "And the stills, and the lawbreakers."

It was happening again... the coldness, the angry withdrawal. Whitney was stunned. Her arms slid down his rigid sides as she searched the changes in his shadowed face, felt the leashed trembling of his body. He wanted the distillers, he said. Was that to be part of the bargain between them? His price for loving her? When the question formed in her heart, it formed on her lips as well.

"Including me?"

Lord-he realized-there it was. The one question he'd avoided, the reason he'd not allowed himself to think she was really involved. Was he really capable of arresting her? Every time he was near her he went completely out of control, disgraced himself, compromised his mission. Even now, catching disturbing glimpses of vulnerability in her eyes, he was seized by an unholy urge to gather her against him.

"A bargain?" he snarled, panicking at the mush she'd made of his manly determination and making himself ignore the shock in her face. She was a deceiver, a dissembler without peer; he sneered at his tenacious desire for her. It was his flaw, his weakness that made him imagine something as absurd as 'hurt' in her. She was a soul-wrecking piece of temptation... nothing more!

"Wheedling and bartering. Your charms for a strategic military withdrawal, is that the bargain you expected? You really thought you could rut and wriggle your way out of what you and the rest of your lot have coming?! You conniving little Jezebel!"

He took two steps back, shaking. "Well, you've gotten nothing for your base, tawdry bit of bargaining except trouble. I, on the other hand, now know exactly who to watch. And I'll catch you, wench... you and your whole gang of traitors!"

Whitney watched, horror-struck, as he raked her with a killing look of contempt, retrieved his hat, and bolted onto his fancy horse. A moment later, she was standing in a swirl of dust, choked, unable to breathe. Hurt rampaged inside her, spurred on by disbelief, and by humiliation.

He thought she'd been offering her body in payment for his withdrawing his men from their search?! The irony of it sickened her physically as the full ramifications of it bore in on her. If only she'd been so clever! He was the sworn enemy of her pa and her people and she'd sought a bedding bargain with him, would have given herself to him in loving. Her womanly desires had overridden her duty, her responsibilities-everything of value to her. When his lips closed over hers, she forgot everything except the blinding pleasures of his kiss and his caress. Where was her trader instinct and-Suffering Saint Stephen!-where was her pride?

She shook her head and closed her eyes, hearing those last cruel words rumbling about in her head. Now he knew who to watch... who to catch. He'd gotten exactly what he came for, information. And under his expert kisses-Lord! He hadn't even stooped to caressing her!

He'd let her own newborn desires do his foul work for him. She felt the burning of her breasts, the ache of need that lingered in her woman's hollow and recalled the way she sought him with her body, eagerly, without shame. And shame now filled her from head to toe, crushing the budding womanliness of her heart, souring the sweet lingerings of pleasure within her.

She'd betrayed her pa, and likely her people, into his hands. A Jezebel, he'd called her. Maybe he was right. She'd cast years of love and loyalty aside for a few moments of pleasure in- Lord, not even in his arms!

Holding herself together with her arms around her waist, she made her way to a bench at the side of the house and collapsed. The squeezing around her heart was unbearable. A Jezebel. She was a Jez- The thought froze in her mind. For a moment she sat suspended between the crush of shame and the countering swell of stubborn Daniels pride. She slowly straightened on the bench, the pain in her heart now challenged by a charge of championing reason. Blood flowed back into her limbs and pride's flame was rekindled in her eyes.

"Not a Jezebel," she murmured, feeling all the world taking on a new order of rotation. And in her Daniels heart, another of life's haunting puzzles was suddenly solved. She wasn't a Jezebel; she was a Delilah.

There were two kinds of women in the world. Aunt Kate had always said; decent women and Delilah's. The summary had always made Whitney a bit nervous, afraid she'd hear that fateful judgment pronounced upon her someday. Deep within, she had feared that her dislike of skirts and her shunning of customary femininity made her a prime candidate for the category Aunt Kate disdained so... "Delilah's."

