They all set out the next morning, spurred on by their excitement. With Jon and Phillip in the lead, they began climbing the hill, relying on Jon's memory. He kept his silliness down to a minimal level, knowing that his job as Tracker would only be confirmed if he brought them all unerringly to the waterfall. Brianna and Kirstie kept up the rear so they could keep an eye on the little kids and keep them from wandering off and so the young Healer could stop every now and then to collect little plants she spotted. Brianna's knowledge on plants was not confined solely to medicinal needs. Because her mother had kept a garden for her plants in their old village, she had also grown other vegetation for food purposes.
Her alert eyes picked out wild onions, berry bushes, and nut trees, some of which she picked, picking out a landmark to find the place again. Kirstie watched her, then after she began to recognize some of the things the older girl was looking for, helped by pointing out those that she spotted. She respected and liked the quiet-spoken girl, looking to her almost as a big sister, someone she could trust and take advice from. Brianna was mature and gentle, almost like a mother, and Kirstie respected her more than any other in the group. She admired Phillip's natural leadership streak, and his ability to control the whole pack, but it was Brianna that she looked up to most of all.
Brianna hurried to catch up after inspecting some plant, pulling her long curly dark hair up off of her neck. "Whew! It's getting warm. It's hard to tell what time it is because the trees are in the way and I can't see the sun."
"I think it's almost noon," Kirstie guessed. "What were you looking at?"
"There's some nightshade back there," Brianna said, walking side by side with the shorter girl, eyes glued to Danny and David. They had already tried twice to wander off into the trees to chase a squirrel or climb a tree.
Even Kirstie knew that plant. Every child was shown and warned of those plants that were particularly deadly. She shuddered a little. "We didn't think to look for any of that up near the tree houses," she said. "I hope there isn't any around there; Dawn and Issac wouldn't know any better. They might eat it by accident." The two youngest of the group were still at the stage where they were putting everything foreign into their mouths. Kirstie flicked a worried glance towards them. Cathy was carrying Dawn, who had dozed off, and Issac was beginning to lag. Kirstie hurried up her pace a little, weaving through the little kids until she reached him. She plucked him up, and he wrapped his little arms gratefully around her neck, resting his head on her shoulder. She slowed down once more until she was walking beside Brianna again, stroking his bare back, noting how starkly her pale hand stood out against his dark skin. He and Tim were the only ones in the group with such dark skin, but it had never occurred to Kirstie or any of the children that this made them different aside from appearance. They were ignorant to the fact that for years and years before the Great War men and women such as Issac and Tim had suffered prejudices and hate crimes, had even been sold into slavery long ago all because of the color of their skin. Their prior Chief's clan had not had the patience for such prejudices. Kirstie remembered that Issac's parents had both been very nice and funny, and Tim's father had been a big strong man who looked intimidating but had used to bounce her on his knee when she was little. His big booming laugh had not been scary at all to her.
She shook herself out of her thoughts as she began to recognize some of the landmarks around them. "I think we're almost there," she said, looking down to the widening creek on their right. "We were on the other side of the creek yesterday, but I think we're almost to the right path; the water's getting wider and wider."
"We'll stop for lunch when we get there," Phillip called from the front. "Keep up, everyone."

Brianna, too, was curious as to why the path veered suddenly to the left when they reached the place where the trees thinned out. "That's funny. You're right, you would think whoever made this path would have just started out at an angle from the beginning. There must be something they avoided a little back there."
Phillip and Jon were leading them off the path to show them the little clearing with the waterfall. They all stood gaping at the edge of the tree line, oohing and ahhing at the sight. "It's gorgeous," Brianna breathed. "So this is where 'Flowerhill' came from."
Kirstie peered upwards at the sun. It was past noon already, and she was ravenous. "We're right near it, now. I'm glad; I can't wait to eat!"
Jon led them back to the path once more, and they continued along the path until they reached its end. They all spread out, looking around curiously, until Phillip directed their gaze to the treetops. The children immediately began yelling excitedly at the sight, many of them dashing for the knotted rope.
Phillip called them back sharply. "Get back here! Nobody goes up there until I say so. Those houses are from before the War, and they can't be very strong. Now come back here and we'll make lunch."
Their hunger was greater than their curiosity, so they shuffled back and helped Cathy and Gabe by collecting firewood, which had been scarce in the fields they had traveled to reach the hills, but was abundant here. Phillip signaled to Jon, and he and Greg jogged off with a spear and a bow to hunt.
