'One more cup,' snarled Ray, 'and I plug him.'

'Cup?'

'Of coffee.'

'I thought,' said Benton, finally looking up from the cards in front of him, 'it was you who wanted a cup of coffee?'

'It is! It is!' Tugging at what remained of his hair, Ray shot a half-exasperated, half-disbelieving look across the table. Benton, however, had gone back to his game of patience. As he played, he wondered whether Ray would get the hint. Then he remembered where Ray Vecchio came from. Subtlety was an unfamiliar concept in Chicago. So was patience - in any form. Glaring in a distinctly unsubtle way at the man drinking coffee behind the counter, Ray then let forth an impatient bellow. 'Can we get some service around here!'

The man behind the counter didn't even look up.

He had, he felt, already got the measure of the man.

His faults were legion - but there was only one that really mattered; one that condemned him beyond redemption. He was undoubtedly American. To emphasize his contempt for the species, Hamish Carter rustled his copy of the North Bay Nugget and poured himself another cup of coffee.

'You know Ray,' said Benton, sensing a bristling on the other side of the table, 'things move at their own pace in small places like this.'

But Ray found no solace in the remark. Anyway, he thought as he looked around the small room, it wasn't true. Things in North Bay didn't appear to move at all. Lapsing into a disconsolate silence, he questioned, not for the first time, the wisdom of accompanying Benton on this holiday. He had known the Canadian Mountie for nearly two years now, had spent much leisure time with him, but had never spent a vacation with him. True, he had travelled with him to Canada on one previous occasion, but that had been no holiday. Oh no. His insurance company had the medical bills to prove it.

And now they were in Canada once more, about to embark on the last leg of their journey to the North West. That, at least, was the theory. Again Ray surveyed the small room that styled itself as an airport terminal but that he would have described as a joke. Except the joke, he mused, wasn't particularly funny. It consisted of two formica tables, several chairs and the counter that was both café and check-in desk - and of course the taciturn individual flanked by two signs reading, on the café side, 'Back in ten minutes' and, on the check-in side, 'Have your tickets ready'. Very Canadian, very unfunny, fumed Ray. Unable to maintain silence for a moment longer (it had already lasted a moment - anathema to Ray) he stood up brandishing his ticket in the direction of the counter. 'I would just like,' he announced in controlled fury, 'to check in. Okay?'

The North Bay Nugget moved. Its reader did not.

Ray advanced towards the counter, swaggering in the menacing way that might have suggested to Hamish Carter, had he been looking, that the man was a detective from Chicago.

And then Hamish Carter did look up - but not at the detective from Chicago. Instead, he turned with smile to the man whose approach, coming via the doorway, coincided with Ray's. The newcomer looked, as did the six men in his wake, altogether more menacing - particularly if one happened to be an elk. "Armed to the teeth and dressed in camouflage fatigues, they looked capable of annihilating the entire wildlife population of Canada. From the smell that wafted towards Ray as the men filled the room, it seemed that they might possibly already have done so. Suddenly elk-like. Ray hung back.

'Hey, Hamish!' boomed the first man. 'How's it going?'

Abandoning the North Bay Nugget, Hamish embraced the group with a wave of his ham-like hand and gestured towards the other door. 'Plane's out front, boys. Just hop on in.'

Ray watched aghast as the men heaved mountains of luggage and armaments through the small room. The luggage scales, like the 'tickets ready' sign, was ignored by all. 'Tickets!' squeaked Ray. 'Did I hear anyone being asked for tickets?!'

Observing the scene with detachment, Benton shook his head. 'Ray, Ray, Ray .. .' he cautioned.

Ray whirled round. 'Look! I gave up two weeks vacation in Miami for this!'

'As I recall, that was your idea.'

'No. As I recall I said "maybe". As in maybe we should go north and fix up your father's cabin. You, on the other hand, could have said "no".'

Benton merely shrugged. 'Well, you don't have to do this. Ray.'

'Oh yes I do!' Ray's hands, seemingly working independently of the rest of his body, flapped around in the air. 'Because, Fraser, it's like a ... a whaddyacallit... a deathbed confession. You have to honour it.'

That wasn't strictly true, thought Benton. Yet he knew enough about Ray, about his meteoric rises into excitability, not to point out the finer details of the situation. Later, perhaps. Or maybe never would be better. Flashing a brilliant smile at Ray, he stood up and deftly pocketed his cards. 'Well, I for one am glad we're going.' Ray, however, had turned his attention back to Hamish Carter. As soon as Benton had risen to his feet, Hamish had moved towards the ticket counter. Ray was too worked-up to spot the unlikely coincidence. 'Ha!' he said, dripping sarcasm. 'Finally.'

Hamish ignored him.

In retaliation. Ray picked up his bags and turned back to Benton. 'You check us in. I'm gonna take these bags to the plane.'

'No.' It was the first word Hamish had addressed to Ray. Not much of a start as conversational gambits go, but a start nonetheless. 'You've got,' he continued as he nodded towards the scales, 'to weigh in first.'

Ray's eyes narrowed. 'I gotta weigh in first?'

'Yeah.' 'I'm sitting back there for over an hour doing nothing,_and now you want me to check in!' For a moment Ray looked as if he was going to pick a fight with Hamish. Then, taking a leaf out of Benton's book, he shrugged and bent down to pick up the several large bags that constituted his luggage. 'Okay, let's weigh them in, then.'

Hamish watched with a glint in his eye as one piece after another landed on the scales. Then, when the pile was waist-high, Benton threw a small rucksack on top. 'Mine,' he said simply.

But Hamish's attention was already diverted by the angry bleeping sounds emanating from the machine. Pre-empting him, Ray leaned forward and extracted his wallet from the breast-pocket of his donkey jacket. 'Okay, so they're a little over. How much do we have to pay,' he added as he showed Hamish a wad of US dollars.

Hamish recoiled in distaste. 'It's American.'

'I'm American.'

'From Chicago,' added Benton with a smile.

'Too bad,' replied Hamish. 'You're just gonna have to leave some of this behind, boys.'

Ray obligingly picked up Benton's rucksack and dropped it on the floor.

'No. A lot more than that.'

But Ray had had enough. 'What,' he demanded, jabbing an angry finger in the direction of the departing hunters, 'about those guys? They had huge bags. What about them?'

Hamish merely shrugged. 'They're different.'

'And exactly how are they different?'

'They're just different.' Hamish refused to say the word.

Ray didn't. 'I know they're different! They're Canadian and I'm American. That is how they are different. You are discriminating against me because I'm an American and ...'

'Ray, Ray, Ray ...' Benton the peacekeeper stepped forward and smiled his Canadian smile at Hamish. 'Excuse me, sir, but I wonder ... if you could just check the manifest and see if this extra weight might be permissable within the maximum payload?'

'All right,' nodded the other man. 'I'll see what I can do.'

'Thank you kindly.'

But easy capitulation wasn't Hamish's style. Having given a bit of ground, he was in no hurry to relent further by actually looking at the manifest. Instead he poured himself another coffee.

'Hope ya burst,' snarled Ray. It was the wrong thing to say - and the forward movement as he uttered the words was also wrong. Ray's jacket fell open, revealing the butt of his weapon.

'Is that a hand gun there?' snapped Hamish.

'Yes.'

'It's prohibited to carry guns on aircraft.'

'Not if you're a cop.'

'So go find a cop, then.'

'I am a cop!' Ray searched frantically for his I.D.

But Hamish was quicker. 'Not in this country you're not.'

'Ahhh!' Uncustomarily lost for words. Ray looked to Benton for help.

Benton obliged as only Benton could. 'No indeed,' he said. 'And that means your gun's not licensed for use in this country. Give it to the man, Ray.'

'Fraser...!'

Hamish held out his hand. 'You wanna get on that plane, sonny?'

A minute later they were walking towards the plane. Hamish had won on every count - including over the luggage. Ray was reduced to one piece. His face like thunder, he stalked across the tarmac towards the small aircraft.

'I am not,' said an adamant Benton, 'going to apologise.'

'Fine.'

'The man was right. It's strictly prohibited to carry weapons on aircraft.'

'Fine.'

'Particularly, as I said, if it isn't licensed for use in this country.'

Ray whirled round. 'And just who was it told him it was unlicensed, Fraser? Who?'

Benton took a deep breath. 'I'm still not apologizing.'

'Fine.' In tight-lipped silence. Ray once again stormed ahead and clambered aboard the plane. At least, he thought to himself, I'll beat Benton to the best seat.

Alone on the tarmac, Benton turned to survey the tiny airport. There wasn't a movement; no sign of life anywhere. 'We're going now!' he yelled.

No response.

'We're leaving.'

Silence.

'We will NOT RETURN!'

The last words finally brought a response. A figure emerged from the woods behind the terminal shack, ran full-tilt towards Benton, bounded straight past him and hurled itself into the plane, landing on top of Ray.

Diefenbaker had arrived.

On his own arrival in Chicago nearly two years previously as Deputy Chief Liaison Officer at the Canadian Consulate, Benton Fraser had caused something of a stir. His good looks, his unfailing politeness, and his immaculate blue and red uniform had ensured that he never went unnoticed. His uncanny abilities in the crime-solving department had further endeared him to some elements of Chicago society - although not, perhaps, to the criminal fraternity. But it was Diefenbaker's presence at his side that ensured no-one ever forgot him. A Mountie was one thing: a Mountie with a pet wolf was quite another. And a Mountie with a pet wolf that also happened to be deaf was ... well, Constable Benton Fraser.

Like many of the aurally-challenged, Diefenbaker was, to be absolutely precise, selectively deaf. At an early age he had cottoned on to the fact that much of what he heard was rubbish or, more to the point, criticism of his good self. Diefenbaker wasn't too keen on listening to that sort of thing. So he didn't. Any guilt he felt about duping people into thinking he was completely deaf was washed away by the fact that he was a wolf and therefore wasn't supposed to understand speech in the first place. Or, indeed, the concept of guilt. He felt absolutely no guilt whatsoever about leading a charmed life.

Ever since Benton had become Ray's friend and (invariably unofficial) colleague, the latter had realized that wherever Benton went, Diefenbaker came too. Ray would never admit the fact, but he had grown extremely fond of the wolf. Two years ago, he would have been paralysed with fear about being confined in a small space with a large white wolf, let alone having the creature land on top of him. Now, however, he barely batted an eyelid at such impositions. He merely whacked Dief on the rump and told him to go and sit in the seat behind.

After a brief moment. Dief obliged. Like Ray, he had been intent on nabbing the best seat in the tiny plane. But now, also like Ray, he realized there was no such thing. The passenger cabin contained four cramped, uncomfortable and identical seats. For a moment, Dief toyed with the idea of joining the pilot in the cockpit beyond the nylon curtain in front of Ray. Then, as if Dief's mind had been read, the curtain parted a few inches and the pilot looked at his passengers. Perhaps not, thought the wolf. He didn't like the look of the man; of the cold blue eyes that matched the nasty jumpsuit he was wearing. Diefenbaker would sooner die than admit the fact - but some of his wolfish instincts had been tamed by Chicago. Time to hone them up a little. I am a wolf, he reminded himself as he glared back at the pilot. Not a wimp.

By the time Benton joined them a few moments later, the pilot had opened the throttle and the whine of the jet's engines filled the cabin. The pilot himself was in conversation with air-traffic control which, in North Point, was synonymous with Hamish Carter, still immobile behind the counter and with yet another cup of coffee to hand.

'You're clear for take-off anytime, Jack,' said Hamish into his microphone. 'Weather's good to 0-nine thousand, heading two-nine-eight all the way up to the Territories. Over.'

'Roger,' replied the pilot.

'You coining back tonight after you drop off the cops?'

The pilot stiffened. 'Cops?'

'That's right,' chuckled Hamish. 'Mountie's fine. The other guy's gonna take some getting used to, though.'

'Er ... thanks,' came the muffled reply.

In the cafe-cum-control-tower-alias departure lounge, Hamish nodded to himself and took off his headset. Jack didn't exactly need much in the way of assistance in take-off: air-traffic control was a misnomer in these parts. The only other traffic - the plane containing the hunters - had already departed in the other direction. Hamish reached for the coffee machine. A few more cups, a few more paragraphs of the North Bay Nugget and then he would help prepare for the next take-off. Funny, he mused, how there were so many cops around: the next plane's passengers were a policeman and the man he was escorting. Some sort of criminal, so Hamish had been told.

The man of whom Hamish was thinking wasn't just some sort of criminal: he was an escaped convict who had been imprisoned for life, due to his penchant for mass murder, armed robbery, arson and other little misdemeanours. Yet he was a resourceful and accomplished man, adept at adapting to circumstances.

He had adapted rather nicely to the circumstances in which he now found himself - namely at the controls of Benton and Ray's plane. One of his many past accomplishments was the - legal - acquisition of a license to fly light aircraft. Another, more recent, was the whacking on the head of the policeman to whom he had been handcuffed and subsequent escape from the handcuffs. After that, knocking Jack the pilot into unconsciousness and divesting him of his jumpsuit had been a breeze.

And now he. Duff Hogan, was flying free as a bird. True, it was a trifle disconcerting to discover that his passengers were yet more cops, but Duff wasn't unduly worried. He would be bidding them an extremely surprising 'goodbye' before long.

Behind him, his passengers peered downwards as the sweeping Canadian forests unfolded below them. Benton sat placidly, enjoying the ascent into the clear blue skies and the gentle hum of the engines. Beside him. Ray bemoaned the lack of in-flight movie, of toilet facilities, of service and of comfort. But most of all, he bemoaned the presence of Diefenbaker's snout on his right shoulder. Wolf or not, Diefenbaker definitely had dog-breath.

'Get off. Dief!' he yelled, trying to shrug off the lupine head. But Diefenbaker just whined in response.

