Tammo had been gone too long for Russa Nodrey’s liking. She caught Perigord’s glance as she took up her stick. “Nobeast takes this long t’gather a few pawfuls of ’cress, Major. Somethin’s wrong—I’m goin’ to take a look!”

Perigord buckled on his saber. “Tare, Turry, Rubbadub, guard the camp an’ supplies, the rest o’ you chaps, off y’hunkers an’ come with us!”

Traveling swiftly and silently they spread out, covering trees, riverbank, and shallows carefully. It was not long before they picked up Tammo’s trail. Captain Twayblade found the rock where she too had noted watercress growing underwater.

Pasque waved wordlessly from a short distance up the bank. Keeping voices to a barely audible murmur, they gathered ’round her. “A bundle o’ watercress. He was here—see, ’tis tied up with his shoulder belt.”

Midge Manycoats inspected the trunk of a nearby sycamore. “There’s a knifepoint mark here. Looks like Tammo stuck his blade in this tree!”

A pebble struck Rockjaw Grang on the side of his neck. “Owch! ’Ey up, somebeast’s chuckin’ stones!”

Out of the darkness above, a volley of small stones peppered Perigord’s troop, followed by rustling in the high foliage, sniggering laughs, and reedy voices calling, “Tammo! Tammo! Choohakka choohak! Where poor Tammo?”

Russa shouted aloud at Perigord, “Let’s get out o’ here!”

The Major shot her a puzzled look. “Wot, you mean retreat, run away?”

Shielding herself from the stones with an upraised paw, the squirrel winked several times at him. “Aye, let’s run fer it afore we’re battered t’death!”

Perigord suddenly caught on; he cut and ran into the shallows. “Retreat, troop, everybeast out o’ here, quick as y’like. Retreat!”

The Long Patrol were not used to running from anything, but they obeyed the command. Pounding upstream through the shallows, they halted out of range of the rain of pebbles.

Then Twayblade turned on Perigord, her long rapier flicking angrily at the air. “Retreat from a few stones’n’pebbles, what are we, pray—a flight of startled swallows?”

Perigord laid the blame firmly at Russa’s paws. “Ask her!”

The squirrel looked from one to the other. “Well, if y’stop lookin’ all noble an’ outraged for a tick I’ll tell ye. Really ’twas my fault. I’ve traveled this riverbank afore, an’ if’n I’d been thinkin’ clear I’d have stopped you pitchin’ camp where the Painted Ones roam.”

Twayblade ceased twitching her rapier. “Painted Ones?”

Russa’s bushy tail stood up angrily. “Aye, Painted Ones. Tribes o’ little tree rats is all they are, though they paints their fur black’n’green an’ lives in the boughs an’ leaves ’igh up. Huh! Some o’ the villains even attaches bushtails to themselves an’ masquerades as squirrels, the liddle blackguards, not fit t’lick a decent squirrel’s paws! But they’re savage an’ dangerous, almost invisible when they’re among the treetops. Young Tammo’s in a bad fix if y’ask me!”

The saturnine Lieutenant Morio nodded his agreement. “But no doubt you’ve got a plan, marm?”

Russa had. She explained her strategy then slid off among the trees, leaving the hares to carry out their part of the scheme.

Sheathing his blade, Perigord began gathering flat heavy pebbles. “Slings out, chaps, load up an’ give ’em stones for supper!”

*

Meanwhile, Tammo lay bound and gagged. The leader of the Painted Ones was digging teasingly at him with the point of his captured dirk, giggling wickedly each time his prisoner flinched.

“Ch’hakka hak! ’Ear you friends, alla gone now, soon dissa one cutcha up wirra you own knife. Den we eatcha! Hakkachook!”

Tammo had heard Russa and the hares and felt a mixture of anger and sadness when Perigord shouted retreat and they ran off. Now he felt alone and deserted, certain too that something horrible was about to be inflicted upon him by the sadistic little tree creatures, who seemed very confident and contemptuous of landbeasts.

Then Tammo’s heart leapt as he heard the night air ring with a familiar war cry:

“Eulalia! ’Tis death on the wind! Eulalia! Charge!”

Whacking, cracking, whizzing all around him, a veritable load of slingstones tore upward into the foliage. One rock big as a miniature boulder whipped by him, snapping off branches in its path. Good old Rockjaw Grang!

Turning his head to one side, Tammo peered into the gloom and saw small black and green figures retaliating, loosing pebbles from their own slings at the bold enemy below.