In just a short while Cathy had the fire started and was listening to Brianna as the older girl showed her a few plants and told her the food purposes they held. By the time the two hunters returned with a rabbit and three squirrels, Cathy and Gabe, with Brianna's guidance, had started a soup boiling, tossing in special herbs and vegetables. Cathy quickly skinned the squirrels and directed Gabe to chop up the meat into little pieces and add it to the simmering water. She put the rabbit aside for later and pulled out their last loaf of bread from their rations. Her mother had made the loaf herself; it was oval and dark, studded with nuts. It was tough, but nutritious and filling. She cut it up and gave everyone a piece to dip into the soup, tossing Ruth and Linda some canteens and instructing them to fill them at the waterfall.
In just under twenty minutes lunch was ready, and they all sat cross-legged beneath the trees, enjoying the simple but filling food.
Brianna blew on a spoonful of soup and tasted it. She smiled at Cathy. "You really are a Cook," she congratulated her. "I see you experimented a little with the advice I gave you. It tastes great."
Cathy shrugged modestly, smiling in pleasure at the compliment. "I guess I have kind of a hand for it. I used to help Tim's father make drinks, too. Maybe I could help Tim remember; I'm sure his father taught him some of what he did."
When they had all finished their first serving and some were slurping at their second helping, Phillip scooted forward and began laying out his plan. Soon they were all in deep discussion, arguing and giving their thoughts on the matter as the construction for their new home was mentally laid out. Phillip listened to everyone's ideas, discarding some suggestions and thinking on others. His father had been somewhat of a carpenter, and he knew instinctively from his father's teachings which ideas were good ones and which ones would never work. They carried on their deep discussion well into the afternoon, until finally they were all satisfied. Cathy had been sitting beside Phillip, writing notes on a scrap of cloth with a charcoal stick, and Phillip read over it, standing before his tribe.
"All right, so this is it. We're going to build eight living huts. One for me-the Chief's Hut-, one for Brianna-which will double as a, um…" He turned to Cathy, unable to read her poor spelling of the word.
"Sickbay," she said, leaning over to look at the word 'sicba'. "I wasn't sure how to spell it…"
"Ok. Sickbay. One hut for Brianna's sleeping place and sickbay. Ok, what's next…? Oh, yeah. And then the rest of you are going to be roommates. Each group will have a sleeping hut: Cathy and Kirstie with Tiffany, Jon and Jeromi, Greg and Gabe with Tim, Linda and Ruth, David and Danny, and then a nursery hut for Dawn and Issac." They all nodded in agreement, satisfied with those arrangements. "Then there's going to be a dining deck with a kitchen hut right above it," he held up Jon's rough sketch. "And one hut for food and drink supplies, and one more for other supplies." He lowered the cloth, looking around at them with raised eyebrows. "That's a lot," he said seriously. "It's going to take a while. We could probably get it done by winter if we worked fast, but we also have to make sure we do it right, or we're going to freeze."
Kirstie raised her hand. "Wasn't the dining deck going to be open, with a just a roof and no walls? Well then what happens in winter? We're just going to stay in our own huts to avoid the cold. Shouldn't we have a place where we can all fit that's closed, where we could all get together if it's cold or raining?"
Some of the others nodded in agreement. Phillip scratched his jaw line thoughtfully. "I guess you're right…But let's worry about the other things, first. It's more important that the sleeping huts are built before anything else. After all of this," he waved the cloth, "is built, we can think about building something like a meeting hut." He crouched and picked up the head of the axe their old Chief had owned, and the two hacksaws they owned. "I'll use the axe. Kirstie, you and Greg take the saws. Everyone's going to help with this, and this is how this is going to work…"
They began immediately.
They relied heavily on the teachings of their parents and Phillip's own knowledge of carpentry. Phillip sent Jon-the nimblest of the older kids-up into the trees to test things. The rope held; it was tough, and the years didn't seem to have affected it much. He shinnied up it quickly and began carefully testing his weight on the small deck of the first house. The wood creaked ominously, but did not shatter. Avoiding putting his weight on the more rotten planks, Jon ducked inside and emerged shortly afterwards. The inside ceiling was more planks of wood, the outer bark shingles helping to trickle the water off the edges. With a chisel he began knocking away at the nails and passing down those parts of the house that were still good and dropping them to the ground. Meanwhile Phillip set off into the woods a little farther away from the site and began searching for a good sapling to cut down for the handle of his axe head. The children were kept busy collecting firewood and lugging larger hardwood branches that had fallen from the trees, setting them beside Gabe and Jeromi, who began whittling at the hardwood with knifes, fashioning tough, thick wooden nails. Kirstie and Greg also disappeared into the woods, marking those trees that Phillip would cut down later by drawing a charcoal X on them, then reaching up to saw down those branches they could reach.