'He wants the peanuts,' said Benton.

'What peanuts?'

'The ones in the mini-bar.'

'Mini-bar?' Things were looking up. 'Where?'

'There.'

Ray's face fell as he looked down to where Benton was pointing. 'That's not a mini-bar. It's a small packet of peanuts and some mineral water in a plastic container.'

'Not in North Bay it isn't.'

'Oh. Oh well.' Ray shrugged, leaned forward for the peanuts and then passed them back to Dief. At least it meant respite from the dog-breath. Anyway, he reasoned, it couldn't be too long before they could have more substantial fare. 'Benny,' he said. 'How long did you say the flight was?'

Good, thought Benton, he's in a better mood again. Ray's moods could be judged by how he addressed his friend. It was Benny when he was on a high, Benton when all was normal and Fraser when he was in a frenzy. Fraser was the word he used most often. Benton turned round and smiled at Ray. 'Four hours.'

'Four hours?'

'Is that a problem?'

Ray cast wildly around. 'Uh ... well... I don't suppose there's a John on board?'

'Not unless John happens to be the pilot's name, Ray.'

Ray shot his friend a particularly nasty look. In front, and overhearing snippets of the conversation, Duff Hogan smiled to himself. These guys were just a couple of jokers. Then he smiled even more broadly. Soon he'd really give them something to laugh about.

Benton, Ray and Diefenbaker lapsed into silence, a commodity much cherished by Benton but rather feared by Ray. In his book, silences were always ominous, even eerie. And in his family, they were non-existent. He was therefore alert to the possibility of further conversation and, half an hour later, pounced on Benton.

'What did you say?'

'I didn't say anything.'

'You did. You went "huh".'

'That's not a word. Ray.'

'No, but it's saying something, isn't it?'

'I suppose ... I was just... no, it's nothing.' But a few minutes later, and with a distinct frown, Benton uttered another puzzled monosyllable.

'What?' said Ray.

Benton shrugged. 'Oh, it's nothing. It's probably nothing.'

But then Ray felt it as well; a definite lurch as the engine whined and the plane suddenly lost altitude. 'That,' he roared as he struggled to stay in his seat, 'was not nothing!' Then, leaning forward, he tugged at the curtain separating them from the cockpit. 'I want to have a little talk with this guy. Hey!' he yelled at the back of the pilot's head. 'Wanna~keep your eyes on the road?'

The pilot half turned in his seat. 'Is there a problem?'

'No. I just love having my kidneys ...'

'Actually,' said Benton, suddenly also leaning forwards, 'we're quite fine. Thank you.'

The pilot raised a hand in acknowledgement. 'You guys better keep your seat belts on. It's going to be a bumpy ride.'

Ray and Benton leaned back again; the former fuming, the latter still wearing a slight frown.

Benton was still frowning when, after another half hour, he turned to his companion. 'Ray, you wouldn't happen to have your back-up gun, would you?'

Ray's eyes narrowed. 'No.'

'Oh. Oh well.'

'Oh well what? Why do we need a gun?'

'It's just an observation,' said Benton, lowering his voice. 'Probably ill-timed,' he added with an apologetic smile, 'but I don't think this man is a pilot.'

'You're telling me,' snarled Ray as the plane lurched again.

'No, I mean I think he may be a pilot, but not our pilot. You see, there's dandruff on the collar of his flight suit, and none on his scalp.'

'For that we shoot him?'

Benton ignored the barb and carried on. 'The territories are northwest. Ray. We've been flying south for an hour. Also, he's been ignoring radio calls and occasionally flying under the radar ceiling.'

Ray looked sceptical rather than worried. 'So what are you saying - we've been hijacked?'

'No, not necessarily .. . but the chaffing on his wrists is consistent with a man who has recently been in handcuffs. Add to that the blood on the back of his flight suit, and the prominent bullet hole ... well, I leave it up to you.' The last words were spoken with a polite smile.

Ray was not smiling. 'You couldn't have mentioned this earlier?'

'Moot point, Ray, but he has a gun. We don t.

But Ray had been lying about the back-up gun. With a triumphant grin, he reached for his ankle holster. Then, suddenly wary, he looked up at Benton. 'This isn't a trick, is it?'

'On my word of honour,' reassured Benton.

'Good.' Ray extracted the weapon from beneath his trouser leg. ,

'But,' added Benton, 'I will have to arrest you, of course. Once we land.'

Ray looked round to see if his friend was joking.

He wasn't.

A moment later, making a mental note never to get on a plane with Benton ever again. Ray reached for the curtain. 'On the count of three, ready?

'Er ... not now Ray,' said Benton, restraining him 'Let's wait until we land.'

Ray rolled his eyes. 'Where? Beirut?'

But Benton was all seriousness. 'It's a light plane, Ray I don't think we have enough fuel to reach the Middle East. My guess is that he's a smuggler and that we're headed for Mexico.'

'Oh great - where fifty of his friends will be waiting for us with Uzis. Do you know,' sighed Ray as if to a small child, 'what happens to hostages Fraser? Cop hostages? Bodies on the tarmac? CNN? That is not going to happen. We've got to get him to turn this plane round right away.'

Benton mulled over that one for a moment. 'You're right, of course, but on the other hand there could be a struggle, he might refuse to cooperate - in which case,' he added without apparent concern, 'we might have to fly the plane ourselves. That might be possible with some assistance from air traffic control and,' he said, brightening at the memory, 'I did read a flight training manual in my grandmother's library. There were a couple of pages missing, but I'm sure nothing vital.' Noting Ray's horror, he sought to reassure him. 'I'm sure there are a lot of similarities between a Sopwith Camel and today's light aircraft.'

Ray just looked. He had spent nearly two years trying to decide if Benton was eccentric, seriously unhinged, piercingly intelligent or just plain stupid. Every time he homed in on one or the other, Benton would plunge in and send Ray's diagnosis, veering like an out of control barometer, in the opposite direction. A few moments previously, he had been admiring Benton's acute powers of perception and deduction. Now he pitied him for his mind-boggling idiocy. Yet he was aware that now was not the time to lose his temper, or even to debate Benton's state of mind - if mind was indeed what he called it. Now they were in what his boss, Commander Welsh, would call a 'first-degree situation of non-favourability as regards the prognosis for life extension'. They were tens of thousands of feet in the air, flying above an impenetrable forest, en route to hostagedom in Mexico, totally at the mercy of a criminal who - it had to be faced - was probably even more unhinged than Benton. Things weren't looking too good. Thankfully, Ray knew what to do in situations like this. Stay calm.

'Have you any idea,' he asked in a blind panic, 'what the odds are for survival in a situation like this?' He regretted the question as soon as it had passed his lips. Irritatingly, Benton always knew the answers to the most obscure questions.

'Well,' began the Mountie, 'statistically over ninety per cent of fatalities occur during take-off and landing.'

'Great. Oh, that's just great. We survived the take-off. Let's just stay up in the air for the rest of our lives, shall we?'

'On a brighter note, eighteen per cent of all crash survivors crawl away with three out of four limbs.'

That was enough for Ray. He cocked the gun, leaned forward and yanked open the curtain. At the exact moment he did so, a loud bang filled the air and the air, in turn, filled the passenger cabin. Lots of it; far more than there should have been. And then the plane lurched drunkenly to the right and, after suspending itself in mid-air for a moment, embarked on a new direction: downwards. Like Benton and Diefenbaker, Ray was flung back into his seat by the force of the blast and the ensuing rush of air. Now, with difficulty, he hauled himself forwards again and looked into the cockpit. It was empty. Below them, floating like a wayward cloud, was a parachute, and below the parachute was their pilot. Ray thought he saw the man give them a friendly little wave, but couldn't be sure. Again he was thrown out of his chair, this time by Benton as he made a frantic dive into the cockpit. But Ray had seen what Benton hadn't: the loud bang had been from the pilot shooting the control panel. They were plummeting out of control and nothing - not even a Sopwith Camel expert - could save them.

They say that your whole life appears before you just before you die. Ray now knew that was a lie. The only thing that flashed before him was the fact that he was going to die. He reckoned he could probably handle that: after all, it happened to everybody. But what he had never contemplated was where he might die. Now he knew the worst: knew the whole plot in all its embarrassing ignominy. He was going to die in Canada.

Chapter Two

There is a time to be born and a time to die - neither of which should be allowed to get in the way of a good plot. Benton knew this: it only dawned on Ray when he noticed that a large white wolf was licking his face. Diefenbaker, he realized with a start, had survived the crash. It took a good thirty seconds for him to come to grips with the fact that he too had escaped with his life. And, he subsequently discovered, a full complement of limbs.

Now that it seemed that life was going to continue - albeit in Canada - he took the opportunity to have a look around him. He was lying beside the plane in some sort of clearing in the forest. The plane itself was categorically deceased; its back was broken and a plume of smoke wafted from its nether regions. As Ray looked, marvelling at his luck, the smoke parted and a man with a hat appeared. Benton. And Benton's hat. How much, thought Ray irrelevantly, had that hat been through? How many near-death experiences had it survived only to bounce back like ... well, a hat. A Mountie's hat. Even in mufti, Benton never went anywhere without his stetson. Ray now knew why: the hat was like the elixir of life, a key to immortality.

Just as he was beginning to allow himself the luxury of thinking he might be hallucinating, a business-like Benton interrupted his reverie.

'Ah, there you are.'

'Well I'm not likely to be anywhere else, am I? I've just fallen out of a plane.'

But Benton was never one to dwell on the past. 'We'd better get moving,' he said as he attempted to uncrumple his clothes.

'Moving? Where to? Why? I might be in shock, Benton. I can't move.'

'Well you can't stay here.'

'Yes I can. Reinforcements will arrive soon.'

Benton knew better. 'This plane will never be found. Ray. It's under cover of trees.'

'But...'

'And the bits that weren't shot by the pilot were destroyed in the crash. I've just checked. The emergency equipment and the ELT . ..'

'So where do you suggest we go? Shopping?' Ray stood up, forgetting that he was intending to use a damaged leg as an excuse for staying where he was. 'You can't be intending to drag us through thousands of miles of wilderness heading God knows where?'

'On the way down,' explained Benton, 'I noticed a river. There's bound to be a river. Undoubtedly the hijacker saw it as well and will be heading there.'

Ray looked appalled. 'We're going to follow the hijacker?'

Benton held up an admonitory finger. 'Ray, the man is a vicious murderer. He killed the pilot, undoubtedly he killed his police escort - and then he attempted to kill us.'

'So we follow him, tap him on the shoulder and offer him a second chance? You're not thinking straight, Benton.' Peering at his friend, he decided that Benton was definitely a bit glassy in the eyeball department.

But Ray, in Benton's book, was the muddle-headed one. 'No, we're policemen. Ray. The man is a criminal: it's our duty to go after him.'

'But we've just survived a plane crash!'

'All the more reason,' replied Benton as he took off his hat, 'to follow him. We'll have the advantage of surprise. Come on, if we move hard and drive fast we should be able to intercept him before nightfall. Any questions?' he added.

'Yes.' Ray noted that there was a deep cut on Benton's now hatless forehead. 'How far do you think you're going to get with that gash on your head?'

Benton put a tentative hand to the injured area and laughed dismissively. 'Oh, Ray! Head wounds always look worse than they actually are.' Then he the hijacker saw it as well and will be heading there.'

Ray looked appalled. 'We're going to follow the hijacker?'

Benton held up an admonitory finger. 'Ray, the man is a vicious murderer. He killed the pilot, undoubtedly he killed his police escort - and then he attempted to kill us.'

'So we follow him, tap him on the shoulder and offer him a second chance? You're not thinking straight, Benton.' Peering at his friend, he decided that Benton was definitely a bit glassy in the eyeball department.

But Ray, in Benton's book, was the muddle-headed one. 'No, we're policemen. Ray. The man is a criminal: it's our duty to go after him.'

'But we've just survived a plane crash!'

'All the more reason,' replied Benton as he took off his hat, 'to follow him. We'll have the advantage of surprise. Come on, if we move hard and drive fast we should be able to intercept him before nightfall. Any questions?' he added.

'Yes.' Ray noted that there was a deep cut on Benton's now hatless forehead. 'How far do you think you're going to get with that gash on your head?'

Benton put a tentative hand to the injured area and laughed dismissively. 'Oh, Ray! Head wounds always look worse than they actually are.' Then he fished around in his jacket pocket and extracted his compass. 'We'd better get going. Can you give me a reading, please?'

'It's your compass,' sulked Ray. 'You read it.'

'I can't.'

"Course you can. You're a Mountie, aren't you?'

'Yes, but I'm afraid you'll just have to read it this time. Ray.'

Genuinely puzzled and with the first faint stirrings of concern in his breast. Ray peered more closely at Benton. 'Why, Benny?'

Benton offered an apologetic smile. 'I'm blind.'

The words, so casually spoken, took a moment to register. When they did. Ray felt his heart miss a beat. 'You're blind,' he said flatly, willing Benton to contradict him.

Benton shrugged. 'Apparently.'

A knot of fear curled itself in Ray's stomach. 'You're really, really blind?'

'As a bat.'

Ray stepped forward and waved two fingers in front of Benton's eyes. Not even by one nicker of an eyelid did Benton register the movement. Ray's worry suddenly gave way to a burst of anger. There he had been, wittering on about himself, plotting to invent lies about his legs - and all along Benton was blind. Why, for God's sake, did Benton always have to be so calm about everything? 'Why didn't you say anything?' he barked, his annoyance now directed at himself more than Benton.

Again Benton shrugged. 'No point in making a bad situation worse.'

'Worse?' squealed Ray. 'You can't see, Fraser!. That's it. We're staying by the plane.'

'Well, Ray, I still have four senses intact.'

'You can't see!'

