"Andre Norton - Here Abide Monsters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

pon. And there was a very faint stir of memory deep in Nick's mind. Somewh
ere, sometime, he had seen a man wearing just such clothing. But where and
when?
As yet the newcomer had given no answer to Nick's question. Instead he eyed t
hem narrowly. Lung, straining to the very end of his leash, was sniffing, his
barking having subsided, sniffing as if to set this stranger's scent deep in
his catalog of such odors.
If the stranger intended to overawe them with such a beginning, Nick refused
to yield.
"I asked," he said, "who are you?"
"And I heard you, chum. I ain't lost the use of m' ears, not yet. I'm Sam Str
oud, Warden of Harkaway Place, if it's anything to you. Which I'm laying odds
, it ain't. There's just the two of you?"
He watched them closely, almost as if he expected them to be the van of a la
rger party. Linda broke in:
"Warden! Nick, he's dressed like an air raid warden- one of those in the pict
ure about the Battle of Britain they showed in our history course."
English! That explained his accent. But what was an Englishman in the unifo
rm of a service thirty years in the past doing here? Nick did not want to a
ccept the suggestion the discovery brought.
"Is she right?" He added a second question to the first. "You are that kind o
f warden?"
"That's so. Supposin', m'lad, you speak up now. Who are you? An' this youn
g lady here?"
"She's Linda Durant and I'm Nick Shaw. We're-we're Americans."
Stroud raised a thick hand and rubbed his jaw. "Well, now-Americans, hey?
Caught right in your own country?"
"Yes. We were just heading for a lake-like this lake- then suddenly we were
here. Where is here?"
Stroud made a sound that might have been intended for a bark of laughter, ex
cept there was very little humor in it.
"Now that's a question, Shaw, which nobody seems able to answer. The Vica
r, he's got one or two ideas-pretty wide they are-but we've never been ab
le to prove them one way or another. When did you come through?"
"Not too long ago," Linda answered. "Is that your fire making the smoke? W
e're awfully hungry and we were just going to eat when we saw it and came
along ..."
"You have some supplies?" Stroud rammed the slingshot back under the belt of
his boiler suit. "All right, come ahead." He turned a little toward the bus
h from which he had emerged, put two fingers to his lips and gave a low, but
carrying whistle. "You ain't bait as far as I can see."
"Bait?" Nick did not like the sound of that.
Again Stroud gave his crow of laughter. "Bait, yes. You'll learn, m'lad, you'
ll learn. This way now, an' mind the bushes ..."
He pushed ahead and they followed in a way which to Nick's eyes used all avai
lable cover. But if there was such a need to hide, why then did they allow sm
oke to rise like a banner in the air? Only a moment later, he realized that t
hey were not heading toward the site of that fire, but well to the left of it
.
Linda must have made the same discovery, for now she asked: