The Runaways by Victor Canning Page B

father would be back, maybe a year, and he had to keep from being caught all that time … And, what’s more – he was going to keep from being caught!
    Sustained thought was hard, fatiguing work. The hay was warm and soft. After about two hours – with a break to eat sardines and half-thawed bread rolls – Smiler dropped off to sleep.
    After being shot at by the keeper, Yarra kept moving fast. She was angry and disturbed; but the few small shot which had caught her left flank had caused no real harm to her. Her pelt was rough and wiry, without the natural sleekness of most felines, and not more than two or three pellets had penetrated her skin. The line she took across country was along the valley side, well above the river. At one place she dropped down the ivy-coated bank of the small road that led down to Ford Cottage and crossed into a plantation of young Conifers. She moved diagonally down through the young trees until she reached their boundary. Below her the ground fell sharply away to the river.
    She sat on her haunches looking down into the valley. It was growing darker every moment now. Up the river away to her left was the bridge and the grey roof thatch and white-plastered end-wall of Ford Cottage. Beyond it the bulk of the barn roof showed against the darkening sky. Away to her right, farther downstream and towards the north and Warminster, she could see the lights of houses and cottages. Sometimes the movement of car headlights swept along the main road.
    After a time she dropped down to the river, found the fishing path and walked slowly upstream toward the stone bridge. She came out on to the road at the bridge side, crossed, and leapt the big white gate. She moved like a shadow close to the cottage and then across to the barn door. It was shut.
    She sniffed around its lower edges for a moment. Then she leaned against it with the left side of her body, not to try to open it, but to rub her flank against it and ease the slight irritation of the gun shots in her skin. That the door should be shut she could not understand. Always the hut door was open at night in Longleat Park for the entry of the cheetahs. This was now her hut. The door should be open. She lazily stretched her jaws and gave a low, protesting rumble from her throat. Then she padded the length of the barn and moved around the open car bay. It smelled of oil and petrol and she wrinkled her nostrils in displeasure. She knew the smell and did not like it. Sometimes in high summer, when the cheetah enclosure was packed with parked and slowly moving cars, the same smell got so strong that she with the other cheetahs would move away upwind in the enclosure to avoid it.
    She moved back to the barn door and raised herself against it, drawing the talons of her left forepaw in a great rasp down the rough wood surface. The movement shook the door and made it rattle on its hinges.
    Up above in the loft the noise came faintly through to the sleeping Smiler.
    Yarra rasped at the door again, more vigorously, rattling and shaking it. When it did not open she snarled and spat angrily.
    The noise this time came clearly through to Smiler. He came out of sleep with a start just in time to hear Yarra rattle the door again.
    Heart thumping, sure that someone was coming to take him, his brain still fuddled with sleep, he was on his feet quickly and at the window. At that moment Yarra moved back, squatted on the ground, and sat staring at the door. Smiler saw her clearly.
    His eyes wide with surprise, for in mulling over his plan of campaign all thought of Yarra had gone from him, he clapped his hand to his forehead and cried, ‘Cor, Blimey O’Reilly – she’s back again!’

5. A Change of Colour and Name
    There was no doubt in Smiler’s mind of what he must do. Although he hadn’t thought about Yarra much in the course of the day, he instinctively accepted that, since she was a fugitive like himself, he could not refuse her