Furmo gestured toward them with his tankard. "Don't you wish y'were their age again, Chief?"
Dunespike shook his great head until the spikes rattled. "Away with ye, indeed I do not. They're completely mad, all of 'em! I'd sooner have vittles'n'drink any day!"
Martin gave Dunespike a friendly shove. "You old fogey, look at them. They're young and happy, with not a care on earth. Good luck to them I say, eh, Furmo?"
The Guosim Chieftain nodded his agreement. "They don't have our problems, mate. We've got to figure how t'get a boat of the Honeysuckle's size up a waterfall and past a pine wood full o' painted savages. Aye, an' even when we get by that lot we'll still be battlin' upstream, against the current. 'Tis goin' t'be difficult t'say the least!"
Dunespike poured himself some cordial. "Then why d'ye not find another route?"
"Huh, easy said, Chief, but is there another route?"
"Hmm, let me think. Ah now! What about Northfork!"
Furmo stared over the rim of his tankard at Dunespike. "Northfork? Does it run up this far?"
"Sure it does an' all, two days of a good pawslog from here."
Furmo called across to Folgrim. "Ahoy, mate, d'you know the Northfork stream?"
The scarred otter left off contending for the remains of the trifle with Beau.
"Aye, I know Northfork stream right enough, though I never traveled right up it. I was reared at the southern end of that stream, 'tis where my holt is at."
Furmo thumped the rush mat they were seated on. "Of course! It joins up to the stream we sailed here on, about three days down from my tribe's summer camp. Just one thing, though. How're we goin' to get the Honeysuckle overland to the Northfork stream?"
Dunespike shrugged his powerful shoulders. "An' how else but to carry it? Sure, me an' the Dunehogs will lend a paw t'do the job. A fine lot we'd be if'n we couldn't help out. That's what friends are for!"
Martin clasped paws with the good old Hogchief. "And you surely are a great friend to us, sir!"
Dunespike's huge frame shook with merriment. "Sure an' I wouldn't risk bein' anythin' else to a warrior who can wield a sword like you, Martin of Redwall!"
By first light next morning they were all down on the beach. Dunespike had slept on the idea and awakened with a brilliant solution. Martin and the crew stood on one side, watching as the hedgehog Chieftain put his scheme into action. Two sets of wheels on axles were trundled out from somewhere in the dunes. Dunespike called out orders.
"Here now, Murfo, you an' the lads attend to them wheels. Martin, get that grand ould crew o' yores on the starboard side, an' I'll take the portside with my crowd."
Paddles and stout poles were thrust beneath the skiff's flat bottom to emerge the other side. Everybeast took firm hold of them. Dunespike roared out, "Are y'fit now. Lift!"
The Honeysuckle rose clear of the sand as they lifted. Murfo and the young ones rolled the wheels in for'ard and aft.
"Ah that's grand, let her down now, easy!"
Two Dunehogs with big staples and mallets fixed the axles in position beneath the boat. Dinny whispered to Trimp, "Hurr hurr, ee boat wot doan't sail on ee seas, oi loiks et. Yon Dunespiker be a gurtly h'intelligent 'og, burr aye!"
There was some minor trouble getting the wheeled vessel through the dunes and off the soft sand. However, once they hauled her up through a low gap in the clifftop, the going was good. It was fairly flat scrubland, grass and hardpacked earth, and there was no call to use the pulling ropes. With her sail up, the Honeysuckle caught the wind and rolled along unaided. Beau and the other three elders were aboard her, with Dunespike, Trimp and Chugger. The rest trotted alongside, sometimes even having to tug on the towropes to slow the Honeysuckle's progress.
Gonff laughed. "Just think, if'n there was no woodlands 'twixt here an' Redwall, we could've sailed home by land!"
Later in the afternoon, the land began a mild uphill slope and the breeze died completely. They split into two parties, one for'ard, pulling on the towropes, the rest at the stern, pushing. But the skiff still ran fairly smooth on its wheels, so it would have been no great effort were it not for Chugger. The little squirrel had attached a gull feather to a pole, and he dashed back and forth, tickling the pullers and pushers mercilessly and haranguing them.
"Cummon! Cummon! Run, make 'er go plenny faster, or cap'n Chugg tickle you tails off!"
Trimp decided she had put up with enough. Looping a line about the tormentor, she relieved him of the pole and tied him to the mast. Chugger set up an immediate clamor.
"I a cap'n, lemme go! 'Elp me, ole granpas, mista Din, mista Fol, 'elp Chugg!"
But no help was forthcoming. Quite the opposite, in fact. Beau took hold of the feathered pole and began tickling his adopted grandsquirrel.
"See how you like it, sah, wot! Silence now, or I'll jolly well tickle the tip of y'nose an' make you sneeze ail season. Now, what d'ye say t'that, cap'n Chugg?"
"Choppa you tail off, Beau, an' Chugg not make you any no more skillyduff!"
Beau slumped down beside Vurg, nodding sadly. "No skilly'n'duff eh wot. Ah well, such is the fate of a blinkin' mutineer, old chap!"
That night they set up camp in the lee of a wide stone outcrop at the base of a hill. Log a Log Furmo sat looking at the Honeysuckle speculatively.
"Y'know, Gonff, I think I'll leave those wheels on 'er. Won't do no 'arm to a flat-bottomed craft like the Honeysuckle. Hah, wait'll my missus sees our new boat. She'll be proud as a toad with a top hat!"
Folgrim had been to the top of the hill, to see what the going would be like next day. On his return, the otter called Martin and Dunespike to one side.
"I think I just spotted trouble the other side o' this hill."
The Warrior mouse became instantly alert. "What sort of trouble, Folgrim?"
"Bunch o' ragtag vermin, foxes, stoats an' the like."
Martin was away uphill swiftly, sword in paw. "Let's go and take a look!"
Bellying down, the three friends crawled over the hilltop. Below them on the gorse-strewn plain, several small fires were burning. There was little need to investigate further, for by the light of a half-moon they could estimate the numbers of foebeast below. Dunespike had seen the same band before.
"They were sniffin' 'round in our dunes last winter, but we covered our tracks well an' got the young 'uns safe inside the ould dwellin'. Sure, meself an' some others put on our sheets and stilts an' scared the blaggards off. What d'ye think we should do about 'em, Martin?"
Without hesitation the Warrior answered, "We could defeat them in a fight, but there's no sense in that. I want everybeast to reach their homes safe. Listen now, I think I've got a solution to the problem."
Skipper perched high up on the south gable, his footpaws firmly lodged in a roofbeam gap. From where he stood, the otter Chieftain could see out over the countless acres of Mossflower Wood to the east. He turned slowly, looking across the vast plain to the west.
"Rap me rudder, wot a sight! Now I know why birds are singin' happily. Everythin' looks so different from up 'ere." He shut his eyes momentarily as he caught sight of Lady Amber walking along the topmost scaffold pole as if it were a broad roadway. "Marm, I beg ye, would y'mind not doin' that 'til I'm back on the ground. Some-thin' inside me just did a somersault."
The Squirrelqueen leaped lightly down beside him. "Sorry, Skip, I forgot there was a land dweller up here. Is the weather vane ready yet?"
"Nearly. Ole Ferdy'n'Coggs are doin' as fine a job of smithyin' as I ever saw, marm. Though miz Columbine says there won't be a scrap o' charcoal left in the kitchens t'cook with. They're usin' the open hearth fire to heat the iron an' beatin' it out on the stone floor. I came up 'ere 'cos I couldn't abide the noise. Ding! Bang! Ding! Bang! Me pore ole head's still ringin' inside."