I tore up the letter just there, and the wind, which was howling that day, caught the pieces and took them over into North Dakota; so I don't know what else Edith may have had to tell me. I'd read enough to put me in a mighty nasty temper at any rate, so I suppose its purpose was accomplished. Edith is like all the rest: If she can say anything to make a man uncomfortable she'll do it, every time.

This day, I remember, I went mooning along, thinking hard things about the world in general, and my little corner of it in particular. The country was beginning to irritate me, and I knew that if something didn't break loose pretty soon I'd be off somewhere. Riding over to little buttes, and not meeting a soul on the way or seeing anything but a bare rock when you get there, grows monotonous in time, and rather gets on the nerves of a fellow.

When I came close up to the butte, however, I saw a flutter of skirts on the pinnacle, and it made a difference in my gait; I went up all out of breath, scrambling as if my life hung on a few seconds, and calling myself a different kind of fool for every step I took. I kept assuring myself, over and over, that it was only Edith, and that there was no need to get excited about it. But all the while I knew, down deep down in the thumping chest of me, that it wasn't Edith. Edith couldn't make all that disturbance in my circulatory system, not in a thousand years.

She was sitting on the same rock, and she was dressed in the same adorable riding outfit with a blue wisp of veil wound somehow on her gray felt hat, and the same blue roan was dozing, with dragging bridle-reins, a few rods down the other side of the peak. She was sketching so industriously that she never heard me coming until I stood right at her elbow.

It might have been the first time over again, except that my mental attitude toward her had changed a lot.

"That's better; I can see now what you're trying to draw," I said, looking down over her shoulder—not at the sketch; it might have been a sea view, for all I knew—but at the pink curve of her cheek, which was growing pinker while I looked.

She did not glance up, or even start; so she must have known, all along, that I was headed her way. She went on making a lot of marks that didn't seem to fit anywhere, and that seemed to me a bit wobbly and uncertain. I caught just the least hint of a smile twitching the corner of her mouth—I wanted awfully to kiss it!

"Yes? I believe I have at last got everything—King's Highway—in the proper perspective and the proper proportion," she said, stumbling a bit over the alliteration—and no wonder. It was a sentence to stampede cattle; but I didn't stampede. I wanted, more than ever, to kiss—but I won't be like Barney, if I can help it.

"It's too far off—too unattainable," I criticized—meaning something more than her sketch of the pass. "And it's too narrow. If a fellow rode in there he would have to go straight on through; there wouldn't be a chance to turn back."

"Ergo, a fellow shouldn't ride in," she retorted, with a composure positively wicked, considering my feelings. "Though it does seem that a fellow rather enjoys going straight on through, regardless of anything; promises, for instance."

That was the gauntlet I'd been hoping for. From the minute I first saw her there it flashed upon me that she was astonished and indignant that night when she saw Frosty and me come charging through the pass, after me telling her I wouldn't do it any more. It looked to me like I'd have to square myself, so I was glad enough of the chance.

"Sometimes a fellow has to do things regardless of—promises," I explained. "Sometimes it's a matter of life and death. If a fellow's father, for instance—"

"Oh, I know; Edith told me all about it." Her tone was curious, and while it did not encourage further explanations or apologies, it also lacked absolution of the offense I had committed.

I sat down in the grass, half-facing her to better my chance of a look into her eyes. I was consumed by a desire to know if they still had the power to send crimply waves all over me. For the rest, she was prettier even than I remembered her to be, and I could fairly see what little sense or composure I had left slide away from me. I looked at her fatuously, and she looked speculatively at a sharp ridge of the divide as if that sketch were the only thing around there that could possibly interest her.

"Why do you spend every summer out here in the wilderness?" I asked, feeling certain that nothing but speech could save me from going hopelessly silly.

She turned her eyes calmly toward me, and—their power had not weakened, at all events. I felt as if I had taken hold of a battery with all the current turned on.

"Why, I suppose I like it here in summer. You're here, yourself; don't you like it?"

I wanted to say something smart, there, and I have thought of a dozen bright remarks since; but at the time I couldn't think of a blessed thing that came within a mile of being either witty or epigrammatic. Love-making was all new to me, and I saw right then that I wasn't going to shine. I finally did remark that I should like it better if her father would be less belligerent and more peaceful as a neighbor.

"You told me, last summer, that you enjoyed keeping up the feud," she reminded, smiling whimsically down at me.

She made a wrong play there; she let me see that she did remember some things that I said. It boosted my courage a notch.

"But that was last summer," I countered. "One can change one's view-point a lot in twelve months. Anyway, you knew all along that I didn't mean a word of it."

"Indeed!" It was evident that she didn't quite like having me take that tone.

