"It was useless. A granite slab a mile thick stood between our location and the base's radio receiver, effectively blocking out our signal. The steady...hiss of static ruled the airwaves. Alice handed me the radio's microphone and instructed me to repeat the call to base every five minutes.Backing up the steep slope was a royal pain in the ass. Reverse gears are slow, and the best speed our Mule could manage up the incline was not much faster than a slow walk. Our retreat finally paid off when we. Suddenly I saw a horse come running out of the camp heading toward The Dalles. I quickly shot and missed. Josh shot as well and also missed. By the time we had reloaded the rider was out of range. Wondering who had escaped, we waited to see if there was any other movement.After about an hour of not seeing anything moving I began to move closer and closer. When I almost got to the ring of rocks I saw Willy stand up and wave his rifle. I stood up then and went toward the wagon. I found the wagon. And once she'd shed her uniform the body underneath it was every bit as appealing as he had expected it to be.Clegg sipped his tea. He wasn't sure why she'd been asked to bed him. Surely they didn't think it gave them any leverage? Elly was well beyond worrying about what he got up to when the two of them weren't together. And they couldn't imagine he'd have said anything to compromise the business, unless their understanding of how he operated was a great deal worse than he would have. The first couple of days were spent in shaking us down into traveling shape. The women were not used to spending so much time in the saddle, so we had to make a lot of rest stops those first two days. Jeff and I were a little out of practice, so the rest stops didn't hurt us either, though we would never have admitted it to the women. By the third day, though, we only had to make the stops necessary to rest the horses and mule.We always stopped at restaurants for meals if there were any nearby,.