Now the reality she had dreaded had finally arrived. She drew a taut breath and waited, probing, exploring it. And out of the terror of expectation rose up a surprising new feeling of relief, a sense of self discovered. She'd tried the "decent" way, had opened her womanly heart to a man and tried to strike an honest bargain. And look what it had gotten her. Hurt, humiliation, womanly tears. Ugh! The "Delilah" in Whitney Daniels would never have been so stupid as to try to deal forthrightly with the likes of- Major Samson. That's what she'd called him, in angry jest. Little had she understood the revealing nature of her taunt. Every man was a Samson, Aunt Kate said. And that included Major Garner Townsend, whether he liked it or not. He had that "fever" in his blood, just like Charlie and the other bucks; there was the proof. That was what made him kiss her and touch her and turn all hot and lustful when they were together... just pure Samson Fever. It had nothing to do with her, she realized with shamed fire in her eyes and heart. He'd have undoubtedly done the same with any Delilah, nothing personal to it at all. It happened exactly like Aunt Kate said, she realized, swallowing the bitterness in her throat. The proud and self-righteous Iron Major, that paragon of abstinence and federal virtue, was just a Samson after all, waiting for a Delilah to come along.

"Whitney?" Kate found her a minute later, sitting on the bench, her back straight, her eyes glowing strangely in the silvery light. "Heavens, Whitney, it's freezing out here!" She slipped the thick shawl around on her shoulders, making room for Whitney and collecting her in it. "Are you all right?" She settled on the bench beside her niece. "The major, he didn't... do anything... ?"

"Him?" Whitney felt the welcome warmth of her aunt's embrace and purged the last of her decent, womanly qualms in another of her artful half-truths. "He's too fine to soil his hands with the likes of... us." Too fine, it echoed in her head. Too proud.

Of all men, smug, self-righteous Major Townsend deserved a Delilah. And he'd certainly found one!

Chapter Nine.

The very next morning, Whitney broke her longstanding habit of late-to-bed, as-late-as-possible-to-rise; she was awake and about at the very first rays of dawn. And when she came downstairs to help with breakfast chores, she was dressed in her green woolen dress, and wearing a much-dreaded corset beneath. Her aunt stood in the middle of the kitchen with her arms limp at her sides and stared, slack-jawed. Whitney greeted her with a sweet smile, put on a shawl, and seized the milking bucket. Kate watched her crossing the yard, headed for the barn, and her eyes widened on the determined, womanly sway of the proper green skirts. Whitney's overnight conversion to the rigors of womanliness was alarming in the extreme, for it didn't take a gypsy mind-reader to know what had prompted it.

It was that major, and probably whatever had passed between Whitney and him in the darkened yard last night. Kate's stomach did a slow turn. The handsome, arrogant major was obviously of good family and high social position, and with his stunning good looks, was undoubtedly a man of the world. Just the sort to dazzle and disgrace a spirited, but inexperienced, young girl like Whitney. Nothing in Whitney's life or associations in this tightly-knit frontier community could have prepared her for the smooth treachery and carnal opportunism of the well-bred gentry.

The sudden remembrance of the sight of them standing by Whitney's bed, roused and trembling with restrained desire, booted Kate's anxiety to intense new levels. Whitney was a good and decent girl with a tender heart, for all her "buckish" ways. It would be partly her fault if the major took advantage of Whitney, Kate realized. Her, with all her insistence on ladylike behavior and praise of society folk and their ways...

A mile and a half away, in his room on the second floor of Dedham's cozy tavern, the Iron Major was breaking his longstanding habit of early-to-bed, early-to-rise. He lay sprawled, face down, on his too-short bed, having failed to remove even his dusty boots before collapsing on it. Midmorning, Benson braved his commander's lair to bring him a bowl of watery oat porridge and found him dead to the world. At Benson's discreet cough, he came alive, springing up, wild-eyed, with a disoriented snarl.

Seeing that it was just Benson, he dragged his hands down over his reddened eyes and tight face. He flinched and pulled his hands away to glare at them. Benson sidled over warily for a look and let out a sinking whistle.

"Wheeeoooo. Them's some nasty splinters, Majur. Lucky I done a bit of surgury now an' agin."

