"I'm Jock Schiendele, these are my boys, Drake and Alex. With those few words, I am sure you have noticed we are from America. I was wondering if we could spend the night in your barn," he asked quietly.

"Welcome to Pogoalar, my name is Clancie Lee MacLaren," she said. Then introduced everyone, adding they were welcome and that Jock and he boys could join us for the evening meal.

With that, Jock dismounted with Alex in his arms and sat him on the edge of the veranda. That was when it was apparent that the little boy was crippled. That, I suppose, began to change their distrust toward the strangers. He then lifted Drake off his perch atop the old grey mule, standing him on the ground. He then proceeded to the pack mule, taking a large gunnysack off and handing it to Clancie Lee, saying, "This is our part of the meal."

Jock noticed that the bunkhouse was divided into rooms to accommodate forty to forty-five men, although he had only seen six.

"Boys, this may be worse than we expected," he said.

Jock and the boys spent the time settling in. There was very few words said between them, for they did not know if anyone would be listening. Under no circumstance, for the time being, could their mission be revealed to anyone. It seemed in no time they heard the clang of the dinner bell.

"The hardest lesson they had to learn, was the wearing of shoes would save their feet. Not long after they arrived it was time to tag the baby lambs. Little baby lambs are adorable and cute, but they have some very sharp hoofs. Especially on bare feet. At the end of the day, three boys had some very serious injured feet. My father made them sit around a tub and soak their feet with some healing solution for a couple of hours. He would not let them do any work until their feet had healed. This took about four or five days. I can assure you they were very willing to try the steel toe boots father had bought them. It was not a battle completely won, they would still go bare foot as much as possible. As, you will notice, they do wear sandals when doing most of the chores," she said.

To the dismay of Ruthie B, even her arch rival, Alice, did not know anything and could not find out anything. Now of course this was about to get the best of both of them. They had not been this close of friends in thirty years. I suppose when two of their sort have the same goal, old-battle fields are put to one side temporally. It was no use, they could not even get the slightest hint. Alice was at a loss, even the three boys she had hired to follow him, was of no avail. It seemed that Jock was on to them and knew how to evade detection.

"I was sure we were under attack, all could think of was get the guns," Burt said. Adding, "Now it is very funny, but at the time, that was different."

The best one was Judge Harkin bounced up from his chair, lost his balance falling back onto the chair. The chair gave with his weight, putting him on the ground. The amazing fact is, he never lost a morsel of food from his plate," Jock said laughing to the point his eyes watered.

"How did you pull that off, without any of us knowing? I am sure there were at ten thousand firecrackers going off at the same time?" Poke asked.

"I have heard this statement a couple of times when I was in town. As I was on my way to the store, I passed a group of men and overhead one of them say 'he got himself a Razor Strap Lil'. They were pointing across the street to a woman or girl and man, I assume it was his wife, she was giving him down the road," he said.

Clancie Lee was laughing before he had finished.

"You must be talking about Robert and Camy. I saw them also. She is forever giving him down the road. Those men were referring to a legend of long ago." she said, still laughing. Adding, "It is common knowledge, Camy wears the pants. No questions asked."

"I don't understand the Razor Strap Lil part, what does that have to do with her wearing the pants?" he asked.

"I remember my great-grandmother telling the story, she was a young girl at the time and knew Lil. All of this took place on the other side of Eddington, before Mull Rock was a town. Lillian was an only child and her parents had passed leaving her the land and house. She had taken a husband from a not to reputable family, named John. The fact was, he was a wife beater. For years she had been on the receiving end of his outrages when he got drunk. When she got the name of Razor Strap Lil, they had been married for seven or eight years and had four children. For some reason and the fact is not know, his sister came to live with them.

"I've been around here all of my adult life, a long time and I know the look on that girl's face, to know that something is wrong. She is just not herself. Can I ask you if she told you anything about what is going on. I know that we have had a rough time in the past four or five years, if not more. Usually this bunk house is full of jackaroos. Now there are only six of us. We don't have many head of sheep or cattle, most have been sold to pay the bills.

Jock just stood there, thinking. Should he tell him and how much should he tell him? It was going to get sticky from here on out. Could he take the chance that Burt would not breathe a word of it? Finally he decided he would take that chance. If Burt could not be trusted, more than likely he would not have waited up so late. Besides, he had been around here for over forty-five years. This is his home.