Clinton sighed, and gave up. All his life he had given up. He didn't know why it was like that; why a man who wanted nothing but to live honestly and industriously and usefully-who, briefly, asked only the privileges of giving and helping-had had to compromise and surrender at every turn. But that was the way it had been, and that apparently was the way it was to be.

"I suppose it doesn't seem to you that I'm giving up much, Mr. Torrento," he said dully. "But to me-" he paused, his eyes straying to the swaybacked mare, and his voicegathered new strength. "They're awfully smart, Mr. Torrento. You wouldn't believe how smart and, uh, nice they can be. Why, you take something like a pig or even a garter snake, and pet it and feed it and fix up whatever's wrong with it-just treat it like you'd want to be treated if you were what it is…"

"Oh, put it in a book." His wife jumped to her feet. "We've got things to do."

Rudy's car was driven into a weed-choked and rocky pasture, buried beneath a stack of moldering hay. (It is still there if anyone cares to look.) The doctor's business and professional affairs were wound up by two brief telephone calls, ending his lease and turning over his practice to another veterinarian. Neither the landlord nor the other vet was surprised by this action, or its nominal abruptness. Clinton had been barely eking out an existence. The rundown acres and tumbledown house, rented furnished, had discouraged far more resourceful and tenacious tenants than he.

After taking Rudy's temperature again and urging him to rest, Clinton drove away in his ancient jalopy. He had more than three thousand dollars of Rudy's money in his wallet. His destination was a nearby city, where the cash purchase of a car would arouse no suspicion.

Fran Clinton waved him a loving good-bye from the doorway of the barn, then sauntered back, hips swinging, and resumed her stool opposite Rudy. "Well," she smirked, "how'd you like the way I handled stupid?"

"The doc, you mean?" Rudy crooked a finger at her. "Come here."

"What for?"

Rudy stared at her steadily, not answering. The knowing smile on her face wavered a little, but she slid off the stool and came across the aisle. She started to step up into the stall where Rudy lay. Without the slightest change of expression, he kicked her in the stomach; watched unwinking, as she landed floundering and groaning in the straw of the aisle.

She staggered to her feet, gasping, eyes tear-washed with anger and pain. She asked furiously just what was the big idea anyway? Just who the hell did he think he was anyway? Then, weakly, as he continued to stare at her in silence, she began to weep.

"I d-didn't do anything. I–I tried to be n-nice, and do what you wanted me to do, and y-you…"

She was overwhelmed with self-pity. Blindly, as though drawn by a magnet, she came close to Rudy again. And he hooked her, stumbling, into the stall with his foot, brought her down on her knees with a yank of a viselike hand. The hand went to the back of her head. Her mouth crushed cruelly against his. She gasped and struggled for a moment; then, with a greedy moan, she surrendered, squirming and pressing her softness against him.

Abruptly, Rudy pushed her away. "You get the idea?" he said. "When I tell you to do something, you do it. Fast! Think you can remember that?"

"Oh, yes," she said,eyes glowing softly. "Anything you say, Rudy. You just tell me and-and whatever it is-I'll…"

He told her what she was to do. Then, as she looked at him, face falling, he pointed up the command with a twist of her arm. "Now, hop to it," he said. "Get that red paint off your claws. It's making me sick."

Doc followed the thief through the gate to the train, then down the winding ramp to the loading platform. The man was nowhere in sight when he emerged from the tunnel. But Doc had not expected him to be. Stepping behind a nearby pillar, he waited watchfully. And after a minute or two the thief edged out from behind another pillar and started back up the platform.

Doc confronted him abruptly. "All right, mister," he said. "I'll just-" His hand grasped for the bag, almost gripped the handle. The thief twisted it, yanked, and trotted back down the platform. Doc strode after him.

He had made a mistake, he knew. Back there in the station he should have shouted at the thief, shouted that he was a thief. In which case the man would certainly have dropped the bag and fled. But he had been afraid to call out, had even believed that it wouldn't be necessary. Caught red-handed, the thief would-or should-hightail it.

Unfortunately, the man was as unobliging as he was discerning. He had stolen this tall gent's bag, or his wife's bag. The wife had been nervous as all hell about it, and now this guy, her husband, was making no outcry at all. That must be because he couldn't.

So the thief made off, taking the bag with him. More than a little hopeful that Doc would not risk pursuing him. As much exultant as dismayed when he saw Doc was right after him. This must be something big that he had latched onto. And with Doc unable to squawk, he stood a good chance of getting away with it. Or at least part of it. He could demand a split of whatever the bag contained.

The thief was very cocksure, it should be said; in his particular branch of crime, he had to be. Also- and it is hardly necessary to point this out-he had known no criminals of Doc McCoy's caliber.

Only two doors of the train were open, one in the Pullman section, the other to admit coach passengers. The thief approached the latter, squeezing himself in line behind an elderly couple. The conductor stopped them as they started to climb aboard.

"Tickets, tickets, please," he intoned impatiently. "See your ticket, lady, mister."

It developed that the tickets were at the bottom of the lady's handbag. While she fumbled for them anxiously, the thief eased around her and got a foot on the steps.

"Ticket? Ticket, mister?" the conductor called to him.

But the thief was already in the car.

The conductor glowered. The elderly woman produced one of the two necessary tickets, then, pawing for the other, she spilled a handful of small change onto the platform. Immediately she and her husband stooped to gather it up. The conductor implored them to please step aside, folks. "Tickets, tickets. Kindly show your tickets." But he himself was pushed aside as the other passengers pressed forward, began to clamber aboard by twos and threes. And what with one thing and another, he not only was unable to check their tickets but he ceased to give a damn whether he did.

With a heavenward gesture, he stalked away to converse with a sympathetically grinning brakeman.

Meanwhile, Doc was on the train, trailing the thief by less than a car length.

The man had turned right, heading toward the front of the train. He moved with relatively little haste as long as he was within Doc's view. But losing him momentarily in passing from one car to another, he began to run. His intent or, rather, hope was to get off the train and leave Doc on it. But that would take time, as his hurried attempt to open a connecting door proved. He would need at least a couple of minutes to jump off and lose himself and so he ran.

The passengers became fewer and fewer as he neared the front of the train. He raced through one in which there were none at all; and then, coming to the door at its end, he stopped short. The car ahead was a dingy, straw-seated smoker. It was wholly empty, like the one he was in, and it adjoined the first of the express cars. In other words, he could go no farther. And he still lacked the time, or was afraid that he did, to make his escape.

His thief's mind weighed the situation, made an almost instantaneous decision. Darting through the drapes of the men's rest room, he yanked down the window shade, tossed the bag onto the leather couch and pressed the catches which held it shut. He was going to get something out of this frammis. Make sure, at least, that there was something to get. After all, the world was full of screwballs and it just might be that there was nothing in this keister but old matchbook covers or…