And shortly the Iron Major was having several rather painful reminders of his latest encounter with Whiskey Daniels plucked from beneath his skin. Fiendishly appropriate, he snarled, trying not to flinch when Benson dug in with his knife-point. Under his skin. God. Some warped, depraved minion of fate was having a regular horselaugh over it, to be sure. His hands were full of splinters from the damnable barn wall! This was what he got from trying to keep his hands off Whiskey Daniels... imagine what horrible fate awaited if he ever actually...

His eyes closed. It didn't bear thinking about.

By midday, the major was shaved and dressed and stalking through his camp, surveying the damage done by the damnable Daniels cider. His men were moving slowly, as though their heads might topple from their shoulders, but were otherwise intact. Seeming anxious to appease his wrath, they scurried to implement his commands. Despite their pounding heads and furry mouths, they were soon pulling down and chopping up the wretched liberty pole and cleaning and purging the camp, even digging the new latrines he'd ordered. If their commander was willing to let bygones be bygones, then they'd not grumble against their luck.

The major called Laxault to him and sent the gravel-throated sergeant and two of his longsuffering men out to the Daniels farmstead with orders to stay hidden and see everything. They were to follow "the wench" wherever she went and report back regularly. He watched them slip into the woods in the direction of the Daniels place and smiled a tight, vengeful smile. He was going to see the little Jezebel got a bit more than she'd "bargained" for.

Things were quiet in the soldiers' camp that afternoon, and that evening. The morning's driving sense of urgency was transformed into an uneasy sense of expectation. The relief the men felt at not being punished for their drunken spree was short-lived. By evening they were back to their surly, uncooperative selves, nursing their shovel-sore arms and backs and staring, disgruntled, into their watery beans. And the next morning, when Aunt Harriet Delaney appeared covertly at the edge of camp, seeking a willing worker or two, she had quite a few hungry volunteers.

The second morning, Whitney appeared again in skirts and went about her chores with a pleasant mien and an infuriating helpfulness to her manner. Kate watched her with an unnerving feeling that something was simmering within her. Occasionally Whitney would stop in the middle of something, like feeding hens or churning, and her head would tilt and her eyes would take on a speculative glint as they perused some distant vision. Kate knew the signs; a Daniels at work.

When Whitney came in to dinner that afternoon, she announced, "Well, there are three of them."

"Three what?" Kate asked, straightening over her stew kettle at the hearth and pushed the swing-iron back over the coals with a wooden spoon. She turned to find a dangerous sparkle in her niece's eyes.

"Three soldiers, watching the house and barn. They've been there all night." Blackstone Daniels's crafty smile lit his daughter's similar features. "I expect they're good and hungry, Aunt Kate. They'd probably appreciate a bit of that stew and a hot cup of coffee."

Kate couldn't suppress a grin and felt a slide of relief in the middle of her. No doubt that was what had had Whitney so preoccupied. Trust Whitney to know everything that was happening around them. And trust a Daniels to find a way to kill an enemy... with kindness.

In truth there was a good bit more on Whitney's mind: the future of Rapture Valley, her pa's imminent return, and the potentially catastrophic admissions she'd made under the major's treacherous questioning techniques. What would happen when Black Daniels came back to Rapture and found the place awash in federals who were just waiting to entrap him? Whatever else Blackstone Daniels was, he was passionate about the causes he believed in, and not the least bit timid about trouble. When her pa came back to the valley, he'd be set on a collision course with the Iron Major. If she was responsible for betraying her pa's distilling activities, then she'd just have to see the damage undone. She'd have to get rid of the major before Pa came home.

There was the "Daniels" way and the "Delilah" way...

"Majur, she ain't been nowhere," Laxault made his report the next evening, trying not to show just how underhanded he felt. She couldn't have been anywhere, he rationalized, 'cause she brought him and his men food three times a day and otherwise was in plain sight, doing chores, or in the house.

"And just where the hell is she now, while you're standing here palavering, Sergeant?" the major demanded, rising from his seat at the tavern table and planting his fists on his waist.

"Why, she's right outside, Majur... in camp. Bro't a blanket to that Dunbar buck. I figur'd it'd be time fer me to be makin' a repor-"

"Dammit!" The major tightened all over and tore from the tavern. He was halfway down the main path to his camp before he pulled his haste and his temper back under control. He made himself slow and stiffened his spine, searching for the annoying deerskin breeches and boyish boots.

