The stranger, with his fourth button still connected, sidled around the edge of the chaos in the great shaking music room, to where the redface incognito bagpipe player was trying hard to make his identities cooperate with each other in the face of his discovery of the huge, much-wanted Dundee, who was still prancing loudly at the other end of the hall and kicking broken chairs with great abandon.

The stranger stood facing the chaotic abandon of the larking folkies, and spoke out of the side of his mouth. "York!" he whispered urgently.

"York!".

The pipes player looked around nervously. "What d'ye want?", he muttered in a guttural whisper.

"Be careful with Dundee. Don't do anything until you meet a particular redhead. She'll have a password."

"What password? What redhead?"

"You'll know her by the password."

"What password, eh?"

"The password is Madison. Blake Madison."

Underneath his sturdy Canadian pallor, Curtis York turned a whiter shade of pale.

His ears reddened, and he gulped involuntarily. He turned with another question, but the stranger, with Bannock the lab close on his heels, was gone, leaving the screen door swinging behind him as he made for the rusty Land Rover high on the hill.