'Ray!' protested Benton, who couldn't see an exasperated Ray hopping from one foot to another. 'I'm blind, not deaf. I've spent my entire life in the north woods tracking criminals. I have a natural advantage here.' To prove the point, he sniffed loudly and bent down to pick up a twig. 'There isn't a thing in this forest I can't hear, taste, touch, smell, feel. It's a finely-tuned ability, gained from years of experience. So,' he added defiantly as he stood up again, 'if you'll just stand aside I'll be on my way.' With that, he took two confident steps forward, walked straight into a tree and fell flat on his back.

'That,' said Ray through gritted teeth, 'was a tree.'

'Yes.' Determined net to lose face, Benton scraped the ground and then put a finger to his mouth. 'It was a white ash. Fracsinous americanus to be exact.' Then, with all the dignity he could muster, he scrambled to his feet. 'Shall we?'

Ray knew defeat - even when it stared at him through sightless eyes. There would be no stopping Benton. Anyway, he did have a point. With Ray's eyes and Benton in finely-honed possession of the other four senses, they had a good chance of getting somewhere. He read the compass - meaningless to him - and gave the reading to Benton. 'No!' he yelled as Benton prepared to march off into another tree. 'You navigate. I'll drive. Here, put your hand on my shoulder.'

Realizing that Ray had made one of his more sensible remarks (not, in Benton's book, that it had much competition) Benton did as he was bid. 'This way,' he said, tapping and then holding Ray's right shoulder.

And so, a rather dirty Diefenbaker at their heels, they left the wreckage of the plane and plunged into the depths of the forest. Benton whistled in order to prove that all was well with the world. Ray was uncharacteristically silent. Inwardly, he doubted this whole venture. Five senses were all very well, but Ray's sixth sense - the sharp antenna that detected disaster - was working overtime.

'Any sign of the hijacker?'

Ray had forgotten all about their prey: he was too busy steering Benton round all manner of trees, shrubs and rocks. While not as thick as it had at first looked, the forest was a veritable minefield of obstacles. And Ray, reared in the jungles of Chicago, was not overly familiar with forests of the green variety. They had only been going for half an hour, and it didn't feel as if they had made much progress. Worse, he had a sneaking suspicion that Benton had very little idea of where they were heading. 'No,' he said tersely.

As if reading his friend's mind, Benton spoke again, confidently and in his best tour-guide manner. 'Soon,' he offered, 'we should start to come to a river valley. The trees will thin out. The flora will become more low-lying. Willow, sea buckthorn,' he continued, nodding to himself. 'Possibly infant cottonwood.'

'That,' snorted Ray, 'is supposed to mean something to me?'

'Trees, Ray. Only shorter.'

'Ah.' Ray rolled his eyes and steered Benton round a particularly nasty rock. To him, the trees looked exactly the same size as they had always been. Still, he could see a small rise ahead of them. Perhaps it would give on to a ...

'Now the river valley should be right about ... about here.'

Ray was impressed. His heart beating faster, he climbed to the top of the rise.

The view was magnificent. Canada, Ray conceded, could be stunning. Vast expanses of unpopulated terrain, huge blue skies, dramatic vistas spreading out before you. But no river.

He exchanged sad, resigned looks with Diefenbaker. Then Dief shrugged and trotted off, leaving Ray to impart the bad news to his master.

Tell me,' said a smiling Benton, 'what you see.' Ray folded his arms across his chest. 'Oh. Well, I see ... I see trees.'

'Good, good,' nodded Benton. 'Describe'them.'

Ray surveyed the majestic landscape fanning out below them. 'Well, green mostly.'

'Very good. And the river?'

Something in Benton's tone made Ray look sharply across. Benton was smiling brightly, his eyes were shining and there was a strange glow to his skin. Concussion, mused Ray. He's daft as a brush. Well, dafter than the normal brush with which he swept serenely through life. He decided it would not be a good idea to tell Benton about the total lack of river. 'I think,' he lied, 'it's just over the next hill.'

'Perfect.' Still smiling, Benton stepped forward.

'No!' Ray sprang to his rescue, shuddering as he came within an inch of the hundred-foot precipice. 'Not a good idea. NOT a good idea.' He led Benton back to safety and then reached into his pocket. 'Just stay here, will you.' He extracted the compass and, frowning, stared at it. Which direction? North? No, it would get colder much too quickly. Due South? He dismissed that too: something told him that trouble lay that way. East would be back the way they had come. That left only one direction - the one in which they were already heading. Benton, he supposed, might be right after all. 'Westward ho!' he announced with a confidence he did not feel. That's what I say! Come on, Benny. Hand on shoulder.'

Like a docile and obedient pet, Benton let Ray put his hand on his shoulder. Beside him, Diefenbaker let out a deep sigh. He wasn't too happy about this; didn't rate Ray's orienteering skills too highly. But he was only a wolf: who was going to listen to him? Yet despite his misgivings, he followed the two men. He didn't much care for this forest business. Strange creatures lurked in places like this. Best not to wander around alone.

'Ray,' said Benton after they had gone seven paces. 'I can feel the sun on the left side of my nose.'

Ray looked upwards. There was no sun.

'Fraser, there is no sun.'

'Oh. What time is it?'

'It's three o'clock.'

Benton wrinkled his nose. 'I think you're a little off there.'

'Oh? And how do you know that?'

'Because,' said Benton, tapping his sun-less nose, 'of the sun on my nose.'

Do not, said Ray to himself, lose your temper. The man is not well. 'Benton,' he sighed, 'there is no sun on your nose.'

But Benton was adamant. 'You'd better check the compass again. If you'd ever been camping you'd know that an error of even one or two degrees could throw us hundreds of miles off course.'

Ray lost his temper. 'I know that! I'm not an idiot, Fraser.'

'I'm not saying you are,' countered Benton in the annoyingly calm way that always made Ray lose his temper if he hadn't done so already.

Ray took a deep breath and continued walking. 'Good. And by the way, I have been camping before.'

'You have not.'

'I have too!'

'When?'

'When I was a kid,' lied Ray.

'Oh? Who with?'

'My dad.' Even as Ray spoke he realized how unlikely that sounded. His late and not much lamented father had been allergic to the great outdoors. Indoors - preferably in a poker den - had been his thing. He had been pretty much allergic to his children as well; probably. Ray reckoned, because none of them had been buxom and blonde and pretty and none too choosy about the men they kept company with. He stopped and turned round to face Benton, correctly interpreting the other man's silence as an indication of extreme scepticism. 'To prove a point,' he shouted as he waved the compass at Benton, 'we are heading ... West. See?' Then he snorted and shook his head. 'No - of course you can't. What am I thinking of?' Sighing, he reached out for Benton's hand again - but he was too late. Benton was already marching off in the other direction - back towards the precipice.

'Fraser!' Ray dived forward and leapt on the other man, narrowly preventing him from taking a nose-dive over the cliff. He didn't, however, manage to prevent the compass from making its own little leap into the unknown. With his head hanging downwards next to Benton's, he watched in dismay as their lifeline tumbled into oblivion.

'Ray?' panted Benton. 'You alright?'

'Yeah' No need to tell him about the compass. What was it he had said by the plane? No need to make a bad situation worse? 'I'm fine. You okay?'

'Oh, I'm fine - but I have this peculiar sensation - it's as if my head's dangling over the edge of a precipice?

'It is.'

Benton looked affronted. Then he scrambled backwards, struggled to his feet and faced the prostrate policeman. 'Next time,' he admonished, 'please watch where you're going. You could get both of us killed.'

Ray did not lose his temper. Instead, he looked downwards at the inviting chasm. Just one little push, he thought. Nobody would know. Then, appalled by his ability to nurture murder in his breast, he too moved backwards and stood up. He would, he told himself, be rewarded in heaven. God would forgive him that little lapse. He quite forgot, as he placed Benton's hand on his shoulder and plunged back into the forest, that other little lapse: the one that had involved throwing Catholicism to the wind and hoping God wouldn't notice.

'I think we should take a break.'

'I feel perfectly fresh. Ray. Perfectly fresh.'

Ray stopped and turned round. Barking, he thought. Completely barking. They had been on the move for nearly four hours now: they had had nothing to eat or drink and it was getting dark. He was exhausted. 'No,' he said, willing himself to be patient. 'It's getting really dark and I think we should stop and make camp.'

'You know. Ray,' responded Benton. 'Wise men walk while fools sleep.'

And wiser men, thought Ray, murder Mounties while they're not looking. Then he cursed himself for the uncharitable thought. Benton couldn't look. He would be taking unfair advantage. Still . .. Then he took a deep breath and looked - a pointless exercise - straight into Benton's eyes. 'I didn't say anything about sleep, Fraser. I'd just like to see where I'm going.'

'Means nothing to me,' retorted a wistful Benton.

'I realize that, but I do not want to track this guy by moonlight.' In point of fact. Ray didn't want to track the guy by any light: his only thought was to reach civilization. Then he remembered he was in Canada and was visited by a small but perfectly formed pang of depression.

'There are strange things done,' quoted Benton, 'in the midnight sun, by ...'

' ... by the men who toil for gold. Yeah, yeah, yeah,' said Ray, deeply pleased with himself. 'I heard that one. And then they shot that Sam McGee. Told you,' he added with more than a tinge of smugness, 'I went camping before.'

But Benton was looking pained. '"Moil", Ray. And they cremated him. It was Dan McGrew who was shot.'

Details, thought Ray. 'So - did they ever catch the guy?'

Benton remained silent for a moment. Confusion - and a tinge of pity - emanated from his unseeing eyes. 'Er . .. it's a poem, Ray.'

For the first time Ray was heartily glad his friend was blind. He knew that the sudden heat on his cheeks spoke of an embarrassed and unbecoming blush. 'Oh,' he said. '"Moil", huh?' The words were spoken with a sneer, or perhaps a jeer. All that moiling and toiling had him confused. 'Yes,' confirmed Benton. 'Moil - not toil.'

Ray shrugged. 'Oh well, moil, toil - who cares?'

'Robert Service, apparently.'

'Who's he?' Ray was deeply suspicious.

'The poet.'

'Oh. Him.' Then, dismissing the world-renowned wordsmith. Ray placed Benton's hand back on his shoulder and continued on his way. Now was not the time to rest. Poetry, he scoffed inwardly. Who else would start quoting poetry when you were lost in the middle of a forest? A Canadian forest to boot.

Behind them, and wearing a distinctly resigned expression, Diefenbaker trotted on. This forest business was really getting to him. For one thing, it was getting cold. For another, he knew - and had known for hours - that they were heading in the wrong direction. And for another, he was greatly confused about what he was doing. He had assumed he was toiling. Now, apparently, he was moiling. For the first time in his life, he regretted his inability to read. He would have given his right paw to be able to look up the word in a dictionary.

They toiled - or moiled - for another half hour before Ray admitted what Diefenbaker already knew. 'We're lost,' he said, coming to an abrupt halt.

'No we're not. We just don't know where we are.' Ray spun round. 'Oh, like there's a difference?' 'Well, being lost is usually accompanied by panic. Ray.'

'Are-you-saying-I'm-panicking?'

'No,' corrected Benton as a dispirited Ray led them into a clearing. 'On the contrary. You see, Ray, people who are lost panic. Often,' he continued as, guided by Ray, he sat down on a log, they walk aimlessly in the woods. Often they walk in circles, until eventually they die either from starvation or lack of water. We, by comparison, have remained calm ...'

But he had lost his audience. Immediately upon entering the little clearing. Ray had experienced a strange sensation. So had a dispirited Diefenbaker. Now, peering into the gloom in front of them, they identified it for what it was: familiarity. They had been here before. And if they needed any proof ... well, it was laid out in front of them in the shape of the crashed plane.

'You see. Ray,' continued a blissfully unaware Benton, 'this is the key to survival in the woods. Remaining ... remaining calm and ... and Ray?' Doubt creased Benton's features as, wrinkling both his brow and his nose, he lapsed into silence. 'Ray?'

'What?'

'I smell fuel. Burned plastic. Metal. What is it?'

'It's a plane crash.' Slumped on the log, head in his hands. Ray felt like crying.

'My God, Ray. Another plane crash! What are the odds ...'

'It's our plane crash, you moron,' snapped Ray. 'We've been going round in circles this whole time! What's the matter with you?' Then, sinking back into apathetic despair, he stared at the offending wreckage. 'We're lost. We're definitely lost.'

Benton rooted around in his brain for something cheerful and inspiring to say. He failed. Even he had to admit that things weren't looking too good.

A moment later they began to look distinctly worse. The sharp crack of a pistol shot broke the heavy silence and a bullet whizzed past Benton's ear. Ray reacted like lightning. Grabbing Benton, he pulled them both backwards. 'Get down!' he screamed as Benton tried to resist. 'Get down, for Christ's sake!'

But instead Benton stood up. 'I'm going to handle this. Ray,' he intoned as he drew himself up to his full height and held out an authoritative arm. 'In the name of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,' he shouted, 'I order you to ...' His next words were drowned out as a hail of bullets burst forth from the other side of the wreckage. Benton dived behind the log.

'I don't think he heard you,' said Ray as bullets exploded around them.

'No. Perhaps I'd better ....'

This time his words were lost behind the noise from Ray's gun as he blasted bullets in the direction of the plane. Several ricocheted off the buckled metal, adding to the din with a 'zing' that filled the forest.

And then silence again. Ray had emptied his gun and had no spare bullets. Yet the complete absence of any return fire indicated that he wouldn't need any. Curious yet cautious, he slowly rose to his feet. 'Good shooting. Ray,' said a beaming Benton.

'Let's hope he's alive to testify.' Then he stood up, tripped over a stone and promptly fell down again.

Ray ignored him and walked towards the spot where the hijacker had been hiding. The man was alive alright. Alive and at large. He had disappeared back into the forest.

