Van Huys chuckled, and Joe Sanders grinned.
"Don't look like much from topside, eh, Krassner? I figgered it wouldn't. The old man's a fox. He spent more than twenty years givin' this hide-out the damnedest coat of natch'ral camouflage you ever seen."
"Old man?" said Krassner curiously. "Camouflage?"
Maureen touched my arm. She whispered, "Maybe you had better not tell him, Brian. It's our secret—"
I started to tell her what the hell. He was one of us, and there were mighty few of us left. We needed all the men we could get. And Krassner looked like a man. I didn't get a chance to say any of this, though. For as we talked, we had continued to follow Sanders. Joe was now picking his way confidently through an opening in the tangle of foliage.
Sunlight dimmed as we entered a huge, cleared space entirely roofed by an interwoven network of boughs. In this space was a wide, rambling, one-story house, adjoined by a number of inexplicable sheds. And on the veranda of the house stood a man I recognized instantly. It was Dr. Thomas Mallory.
IV
Mallory made us welcome. More than that, he seemed positively delighted that we had come. He showed anxiety on only one point.
"No one saw you come here, Captain? You're sure of that?"