"Smart at surviving, anyway," Zacharias said, coming out of the dark. "It got away. The pickets didn't even notice it."
Ahn-Kha pointed under the wagon. "It was here for some time. It got bored and started drawing, or gnawing."
Valentine looked at the scratchings. They looked like a cross between hieroglyphics and Indian cave paintings.
"Huh, an artist," a Texan crouching at the other side of the wagon remarked.
"My David, a hunted animal doesn't bother to doodle. I think the Kurians bred the creatures for their auras."
"I believe you've got it, old horse. Colonel Hibbert said something about that. Rodents breed like crazy, eat anything, and grow fast."
"True," Ahn-Kha rumbled. "The rat-things perhaps didn't like being eaten any better than you humans do. I think they fought back."
"Successfully," Valentine agreed.
Two days later, the Rangers riding screen for the convoy called up Zacharias and Valentine. They saw more of the "ratbit." The scouts had paused at the middle of a notch in the hills the wagon train would have to cross as they moved north. They were traveling through scattered trees, what in this part of Texas might be called a forest.
A smokehouse filled with cuts of meat Valentine guessed to be snake stood near a trampled out area that had the trodden-on look of a campsite. Tracks of wheeled vehicles, perhaps off-road bicycles, could be seen.
"The Grogs travel on four-wheelers and motorcycles sometimes," Baltz said. "Bicycles, too. Maybe this is a camp of theirs."
"Auntie Amy! Look over here," Eve called. They rode over and found a notch in the hillside filled with piles of apples, ears of corn, nuts, berries, and even alfalfa and hay for the animals.
"Hell, the Grogs didn't do this," Zacharias said.
"The ratbits?"
Eve gasped: "Look at the bark!"
Valentine saw a piece of bark tucked in the crotch of a sapling over the gathered supply.
TAK AND LEAV WOODS
"What is this, a bribe? They're afraid we're going to move in on them?" Zacharias said, after sounding out the words on the sign.
"Maybe they're trying to hurry us through. You think we're drawing something they're afraid of?"
"We don't know who wrote this," Valentine said. "It could be a bunch of well-read kangaroos." Valentine wouldn't have been surprised to meet Toad of Toad Hall after skirting the Ranch.
"Agreed," Zacharias said. "Nice gesture, to speed us on our way."
Valentine nodded, and turned his horse. "Something to tell your grandchildren about, Zacharias. The helpful ratbits of Central Texas."
Valentine heard the high, sputtering sounds of engines and reached for his binoculars. They were loaners from the Rangers. Carrasca hadn't been willing to part with any of the Thunderbolt's optics. He brought up the lenses and searched the distant hillside.
A sharp-nosed head, no, two heads, were bobbing over the sun-dried grasses. The vehicle broke out of the tall grass and into the open. It looked something like a baby carriage with a single-bore piston-engine on the back. At the motorcycle-style steering controls was a ratbit, a second rider clung on behind, facing the engine. It appeared to be working some kind of lever. A throttle?
"Ingenious little fellers," Ranson said, pulling his horse up next to Valentine. Valentine passed him the glasses. "I wonder if they drill for their own oil and refine it."
"Easier to steal it, probably."
"They're paralleling us."
Valentine felt something was wrong with the picture. "It's plain enough to see that we're leaving. Are they making sure of it?"
The wagon train ground on to the squeal of wooden axles and the tramp of feet and hooves; the ratbits disappeared behind the hill.
"I think a tight picket line tonight is a good idea," Valentine said to Zacharias and Baltz as they began uncoupling