Annoyed and slightly alarmed, Ray retraced his steps. Benton was wandering around the clearing, arms outstretched, looking for all the world as if he were blind. Then Ray remembered. The prognosis, he thought with a weary sigh, was not good. They were lost in the middle of a vast forest; they were at the mercy of a trigger-happy murderer; they were now unarmed and one of them couldn't see. At least, he mused as he looked upwards, Benton wouldn't notice that it was getting dark. Dark and eerie.

Shivering, Ray told Benton that the murderer had escaped.

'Damn,' said the Mountie. 'I nearly had him.'

Ray raised an eyebrow and then looked more closely at his companion. It didn't take a doctor - just as well under the circumstances - to tell that Benton was getting worse. His forehead was damp with perspiration and, as he stumbled around. Ray thought he detected a limp. 'Look,' he said as he guided Benton to the plane. 'We'll have to stay here for the night. If we root around the plane we might find blankets and things.'

Guided by Ray, Benton sat down on a log. 'There might even be a first aid kit,' he ventured.

'You can't sleep in a first aid kit.'

'No, but we might find something to bandage my head with.'

'Ah.' Relieved that Benton was still showing signs of sanity. Ray began to root around the debris from the crashed plane. A few moments later, he returned to Benton's side, relieved by the success of his mission. 'Found the first aid kit,' he said, depositing it on Benton's lap. And blankets. And best of all,' he finished as he sat down, 'the hijacker left us his. rucksack.'

'The age of chivalry is not dead.'

Ray wasn't sure if Benton was being witty or obtuse. Come to think of it, he thought, I never know - even when he's fighting fit. 'Okay,' he said as he opened the rucksack. 'Lets see what's in here.' His elation evaporated as he surveyed the contents. 'Mmm. Tube of toothpaste. Sun screen ... haemorrhoid paste. Oh, and a breath mint. I suppose we could boil it.'

Textbook situation,' said Benton.

'What?'

'He must have heard us approaching.'

'Er ... yes.' As Ray spoke, he heard a delighted yelp from the other side of the wreckage. He looked up to see a smug-looking Diefenbaker walking out of the woods. Dangling from his mouth was a packet of dry-roasted peanuts. 'Hey! Diefs got peanuts, Benny. Dief! Here Dief!'

But Diefenbaker shot him a supercilious sneer and stalked back into the woods. He wasn't going to fall for any of Ray's 'there's a good boy' grovelling. No way. And he was damned if he was going to share out the peanuts. Finders keepers was his motto.

Ray felt even more dejected. What was he - a cop from Chicago - doing in the middle of a forest with a blind Mountie and a deaf wolf? A deaf and utterly selfish wolf to boot. He turned to Benton and watched him wind a strip of gauze round his forehead. 'You didn't really think,' he asked, 'that he'd surrender, did you?'

'Not with you firing at him, no.'

Ray shot Benton a particularly venomous look. 'You're right. Next time I'll just let him shoot us.'

'There won't be a next time. Ray. He only came back to the plane for provisions. Can you give me a hand with this, please?' he asked, pointing to the end of the tape.

Ray stood up and grudgingly offered assistance with the bandage. 'He's on the run now,' continued Benton, unaware that he was irritating his friend, and he knows we're on his trail. He doesn't know you re out of bullets - but he must know that even a minor wound would slow him down. No,' he finished, 'he won't risk an open confrontation unless he's cornered.'

'Fraser! The guy's got a nine-millimetre Sig Sauer with at least two clips of ammunition''

Benton nodded. 'We can still bring him in '

Ray rolled his eyes. 'And exactly how do you propose to do that?'

'You know, Ray, we use nature to our advantage. Sam Steele, for example, patrolled the Northwest Territories his entire career without ever firing his weapon. It was a point of honour with him. Rumour has it he was buried with it, still unfired.

'Great. Let's go and dig it up.' Then, leaving Benton in admiring contemplation of Sam Steele, he wandered back to the plane to search for more provisions.

Benton's voice wafted over to him. 'My point is, Ray, that we will use nature to our advantage. You see, in the wilderness survival depends more on your wits than on firepower.'

Ray bit back a withering retort. As far as he was concerned, he was using his wits. Not, he admitted, to any great effect. He really couldn't think of any great uses for the desalination tablets and epoxy glue he had just found. A moment later he cheered up somewhat as he unearthed a long coil of twine, mosquito netting, a self-inflating life-raft and, best of all, a flare gun. Then he hit the jackpot with a torch.

'I mean,' said Benton as Ray picked up the latter, 'the beam on an incandescent flashlight is visible for up to half a mile at night. The hijacker didn't understand that, or he would have waited until nightfall and picked us off one at a time.'

No he wouldn't, thought Ray as he chucked the torch into the woods. The batteries of the damn thing had run down; the beam didn't even reach half an inch, let alone half a mile.

'Which leads me to believe,' continued Benton, 'that he's not skilled at wilderness survival. Besides, Diefenbaker would have raised the alarm if he were still close by. He isn't.'

'Nor is Diefenbaker. He's playing lone wolf with the peanuts.' Ray let out a deep sigh. It hadn't escaped his notice that, while he had found a small bottle of Evian water, he had failed to come up with any food. Apart, of course, from the mint. 'Fraser,' he said with another sigh. 'I don't think we have to worry about catching the hijacker. We're going to starve to death long before that.' Benton shook his head. 'Ray, Ray, Ray. With a little perseverance, a little ingenuity and a fundamental understanding of how to go about it, one can live like a king in the woods. For instance,' he added as he bent down and felt for the rock at his feet, 'underneath this rock I think you'll find ...'

'Yuk! Aw .... that's ... that's disgusting.' Squirming with revulsion. Ray backed away.

'What's disgusting?'

'They're grubs! Thousands of them. Wriggling.'

'But they're very nutritional. Ray. And far more strengthening than fish or meat.'

'You eat them then.' To Ray's horror, Benton bent down, picked up a hapless grub and popped it into his mouth. 'Oh ... oh ... that's ...'

'Shh!' Suddenly Benton stopped mid-grub and cocked his head to one side.

'What?'

'I think I hear a nest of furry nightcrawlers.'

'Oh for God's sake!' Ray turned on his heel and walked away. 'I'm going to collect wood for a fire.'

Benton didn't reply. He was on his hands and knees, crawling off in search of the furry night-crawlers.

Half an hour later. Ray stared in admiration at the fire he had laid out. It was, he reckoned, a triumph. A poem: an ode to survival. He had dug a shallow pit, filled it with twigs and branches and surrounded the whole with a circle of rocks. The only tragedy, he thought as he fumbled for the matches he had found in the rucksack, was that there was no one to see it, to congratulate him on his efforts. Diefenbaker, rather regretting the selfishness of the peanut episode, was still lying low and Benton, of course, was blind. Perhaps that was just as well, reflected Ray. No doubt he would have found fault with the construction of the fire. He had already made it clear that Ray had been slow in building it. 'Ready?' he asked for the umpteenth time.

'Ask me that once more and I set you on fire.'

Something in Ray's tone - overt nastiness, perhaps - told Benton that he had overstepped the mark. 'Understood,' he said meekly.

'I thought we agreed,' snapped Ray, 'You are in charge of being blind. I am in charge of seeing. Any part I left out?'

Wisely, Benton chose not to reply.

'Good.' Ray reached for the matches he had found in the plane. 'Now, can I just do this, alright? Just let me do this, alright?' Benton didn't need to see Ray to know he was agitated: his voice had risen by several octaves. 'All right, all right,' he replied, suddenly standing up.

Ray lit a match and, to his intense relief, the twigs began to kindle. To help them along, he blew on them.

'Wait a minute,' said Benton. 'Wait, Ray?'

'What?' Irritated, Ray looked up.

'I think I know what happened today.'

'Yeah?'

'Yes. One of my legs, you see, is probably fractionally shorter than the other. That would have caused us to walk in a giant circle. I should have taken that into account. Ray,' he added, suddenly frantic. 'Measure my legs.'

Ray exhaled deeply into the fire, all but extinguishing the tentative flames. 'I am not going to measure your legs, Fraser.'

Benton was silent for a moment, as if contemplating the ludicrous nature of his request. 'You know what?' he said at length.

'What?'

'I think this head injury is throwing me off a tad.'

'D'you think? Not, maybe, a little more than a tad?'

But Benton now had the bit between his teeth as, perhaps unconsciously, he began to wander in circles round the clearing. 'You know what I'm guessing?' he said, putting a finger to his bandaged head. 'I'm guessing that the blow I received caused a sub-dural haematoma. The resulting swelling of the anterior cerebrum put pressure on the optic nerve.' Then, nodding to himself, he let out a relieved sigh. 'At least it's not getting any worse.' Frowning suddenly, he looked over in Ray's direction. 'Mind you, if I become disorientated, then we'll really be in a pickle.'

Before Ray had a chance to reply, Benton stumbled towards him and fell into the fire, killing it. 'Ray!' he admonished. 'If you are going to insist on moving this thing you could at least tell me.'

Ray bit back an outraged retort and took a deep breath. 'Fraser,' he began as he helped to extricate Benton from the fire pit. 'I'm not...'

'No need to apologize, Steve.'

'... Steve?'

'What?' brushing himself down, Benton raised a surprised eyebrow.

'You just called me Steve.'

Benton looked deeply incensed. 'I most certainly did not.'

'You did too.'

Benton shook his head. 'You're not hyperventilating, are you Ray?'

If becoming annoyed counted as hyperventilating, then Ray was indeed guilty. 'Fraser,' he sighed. 'You just fell on the fire. You killed it.'

'I did not! You must have been blowing too hard. You'll need more-kindling.'

'Fine. You want to be in charge. You want to do everything.' His voice now dangerously low. Ray stabbed an irate finger into Benton's stomach. 'You start the fire, then.' With that, he aimed a forceful kick at his own fire and walked away.

'Moody,' mused Benton. Then he bent down and reached into the pit. He had been making fires in the woods since he was six years old; it was something he could do with his eyes closed. Handy he supposed, under the circumstances.

Ray was not the only person to disapprove of Benton's behaviour. As the Mountie busied himself arranging the kindling, a critical - and very familiar - voice called out from behind him. 'You'll never teach him to start a fire that way.'

'Well,' said Benton. 'I believe he thinks we are going to die out here. Not,' he added as he thought about the fire, 'without some justification.'

'And he's right.' The voice twitched - if indeed voices can twitch - with disapproval. 'You've gotten yourself into one hell of a predicament, son.'

Annoyed now, Benton looked sharply over his shoulder, forgetting that the gesture would be less than rewarding. The blackness was the same whichever way he looked. 'It's hardly of my making, is it?' he snapped.

Robert Fraser looked down at his son and bit back a contradictory response. Benton, he figured, was as much to blame as Ray for the fix in which they now found themselves. Neither of them, Robert Fraser felt, were sensible enough to get out of this mess. And that, of course, was why he had appeared. To dispense advice.

Benton saw things differently. The first time his late father had appeared to him, he had simply stared in open-mouthed disbelief. Then he had told himself that he was imagining things; that grief - he had buried his murdered parent only a few days previously - was playing tricks on his mind. Nearly two years down the track, he still wasn't sure if it was his own mind or his father's spirit - but he knew one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt. His father always appeared in times of crisis, ostensibly to help, and ended up hindering. Having been a Mountie all his working life, Robert Fraser saw himself, in death, as a spiritual advisor on Mountiedom and a sage as regards law enforcement. He also, he had admitted on one of his first appearances, felt guilty at not spending enough time with Benton when his son was a boy. Now that he was dead he had plenty of time on his hands to offer advice and felt no qualms about dispensing it. The problem - not perhaps unique to the Fraser family - was that Robert still saw his thirty-five year old son as a small boy.

He was, however, aware that he sometimes irritated his son and tried - and invariably failed - not to patronize him. This being one of those occasions, Robert cast around for another subject of conversation. His eyes lit up as he saw the container of wriggling creatures that Benton had collected earlier. 'Ah,' he said with a happy smile of recognition. 'Grubs,' and popped one into his mouth.

But the diversion provided by food was short and not diverting enough to tear him away from the pickle that, by his reckoning, his son had created for himself. He turned back to Benton and wagged a finger at him. 'You could have reversed the choke settings.'

'What?' Benton didn't need eyes to know that his father was wagging a finger at him.

'I said you could have reversed the choke settings and the engines would have started.'

'Dad! The man had fired a shot into the control panel. There was no way the engines would have worked!'

'Yes there was. It was the radio he fired the shot into. It just looked like the engines were blown.'

And exactly what qualifications, thought a fuming Benton, did his father think he had to know that? Some sort of sixth sense? 'So,' he said through gritted teeth. 'Why didn't you tell me that?'

Robert Fraser bowed his head and, in a small voice, said that he knew Benton always hated it when he interfered.

'Interfere?' And just what did the man think he was doing now?

'Alright! Alright!' Realizing his mistake, Robert moved closer to the still-dormant fire. This movement was not easily achieved and, looking down at his feet, he mused that he had mis-read the dresscode for the occasion. He was clad in vintage - not to say antique - trekking gear, all the way from the vast beaver hat to the Eskimo-type snowshoes. Given that there was no snow, the latter presented a real problem. Walking through a forest with tennis-rackets tied to your feet was not easy. 'Okay, 'he said. 'What you have to do now is move fast and drive hard if you're going to bring this man in alive. For all we know,' he said, gesticulating wildly, 'he could have left a trail of bodies from here to the Circle. Hunters, miners, sodbusters ...'

'Dad...'

'Poachers, claim stakers ...'

'Dad...!'

'... and a whole canoe-full of Courier de Bois.'

'Dad!' yelled Benton, turning round and pointing to his forehead. 'I don't know if it's escaped your attention, but only very recently I received a massive blow to my head.'

Fraser Senior looked singularly unimpressed.

