Wingfield and Dale tossed a copper penny to see who would have to carry it home. Wingfield lost.
Two traps had been sprung but held no game. There were fresh sim footprints around both. Dale's remarkes were colorful and inventive.
The Englishmen headed back toward Jamestown not long after the sun began to wester. They took a route different from the one they had used on the way out: several traps remained to be checked.
A small, brown-and-white-striped ground squirrel scurried away from Wingfield's boot. It darted into a clump of cockleburs. A moment later, both hunters leaped back in surprise as the little animal was flung head-high, kicking in a noose, when a bent sapling suddenly sprang erect.
'Marry' Dale said. 'I don't recall setting a snare there.'
'Perhaps it was someone else. At al odds, good luck we happened along now.' Wingfield walked over to retrieve the ground squirrel which now hung limp. He frowned as he undid the noose from around its neck. 'Who uses sinew for his traps?'
'No one I know,' Dale said. 'Twine is far easier to work with.'
'Hmm.' Wingfield was examining the way the sinew was bound to the top of the sapling. It had not been tied at al , only wrapped around and around several twigs until finaly in place. 'Have a look at this, will you, Henry?'
Dale looked, grunted, turned away. Wingfield's voice pursued him:
'What animals make traps, Henry?'
'Aye, well, this is the first we've seen, in all the time we've been this side of the Atlantic. I take that to mean the sims but ape us, as a jackdaw will human speech, without having the divine spark of wit to devise any such thing for themselves. Damn and blast, man, if a dog learns to walk upon his hinder feet, is he then deserving of a seat in Parliament?'
'More than some who have them now,' Wingfield observed.
Both men laughed. Dale reached for the ground squirrel tossed it into the bag with the rest of the game he carried. His crooked teeth flashed in a rare grin. 'It does my heart good to rob the vermin this once, instead of the other way round.'
His good humor vanished when he and Wingfield returned to the settlement. They found not only Allan Cooper and the other three guards armed and armored, but also a double handful more men. That morning a sim had burst out of the woods, smashed in a goat's skull with a rock, flung the animal under an arm, and escaped before the startled Englishmen could do anything.
'I shot, but I missed,' Cooper raid morosely.
'It's a poor trade for a ground squirrel, Henry,' Wingfield remarked.
His hunting partner's scowl was midnight black. 'The mangy pests grow too bold. Just the other night they slaughtered a hound outside the stockade, hacked it to pieces with their stones, and were eating the flesh raw when at last the sentry came round with his torch and spied them. He missed, too,' Dale finished, with a sidelong look at Cooper.
'And would you care to draw a conclusion from that?' the guard asked.
His hand caressed the hilt of his rapier.
Henry Dale hesitated. As a gentleman, he was trained to the sword. But liverish temper or no, he was not a fool; Cooper had learned in a harsher school than his, and survived. At last Dale said, 'I draw the same conclusion as would any man of sense: that our best course is to rid ourselves of these pestiferous sims forthwith, as wolves and other vicious creatures have long been hunted out of England.'
'I hold to war, Henry, on being attacked, but not to murder,' Cooper said. 'Mind, we must seem as outlandish to them as they to us.'
'Killing a sim is no more murder than butchering a pig,' Dale retorted.
The endless debate started up again.
Having no desire to join in another round, Wingfield took his share of the game back to his cabin. Anne was changing Joanna's soiled linen.
She looked up with a wan smile. 'There's no end to't.'
The baby kicked her legs and smiled toothlessly at her father. He felt his own tight expression soften.
He plucked the songbirds, skinned the polecat, set the hide aside to be tanned. He gutted the birds and tossed their little naked bodies into the stewpot whole. He threw the offal outside for the pigs or dogs to find. The black and white polecat required more skil ful butchery, for it had to be cut into pieces before the scent glands were removed.
'Thank you, dear.' Anne rocked Joanna in her arms. 'She's getting hungry, aren't you, sweet one? What say I feed you now, so you let us eat in peace afterwards. Can you tend to the stew, Edward?'
'Of course.' He stirred the bubbling contents of the pot with a wooden spoon. Now and again he tossed in a dash of dried, powdered herbs or a pinch of grayish sea-salt Joanna nursed lustily, then fel asleep. The stew began to smell savory. Anne was about to ladle it into bowls when the baby wet herself and started crying again. Her mother gave Wingfield a look of mingled amusement and despair.
'Go on with what you were about,*' he told her. 'I'll tend to Joanna.'
Anne sighed gratefully. Wingfield tossed the soggy linen into the pile with the rest for tomorrow’s washing. He found a dry cloth, wrapped the baby's loins, and set her in her cradle. Anne rocked it while they ate.
Joanna tolerated not being held, but showed no interest in going back to sleep.
She squawked indignantly when Anne made the mistake of trying to turn her onto her belly, and remained irritated enough to stay awake even after her mother picked her up.
Her fussy cries rang loud in the small cabin. After a while, Wingfield thrust a torch into the fire. 'Let's walk her
