Dad, this is Jonny Bill MacEagle, grandson of White Elk,” she said, looking from one to the other with a proud smile on her face as they shook hands...“Jonny Bill, I’m pleased to meet you. Your grandfather has a high regard of you and your brother Jere Joe.”“Marshal Crow, I am honored to meet you. My grandfather holds you as a great friend of our people and I am extremely honored that you and he trusted my brother and I to meet your daughters, Kia and Michi. I can only hope that I live up to that. ’ They moved over to the boat, and sorted Libby’s gear for the rest of the morning, Libby doing most of the thinkin’ and talkin, Don doing most of the liftin’ and packin’. Like it should be. She wanted more batteries, more spare filters, and more specimen jars. Don promised that while Libby was at a trainin’ course for the next couple of days, he’d get everything ready and take the boat and work wagon home Friday afternoon, ready for Sunday. He also said Libby was the best manager he knew and. When the patrol enters the large front yard of the farm Thistledown the two troop transports swing out to the flanks and the Jeep takes the central slot when they head for the house. The leader senses something is wrong and he calls a halt just inside the gateway while he studies the farm with great care because he’s not happy. There’s no one in sight and he can sense only one person who’s in extreme pain. On full alert the vehicles move forward to stop fifteen metres from the open front. She really was becoming a little tiresome with her tantrums. The Chief Eunuch complained that she was having other girls whipped for no good reason, and that she was never co-operative. Come to that, she had started to make him wait for her; tonight, for instance, he had told the Chief Eunuch in good time whom he wanted, and he had not hurried over his bath. He smiled as he thought of the game he played with the bath girls, pulling a different one into the bath each night and so messing up.