50 in 50

With this encouragement Curly trotted forward, pushing his way through the underbrush so fast that Bron could hardly keep up. They came to a steep, muddy bank with a dark pond below, and the crying was now a loud, unhappy sobbing. A little girl, no more than two years old, was up to her waist in the water, wet and unhappy.

"Hold on_; I'll have you out in a second," Bron said, and the sobbing turned to a shrill wailing. Curly stood on the brink of the slippery mud slope, and Bron used his sturdy and immobile ankle to hold on to as he let himself down. The child struggled towards him, and he grabbed her with his free hand and pulled her to safety. She was wet and miserable, but she stopped crying as soon as he had her under his arm.

"Now what shall we do with you?" Bron asked when he was on top again, and this time he heard the answer at the same time as the pigs. The distant, continual ringing of a bell. He started them in the right direction, then walked behind in the path that Curly plowed through the underbrush.

The woods ended at an open meadow. A red farmhouse was on the hill above, where a woman stood waving a large hand bell. She saw Bron as soon as he had emerged from the trees and ran down to meet him.

"Amy," she cried, "you're all right!" She pulled the child to her, ignoring the mud stains on her white apron.

"Found her back there in the pond, ma'am. Got herself stuck in the mud and couldn't get out. More frightened than anything else, I'd say."

"I don't know how to thank you. I thought she was asleep when I went to milk the cows. She must have wandered out…"

''Don't thank me, ma'am, thank my pigs here. They heard her cryin', and I just followed them."

For the first time the woman was aware of the animals. "What a fine Mule-Foot.” she said, admiring Maisie's well-rounded lines. "We used to keep pigs at home, but when we emigrated we just bought the cows for a dairy farm. I'm sorry now. Let me give them some fresh milk — you too. It's the least I can do."

"Thank you kindly, but we have to push on. Lookin' for a homestead site, and I want to get up to the plateau and back before dark."

"Not there!" the woman gasped, clutching the little girl to her. "You can't go up there!"

"Any reason why I shouldn't? Looks like good land on the map."

"You can't that's all… there are things. We don't talk about them much. Things you can't see. I know they're there. We used to keep some cows in that uphill pasture, on the side towards the Ghost Plateau. You know why we stopped? Their milk was off — less than half of what the other cows were producing. There's something wrong up there, very wrong. Go look if you must, but you have to leave before dark. You'll find out what I mean quick enough."

"Thanks for tellin' me_; I do appreciate it. So seein' how the little girl is all right now, I'll just be movin' on."

Bron whistled the pigs to him, waved goodbye to the farm wife, and made his way back to the road. The plateau was getting more interesting all the time. He kept the pigs moving steadily after this, in spite of Maisie's heavy breathing and unhappy looks, and within an hour they had passed the deserted logging camp — abandoned because of the strange happenings on the plateau? — and started up among the trees. This was the edge of the plateau.

They crossed a stream, and Bron let the pigs drink their fill while he cut himself a stick for the climb. Maisie, overheated by her exertions, dropped full-length into the water with a tremendous splash and soaked herself. Jasmine, a fastidious animal, squealed with rage and rushed away to roll in the grass and dry herself off where she had been splashed. Curly, with much chuffing and grunting like a satisfied locomotive, got his nose under a rotting log that must have weighed nearly a ton and rolled it over and happily consumed the varied insect and animal life that he found beneath it. They moved on.

It was not a long climb to the plateau, and once they were over the edge the ground leveled out into a lightly forested plain. Bron took another compass reading and pointed Curly in the right direction. Curly snorted and raked a furrow in the ground with a forehoof before setting off. Jasmine pressed up against Bron's leg and squealed.

Bron could feel it too, and he had to suppress an involuntary shiver. There was something — how could it be described? — wrong about this place. He had no idea why he felt this way, but he did. And the pigs seemed to sense it too. There was something else wrong: there was not a bird in sight, although the hills below had been filled with them. And there did not seem to be any other animals about. The pigs would surely have called his attention to any he might have missed.