"Who are you, stranger? Where from, and what busi ness would you be doing in Sutterdown?" the young woman asked, with her thumb hooked in her sword belt.

Now that she was closer he could see she wore a ring of twisted gold around her neck, the open end over her throat ending in two knobs. She had the same accent he'd noticed in the village-the dun-where he'd stopped to buy bread and cheese and ask a few questions this morn ing, but stronger. Sort of a rolling lilt, and sometimes a strange choice or order of words; it sounded exotic and musical but not unpleasant, and easier to understand than some dialects that had grown up in out-of-the-way places.

"The name's Ingolf Vogeler," he said, conscious of how his flat hard Badger vowels would sound strange here. "Out of the east-"

"Not Pendleton, I hope," one of the others said.

"Christ, no, and I didn't like what I saw of the place when I passed through," he said honestly.

Several of them laughed, nodding, and Ingolf went on: "I'm from a lot farther east than that. East of the Rockies and the plains."

Best establish that I'm respectable, he thought, and went on: "My father is… was… Sheriff of Reads town in the Kickapoo country, in the Free Republic of Richland."

At their blank looks he called up the memory of old maps and books from his brief schooldays and added, "Southern Wisconsin, if that means anything to you."

"East of the Mississippi!" the woman who seemed to be in charge blurted, her eyes growing wide in surprise. "From the sunrise lands! Stranger, you have come a long way!"

They all looked impressed. Natural enough. People would get excited back to home if someone from here showed up. I'm a little impressed they all know where Wisconsin is. A lot of ordinary folks back home couldn't name Oregon to save their lives.