“What puzzles me,” says Jack Ritchie, “is why D’Arlan does not allow the whole patrol to move together. Why must Juin and the other guys stay behind us, like dogs following a scent? We could be destroyed, and so can they. Why cannot we trek as one? Then at least, we will be sixty men with more firepower.”
“Yes, it is puzzling,” Podolski, one of the bravest men in the Legion, agrees. “What troubles me more is this shooting of D’Arlan with the revolver. It seems he is trying to draw attention to us by deliberately alerting the Dulacs of our position.”
“That is true,” Fritz interrupts. “It looks as if he is deliberately baiting the vultures. D’Arlan is playing with fire, and he does not know it.”
“Maybe he has a master plan, and we idiots just do not understand it.”
“Plan? Ba! This is a s
