at least when it came to getting close to a good looking woman. If he had to walk all the way to where ever they were headed, then by darn sure, he was going to do it in the pleasant company of a good looking woman. He had had enough of stinking men to last him for awhile.

Who to pick, that was always the question? This band that had happened upon him had several. Things were looking up after all. The more they had, the more you could get to know, and it always paid in his book to get to know as many good looking woman as there were to be found.

His cards naturally found their way into his hands when he started to think and this time was no exception. As he was fiddling with them and they were flashing about in the sun, the idea came to him. Why not use them to make his introduction. “Yeah”, good idea Gunnar!”

He spotted the one he had seen earlier coming out of the forest with that classy Samurai, who at the moment seemed wrapped in his own thoughts. “Good luck, and good timing, Gunnar!”

He let her catch up to him as they walked along and not having a full repertoire of opening lines with which to begin, he pushed over his cards so that she could see them and used a master stroke of genius. “Do you like cards?”

That was the thing-a-ma-bob, what did the job. He and she began an easy discourse as the time rolled along. They laughed and made eye contact, yep, life was sweet.

She kept slyly avoiding directly answering any questions he posed to her about a certain silver wolf, he had seen in the self same presence of that Samurai gentleman,who as Gunnar turned his head to take careful notice of his where-a-bouts quite often, had dropped back a piece. “More good news Gunnar”.