They worked until dinnertime, then well into the night after eating. By the next day they were all tired and sore, but heartened because there had been no attacks of wild animals in the night and the weather was fair.
Day after day they worked, occasionally running into obstacles; once Phillip's axe handle snapped, and they had to work the head out of the tree he had been chopping. Other times the wood that the older children were working so hard to saw and split into planks was cut wrong or turned out to be too soft in the middle. Jeromi dropped a plank once on Tiffany's foot, and more than once Danny and David caused mischief, playing with the wooden nails, trying to use the saws, and even getting lost a few times. Not to mention the numerous splinters everyone suffered. Brianna was kept busy pulling them out and tending to sprained limbs. They fell onto their blankets exhausted every night, and rose groaning every morning.
But progress, though slow at first, was giving them hope, and the coming summer made them work harder. They did not want to be doing as much work in the heat of summer.

The season slowly turned, the days growing longer and hotter, and with it the band of children grew to know their woodlands.
The hunting groups that were sent out came back with success more and more, and those sent to forage developed a sharp eye for even those bits of food and vegetation virtually hidden in the green of the woodlands. Their muscles and bodies adapted to the labor, and they became stronger and more adept at their tasks.
Many times they thought they faced failure, but still they worked, through the tears and arguments, the pain and the exhaustion. Brianna's garden-that she had immediately set up close to the waterfall after Jon helped her to cut the flowers down for a patch of dirt and encircled it with a 'fence' of netting tied down over stakes-was beginning to bloom, the plants that would be vital for her medical needs and Cathy's cooking growing under the warm summer sun.
Trial and error were the way everyone learned. The older children were forced to become more mature and patient in order to complete the task and work together. By mid-summer there had been two birthdays, celebrated simply with small cake-like biscuits Cathy baked and a break for that individual. Phillip turned fifteen and Tiffany turned seven.
And so the small tribe became more closely knit as each depended upon the other, and slowly their hard work began to show its rewards.

Jon was balanced on a high tree limb with Gabe, holding a plank for the kitchen's deck still while his friend hammered it into place with the sturdy wooden nails when he happened to glance upwards towards the tops of the trees.
"Phillip! Hey, Phillip!"
Phillip, who was emerging from the woodlands dragging a portion of a tree trunk with Kirstie and Greg's help, paused to squint up at him, blinking sweat from his eyes and breathing hard. All of the boys had discarded their shirts in the heat, and the sweat glistened on his lean chest as he raised a hand to wipe his brow. "What?"
Jon was pointing towards the east. "I can see smoke!"
"Smoke?" Phillip became instantly alert, putting down his part of the trunk and running to the bottom of the tree. "Like a forest fire?" he asked sharply.
The others in the vicinity stopped what they were doing, waiting uneasily for the answer.
"No, too small," came Jon's reply a moment later. "It looks like a campfire. But it is in our woods."
Phillip hesitated, peering up at the sky. "It'll be evening soon," he said. "When it starts to get dark, I want you and Kirstie to come with me. We'll see what's going on."
Worried, the children began to talk loudly among themselves.
Kirstie dropped the trunk and shouted to be heard, panting from the exertion of dragging the great limb. "Hush! Calm down, everyone. It's probably just someone passing through. Get back to work."
They turned back to their tasks, calmed by her assurance and authoritave tones. Phillip sighed, accepting the flask of water Ruth offered him. "Where do you want this trunk, Greg?"
The younger boy looked up from where he was shoving aside a plank he had just cut out, rubbing wearily at his eyes. Beside him, Cathy and Jeromi stretched their backs, grateful for the momentary respite. "Just drag it over here. We'll get to it as soon as we finish this one."