But it was skirts that caught his eye, green woolen skirts and the burnished glint of gingery hair in an unbound girlish fall. He faltered slightly, he hadn't expected to see her like this... womanly. He'd half convinced himself the incident of the other night had been a dream, a very disturbing dream.

Whitney was just bidding Charlie good-bye when she caught sight of the major bearing down on them like a runaway freight-wagon. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face his ire and perform her solemn duty.

"Just what in hell are you doing here?" he demanded, stopping a prudent four feet away. It wasn't quite as intimidating, he knew, but it was certainly safer. "I ordered you to stay out of this camp." His eyes drifted irritably to the rounded scoop of her bodice and the creamy flesh visible beneth her lapped shawl.

"It's getting colder, Major," she answered in a level tone. "Since you're so intent on keeping poor Charlie, here, chained to a tree, in the cruel elements, I thought it only right that he have an extra blanket." It was said with a straight face, but she couldn't help flicker a pointed look at the pile of blankets stacked on the exposed roots of the tree where Charlie was tied. Apparently everybody in Rapture was concerned for Charlie's warmth, just as they were solicitous of his belly, which had broadened noticeably in the idleness of captivity. The major followed her gaze and felt the goad in it.

"Dammit, I want you out of my camp, now! This instant!" he roared.

"You certainly are given to swearing, Major. Makes a body wonder just what kind of people raised you."

"Out!" he growled, stalking forward, threat in every line of his lean body. She cast a glance behind her and began to back away, along the path, though with a noticeable lack of quailing. And when they were out of Charlie's earshot, she stopped, causing him to jerk to an abrupt halt to keep from running her down. A quick look around assured they were not likely to be overheard, though they were being watched closely from several quarters.

"I want you out of Rapture Valley, we all do." Her voice was low and earnest and her eyes darkened and glittered like emeralds. "And you obviously want to succeed in your mission here. I have a proposition, Major-"

"Don't be absurd, wench," he growled, feeling a warning prickle rising in his neck. "I've made it perfectly clear I'll have nothing to do with either you or your wretched bargains." He was unnerved by her calm demeanor and the chilled, crystalline look in her lovely eyes.

"You can't have our still nor our distillers, Major," she raised her chin to a well-known trading angle, outwardly ignoring his declaration of disinterest. Inwardly she quivered as his caustic words sank deep into her womanly heart. "But I'm here to offer you the liquor, every last drop. And I can assure you, there's quite enough to make a regular triumph of the military maneuvers you've been conducting in the countryside night after night. It's yours, Major, providing you take it and leave the valley the very next day, without looking back."

Her shawl slipped from one shoulder as she crossed her arms beneath her bosom, but she gave no indication she'd felt it. Her eyes were intense and trader-shrewd on the stages of his reaction. Derision flashed through his eyes first, an urge to sneer and berate both her and her "bargain." But before it blossomed into full reaction, the true scope of the opportunity dawned in his heated mind and he began to realize what it involved.

What it involved, Whitney knew, was the accomplishment of his ambitions in Rapture... in a way that both preserved his precious pride and made a mockery of it at the same time. His victory was being handed to him, and she couldn't say whether she wished to see him take it or refuse it. Some part of her wanted to see him abase those arrogant, self-righteous principles of his; another part wanted to see him turn it down... wanted to make him uphold his male honor at the expense of his ambition. That's what this was ultimately about, she realized, pride and honor. She held her breath. Had she found the arrogant major's price or not?

Red crept up his neck into his ears and infused his tight jaws, then his forehead and scalp. At his sides his fingers were curling. She was offering them both a way out, a bargain that would give him something to take back to Boston and would preserve her people and their capacity to produce the belch-fire they brewed and stewed. A sure catch, a bird in the hand, albeit a partial prize, had at the behest of insolent, irksome Whiskey Daniels. He wanted nothing more than to shake the dust of this wretched place from his expensive boots. The temptation was monstrous.

