for some large, hostile animal so he proceeded with caution.

Joe was about half way to the hill when he first heard the cry of an animal in pain. It sounded like a rather small animal and this guess was substantiated just around the next bend in the trail. There beside the path he saw an extremely ugly greenish-brown animal with one leg caught in a tangle of vines. It struggled frantically to free itself but without any success. The wind shifted slightly and Joe nearly gagged when he caught the odor of the beast which was worse than anything he had ever encountered before. He held his nose and stepped around the animal and continued on his way.

He had gone about fifty yards and the pitiful cries of the beast were still clearly audible when the female side of him let her feelings be known. Perhaps the thing was ugly with a terrible odor, but the poor animal needed help, so the fifty yards were rapidly retraced. Joe spoke in Jo-Anne's softest voice as he reached down to loosen the matted vines. The beast stopped struggling and sat quivering in fear but it lost no time in darting into the dense foliage once it was free.

Joe sensed that something was wrong and a hurried glance down the trail revealed a glimpse of white that had not been there a few minutes ago. Andrenalin rushed through his body and he began running along the trail in the opposite direction with hair and skirt flying as he ran. He rounded a bend and stopped dead as he realized that he stood face to face with two statuesque blond women. They both wore identical white jackets and skirts that vaguely reminded Joe of the majorette's uniforms that he had often envied at home. He looked around for a rock or stick to be used if needed, but nothing was readily available.

His thoughts of resistance were abandoned when two more women dressed like the first two came up from the direction that he had just left. At least he was encouraged to realize that he had indeed seen a flash of white further down the trail so his mind was not playing tricks on him. He thought for a moment of cursing Jo-Anne and her stupid animal but that wouldn't help things much now so he dropped the matter for the moment. One of the women stepped closer to him and smiled. She said something in a strange language and then used gestures when she saw that Joe did not understand. An order was given in the

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