Linda and Tiffany were kneeling behind them, sanding down the finished planks with soft sandstone, then going over the job again by wrapping the same stone in deerskin. Linda blew a strand of blond hair from her face, glancing over at Danny and David, who were lugging firewood towards the fire pit. "Hn. At least those two are finally behaving. The way they were acting this morning, I thought even Brianna was going to lose it with them."
Tiffany sighed loudly and followed Cathy's example, stretching and wincing as tight muscles protested the action. "Yeah, they're always getting into trouble. They're worse than any of the others."
"If you ask me," Linda muttered, rubbing furiously at a plank, "they need to be spanked more often!"

At twilight Jon and Kirstie abandoned the tasks they were doing and grabbed a weapon apiece, meeting with Phillip at the fire pit where he was talking to Cathy as she readied that night's dinner. The two friends stood back respectfully, waiting until their Leader had finished talking.
"Try to keep the fire low, and use dead wood so there's less smoke. We don't know if whoever's down there is a good person or not, so we've got to be careful they don't find this place. Keep all the little kids in sight, especially Dave and Dan, and make sure no one wanders off after dinner is served."
He turned to the two waiting on the side and nodded, reaching for his spear which was leaning against a nearby tree. "Let's go."
They set off at a quick lope downhill, with Jon acting as Tracker in the lead. They stopped a couple times so that he could climb a tree to find the smoke and get his bearings again, and as the night got darker and they drew closer, they began treading slower and quieter, walking as silently and carefully as they would if they were hunting the shy deer who lived on the hills. The moccasins they wore made little to no noise on the loam- and leaf-covered ground, and only twenty minutes after leaving their own site, they finally glimpsed light ahead through the trees.
Kirstie pulled a stone from her pouch, fitting it into her sling, grasping the ends of the weapon tightly as she held her breath, following her Leader, who had taken the lead. Beside her, Jon's grip on his spear flexed, and he sent her a quick grin of reassurance. It was unneeded; aside from being a little nervous, Kirstie was more excited than anything, her heart pounding with anticipation in her ears.
They crept through the trees, able by now to see two figures seated by a campfire. Kirstie shook her head on seeing that the fire wasn't even kept at bay with any semblance of border. Cathy was always careful to surround her fire with a ring of rocks, but this one was wild and free; if the two people seated at it were to fall asleep, the flames were in danger of raging out of control and starting a deadly forest fire.
Phillip signaled to get her attention, indicating that she go to the left and Jon go to the right. They nodded silently and snuck off, blending into the shadows and trees. Kirstie found a bush to hide behind after circling the campsite half-way, and crouched, waiting for Phillip's signal. From her position she could see the faces of the pair in the firelight. Two boys, one of them looking close to her own age, the other one younger, probably no older than six or seven. Both of them looked exhausted, their faces grimy with dirt and dried tears, their clothing ripped and filthy. The older one had torn a strip from his shirt and bound it around his temple. It was soaked with blood, and dried blood cut a path down the side of his face. He was cradling a stick loosely in his crossed arms. The younger boy was huddled close to him, looking ready to nod off any second, sniffling every now and then. His companion was being surprisingly patient with his little sobs, gazing mutely into the fire.
A moment later Phillip stepped in front of their fire from the trees, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. The two boys, startled by his sudden appearance, leapt to their feet and scrambled backwards. The younger boy screamed in fear.
Phillip ignored their fright, kicking dirt over a bit of fire that was escaping its parent. "What are you doing on our hill? Who are you?"
The boy with the stick shoved his smaller companion behind himself, holding out his makeshift weapon threateningly, though his hand shook. "Leave us alone! We aren't going back!"
The boy behind him wailed piteously and buried his head in the other's back. Kirstie frowned to herself. They didn't seem like Bad Men. They looked like they had been through a rough time. Were they running from someone?
The taller one tried to shuffle backwards towards the trees, ready to make a break for it, but Jon materialized suddenly to his right, spear held loose but ready. "Hold on there, buddy," he said cheerfully. "Where do you think you're going?"
Kirstie stepped out of the bushes, unable to stand the terrified look on the little boy's face any longer. She strode forward and fell to her knees beside the two, ignoring their startled looks. She took the younger boy's face in her hands gently. "What happened to you? Are you all right?"
The taller one yanked him out of her grasp, sweeping at her with the stick. "Let 'im go!"
She ducked the wild blow easily, and Jon stepped in, snatching the boy's stick from him and tossing it into the woods. "Gimmie that."
"Hey--!"