'Yeah, well you've still got a few good hours left in you. So go get him.'

'What?'

'Go get your man.'

Benton sighed and stood up. 'Oh good,' he said with a withering look in the direction, he hoped, of his father. 'I'm glad you brought that up. Could you please, once and for all, explain why it is that we always have to get our man?' If Ray had heard Benton's question, he would have been extremely surprised. Wasn't Benton always the one who insisted on 'getting the man'? Wasn't it he who was bent on chasing through the wilds of Canada, undernourished, ill-equipped and injured, in order to bring a murderer to justice? But Ray wasn't around to hear the question - and Benton was glad of that. He wanted to challenge his father on the obsession that he had passed down to him.

Robert Fraser, however, seemed puzzled by the question. 'It's the motto, son.'

'It is not.'

'It is.'

'No,' reiterated Benton, 'it is not. It is definitely not our motto. Our motto actually is "Maintain the Right".'

Maintain the right? What on earth was the boy talking about? That head-wound must have gone to his head. 'Maintain the Right?' queried Benton Senior aloud.

Benton nodded. 'Yes. Maintain the Right. So what you're saying is that we're supposed to pursue people to the ends of the earth for a motto that isn't even our motto?'

Benton's father wasn't having any of that. 'Well' he said, adopting a defiant stance. 'It must be the new motto, then. The old one used to be go get your man, or bring him back alive ... or just... or just something go get him.' Realizing that he had well and truly lost the upper hand, Robert decided that the time had come to leave. Drawing himself up to his full height, determined to maintain some semblance of dignity, he marched off into the forest. After two steps all vestiges of that dignity had disappeared: marching in snow shoes was all but impossible.

It was also noisy. Benton heard rather than saw his father depart. 'Where are you going?' he shouted. 'Where are you going?' There was a touch of panic in his voice. Being left alone and blind in a forest was just a touch intimidating.

'I'm not going anywhere,' came the reply. 'I'm coming back.'

'Ah ... Ray.' Benton breathed a sigh of relief. 'Where have you been?'

'Collecting more wood.' Ray's eyes narrowed as he looked at Benton. 'You been talking to yourself?'

Benton shrugged. 'Evidently.'

Delirium, thought Ray. He's definitely getting worse. Then, approaching the fire-pit with a new bundle of wood, he asked Benton for the matches. 'It's getting cold,' he said as he deposited the wood on Benton's carefully rearranged fire. Benton, he noted, was rather sweaty. Not a condition normally associated with cold forests.

Benton handed over the matches and listened to the sound of one being lit - followed by a damp hiss and then complete silence.

'Damn.'

'The wood,' said Benton, 'is damp.'

Ray glared at his friend and bent down to rebuild the fire in a silence much colder than the weather.

But Benton didn't appear to notice the atmosphere. 'Matches,' he said happily, 'may not be the only solution. You know. Ray, my father taught me how to build a fire when I was six.' He smiled to himself at the memory. Now that his father had shuffled off in his snowshoes, Benton was fond of him again. 'He took me out into the woods, he gave me a piece of flint and a hunk of granite and then walked away without turning back.' Much, mused Benton, as he had done just now.

Ray was sceptical. 'You had to make a fire out of stones?'

'You know the funny thing,' replied Benton in a far-away voice, 'I have absolutely no memory of the fire itself. But I have this very vivid memory of the darkness and knowing that I was all alone.'

Ray felt a pang of envy, not at the darkness and the aloneness but at the vision of a father initiating his son into the ways of the world. 'My dad,' he said, suddenly wistful, 'wasn't a father and son sort of guy...'

'He took you camping.'

Damn Benton for remembering that. 'Yeah .. . well... of course we went camping but,' continued Ray with an edge to his voice, 'do you know the only thing he really taught me? It was how to look out for number one.'

Benton heard, and appreciated, the edge. 'A police officer puts others first.'

'My father hated cops.' And that, thought Ray, was a massive understatement. Then, suddenly angry, he stood up and tramped off through the clearing.

'Where are you going?' Benton's blindness seemed to have accentuated his hearing.

'I'm going to get some of those dry sticks,' snapped Ray over his shoulder. 'Maybe some rocks.'

Oh dear, thought Benton, I seem to be offending everyone. Remembering the way his father had stalked off, he wondered if he was still lurking, sulking in the forest. 'Dad?' he called in a tentative whisper. 'Dad?'

But it appeared that his father had disappeared to wherever dead people went when they weren't pestering the living. Benton heaved a sigh of relief.

Outside the clearing. Ray stomped through the trees in search of dry wood. He was tired, hungry, irritable and in no mood for confrontations. "Which, considering who suddenly appeared in front of him, was rather unfortunate. 'I heard that,' said the apparition.

Ray couldn't remember exactly when his late father had started to haunt him. It was, he was pretty sure, sometime after he'd begun to team up with Benton - and not long after Benton's father had started to haunt his own son. When Benton had told Ray about his father appearing at times of stress. Ray had scoffed and said it was all in his head. After all, nobody but Benton could see him, could they? Secretly, he put it down to of Benton's erratic acquaintance with sanity. But when his own father started haunting him, he began to have doubts. He dealt with those doubts by trying, usually successfully, to ignore them. He was generally less successful, however, at ignoring his father.

'Nobody,' he snarled without looking at his parent, 'is talking to you.'

Carlo Vecchio smiled. It wasn't, and had never been, a particularly kind smile. In life, kindness had never been a quality he had valued very highly. True, he had been kind enough to bestow eight children upon his wife; kind enough to keep out of her way while she reared them, but that had been as far as it had gone. In death, he was trying to make up for his misdemeanours - and in particular to make up to the son whom he had ignored because, to his horror, he had chosen to become a cop. Carlo Vecchio and cops had never seen eye to eye - unless you counted the times when they had been handcuffed together on the way to the cells.

Carlo sighed and scratched his balding head. What he had heard, or more exactly overheard, was his son's conversation with Benton. He hadn't liked it at all. 'You shouldn't,' he scolded his son, 'tell a stranger something like that about family.'

'He's not a stranger,' said Ray tersely. 'He's my friend.'

'Oh,' snorted the older man, gesturing towards the clearing. 'Some friend. He's looney toons, that one. You should cut him loose.'

'I owe him.'

'You owe nobody. He's going to get you killed.'

At last. Ray looked up at his father, wincing as he did so. Didn't they have decent wardrobes wherever the dead lived? Why did his father insist on staying in the time warp of the seventies? The lavishly-lapelled burgundy leather jacket and floral shirt did nothing for a man who needed all the help he could get to look appealing. Ray did his best to ignore the clothes and looked his father in the eye. 'That's always the way with you, isn't it Pop? Just you. Screw the rest of the world.'

Carlo Vecchio looked genuinely puzzled. 'Something wrong with that?'

For a long moment Ray just stared at him. Did he really believe that looking after number one was the only priority in life? Could anyone be that selfish? Ray looked deep into his father's eyes. Surely there was more to the man than that? But Carlo Vecchio's own eyes were empty - and not just because he was dead. There was nothing there, and there never had been. Ray shook his head and, ignoring both the man and his last question, gathered his dry wood and tramped back into the clearing. Back by the fire pit and the sedentary Benton, he dumped the kindling on the fire, handing Benton the matches as he did so. 'You do it,' he barked.

Benton didn't seem to be aware that Ray was seething. Smiling, he took the proffered matches, lit one and dropped it on the fire. No spluttering dampness this time: the second the flame hit the wood the entire fire-pit became an inferno. Ray jumped back in alarm. Benton, who could only hear and feel the sudden heat, beamed delightedly. 'Yep; once you learn, you never forget.'

Beside him. Ray lapsed into sullen silence.

'Anything wrong?' prompted Benton.

'No. Nothing serious. Only that I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with a blind companion waiting for a deranged murderer to come and find me. Apart from that, I'm fine.'

'You're hungry,' said Benton.

'Now that you mention it, I am. Hey! Why don't we have a nice fillet with french fries and chocolate chip ice cream to follow?'

'No need to be sarcastic. Ray. Your hunger has lowered your blood sugar which, in turn, has made you irritable ...'

'I am not irritable!'

'... which is why,' finished Benton as he scrabbled for the container at his side, 'I prepared these earlier.'

Ray reached out, only just preventing Benton from offering the container to the leaping flames rather than himself. 'Prepared what? Oh my God ...!' Ray felt the bile rising in his throat as he examined the contents. They're ...'

'Grubs. As I said, they're very nutritional and strengthening and ...'

'But...'

'And we don't have anything else to eat. Ray.'

'Yeah.' Ray pulled a face. 'Thanks to your goddam wolf.' Benton nodded. 'Yes. I must admit that was selfish of him. I suggest we don't share the grubs with him.'

'I can't believe,' said Ray ten minutes later, 'I actually did that.' Queasily, he patted his stomach. 'I can still feel them moving in there.'

Beside him, Benton was trying to coil himself into a blanket. Ray could see that, while he was still sweating, he was also-shivering with fever. 'It was a good meal. Ray,' he said through chattering teeth.

Concerned, Ray leaned closer to his friend. 'You need another blanket?'

'No' Benton closed his eyes. 'Let's get some rest. We're going to have to double our pace tomorrow if we're going to catch him ... tomorrow.'

Ray could hardly believe his ears. 'Benny, have you taken a look at yourself recently?'

'Well now, I can't very well do that, can I Steve?'

'Ray.'

'What?'

Ray shook his head. 'Never mind.' Then, reaching for his own blanket, he cast another concerned look at Benton. 'You know, I think I'd better wake you up every couple of hours.'

'Yes,' said Benton, already half asleep. 'Good night.'

In the stillness of the forest. Ray lay and watched the flickering flames. The prognosis, he knew, was not good. God knows what sort of shape Benton would be in when he woke up - and heaven only knew in which direction they would head. Then Ray's depression was overcome by a stab of fear as the eerie howl of a wolf penetrated the silence of the night. He stiffened and hauled himself upright. That was all they needed: wild animals lurking, waiting until the flames had died down before they tore them apart, limb by agonized limb. And then he saw them: the red eyes staring at him, challenging him from the other side of the dwindling fire. His heart missed a beat. This was it. The end.

But only of the chapter. 'Oh very funny,' said Ray as soon as he identified the eyes. 'What do you think you are? A wolf or something?'

Grinning, Diefenbaker trotted out of the darkness behind the fire and nuzzled up to his sleeping master. Then, concerned, he looked over to Ray. 'I know, Dief,' said the cop. 'If he doesn't make it, you're gonna help us get out of here, right?'

It hadn't escaped the attention of either of them that Benton's face was deathly pale and that he was muttering feverishly in his sleep. Ray thought it was gibberish: Dief knew it for the fluent Inuit it was. But with no eskimos handy to translate for them, it might as well have been gibberish.

CHAPTER THREE

'You're up!' Ray's surprise was total. He had expected his morning salutation to be of a more sombre nature. 'You're dead', perhaps. He grinned, delighted to see his friend sitting on a log, prodding the ashes of the fire.

'Yes,' said Benton. 'I didn't want to wake you.' Turning round, he offered Ray a centipede. 'I made breakfast.'

Ray shuddered and turned away. 'Er ... no thanks, you go right ahead.'

Benton popped the creature into his mouth and munched happily. Then, suddenly, he cocked his head. Ray looked on suspiciously. More furry nightcrawTers in the offing? Or maybe, given the hour, their colleagues the daycrawlers. And then he heard the noise as well and sat bolt upright.

'Search plane,' said Benton, in a politely interested tone. 'Someone's in trouble.'

Ray jumped to his feet. 'Yeah, Fraser. Us.' Then he began a frantic search for the rucksack and the flare gun he had been so pleased to discover the previous day. 'Come on,' he muttered to himself.

'Come on.' After seconds that passed like hours, he had the rucksack in his hands and began to rummage feverishly inside. 'Come on ...'

Above them, the sound of the plane drew closer. At the same time as it appeared through the trees directly above them, Ray found the gun, dropped the rucksack and fired a flare. A pink flame shot upwards, crashed into the branches of a tree and, accompanied by the angry squawk of a bird, fizzled out.

Swearing under his breath, burning his fingers on the spent canister of the gun. Ray struggled to reload.

'It's no use. Ray,' said Benton as the sound of the plane faded and silence reclaimed the skies.

Ray glared at him and continued reloading, searching, as he did so, for a clear path upwards through the tress.

'Search planes,' continued Benton with absolute authority, 'fly in grid patterns. He won't be back.'

Ray slowly lowered the gun. 'Why,' he spat, 'didn't you say something before? That might have been our only chance to get out of here alive.'

Benton shared Ray's incredulity - but for a different reason. 'But Ray! We still have a man to catch.'

Ray hopped around, speechless, waving his arms in the air. This, he told himself, was it. Never again would he go anywhere with Fraser. Never would he give Benton the opportunity. Never would... . And then he remembered. As things stood, he would never have the chance to carry out his threat: they would never leave the forest. 'Okay,' he said, drawing a deep breath. 'Okay.' Get real, he told himself. Get rational. 'Right,' tie continued after several more calming breaths. 'I'll pack up and we'll get out of here. You,' he said with emphasis, 'stay right where you are until I'm ready.' To his surprise and relief, Benton didn't demur.

A moment later he discovered why. Benton rolled slightly on the log and let out a strange, strangled laugh.

'What's so funny?' snapped Ray.

Benton laughed again; this time in a half-embarrassed, half-disbelieving way. 'Well ... er, it would appear that I have lost the use of my legs.'

'What?'

'My legs.' Benton pointed to the offending limbs. 'They .. ."they won't move.'

Ray busied himself with the increasingly familiar deep-breathing routine. 'You ... have ... lost ... the ... use ...'

'. .. Of my legs. Yes.'

'Why?' It seemed as good a question as any.