Russa had reached the far side of the trees. She skipped nimbly up into a stately elm and turned toward the distant din of battle. Thrusting the hardwood stick into her mouth she bit down on it and took off like a fish skimming through water, building up her speed as she raced through the treetops. Bright eyes cut through the darkness as she traveled even faster, the limbs and leaves passing in a blur, knowing that swiftness was the key to her mission. Sighting the back of the first Painted One, Russa grabbed her stick in one paw, still hurtling through the top terraces of foliage at a breakneck pace. She cracked the hardwood stick down between the rat’s ears, then, changing her angle at the same time and shooting in a downward curve, she battered mercilessly at anybeast in her path.

The hardwood stick was like a living thing in her paws, whacking heads and paws and cracking limbs. Overhead Russa spotted a glint of steel as a stream of orders was shouted down through the treetops. “Chakkachook! Killa! Killa!” Swooping upward, she disposed of two more rats with a quick side-to-side jab to their faces. Bulling into the leader of the Painted Ones, she laid him senseless with a single rap to his skull.

Russa grabbed the dirk and slashed through Tammo’s bonds. “Quick, get behind me an’ lock y’paws ’round my waist!”

With a swift kick she sent the Painted Ones’ leader from the bough they were standing on. As soon as he started to fall, Russa leapt after him, with Tammo holding grimly on to her and shouting, “We’re comin’ doooooooown!”

Leaves, twigs, branches, limbs tore madly by in a rushing kaleidoscope of brown, black, and green. Tammo’s heart seemed to fly up into his mouth as all three plummeted earthward, Russa’s footpaws practically resting on the back of the rat as his body smashed a path down to the ground for them. They landed with a thrashing crashing sound, flattening an osier bush as the three bodies hit it.

Major Perigord whirled a slingstone upward, remarking as he let the pebble fly, “Just dropped in to join the jolly old scrap, wot? Bravo!”

Letting go of Russa, Tammo flopped awkwardly onto the ground. Apart from various scratches he was surprised to find himself unharmed. Russa yanked the battered and unconscious tree rat leader upright and pushed him into Rockjaw’s open paws.

“Make light, get me a lantern, somebeast, ’urry!” she cried.

Tinder and flint hastily fired a lantern Riffle had brought. Bidding Riffle hold the light close to their captive, Russa grabbed the leader by one ear, hauling his head upright. Then she pressed the dirkpoint under his chin and called upward, imitating the tree rats’ speech, “Chakkachook! Dis beast a dead’n, we cuttim ’ead off, you chukka more rocks. Dissa beast tellya true, chahakachah!”

The slingstones stopped and a mass wail went up from the foliage.

“Yaaahaaaagg! Norra kill Shavvakamalla! Yaaahaaaagg!”

Rockjaw Grang slung the senseless leader over his shoulder. “Shavvakawot? Sithee, ’tis a big name for a lickle rat!”

Sergeant Torgoch smiled at his friend’s broad accent. “Take ’im back t’camp. We’ll get a good night’s sleep with their Chief as ’ostage, wot d’ye say, sah?”

Drawing his saber, Perigord began backing his troop out of the area. “Capital idea! But we’d best keep up the threats, just t’make sure they know we mean business. I say, are you hurt, old lad?”

Tammo was limping on his right footpaw. “Little sprain, sah, I’ll be right as rain in a bit.”

The hares backed off, shouting horrible threats into the trees. “I say, you rips up there, leave us alone or we’ll scoff your jolly old leader. I’m quite serious, y’know. Chop chop, yum yum, eatim alla up, as you blighters say, savvy?”

“Yaaaaahaaaag! No eata Shavvakamalla! Yaaahaaahaaagghh!”

“Hah! Y’don’t like that, do you? Well keep your bally distance or it’s fricassee of tree rat for brekkers!”

“Aye, an’ we’ll use the leftovers t’make tree rat turnover fer lunch, it’ll go nice with a bit o’ salad!”

“Actually I’d rather fancy a slice of tree rat tart. D’you think there’d be enough of him left t’make one, eh, Rockjaw?”

“By ’eck, goo an’ get thy own tree rat, Cap’n. I’m doin’ all the carryin’, so this ’un’s mine. Bah goom, ’e’ll make a grand tree rat ’otpot with a crust o’er ’is ’ead!”

“Yaaaahaggaaaah! Nono tree rats ’otpot, yerra no eatim!”

Major Perigord called a halt to the teasing. “Quite enough now, pack it in, chaps—those rotters’ve got the message, I think. I say, Rockjaw, I hope you were jokin’ about tree rat hotpot. We’re not really goin’ to eat the blighter, y’know.”

Rockjaw Grang plodded along with his burden, muttering a single word:

“Spoilsport!”