"Phillip, wait," Kirstie said quickly as her Leader stepped towards them. "They can't be Bad; they look scared out of their minds, and they're hurt! Let's hear their story first."
Phillip halted in his tracks, looking over the two distrustfully. Then he relented, leaning on his spear and waving Jon back. "Fine. Answer her, you."
The taller boy flicked wary glances towards the two strong-looking boys before turning his attention on Kirstie, who was gently examining the scratches on his companion's arms. The younger boy, too exhausted to put up any more of a fight, sagged against his older friend and allowed her to inspect his wounds.
"What happened to you two?" Kirstie asked. "You both look like you've been running a long time. What are you so scared of? We aren't going to hurt you, I promise."
The older of the two hesitated, then replied gruffly, "We've been running for almost three days, now. Five men attacked my family's home and killed my parents and my grandmother." His eyes welled with tears as he trembled with grief and horror. "They moved in, made me and my brother wait on them hand and foot for weeks. They beat us all the time. So I knew we had to escape. I waited until it was really dark, and took my brother and some supplies and we took the one guarding us by surprise; he fell asleep, and I hit him with a pan. We've been running ever since, and I think they came after us, but I'm not sure."
Kirstie's eyes welled with pity. "That's terrible!"
Phillip's stern countenance had melted, and he glanced away uncomfortably, a little ashamed of his earlier brusque behavior. Jon set his spear aside and offered one of his contagious grins. "Sorry to scare you, then. Just being careful, y'know? That was pretty brave of ya, takin' out that guy and makin' a run for it. You're lucky you an' your brother got away."
"Trust me, we know what you've been through," Kirstie said quietly, stroking the wild hair from the smaller boy's face.
His brother glared defiantly at her, wiping tears from his face. "How could you know?" he snapped. "You have no idea what it was like!"
Kirstie gazed calmly up at him. "Our entire tribe was wiped out by Bad Men," she said levelly. "They killed our fathers and kidnapped our mothers. We had to run, too. So I mean it when I say we know what you went through."
The boy blinked, a little startled.
Jon took the initiative, holding out a friendly hand. "I'm Jon. That's Kirstie, an' O' Silent One over there is Phillip. 'E's our Chief. What's your name?"
The boy hesitated before timidly shaking the proffered hand. "I'm Nick. This is Coby, my brother. He's only seven. They used to beat him the most…" he shrugged helplessly, "cuz he's kind of a klutz. And because…" he stopped himself from saying whatever he'd been about to say, biting his lip.
Phillip finally stepped forward. "Well I guess we'd better take you to our camp, then. You look like you need some food and…" he grinned ruefully, "a bath."
"And a looong nap," Jon said with a laugh. "C'mon, you can stay with us. Lemmie put out this fire real quick before you set the whole hill on fire."
As Jon dumped his canteen over the sizzling fire, Nick looked questioningly at Phillip. "You live on this hill? The three of you?"
"There's actually a lot of us," Phillip corrected. "All the kids from our old tribe. Yeah, we live farther up the hill. We're workin' on our homes right now."
Nick kept his hand around his brother's arm as he leaned over to pick up the small pitifully slack bag of supplies he'd been carrying. Kirstie frowned a little, and watched them carefully as they began the trek towards home. Just as she suspected, Coby was limping slightly, leaning on his brother for support. Phillip noticed, too, and before either boy could say anything, he'd handed Jon his spear and hoisted the thin boy onto his back, carrying him piggyback.
"He hurt his ankle when we were running," Nick said, shooting a grateful look towards the taller boy. "We thought if we hid in these hills they'd have a harder time tracking us."
"Where do you live?" Kirstie asked, watching the ground carefully for roots hidden in the darkness, trusting to Jon's sense of direction to get them home safely.
Nick waved over his shoulder vaguely. "Not too far from here. My parents built a shack out in the fields before I was even born."
"Are you positive you were followed?" Phillip asked. "Why would they bother going after you?"
Nick hesitated before pulling something from his sack. "We stole a few things from them…a knife, some of my mom's jewelry, and this funny thing that the leader always kept near him. He left it on the table and I grabbed it when we left. To get back at him. But I think he really must want it, cuz we saw their fire behind us the other night."
Jon took the object, inspecting it. "Some kind of little box…" He pulled back the lid, pulling out a long white paper stick stuffed with some brown shredded things. "What the heck is this?"
