"He's pleasant enough and all that," his mother had said and then shuddered, smiling quickly to reassure Peter. "There's just something… slippery about him." She sighed. "I suppose he can't help being sour and suspicious. People do and say the most awful things to collect insurance! And he's lonely."

His mother would understand being lonely. And she'd understand the awful things people do and say —particularly if you're different in any way. But the knowledge hadn't made her sour, just more lonely, and sad, and cautious. Why she called Peter's knack of finding things a "gift," he didn't know. He felt it was a curse. It had brought them more grief, kept them moving around in the period before he'd learned not to "find" everything lost…

And why did Ken Fargo have to get unlost? They had thought him well gone when the insurance company that used him as an investigator had called off the search for the hijacked furs. There had been a reward of $15,000 for the return of those coats. Try as he would, Peter hadn't been able to figure out a legitimate way to "find" those furs. He hadn't been with the searchers when they'd looked in the old lead mine, or he'd have "found" the furs under the concealing layer of rubble in the ore carts. He couldn't go there alone now. That old shaft was dangerous, the supports worm-ridden and damp-rotted. Every kid in town had been warned, on pain of a strapping, to stay away.

Peter paused at the front of the house. He didn't want to go in. He didn't like the way Ken Fargo looked at his mother, and there wasn't much a thirteenyear-old boy could do to a six-foot man who'd fought his way out of some nasty comers (Fargo's words), and looked it from the scars on his face and knuckles. Peter took a deep breath and stomped up the two boxes that made steps into the trailer.

Peter knew the moment he walked in that Fargo had been badgering his mother. She was flushed and wringing her hands.

"Peter!" She all but swooped down on him. "Did you have a good day?" She was terribly relieved to see him.

"Sure did, Mother." He held out the seven dollar bills. "Hello, Mr. Fargo." He had to acknowledge the man's presence or his mother would chew him out for bad manners no matter how much she disliked Fargo.

"Long time no see," the man replied, jerking his shoulders to settle a flashy gold sports jacket. He sauntered toward the back of the caravan. "Sorry your ma's been ill. Should've let me know." Peter blinked at him in surprise. "Seven dollars," his mother was saying, her voice more natural now. "Oh, Peter, that's wonderful. Were you caddying?"

"That's just for scrounging golf balls." Something happened in the room, some indefinable change in the an: that registered against Peter's senses. When he looked at Ken Fargo, the man was occupied in lighting a cigarette. Peter glanced at his mother but she was proudly smoothing out the bills and arranging them all face up before she put them in her handbag.

"Peter's such a help," she said to Fargo, an artificial heartiness in her soft voice. "We've been just fine. I'll be back at work this week, but it was very nice of you to drop by and see us." She took two steps toward Fargo, her hand extended.

Fargo ignored the hand and sat down as if he meant to make a long visit. The knock at the door was a welcome diversion and Peter nearly collided with his mother as they both answered the summons.

"Oh, Mrs. Kieman, have you seen my Victor?" It was Mrs. Anderson from two trailers down. Her threeyear-old had such a perverse habit of straying that the distraught mother had taken to tying him to an old dog run. "I told Henry the rope was frayed. I was doing the wash and I just didn't notice. I suppose I should've checked when I didn't hear him fretting, but I wanted to finish… so I don't know how long he's been gone. Have you seen him? What with being home and all?"

Peter bristled at the implied insult, but his mother shot him a look, for she'd often let him "find" Victor. Mrs. Anderson was a nice woman, his mother had said, and had more than a wayward child to burden her.

"No, Mrs. Anderson, I haven't seen Victor this morning," his mother replied.

"Which way is he likely to go, Mrs. Anderson?" Ken Fargo asked.

"Oh, I just dunno. He could be halfway to town by now." The woman twisted back the lock of lank bleached hair that had escaped its pins. She swiveled her body slightly, looking pointedly at the green Mustang.

"Well, that's no problem. C'mon, Pete, you and me will take a little spin and see if we can locate the lady's wandering boy."

Peter gave his mother a swift look, and she gave him a barely perceptible nod.

"Shouldn't be no time at all before we have him safely back in your arms, Mrs. Anderson. Now don't worry. For one thing I'm an insurance investigator, and finding lost things is my business."

Again that electric feeling charged the air, but before Peter could appeal to his mother, Ken Fargo had hustled him out the door and into the car, all the time driveling reassurances to Mrs. Anderson.

"Roll down that window, Petey boy," the man said, and Peter set his teeth against the irritating familiarity.

"Keep a sharp eye out on your side. I'll take care of mine."

Fargo's tone, smugly confident, gave Peter fair warning. Somehow Fargo thought that Peter could "find" things. Somehow Peter had to discourage him.

"You just sing out when you see that brat, Pete. This car'll stop on a dime and hand you back six cents– inflation, you know, ha ha ha." Fargo deftly turned the Mustang into the road to town. Peter didn't protest although he knew that Victor Anderson was moving steadily in the opposite direction. "And I've got a bone to pick with you."

Startled, Peter looked around, but the man's frown was bogus.

"You should've let me know your mother was ill. She's a fine woman, your ma, and deserves the best. She could've had it if you'd let me know."

"We got along all right."

"Yeah, but she'd be much better now with the kind of food and care I could've provided. And I'd like to provide for her; you get what I mean?" An elbow prodded Peter in the ribs.

"We prefer to do for ourselves, thank you."

"You're a good kid, Peter, but there're things a man can do that a boy can't."

Peter wanted to wipe that look from Fargo's face.

"Hey, you keep your eyes peeled for that kid. Let's find him in a hurry and get back. I got something to ask your ma and you might as well hear it, too."

Peter obediently faced the window, but they reached the middle of the town without a sight of any child.

"How about that? We gotta search the whole town. I thought you said the kid went into town."

"No, sir. Mrs. Anderson said she thought he'd be halfway to town by now.

"Well, goddammit, where is he?"

Peter looked Ken Fargo straight in the eyes. "I don't know."

The man's face turned grim, then as suddenly assumed a forced good humor. "All right, kid. If he didn't go into town, maybe he went out of town?"

"Maybe someone's found him already. There's Officer Scordus."

The policeman was not the least bit pleased to hear that the Anderson kid was missing again, and his remarks confirmed Peter's private opinion that Mrs. Anderson was a prime nuisance in the tiny community of Jennings, Colorado. Fargo brandished his investigator's credentials, an additional irritant to Scortius, who'd been forced to muck around the countryside trying to find the lost shipment of furs "alleged" to have been stashed somewhere near Jennings.

"Well, I'll see who we can find to help track the brat."

"I'll do the main road out of town."

Officer Scortius grunted and waddled off.

As they drew alongside her trailer, Mrs. Anderson was hanging over the bottom half of her door, the picture of maternal anxiety. Clearly Victor had not been recovered, but Fargo assured her heartily that it was only a matter of moments, and gunned the Mustang countryward.