Dammit! She was doing it to him again. Temptation was exactly what this was, another little bit of Jezebel barter. Barter-hell!-it was an out and out bribe! She was trying to lure him into betraying his duty, his honor as an officer and a gentleman! An instant later he quivered, stung by how close he'd come to accepting.

"No," he took a step forward, bringing himself close enough to brush her skirts. "I won't take your little bargain, witch. I'll have it all, the liquor, the still, and the distillers, or I'll have nothing at all. Contrary to the popular wisdom of this warped little hamlet, there are some things that don't have a price, some things that cannot be bartered or bargained. And you-you pretentious little Jezebel-have just encountered one." His eyes narrowed furiously and he took another step, forcing her back.

Whitney tightened visibly at his use of that particular name for her, but her well-steeled trader's nerve stayed her first response. She drew her shoulders back. "No deal?"

"No deal," he sneered quietly. The unexpected calm of her response and her silent appraisal of him stole some of his pleasure in refusing. She wasn't nearly angry enough, nor outraged enough, to suit him.

"You'll be sorry, Major."

She turned with a womanly swirl to her skirts and was soon out of his camp, making her way across the clearing toward the road home. Her thoughts roiled with confusion on all but one point: the Iron Major honestly couldn't be bought. It was positively infuriating for a girl whose life philosophy was based on the premise that everything had its price!

"Well, you tried the Daniels way," she ground out furiously as she reached the main road. A flame was struck in the backs of her sea-deep eyes. "A plain, honest bargain of mutual benefit to both parties. And he refused it, the righteous stick. What happens now is on his own head... he's driven you to it."

Garner Townsend watched the deep, knowing gleam that crept into her eyes as she uttered her last threat and walked away. And he couldn't take his eyes from the sway of her skirts until she faded from sight across the clearing. Something was wrong; she took it far too well, as though she'd half expected... He stiffened as a chill raced up his spine and raised gooseflesh on his skin. The way she'd looked at him, the icy, controlled tone of her voice. He swallowed hard and whispered the truth that rumbled through him: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." And Whiskey Daniels was known for being a dirty fighter.

He turned and walked, unseeing, back the way he'd come. And in precious few steps he was nearly nose to nose with Charlie Dunbar, who was standing, his legs braced, his brawny arms crossed over his chest.

"I saw ye talkin' wi' Whit, Majur." Charlie's blocky face bore an obviously false geniality. "I swear, that gal could talk the britches off n a bishop." He sobered instantly, his voice dropping, his eyes becoming glowing coals of resentment.

"Did she talk yours off, Majur?"

The major twitched. "Unless you want another night in ropes, you'll keep a rein on your tongue, Dunbar."

"Did ye make a bargain wi' 'er, Majur?" Charlie jolted forward as far as his shackles would allow, lowering his arms and hardening into a thick wall. Something in the intensity of his reaction made Townsend realize it was not a bargain over whiskey or stills he was concerned about.

"A bargain?" he intoned, feeling heat rising into his face as her offer of the other night came rushing back to him. Her body... was that the kind of bargain he meant? How would Dunbar know about tha- "Good God, you mean that kind of bargain?

Do you barter that, too, in this unspeakable pest hole?"

"We bargain fair and square fer everythin' in Rapture. Here, when a man wants a gal, he strikes a proper bargain wi' her. Sets out what he wants an' what he'll give, an whether he'll marry 'er or not. Settles it all up front, straight and honest." Charlie's voice dropped to a raw demand. "Did ye bargain an' bed 'er, Majur?"

God. Dunbar even used the same words... "proper bargain," "what he'll give," and "settle." Townsend managed a convincing look of contempt after a telling silence.

"Both she and bartered pleasure are a bit too crude for my tastes, Dunbar. The crudity, the unthinkable immorality of it-"

"Yer eastern city ways ain't no better," Charlie asserted, evaluating the arrogant easterner's veracity. Coiled muscles, tight face, surly temper; he sure didn't act like a man who'd pleasured himself in a woman's arms recently. In fact, Charlie's envy eased enough to permit a bit of insight, he exhibited every symptom of raw sexual frustration known to man. Charlie re-crossed his arms and eased his stance. "I hear tell, back east, ye buy an' sell women fer cash money."