'I don't know Ray.'

'Oh.' Ray tried to think of something reassuring to say. Nothing sprang to mind. Instead, and with calm resignation, he articulated the only option left to them. 'Well, I guess I'll have to carry you, then.'

Three minutes later, an incongruous trio made its way through the forest. Ray, already straining with the effort, had heaved Benton into a fireman's lift over his shoulder. He was also carrying the ruck-sack. Head dangling towards the ground, Benton carried his hat, all the while making encouraging noises at the final, and desperately unhappy member of the threesome. Diefenbaker had never been so embarrassed in his life. He slunk along, as if trying to melt into the undergrowth. But while that might have been possible for an ordinary wolf, it was decidedly not an option open to a wolf weighed down with saddle-bags improvised out of blankets. Smarting under the ignominy of being treated like some sort of dumb donkey or pack-horse, he swore that as soon as he got out of this mess, that would be it. Never again. Never again would he accompany Benton and Ray on one of their hair-brained outings. Oh no. He was proud, fearless, wild and lupine and he would stay where he belonged. He would never again move from the warm fireside of Benton's Chicago apartment.

'Ray?' said Benton, interrupting the unhappy silence.

'Mmm?'

'If at any point during our trip I should become a burden to you, you'd let me know, wouldn't you?'

'Oh yes. Oh yes, Fraser.'

'And you'd carry on without me?'

'Absolutely.'

'Without hesitation?'

'Oh,' said Ray, glad that Benton couldn't see his face, 'in a heartbeat.'

'Good,' replied Benton. 'That's good.'

'And if,' panted Ray as he spied a steep incline ahead, 'at any time you should be feeling better, you just let me know.'

He could feel Benton's head nodding against his back again.

'Oh yes. Of course, Ray.'

Silence descended once again as they climbed. Being six foot two, muscular and broad-shouldered, Benton was no lightweight. Ray himself was pushing six-foot, but was of an altogether slighter build than the strapping Mountie. Not surprising, therefore, that he was uncharacteristically quiet. Diefenbaker, too, remained tight-lipped. He trudged along in Ray's wake, resisting the urge to bound off and explore, as he would normally have done, the nooks and crannies of the forest. Supposing he was spotted? Supposing some creature of the forest saw him emulating a mule? He'd never live down the laughter. Especially if that creature happened to be a fellow wolf. It was Benton who, after half an hour, broke the silence. 'Oh Ray?'

'Yes?'

'I'm a little thirsty.'

Without replying. Ray stopped, heaved Benton off his shoulder, dropped him to the ground and then fell on top of him. He hadn't, he admitted, meant to ease his burden to the ground in a caring fashion - but nor had he meant to give Benton, or himself, quite such a jolt. 'You okay?' he asked as he struggled to his feet.

'Just thirsty.'

'Okay. Let me get the water bottle.' Ray opened the rucksack and, to his dismay, saw that their water bottle was half-empty. He took off the plastic cap and handed the bottle to Benton. 'Here ' was all he said. He hadn't the heart to tell Benton that thirst was about to be added to the lengthening list of methods by which they might die. 'I'll be right back,' he said as he walked away.

Benton didn't appear to notice. He was too busy gulping water.

Funny, thought Ray as he stood against a tree, relieving himself. There's Benny gasping for water and me gasping to get rid of it. Shame we can't recycle it.

And then a harsh voice interrupted his pleasurable and private moment. 'You gonna give him all the water?'

Ray nearly jumped out of his skin. Didn't his father have any sense of propriety, any appreciation of what he. Ray, was doing? Successfully resisting the urge to jump. Ray shuffled slightly. It was, under the circumstances, the only sensible movement he could make.

'What's it to you?' he snarled.

Carlo Vecchio shrugged and leaned against the adjacent tree. 'You're doing all the work - you should keep the water for yourself.'

'Get away from me. Pop.'

'Huh!' Deeply unimpressed. Carlo turned to go. 'Well,' he said, unable to resist a final dig, don't blame me if you die out here!'

Ray breathed a sigh of relief - and carried on with that other, more urgent form of relief. Fathers he thought. Who would have them?

Benton was thinking exactly the same thing. His own parent, now minus the inconvenient snowshoes, had also chosen that moment to return and dispense useful advice.

'He's slowing you down, son.'

Benton nearly choked on the last of the water. 'He's slowing me down?'

'When I first joined the Mounted Police,' said Robert Fraser, 'all the equipment we got was a paper bag and a pointed stick. We used the bag to boil tea. And the stick was for killing game. If you lost either of them, they charged you for it.'

Benton looked up, frowning, in the direction of his father's voice. 'Are you ill?' he asked.

'There's nothing to be ashamed of, son. You've got a man to catch.'

Yes, thought Benton. Definitely ill. Perhaps it was a sympathetic illness: like son, like father.

'Right,' announced another, more positive voice. 'Let's saddle up.'

Benton smiled in relief. Ray's company, at this juncture, was infinitely more useful than his father's.

Diefenbaker, however, wasn't so pleased. He was still 'saddled up' - Ray having sensibly concluded that he would run away if he was relieved of his burden - and wasn't exactly ecstatic about continuing the journey. But Ray had absolutely no sympathy for his plight, or for the forlorn whine and hangdog expression. 'What are you complaining about?' he snapped at the wolf as he hauled Benton over his shoulder. 'You want to trade?'

Good point, thought Dief, meekly following. All in all, I've escaped lightly. Best go easy on the complaints.

The unlikely trio continued their stumbling progress through the forest - this time with an audience. Robert Fraser and Carlo Vecchio, by accident rather than design, were standing side by side at the edge of the clearing. Simultaneously, and with a collective jolt, each man realized he was not alone. They hadn't met before, and as far as Robert Fraser was concerned, there was no need to meet now. He cast a critical eye over the apparition beside him and, not deigning to acknowledge him, stalked off. No wonder Ray was such a hindrance to Benton, with a father like that.

Carlo Vecchio glared at the deceased Mountie. Stuck up, he thought. Just like his son. Worse, Canadian. And to cap it all, a Mountie. Carlo had never willingly embarked on a conversation with a law enforcer and he wasn't going to start now. Still, he reckoned, he couldn't leave Ray in the hands of such dubious characters. With some trepidation, he followed the elderly Mountie through the forest. It was only after he had walked a few paces that he cheered up somewhat. The biggest advantage of being dead, he remembered, was that you couldn't be killed.

It was deeply unfortunate that neither man possessed the handy faculty of extra sensory perception that one often associates with the dead. Had they done so, they might have been aware of a presence some way behind them: of Duff Hogan creeping into the clearing ten minutes later and discovering the plastic water bottle cap that Benton had dropped. The discovery brought a smile to the hitherto desperate features of the hijacker. Until now he had been hopelessly lost. Now he knew he was back on the trail of the Mountie, of the expert tracker who would unwittingly lead him to safety. With a grim smile, he felt for his gun and then followed the heavy tread of the boots that had preceded him. A shame, really, that the Mountie and his friend were going to die just when they thought they had reached safety. Still, such was life. Or death.

Ray, too, was thinking about mortality. Now seriously worried about their chances of survival, he knew he would have to rest again in a matter of minutes - and he also knew Benton was in dire need of medical attention. In a valiant attempt to boost their spirits, and perhaps prompted by his father's appearance, he was prattling on about his family. 'On Tuesdays,' he said, 'Ma always makes a big pot of Pastafazool. She starts boiling the beans early in the morning and, oh man, you can smell it in every room. It's heaven.'

'Bannock,' said Benton, from somewhere around Ray's kidneys. 'My grandmother made it.'

Sounds revolting, thought Ray. 'Taste good?' he asked brightly.

'No. Tasted like a hockey puck. Hard, flat and unleavened. I can still smell it burning in the oven.'

It's no use, thought Ray. We're going to die. 'What,' he asked after a moment, 'are they gonna tell them back home?'

'The truth.'

Oh dear, thought Ray. He suspected that might be the case. A fond image of his family (minus, of course, his father) floated before him. 'It's a big responsibility when people rely on you,' he said. 'Ma always worries when I'm late home for work.' God only knows, he mused, what she's thinking now.

'You could set a clock by my father's schedule,' replied Benton. 'Outbound at the first snow - back again at spring break up. Never changed, not even once. Well... until he died.'

Great, thought Ray. More on death.

But life carried on for another twenty minutes as he staggered through the forest, exhausted but determined to get as far as possible before ... well, before the next rest at any rate. He used Diefenbaker's woebegone expression as an excuse for stopping. 'Dief,' he said to Benton, 'looks as if he needs a rest.'

'Dief always looks as if he needs a rest. Sometimes he needs reminding that he's a wolf.'

And since when, thought the eavesdropping animal, did wolves carry-saddle-bags? He shot his master a thoroughly nasty look and, taking matters into his own hands, promptly lay down.

Relieved, Ray deposited Benton on the ground and followed suit. When he regained his breath, he looked with concern at his friend. The sheen had gone from Benton's face: now he just looked dried-out and even more deathly pale than ever. His actions, however, belied his appearance. Sitting leaning against a tree, he was scratching around in the undergrowth in front of him, evidently intent on some private purpose of his own.

'What're you doing, Benny?' panted Ray.

'Got any string or twine?'

'Er ... yes. Why?'

'Can you give it to me?'

Much as Ray wanted to say 'get it yourself, he duly hauled himself to his feet. If Benton had an idea, then he would act on it. How different, he thought, to life as he knew it; to life in his own, dear Chicago. There, if Benton had an idea. Ray's response was withering, sarcastic, incredulous - and invariably negative. Making a mental note to be even more withering when - he consciously dismissed the more likely 'if - they returned to the windy city, he walked over to the comatose Diefenbaker, guardian of the supplies.

For a moment hope shone in the wolf's eyes as he realized Ray was undoing the makeshift saddle-bags that had made his journey so wearisome and his present attempts to be dead so uncomfortable. Then, seeing that Ray was merely extracting the twine he had salvaged from the hijacker's rucksack, he groaned and let his head fall back to the ground. Whatever was happening now, it clearly didn't involve him. Selfish, he mused. Both of them. Not for the first time, he regretted yesterday's episode with the peanuts. Ray was extracting his revenge big-time.

Ray passed the twine into Benton's groping hands and watched as he expertly tied it to the three small round rocks that were the fruits of his earlier searches. 'Would you mind telling me,' asked Ray with the first traces of irritation, 'what you're doing.'

'I'm making a bola. Ray. The Inuit use them to hunt.'

Intrigued, Ray looked closer. 'When I was a kid, I had a slingshot.' Benton read the doubt in his voice as clearly as it was written on his face.

Benton smiled. 'Oh, a bola's not a toy. It's a deadly weapon. It could bring down a good-sized elk. Or,' he said as he remembered the hijacker, 'a man.'

Ray was even more sceptical now. Given their rate of progress that day, their prey was bound to be miles ahead. 'The hijacker,' he said, 'is probably at a Hilton sitting by the pool by now.'

'Oh no he's not.' Benton was quietly confident. 'We're closing in on him. Now,' he added, handing the completed weapon to Ray. 'Take this, stand up ... and spin it.'

Ray looked in some trepidation at the object in his hands. He cradled it in a fearful, unfamiliar way that suggested it was a new born baby and not a deadly weapon. Then, finally, he let the rocks drop like three pendulums and held on to the other end of the lengths of twine. 'Spin it?' he said.

'Yes. Round and round - and when you get enough momentum, let it go.' To illustrate the manoeuvre, Benton waved his arms in a circle above his head.

Ray copied him. This, he thought as the bola gathered momentum, is fun. Round and round went his right arm: round and round went the bola. But the bola seemed to be going faster than the arm - and the faster it went the more the arm seemed like it would be wrenched out of its socket. Worst of all, it was pulling Ray off balance.

'Let it go!' shouted Benton in alarm as the whipcord crack of the bola cut through the air.

'I'm trying!' panted Ray.

'Let it go NOW!'

Ray let go and staggered backwards against a tree as the bola flew upwards. It shot skywards at a truly impressive rate, slicing through the air like an arrow. Impressed by his own strength. Ray peered upwards, wondering when it would start its descent.

But the only object that descended was a large and extremely irate bird. The bola itself thudded into a tree and then, cuckoo-like, folded itself into the forcibly-vacated nest - and stayed there.

'Benny?' said Ray after a short, horrified silence.

'Yes, Ray?'

'We're in trouble.'

'Oh.' Oddly, Benton didn't seem too concerned. Rather than criticizing Ray for his ineptitude, he slumped back against the tree and dabbed at his face with his left hand. 'Ray,' he said after a moment, 'I've stopped sweating.'

'What does that mean?'

'Well,' explained Benton with characteristic exactitude, ' a person ten per cent dehydrated suffers from dizziness, nausea and a swollen tongue. At fifteen per cent there's dim vision, loss of muscle control, painful stools.'

Alarm creased Ray's features. 'Where are you at?'

'Er ... inability to sweat indicates a loss of anything from ten to fifteen per cent.'

Ray's heart missed a beat. 'What happens at twenty?'

'Death.'

Ray rushed over to Diefenbaker and rumbled in the blanket for the water bottle, plugged, because Benton had lost the cap, with Ray's (mercifully clean) handkerchief. He bit back the yelp of terror that sprang to his throat: it was nearly empty. Breathing deeply, he walked over to Benton and pressed the bottle into his hands. 'Easy... easy,' he cautioned as the other man gulped. But even as he said the words he saw that Benton had consumed every meagre mouthful.

'I hope,' he said as he took the empty container, 'that you're right about that river.'

As they resumed their travels. Ray impressed himself by what, if he had been thirty years older and English, he would probably have called a blitz spirit. Determined not to let Benton lapse into unconsciousness and not to allow himself to give up, he advocated that they entertain themselves with a few rousing tunes.