"I don't know," Nick admitted, shrugging. "He guards 'em like gold. Says they're hard to find nowadays. Every other night he lights the end of one on fire and puts it in his mouth. He sucks in the smoke and then blows it right back out. It's really weird."
"Sounds disgusting to me," Kirstie said, making a face. "What a weird habit."
"That was his last box," Nick said. "So I know he's twice as mad. I heard him say before that they were gonna keep us with them for a long time because it made their lives easier."
"So they lost two slaves and a stupid little flimsy box," Jon surmised, flicking one of the soft sticks into the bushes. "I hope they didn't see your smoke."
"We don't need any Bad Men on this hill," Phillip agreed, his eyes hard, and Kirstie knew he was wondering if they should have taken the two brothers under their wings. If they attracted Bad Men, it might have been wiser to send them packing off the hill. But Kirstie couldn't bear the thought of the two suffering at the hands of their previous captors, and she knew the others would feel the same way-at least, she knew Brianna and Cathy would think so. Either way, she refused to send the boys on their way without a fight. After what she herself had been through, she felt suddenly fiercely protective of the two battered, exhausted boys, especially the younger one, Coby, who had fallen into a fitful sleep on Phillip's strong back.
The going was slower in the dark, and they were doubly encumbered by Coby's weight. By the time they reached their site, the sight of the glowing fire was a great relief in the oppressing darkness. Nights on the hill were much darker than in the fields, with the trees overhead hiding the majority of the moonlight. Nick blinked in puzzled surprise at the sight that greeted his tired eyes as they entered the camp. Kirstie couldn't blame him; there was wood and tools strewn everywhere, and over a dozen children milling about, most of them seated by the fire but some of them heading towards their blankets.
Phillip crouched down, gratefully allowing Brianna to hurry forward and pull Coby off his back. He straightened, wincing, and Kirstie cast him an admiring glance. He had carried the small boy without complaint the entire time by himself, only stopping twice to rest. Brianna inspected the boy's many cuts in the firelight, a worried expression on her face. "Where did you find them? They look like they've been through a lot!"
Jon brought Nick forward, pointing out his head wound. "We'll tell you in a minute. But first can we all get something to eat? I'm starving, and I know these two are even worse."
Cathy came forward, holding out leftover bowls of soup and rabbit meat. "Here, get this down you."
Nick shook his brother awake and they sat close to the fire, eating ravenously. Greg watched their voracious appetite with wide eyes. "Sheesh, when's the last time you two had a meal?"
"Leave them alone, Greg," Phillip said, sitting down and accepting his own food from Gabe, who was also watching the two runaways with surprised interest. "They've been through a lot. Go to bed, we'll explain everything to everyone tomorrow."
Kirstie handed Coby a flask of water before turning to her own food. "I'll find some blankets for you. You can take a bath at the waterfall tomorrow."
"I'll do it," Gabe said, scrambling to his feet and hurrying off to find extra blankets for their guests.
"Let me take care of that cut on your head before you go to sleep," Brianna said firmly to Nick, already rummaging through her sack of medicines. "It won't take long, and I need to clean it properly so it doesn't get infected."
Jon yawned, nibbling on the crust of his bread. "I'm beat. I don't feel like walking all the way to my blanket. Carry me, Phillip?"
The older boy grinned wryly, chucking his own crust at his teasing friend. "Oh get off your butt, lazybones. I'm not carrying your fat head anywhere."
"Who's fat?" Jon demanded with mock indignation, flicking his rattail over his shoulders and blowing his long blond bangs from his face. "You eat way more than me, greedyguts."
"You eat more than anyone in this camp, you liar!"
Jon smirked, patting his thin frame. "Eating's good for you!"
"You should know," Kirstie scoffed, draining her bowl of soup and climbing to her feet. "I'm going to bed. See you tomorrow."
She headed towards her blanket, pausing to check on Jeromi, who was sleeping soundly, before curling up in her own sleeping spot, folding her arms under her head like a pillow and gazing upwards at the moonlight flickering faintly through the treetops. Her mind spun with the day's events, her thoughts on the two bedraggled strays they had picked up. Would Phillip allow them to stay? What would they do if the Bad Men came to their hill? Would they have to leave after all their hard work?
Her thoughts in a turmoil, she finally rolled over and closed her eyes, slipping away into a deep, dreamless sleep.