"Going through Hardpan City?" Horgan asked.
"Climb aboard," cheerfully answered a runty driver with a huge dusty red moustache. He jabbed his thumb at the ladder bolted to the waggon's side.
"You ride this waggon," Horgan said to Ayna and Orth. "I'll hop the next one."
The red-moustached man helped them into the cab, his squinted pale eyes studying the girl appreciatively, and then he spoke to his hulking companion. This driver was a hairy apish giant without ears. Now he slowly released the brakes that locked the treadmill while Red Moustache freed the wheels.
The treadmill revolved faster and faster and they went clanking and bumping off down the highroad, the miniature horses sweating in their involuntary struggle to keep on their feet. The great hooded vehicle had a pace of perhaps ten miles an hour.
"I hear," shouted the little driver at Orth and Ayna, "that the Boss is sending a hundred men to New Yok soon. They're to hunt down the red jitterbugs and outlaws that range the highways."
He paused long enough to catch his breath and curse the thick fog of dust that filled the cab.
"A hundred soldiers to wipe out three or four thousand tea sellers and their gunmen!" He snorted. "Of course they're jeep men—Hoovers, you know—but they can't do any good."
"The Boss is all wise," said the earless man, bumping his clenched fist against his nose. "He is the Boss."
Orth turned to Ayna. "Now," he said, "who is Ivath?"