Benton needed no encouragement. A keen singer, he was always ready to burst into song. Now, as he passed in and out of delirium, his singing was enthusiastic rather than tuneful. In fact, thought Ray, it wasn't singing at all; merely a succession of dissonant and ear-piercing sounds.

'I can't,' screamed Benton, 'get off my horse ... I've hum, hum, hum ... on the cattle. No! I can't get off my horse 'cos some lusty dirty dog put glue in my saddle. In the saddle! In the saddle!'

Unable to bear the racket. Ray suggested they try 'California Dreaming'. At least he knew the words to that. Benton didn't - but that proved no obstacle to the raucous bellows that accompanied Ray's passably pleasant singing voice.

'All the leaves are brown,' sang the latter.

'All the browns are leaves!' from Benton.

'And the sky is grey .. .'

'And the pie is made . . .'

'I left my heart in Frisco ...'

'San Francisco!'

Ray was impressed. 'San Francisco Bay!'

'San Francisco Bay!'

'California!'

'California!'

Good, thought Ray as he tramped up an incline with Benton's head bobbing against his back; he's getting the hang of it.

'Beethoven!'

'No I don't think ...'

'Mozart, then!'

'Shut up!' As Ray barked the command, he came to an abrupt halt and craned his head forward.

'What?' asked Benton.

Ray paused before replying. He had to be sure: couldn't afford to be imagining things. He had to be able to believe his ears. Finally, he spoke again, words that were sweeter than any music ever provided by Mozart or Beethoven or even The Beach Boys: 'I hear water.' Then, without giving Benton a chance to reply, no longer noticing the burden over his shoulders, he began to run.

A moment later he burst forth from the trees to behold the most beautiful sight ever to greet his eyes. In front of them, down a shallow slope, flowed a wide, glistening river. The water, white and frothy as it rippled and spilled over the stones on the bank, beckoned to him like some great seductress.

And never had Ray been so ready for seduction. With a whoop of joy only rivalled by that of Diefenbaker, he ran down the slope, let Benton slither from his back and threw himself face down into the churning elixir. Benton had no time for words: inching forward on his elbows, he too buried his face in the water, as did Dief.

They drank in silence for what seemed an eternity. Then, laughing and throwing his head back in childlike glee. Ray turned to his companion. 'This is great! Can you taste this? This,' he said as he watched the clear liquid flow through his fingers, 'must be what they get Evian from.' Then he looked in wonder at the larger picture; at the enormous breadth of the river and at the beauty of the opposite bank and the dappled sunlight through the trees. 'Most of the rivers around Chicago you can walk on. This is really beautiful.'

Then Benton's head emerged. 'Ray,' he panted, 'it may just be some property of the water, but I think I can feel a twitch ...'

'Don't worry buddy,' smiled Ray. He felt he could do anything now; sensed a new power wash through him with the heavenly taste of the water. And he felt like kissing whoever had stowed the inflatable raft in the aircraft. 'I'll have you out of here in no time.'

His father, however, had other ideas. As Ray retraced his steps to where he had dropped the rucksack containing the life-raft. Carlo Vecchio appeared again. 'I know what you're thinking,' he said with a conspiratorial chuckle. 'You're gonna ditch him and take the raft, right? That's what you're gonna do, right?' To demonstrate his approval, he slapped his son on the back.

'No,' snarled Ray. 'I am not.' Why, he seethed to himself, did his father have to appear at times when his presence was completely useless? How was it possible to be even more annoying in death than in life?

'Look,' said his father, jabbing him in the ribs 'A man would take that raft. A man would save himself.'

Ray looked up in disbelief. 'What are you? Crazy?'

'No.' Carlo crossed his arms over his chest. 'just realistic.'

On the riverbank, Benton's father, determined not to be outdone by someone he perceived (correctly) as a cheap Chicago hood, was also dispensing advice. 'Leave him,' he whispered to his blind son. 'Take the raft. You can still get your man.'

Oh go away, thought Benton. 'No,' he said without looking round. 'Absolutely not.'

His father drew back as if he had been hit. 'They'll have you up on charges,' he goaded.

'Do you ever,' sighed the irritated Benton, 'listen to yourself?'

'What?' said Ray, now approaching with the raft.

'Not you,' replied Benton with a weary gesture in the other direction. 'Him.'

Ray looked, puzzled, towards the vast emptiness of the forest. 'Who?'

Behind Ray, and invisible to Benton, Carlo scoffed at the young Mountie. 'Like I said,' he spat. 'Loony tunes. Now,' he said to his son, 'listen to me, will you?'

Benton's father, outraged by the slight to his son, drew himself up to his full, and not very considerable, height. 'Do you mind?' he said loftily.

'Yes,' sneered Carlo, adopting a protective stance in front of his son, 'I do.'

Robert Fraser did likewise. 'I know you'll do the right thing, son,' he urged Benton.

'How?' shouted his exasperated son. 'I can't see and my legs don't work.'

Robert gave him an encouraging pat on the back. 'It's in our nature.'

'Look,' sighed Benton. 'You don't just leave a man in the wilderness and hope that he'll survive. They don't thank you for that.'

Unaware of Benton's father's presence, incensed by Benton's accusation. Ray looked up from the bag containing the raft. 'I am not going to leave you here.' Robert leaned closer to his son. 'They survive, you know. Americans.'

Benton ignored him.

But Carlo Vecchio was now seriously worried that Ray wasn't going to follow his advice. "What had he done, he wondered, to produce a son like this? It was bad enough that he had become a cop: infinitely worse that he had befriended a Mountie. 'Right,' he said as he lunged for the raft, 'if you're not going to do it, I'll do it for you.'

'Get away from me!'

'I'm nowhere near you!' Unaware of the area's over-population by deceased people, Benton assumed Ray's remark was aimed at him.

'I'm not talking to you,' said Ray. Then, angry now, he turned back to his father. 'This man is gonna die if I don't get him outta here. Now,' he continued, wagging a finger at his persistent parent, 'I don't care what that makes me, but what it doesn't make me is YOU! Now back off, alright?'

'Ray,' wailed Benton. 'Who are you talking to?'

But Ray didn't reply. Instead, and with rather more force than was required, he threw the bag into the river, keeping the rip-cord in his right hand. For a moment nothing happened, then, with a loud and satisfying hiss, the bag started to unfold in the water, turning itself in the process into a raft. Ray watched, beaming from ear to ear, as their escape vehicle materialized in front of him. He continued to watch, beaming rather less broadly, as the raft drifted away from him. He stopped smiling altogether when it reached the current of the river, turned round, and started bobbing downstream. It took but the blink of an eye for it to travel a hundred yards.

Benton had heard the hissing noise. 'Well,' he said, eager to reach civilization, 'shall we get in?'

Ray looked at the rip-cord in his hand. 'Uh ... I don't think now is a good time, Benny.'

Beside him, the fathers looked at each other. Then, shaking their heads, they walked off in opposite directions. It would take more than the shared and imminent demise of their sons to break the ice between them.

CHAPTER FOUR

For someone who always reckoned some good could be salvaged from disaster, Benton took the news rather badly. 'Oh,' he said when Ray told him about the rip-cord. 'Shouldn't the other end still be attached to the raft?'

'Yes,' growled Ray.

'That wasn't very clever. Ray.'

'No.' Ray's voice was ominously low.

'In fact, I would go as far as to say ...'

'Well don't! Just don't say it, okay? OKAY?'

Benton knew that tone. It meant that Ray was hopping around in an agitated fashion, looking as stupid as he felt. 'Okay,' he said. 'I won't. But.. .'

'Fraser!'

'Okay, okay.' Benton held up his hands in a placatory gesture. 'Let's just forget it. We can always,' he added brightly; 'make another one.'

'Another what.'

'Raft.'

Ray shot his friend a half-incredulous, half-pitying glance. 'Benny, that raft was made of rubber. Are you telling me that we're gonna make those little nicks in the trees like they do in the Amazon and hang around for five years until we've got enough sap to boil into rubber or whatever it is they do with it?'

'No. I'm telling you that we can make a raft out of fallen trees. Logs. Like they do in the, er .. . Amazon.'

Feeling foolish. Ray felt he had to save face by finding fault with Benton's suggestion. 'You mean,' he said with a withering glare, 'that I can make a raft. Well I can't, Fraser. I can't carry logs big enough all by myself.'

'I know. I'll help you.'

'Your legs don't work.' Ray realized he wasn't being very sympathetic, but then again, Benton wasn't being very sensible.

'No, no. Ray.' From his seat on a rock, Benton beckoned him over. 'You remember that twitch I mentioned earlier?'

'Yeah. So?'

'So, protract my lower lumber, would you?'

'And just what exactly would that mean?'

Benton straightened his back and turned away from Ray. 'Just put your knee in my back and pull.'

Shrugging, Ray did as he was bid. 'Like this?' he asked as he gingerly nudged the small of Benton's back.

'Yes, but harder. You may really have to wrench it. Put your hands on my shoulders and one . .. two ... three ... AAAHHH!' Feeling as if he had been rammed from behind by a train, Benton screamed and fell forwards.

Concerned, Ray removed the offending knee. 'Did that... did that hurt?'

'Like a hot poker.' But when Benton turned, it was with a broad smile. 'But look, look! I seem to have found my legs.'

Sure enough, the limbs that had been dormant for so long were now dangling and twitching, puppet-like, against the rock.

'Hey!' Ray was delighted. 'You can walk. Er ... can you see as well?'

'No, Ray.'

'But you can walk?' Suddenly Ray was doubtful.

Benton stood up and took a few paces. 'Yes, Ray.'

'And you can help with the raft?'

'Ray, I can make a raft with my eyes closed.'

An hour later they had eight tree trunks lined up side by side on the river bank and were tying them together with the twine from the rucksack. Diefenbaker, sunbathing on a nearby rock, looked on in approval. This adventure business, he had been thinking, was so tiring. One minute there you were, trotting through the forest full of hope: the next you had to skulk around, burdened by saddle bags, looking a prize idiot and knowing that disaster lay ahead. Diefenbaker had known that Ray would make a mess of the raft; but what he hadn't known was that Benton would find his feet again. Good old Benton, he thought as he stifled a yawn. He always came good in the end. Then, exhausted by his musings, he laid his head down once again and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Ray, however, had found another problem. 'Looks like we're going to run out of rope,' he said, grimacing at the knots that still needed to be tied.

'Well, we'll have to improvise.'

Ray looked round at the deserted river and the virgin forest. 'With what?'

'The inside bark of a poplar is quite good,'suggested Benton, 'but it has to be boiled, then chewed. Inuit women do it all the time. It's good for their teeth.'

'I'll remember to tell my dentist.'

As usual, Benton ignored what he saw as puerile sarcasm. And as usual. Ray regretted that his rapier wit was too sophisticated for a Mountie to understand.

'Cedar roots,' said Benton after a moment, make a suitable alternative.'

'Boiled or chewed?'

'Neither.'

'Oh, well... are there any cedars in the forest?' A tree, as far as he was concerned, was a tree. No point in complicating the issue with names.

'I would imagine so.'

'Imagining isn't good enough, Fraser.'

'Well I can't very well look, can I?'

'Oh . sorry.' Taking the initiative. Ray walked towards the trees. 'What does a cedar look like?

Sort of cedar-like.'

'Great.' Ray rolled his eyes and then pounced on the nearest tree. This one's got ... well, leaves, and . . .'

'Does it smell?'

'Yes.' Ray sniffed the dark bark. 'Yeah! It smells sort of . . . well, I'd say cedary.'

'Is there anything at the base?'

Ray looked down at his feet. 'Nuts?'

'Ah. The seeds of the cembra pine. Not to be confused, of course, with the Barbados cedar - properly a juniper - or the Bastard Barbados cedar which is in fact a Cedrela ...'

'Fraser! Is this a cedar or is this not a cedar?'

It's a cedar.'

'Good.' Ray knelt down and started hauling at the roots which curled in snake-like tendrils around the base of the tree. Panting with the effort, he tugged as hard as he could - but the roots remained stubbornly in place. Looking round, he spied another cedar further into the forest and, hoping it might be older and feebler, headed towards it. Then after only two paces, he stopped and went back for Benton. Blindness was no excuse for slacking when it came to root-pulling. 'Come on, Benny, hand on shoulder.'

'Where are we going?'

'Cedar picking.'

'Oh.'

Ray led the way back into the forest, deposited Benton at the foot of the tree he had earlier spied, and made his way on the next. Its roots, however, proved as resistant as those of its sister tree.

'Look at you,' said a withering voice as Ray grappled with the recalcitrant stems. 'Loser.'

'Hah! You oughta know. Pop,' said Ray without looking round.

'You never listened to me,' continued his father, adopting a wounded and pathetic tone. 'You never knew what was good for you. You never listened and you never learned.'

That, coming from the biggest loser of all time, was really rich. 'And exactly when did you tell me, Pop, huh? When you didn't come home for dinner five nights a week? Or when I found you passed out on Saturday nights from too much partying with the boys?'

Temper, temper, thought his parent. 'It wasn't up to me to talk. It was up to you to listen.'

Ray finally wrenched the roots off the tree and, gathering them in his arms, started to walk back towards Benton. 'Well, I'm not listening to you any more.'

'I'm your father!' wailed Carlo.

Ray spun round. For a silent moment he stared his father in the eye. Then, lower lip curling, he opened his mouth to reply. 'That's right. Pop. You are my father.'

More than a little piqued, Carlo Vecchio remained where he was. Ray, he now knew, was beyond hope. What had happened to him? What had diluted that proud Italian blood that made children worship their parents? Sighing and shaking his head, he walked off, quite forgetting that a tad of parental worship for his children might have turned Ray into a decent, cop-fearing citizen instead of, of all things ... but no, he couldn't do it, couldn't bring himself to mention the word. Even to himself. Even though he was dead.