"Perhaps in the gutters, Dunbar, but not amongst civiliz-"

"Dower-tries... or somethin' like that," Charlie charged and watched the major lose some of his starch. Then he was back to his original point with a warning look. "Whit Daniels is mine, Majur. I'm gonna make a proper bargain wi' her... e'en if I have to marry 'er. An' I want to be her first."

Some of the heightened color in Townsend's face drained. "Do you mean to say that half-tamed termagant is a... a...

"She ain't never had it," Charlie announced flatly. "Ain't never struck a proper bargain with nobody. An' I'm gonna be her first."

Townsend felt himself going liquid inside and affected an air of disdain to hide it. A proper bargain. She said it had to be a "proper bargain" between them. She'd been bargaining, all right. But not for his withdrawal ... for his- "God."

"I'm gonna make 'er a bargain," Charlie boasted smugly.

Townsend eyed him with a blunt assessment of carnal competition. "You mean, like the kind you tried that day we plucked you from her in the woods? That kind of bargain? Then look to your health, Dunbar. I believe, it was you that said she kicks... and bites."

"She won' be kickin' nor bitin' by th' time we're through." Charlie tightened. "She'll bepurrin' like a cat. I'll be makin' her a paradise bargain for sure."

"What in hell's a 'paradise bargain'?"

"It's th' kind o' deal ever trader hunts for. A deal so sweet," Charlie smiled a carnal, knowing smile, "that it could get ye past St. Peter at the pearly gates if n yer name weren't in his book. A born trader like Whit, she'll know one when she feels it." His low, insinuating laugh raked Townsend's skin like steel claws.

The major pivoted on his heel and strode for the inn, his back rail-straight and his entire being in upheaval. She was untouched territory. Every step jarred the knowledge deeper into his gut. Lord, it was so improbable and so paradoxical and Dunbar was so adamant... it had to be true. He groaned audibly; it had been so damned much easier thinking she was a loose little trollop!

He reached his room and stood in its dim, shuttered confines, near to a total eruption of self. She'd been bargaining, all right... for his loving. Whatever else her motives, she had wanted him as a man. It was in every quiver of her untried body, every gasp of surprise, every sweet, hesitant motion against him. And she'd bargained, or tried to, in accordance with her people's unthinkable custom. God. They bargained everything, everything in Rapture actually did have a price!

It was an ethic, a code so foreign and shocking he couldn't deal with it properly. And just as shocking was the inhabitants' complete and diligent adherence to it.

They took it seriously indeed; from cradle to grave, they bargained their way through life. Bargaining was part survival, part sport, part social form, part ethos. It pervaded everything they did, shaped not just their economy, but their very lives, even to the most intimate functions.

And Whiskey Daniels was the ultimate product of this bizarre blend of frontier desperation and survivalist philosophy. He had learned to handle himself with women of his own class and station. But nothing in his life could have prepared him for something as unexpected and extraordinary as Whitney Daniels, trader, distiller... and virgin.

A wave of dry heat fanned through him as the memory of the feel of her materialized beneath his skin, pressing, rousing. He closed his eyes, giving himself over to it, knowing it was useless to fight it. But a moderating chill followed when that dangerous glint in her eyes reappeared in his mind. The clash of hot and cold made him shudder.

He was going to be sorry, she'd said. And suddenly he knew she was right. He could feel it in his bones, disaster approaching, relentless and inescapable. Twice before, his life had been wrecked by women who'd found and exploited his weakness. And his uncontrollable desire for Whitney Daniels made him fear it was about to happen again.

"Where the hell is he?" Townsend strode through his camp that evening, looking for Wallace to have him ferry a message to Laxault, at the Daniels farmstead.

"Don' rightly know, Majur," Benson offered nervously, glancing around him at the mostly empty tents.

The major pounced on that anxious gesture and scoured the premises visually, himself. Something was wrong about the camp, he realized. "Then, where's Kingery... or that Ned Wilson and his partner in idiocy, Albert Sipes?" He twitched. They were gone, all of them. He began to stalk the paths, peering into tents, then stalked the perimeter of camp, finding a total of six men... out of thirty-six.