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garden?’
    ‘No, I don’t. Nothing.’
    ‘But you’ve got the beginnings. There are plenty of dandelions out there in the lawn, and there’s a sassafras down by the swimming pool. That’s a pair of good starters.’
    ‘What’s a good starter?’ Harry had come back into the kitchen, carrying Jon on his shoulders. Eloise crowded close behind him, her sultry curves draped closely in a crimson cat-suit. All at once Katie realised that she was still wearing the dirty, crumpled, smelly set of jeans and shirt in which she had started her journey from Charlotte. A combination which she had worn now for over thirty-six wrinkled hours!
    ‘Breakfast is a good starter,’ Katie mumbled. ‘I have to go and change.’ She tried to slide around them, to get out the door.
    ‘But breakfast is ready for the table,’ Aunt Grace wailed.
    ‘Leave her alone,’ Harry ordered, in a tone that made Katie wish she had the nerve to whack him as she went by. ‘The girl positively reeks. Out you go, little Miss Russel. But hurry. The chariot leaves in fifteen minutes.’
    She sidled by him nervously, and stopped long enough to stick out her tongue at his massive back. It was apparent that he had eyes in the back of his head. Before she could escape out into the hall, one of those massive hands swung around and bounced smartly off the curve of her bottom, adding more force than necessary to her flight.
    He was waiting for her at the far side of the house when she came out, stuffed by the triple breakfast she had snatched. Eloise’s back could be seen as she wiggled her way down to the pool. ‘Jon is staying with Aunt Grace,’ he reported. ‘My, that’s really a load. Is your lunch in there?’
    ‘No,’ she snarled at him, ‘it’s my cameras. What did you expect, a Polaroid?’
    ‘Well, to tell you the truth, that’s just what I did expect,’ he laughed. ‘What do you have in that big case?’
    ‘It’s a converted war-surplus Hasselblatt,’ she told him, slipping back the canvas cover from the huge barrel of the camera. ‘My father bought it and converted it. The only trouble with it is that it weighs a whole bunch of pounds.’
    He was impressed. His eyes said so, and his grin. Finally he was impressed. He relieved her of the burden, stowing the Hasselblatt and her three lightweight SLRs in the back seat. As he helped her up into the high seat of the four-wheel-drive Jeep he said softly, ‘Could it be that I’ve been mistaken about you, little girl?’
    ‘Don’t call me that,’ she snapped back at him. ‘I’m not some sort of baby!’ She shook her arm free. He stood by the side of the vehicle for a moment, rocking back and forth on his heels, his face displaying the picture of his mind at work.
    ‘Not necessarily,’ he announced to the wide world. Then, without explanation, he walked around to the driver’s seat and started the engine.
    The little wooden bridge grumbled under their wheels as the Jeep rolled across. Katie leaned out far enough to see the little stream, some twenty feet down, that had carved the gorge.
    ‘It’s all limestone rock around here,’ he yelled at her. ‘That creek’s been working at it for hundreds of years. Makes into a fine waterfall a little way down. Some time, if you’re interested, we’ll take a look at it!’
    Once out on the highway, heading up and eastward, she huddled close to the door, determined to absorb as much of the mountain scenery as possible. They were in a world of variegated greens. A few clumps of tall white pine and oak stood out from the smaller poplar, spruce, wild apple, and oak. And all around them, in patches that seemed to stretch for acres, were the closely interwoven laurel bushes. ‘In most places they’re so close that you can’t get through without an axe,’ he yelled. ‘This was once the real forest primeval, but a massive forest fire destroyed most everything. What you see is secondary growth, mostly. Like it?’
    She answered with a smile,