The Healer by Daniel P. Mannix

child finds them and runs. Who knows what they do then?"
    "How are you going to find them? They'll be gone by now."
    "I'll find them wherever. It makes a long walk for a boy. You wait already."
    Billy rose. "I'm going. I have to find Dracula anyhow."
    They waded through the snow to the road. "Now we make fast," announced Abe Zook, and they strode off at a good pace. Billy was regretting more and more that he had said anything about his experience. He hated to think of Wolf and Blackie being killed. After all, he had forced himself on them, and it was not until he had tried to take their fawn that the animals had threatened him. Still, he had to get Dracula back, and he had not dared to wander about in the forest alone with the two canines on the prowl. He comforted himself with the thought that even Abe Zook could not find them now. They would have finished the fawn and disappeared.
    Without being told, the old man could see where the trail left the road and led up the hill. They started up the slope, Abe Zook stepping in the tracks Billy had left that morning. They reached the woods and ducked under the evergreens. Here the old man moved more slowly, although the trail was still plain. Billy grew impatient.
    "That place where the deer yarded up is a long way ahead yet," he whispered.
    "Yah, I know, but we do not go to the werewolffen. They come to us."
    "Why's that?"
    "Because they will follow your trail."
    "Why? To kill me?"
    "No, to make sure that you have left the woods, although if you were in some trouble and could not fight back I would not be knowing what might happen. They follow you because they are curious and want to know what you were doing there."
    "I was trying to find Dracula."
    "That they cannot understand, but by following you they can tell somewhat. At least, as much as they need to know. So we will stay here and wait for them."
    Abe Zook settled down behind a beech and Billy hid himself behind an evergreen. Waiting was the hardest part of wildcraft for the boy to learn. The old man could sit motionless for an hour at a time, but it was torture for the boy. Still, he knew that patience was the most important quality a wildcrafter could possess so he settled himself to endure the long suspense. One good thing, the wind was in their favor.
    A red squirrel appeared from nowhere and ran confidently over the snow to the foot of the beech where Abe Zook was sitting. He began to dig in the snow, looking for beechnuts. Billy wondered whether the squirrel could smell them or whether he remembered where he had buried the nuts last autumn. At least the little creature was something to watch.
    He sensed, rather than saw Abe Zook stiffen. Without daring to move his head, Billy raised his eyes. Two shapes were coming through the woods, their heads down seeming to study rather than scent the tracks. With the sun up, the hard freeze of the night was past, and the scent particles were released enough for the animals to pick them up. Billy could see now that one of the animals was black and the other gray. They moved as silently as Dracula flew, seeming to drift over the snow rather than walk. They were barely within long gunshot.
    The squirrel had moved to within a few feet of Zook and suddenly the little wisp of fur was conscious of the man. It sat up on its hind legs, stared at him for an instant, and then, like a red flicker, dashed across the snow and up a beech, going so fast that its momentum carried it around the trunk as it fled upward. A moment later came its furious, warning rattle.
    Billy saw Wolf and Blackie stop dead and look up. After a pause Blackie would have gone on, but Wolf remained frozen in position, his rear legs slightly back, his head raised, in a poise so perfect the boy felt his breath catch with delight. Blackie also stopped, looked around, and then raised her head to test the wind, but it told her nothing. Billy realized that she must be more nearsighted than Wolf, who was looking intently at