'Same thing. Their own are out in the open.'

The older man of the other party said: 'Can we stay with you till these have gone past, then?'

John was on the verge of refusing when Pirrie caught his eye. He nodded his head very slightly. John caught the point: a temporary augmentation, if only in numbers and not in strength, might be a bargaining point.

He said indifferently: 'If you like.'

They watched the new group approach. After a time the children, Bessie and Will, drifted away and back to where the others were still playing on the wall.

Most of the men seemed to be carrying guns. John could eventually make out a couple of army pattern . rifles, a Winchester . , and the inevitable shotguns.

With increasing assurance, he thought: this is it.

This was enough to get them through any kind of chaos to Blind Gill. There only remained the problem of winning them over.

He had hoped they would halt a short distance away, but they had neither suspicion nor doubts of their own ability to meet any challenge, and they came on. Their leader was a burly man, with a heavy red face. He wore a leather belt, with a revolver stuck in it. As he came abreast of where John's party stood by the side of the road, he glanced at them indifferently. It was another good sign that he did not covet their guns; or not enough, at least, even to contemplate fighting for them.

John called to him: 'Just a minute.'

He stopped and looked at John with a deliberation of movement that was impressive. His accent, when he spoke, was thickly Yorkshire.

'You wanted summat?'

'My name's John Custance. We're heading for a place I know, up in the hills. My brother's got land there - in a valley that's blocked at one end and only a few feet wide at the other. Once in there, you can keep an army out. Are you interested?'