Fuming, Ray retraced his steps. Then, just as he was negotiating the incline towards Benton's tree, he heard the snap of a twig. Whirling round, ready to delivery stinging, poisonous remark to his father, he did a double take. There was no one there. Fearing that his father was increasing his pest potential by becoming invisible as well as annoying and dead, he continued on his disconsolate way. Then he heard it again; the definite snap of a brittle twig - and remembered the hijacker. Depositing the cedar roots on the ground, he picked up a small stone and threw it into the trees way behind him. The effect it had left him in no doubt as to who was nearby. As the stone landed, a gunshot rang out in the still of the forest.

'Damn!' Ray broke into a stealthy run, at the same time looking backwards at the ridge from where the shot had been fired. Sure enough, he caught a glimpse, high above him, of the blond hair and the blue flying suit of the man who had hijacked their plane. Keeping low as he ran, sure that he still hadn't been seen, he cast around for Benton. What does a blind man do, he wondered, when he hears a shot? Does he run - or does he hide?

'I'm here,' came a frantic whisper from behind the rock that Ray was passing. 'Hiding.'

Breathing a sigh of relief. Ray threw himself to the ground beside Benton.

'Get down!' said the latter.

'I am down!'

'Good.' Benton, however, was unaware that his own head was poking round the side of the rock. Ray pulled him into safety. 'Fraser,' he said through gritted teeth. 'I thought you said he wasn't going to risk a direct confrontation?'

'Well, it would appear that I miscalculated. But,' Benton added, looking cunning, 'I have a plan. We're going to draw him to the river, we're going to lure him into the open using the raft as bait - then you trap him with the bola.'

'The bola? But...'

'I made another one.'

'Oh. But Benny, I can't use bolas ...'

Benton shrugged. 'Well... I didn't say it was a good plan.' As he spoke, there was a sharp crack, a little whistle of air, followed by the sound of a bullet embedding itself in the bark of the tree beside them.

'Do you have any other plans?' asked Ray.

'Not at the present time, no.'

'Okay, then - we run for the raft.' Ray raised himself to his haunches. 'You go first.'

'I'm blind. Ray.'

'Oh. Yes. Hand on shoulder and one . .. two three ... GO! GO! GO!' Ray sprinted out from behind the rock, Benton at his heels and, bullets whizzing around him, weaved his way through the trees. 'I'd like to get something off my mind,' he yelled as they ran. 'My dad, when I was a kid DOWN! DOWN! DOWN!... used to hang out at the pool hall, shooting pool, drinking espressos with the guys and acting like some big hot-shot. Which he wasn't.' Gulping in huge breaths with the effort of dodging a killer's bullets at the same time as relating his life story to Benton, he suddenly dived into another shelter provided by some rocks. 'Okay, okay,' he said, pulling Benton with him. 'This is good. So,' he continued as a hail of bullets flew over them 'I'm ten, right, and I get this idea in my head that I want to go camping. I mean, I don't know where I get it - out of a book or something. But the point is that I just want to be with him, you know, just want to spend some time with him. So, finally he says "yes", and I go out and get a tent and ...'

'Is this,' shouted Benton over a renewed burst of gunfire, 'a particularly long story. Ray?'

'My mom,' said Ray, providing an oblique but affirmative answer, 'being the sweetheart that she is, goes and gets me her best sheets - her really good sheets, right? - so I go and get some wood and ...'

'Ray...'

'Yeah, good idea, let's move. Keep him guessing.' With that, and with Benton's hand on his shoulder, he led the way out of their hiding place, pelting down towards the river as the bullets rained after them. 'Where was I?' he shouted as he ran. 'Oh yeah - the wood. I want to start a fire, right? But what I really want is for him to teach me how to make a fire. So I'm waiting for him to come home, right? And it starts to rain ...'

'Ray,' panted Benton as they ran, 'I don't think this is the time ...' But Ray had the bit between his teeth and wasn't going to stop until he had exorcised his demon. 'I waited and waited and he never came, so I go down to Fanelli's and, sure enough, there he is shooting pool with his friends. I go home, I take the tent down and we never speak about it ever again.'

Humour him, thought Benton as he stumbled along, ducking and diving from the invisible bullets. 'We can't choose our families. Ray.'

And then Ray came to the punchline. 'Fraser, I never camped with my father. Not once.'

So that's what this was all about, thought Benton. Was he supposed to be surprised by the statement? 'Ah,' he said.

'The raft! GO! GO!' Now that his conscience was clear. Ray concentrated again on the business of saving their lives. Spying the raft near the riverbank, he noted that there was space to shelter underneath the far end of it. 'Duck behind it! Quick!' Now out in the open and providing a clear target for the hijacker, they sprinted towards the raft and dived behind it. No sooner had they done so than a barrage of bullets slammed into the logs above their heads. And no sooner had he recovered his breath than Ray realized his mistake. They were out of the forest. This was the end of the line: there was nowhere else to hide - and the hijacker was approaching.

'This is perfect,' said Benton. 'I think we've got him where we want him.'

'Yeah, I'm sure that's what he'll be thinking when he shoots us to death at point blank range.' Looking up. Ray saw the blue-suited hijacker edging round a large boulder. He was close enough for Ray to see the cold, mean blue eyes and the hard line of his mouth. This man was not going to take hostages. 'How far is he?' asked Benton.

'Fifty yards.'

'Angle?'

Ray shot him a puzzled look. 'Ten o'clock.'

'And where's the bola?'

'Right now I would guess it's playing sitting tenant in a nest two miles back.'

'No - not that one. The other one.'

'Oh yeah, I forgot. Where did you put it?'

'In the rucksack.'

'Oh.' Ray looked round for the rucksack. It was sitting on the pebbles ten yards away. There was no way he could get to it without being hit. And even if he did reach it, the hijacker was hardly likely to miss a target standing still swinging stones around his head. 'Fraser,' he sighed. 'The man has a gun. I am not going to leap out into the open and start flinging stones at his head.'

'No, no. Ray. I am. And I think that with your help I can find his range.'

So much, thought Ray, for that fleeting and firmly finished brush with sanity. 'Fraser, you can't see.' As he spoke. Ray knew that he had no option but to run towards the rucksack. It would, he knew, be suicide. After all his valiant efforts, he was going to die in Canada.

At this juncture, and in fiction, the cavalry would have come thundering to the rescue. But this was real life and there was no cavalry - there was only Diefenbaker. The wolf had been watching the proceedings from the sanctuary of the forest, weighing up his master's chances of survival. After much consideration, he had come to the conclusion that they were nil. It was time to act. Reckoning that the man with the gun was a townie and therefore not too familiar with wolves, he figured he had a chance of diverting him for long enough for Ray to fetch the bola. Exactly what Ray was going to do with the bola, he dared not think. It was their only chance.

So it was that Duff Hogan, already heartily sick of and not a little frightened by the forest, had his first encounter with a wild and deadly wolf. The creature came running from the depths of the forest, mouth gaping open to reveal huge white fangs, and charged straight at him. For a few seconds, petrified into immobility, he stood and gaped at the animal. Only when it was close enough for him to see the small piece of peanut lodged between two of the fangs did he remember his gun. Snarling like the wolf itself, he lifted the weapon and . . .

... and then Ray let out a bellow and sent the bola swmgmg towards him. Hogan looked, astonished. at the strange instrument flying through the air; at the three rocks twirling aroundfgainingthei own momentum and soaring straight abo'e h;s head. Then, with a grimly triumphant smile, he looked at the hapless Ray and raised the gun again.

The wolf was forgotten (the wolf was actually hiding). This time there would be no escape.

But Ray could see what Hogan could not. The bola had cannoned full-force into the rocky overhang directly above Hogan and, in a move that was pure poetry to Ray, had dislodged some rocks.

A flicker of doubt crossed Hogan's brow as he curled his finger round the trigger. Thunder? It seemed so sudden; so near; so loud. That was his last thought: his last action was to look up. His last sight was of the avalanche of rocks that killed him.

Ray continued to stare. It was astonishing. Amazing. He had looked death in the eye and thwarted it. True, his method of doing so had been rather unorthodox and not exactly planned - but who cared about details? He let out a great whoop of joy and ran towards the raft. 'Benny! Benny!'

Deprived of the gift of sight, Benton had been unaware of what had happened. Ray's approach interrupted his puzzled thoughts about the thunder. 'Oh!' he said as, jolted out of his reverie, he raised his head - and walloped it on the base of the raft. Ow! Stars appeared in front of his eyes They merged into a brief kaleidoscope of dots and then. miraculously, gave way to something else. Ray' race. Avoiding the raft this time, Benton sat bolt upright. 'I can see! Ray, I can see!'

Ray let out another whoop. Another miracle. Did they, like bad luck, come in threes? He held four fingers in front of Benton's blinking eyes. 'How many fingers?'

'Four.'

'Great!'

'What happened. Ray?' Benton stood up and looked around. All seemed quiet and peaceful.

Ray grinned and pointed towards the recent avalanche. 'See anything different about that?'

'No, Ray, I've never seen this place before, remember?'

'Oh. Yeah. You're not going to believe it. Nobody's going to believe it. It was the most improbable natural phenomenon I've ever seen.'

'Ray...'

'Good work son.'

Typical, thought Benton. Appearing when all had gone quiet. And what was with the snow shoes? 'Thank you,' he said anyway, ever polite.

'For what?' asked Ray.

'You got your man,' said a smiling Robert Fraser.

'We got our man,' smiled Benton.

'Yes we did, Benny,' said Ray, clapping his on the shoulder. 'Yes we did.' Then he walked off to admire his handiwork with the bola.

'But,' said Benton's father with a slight frown, 'I think he's dead.'

'Oh.' Benton looked over to the pile of rocks. 'Oh dear.'

The rest was easy. With no trigger-happy murderer on their heels; with four legs and two pairs of eyes, it didn't take them long to exhume Hogan from his nasty, sudden grave. Nor did it take long for them to haul the raft to the water's edge, to pile their meagre belongings on to it, to load one dead man and one live wolf - Diefenbaker refused to get his feet wet - and be on their way.

'I'll row,' said Ray, buoyed up by his recent mastery of forest life.

'Punt,' said Benton.

'What?'

'Punt. That,' said Benton as he watched Ray wield the makeshift pole, 'is punting.'

Ray shrugged. 'Punting. Rowing. It's moving, isn't it?'

Benton had to agree with that. The raft, now fixed tightly together with the cedar roots, was proving eminently suitable for messing about on the river. And Ray, although he forbore to mention the fact, was messing about with the pole. Still, Benton was sure he'd soon get the hang of it.

He did. Within five minutes he was expertly manoeuvring the craft into the middle of the river. Within seven he was whistling. This, he thought as he surveyed the breathtaking scenery, was the life.

'Shame,' said Benton, interrupting his thoughts, 'about our man.' He looked with distaste at the corpse beside him.

'Oh. Shame. Right. So you'd rather he'd killed us?'

'No. But it would have been nice to get him alive.'

'Benny, there was nothing nice about that man ' Ray wrinkled his nose. 'Even in death he looks nasty.'

'No - nice for us.'

'Whaddya mean? You mean we'd get more brownie points? Benny,' sighed Ray, 'we've just survived a plane crash, two days in the wilderness being stalked by a killer; blindness, paralysis, dehydration, hunger...'

'Mind that rock. We've still got to survive the river.'

'What? Oh ... right.' Ray plunged the pole into the water and deftly manoeuvred the raft round a frothy outcrop of rocks. Then, smiling, he looked up again. This was heavenly. Beautiful scenery, bright sunshine, clear water. ... 'This is good,' Benny,' he said. 'A fresh breeze; a strong current. We should make this an annual event. What do you say?'

'I would say you should watch the rock up on the left.'

'I got it. I got it.' Ray was in his element.

'Okay. Now we're coming up on a sandbar, Ray.'

'AL-RIGHT!' sang Ray. 'Speak to me, sandbar.'

'No, I would avoid it if I were you.'

Poor Benny, thought Ray. In a panic, and about what - nature? 'You can't avoid nature,' he explained. 'You gotta work with it. See? We're perfectly fine. I know what I'm doing. Admit it, Benny, I know what I'm doing.'

'You know what you're doing.'

'Thank you.'

Then they lapsed into silence. Ray was drinking in, and becoming even more intoxicated by the wonders around him. Benton, a hand shading the sun from his eyes, was peering at the water ahead of them. Then he looked behind. Yes. It was flowing faster. Ray didn't appear to notice, but the raft was already beginning to bucket around and ...

'Benton?'

'Yes?'

'I wonder what they'll do when we get back? You know, we outwitted a killer and snatched ourselves from the ... what do they call it?'

'Jaws of death. But Ray . . .'

'They'll welcome us like heroes. Big party, I reckon.'

'I think it'll be more of a wake. Ray.'

Ray laughed. 'What makes you say that?'

'The waterfall ahead.'

Chapter Five

Neither man remembered, later, what had happened after they tumbled over the waterfall. Duff Hogan, being dead, wasn't much help and Diefenbaker, being a wolf, didn't speak about it. They all sustained injuries: Ray to his left arm, Benton, again, to his head - and Diefenbaker's nose was firmly out of joint for the following three weeks. How, he asked himself, could they have been so stupid? Against considerable odds. Ray and Benton had survived a hijacking, a plane crash, blindness, paralysis, dehydration and a murder hunt - only to jeopardize everything by falling off a waterfall. Didn't rivers and waterfalls go together? Wasn't it obvious that, on a rapidly flowing river, there would be sharp descents to negotiate? Benton of all people should have known that. Diefenbaker ignored him for days.

The reason they survived was the proximity of a town to the base of the waterfall. That town - imaginatively named Waterfall - was used to visitors arriving by the unorthodo