of any Harrison around here." Her
voice had the Ohio twang.

"No?"

"Just where do they live?"

I eyed her carefully, hoping my glance did not look like a wolf eyeing a
lamb. "Well, they gave me some crude directions. Said I was to turn at
the main highway onto this road and come about twenty miles and stop on
the left side when I came upon one of those new road signs where someone
had shot one of the spokes out."

"Spokes? Left side--" She mumbled the words and was apparently mulling
the idea around in her mind. She was not more than about seventeen,
sun-tanned and animal-alive from living in the open. I wondered about
her. As far as I was concerned, she was part and parcel of this whole
mysterious affair. No matter what she said or did, it was an obvious
fact that the hidden road sign directions pointed to this farm. And
since no one at seventeen can be kept in complete ignorance of the
business of the parents, she must be aware of some of the ramifications.

After some thought she said, "No, I don't know of any Harrisons."

I grunted. I was really making the least of this, now that I'd arrived.

"Your folks at home?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied.

"I think I'll drop in and ask them, too."

She shrugged. "Go ahead," she said with the noncommittal attitude of
youth. "You didn't happen to notice whether the mailbox flag was up, did
you?"

I hadn't, but I espied back quickly and said, "No, it isn't."

"Then the mailman hasn't been to deliver," she said. "Mind if I ride
back to the house with you, mister?"

"Hop in."

She smiled brightly and got in quickly. I took off down the road toward
the house at an easy pace. She seemed interested in the car, and finally
said, "I've never been in a car like this before. New?"

"Few weeks," I responded.

"Fast?"

"If you want to make it go fast. She'll take this rocky road at fifty,
if anyone wants to be so foolish."

"Let's see."

I laughed. "Nobody but an idiot would tackle a road like this at fifty."

"I like to go fast. My brother takes it at sixty."

That, so far as I was concerned, was youthful exaggeration. I was busy
telling her all the perils of fast driving when a rabbit came barrelling
out of the bushes along one side and streaked across in front of me.

I twitched the wheel. The car went out of the narrow road and up on the
shoulder, tilting quite a bit. Beyond the rabbit I swung back into the
road, but not before the youngster had grabbed my