"Yes, 'indeed'!" I repeated, feeling a rebellion against circumstances and at convention growing stronger within me. Why couldn't I put her on my horse and carry her off and keep her always? I wondered crazily. That was what I wanted to do.

"Do you ever mean what you say, I wonder?" she mused, biting her pencil-point like a schoolgirl when she can't remember how many times three goes into twenty-seven.

"Sometimes. Sometimes I mean more." I set my teeth, closed my eyes—mentally—and plunged, insanely, not knowing whether I should come to the surface alive or knock my head on a rock and stay down. "For instance, when I say that some day I shall carry you off and find a preacher to marry us, and that we shall live happily ever after, whether you want to or not, because I shall make you, I mean every word of it—and a lot more."

That was going some, I fancy! I was so scared at myself I didn't dare breathe. I kept my eyes fixed desperately on the mouth of the pass, all golden-green in the sunshine; and I remember that my teeth were so tight together that they ached afterward.

The point of her pencil came off with a snap. I heard it, but I was afraid to look. "Do you? How very odd!" Her voice sounded queer, as if it had been squeezed dry of every sort of emotion. "And—Edith?"

I looked at her then, fast enough. "Edith?" I stared at her stupidly. "What the—what's Edith got to do with it?"

"Possibly nothing"—in the same squeezed tone. "Men are so—er—irresponsible; and you say you don't always mean—Still, when a man writes pages and pages to a girl every week for nearly a year, one naturally supposes—"

"Oh, look here!" I was getting desperate enough to be a bit rough with her. "Edith doesn't care a rap about me, and you know it. And she knows I don't care, and—and if anybody had anything to say, it would be your Mr. Terence Weaver."

"My Mr. Terence Weaver?" She was looking down at me sidewise, in a perfectly maddening way. "You are really very—er—funny, Mr. Carleton."

"Well," I rapped out between my teeth, "I don't feel funny. I feel—"

"No? But, really, you know, you act that way."

I saw she was getting all the best of it—and, in my opinion, that would kill what little chance a man might have with a girl. I set deliberately about breaking through that crust of composure, if I did nothing more.

"That depends on the view-point," I grinned. "Would you think it funny if I carried you off—really, you know—and—er—married you and made you live happy—"

"You seem to insist upon the happy part of it, which is not at all—"

"Necessary?" I hinted.

"Plausible," she supplied sweetly.

"But would you think it funny, if I did?"

She regarded her broken pencil ruefully—or pretended to—and pinched her brows together in deep meditation. Oh, she was the most maddening bit of young womanhood—But, there, no Barney for me.

"I—might," she decided at last. "It would be rather droll, you know, and I wonder how you'd manage it; I'm not very tiny, and I rather think it wouldn't be easy to—er—carry me off. Would you wear a mask—a black velvet mask? I should insist upon black velvet. And would you say: 'Gadzooks, madam! I command you not to scream!' Would you?" She leaned toward me, and her eyes—well, for downright torture, women are at times perfectly fiendish.

I caught her hand, and I held it, too, in spite of her. That far I was master.

"No," I told her grimly. "If I saw that you were going to do anything so foolish as to scream, I should just kiss you, and—kiss you till you were glad to be sensible about it."

Well, she tried first to look calmly amused; then she tried to look insulted, and to freeze me into sanity. She ended, however, by looking a good bit confused, and by blushing scarlet. I had won that far. I kept her hand held tight in mine; I could feel it squirm to get away, and it felt—oh, thunder!

"Let's play something else," she said, after a long minute. "I—I never did admire highwaymen particularly, and I must go home."

"No, you mustn't," I contradicted. "You must—"

She looked at me with those wonderful, heavy-lashed eyes, and her lips had a little quiver as if—Oh, I don't know, but I let go her hand, and I felt like a great, hulking brute that had been teasing a child till it cried.

"All right," I sighed, "I'll let you go this time. But I warn you, little girl. If—no, when I find you out from King's Highway by yourself again, that kidnaping is sure going to come off. The Lord intended you to be Mrs. Ellis Carleton. And forty feuds and forty fathers can't prevent it. I don't believe in going against the decrees of Providence; a wise Providence."

She bit her lip at the corner. "You must have a little private Providence of your own," she retorted, with something like her old assurance. "I'm sure mine never hinted at such a—a fate for me. And one feud is as good as forty, Mr. Carleton. If you are anything like your father, I can easily understand how the feud began. The Kings and the Carletons are fond of their own way."

"Thy way shall be my way," I promised rashly, just because it sounded smart.

"Thank you. Then there will be no melodramatic abductions in the shadow of White Divide," she laughed triumphantly, "and I shall escape a most horrible fate!" She went, still laughing, down to where her horse was waiting.

I followed—rather, I kept pace with her. "All the same, I dare you to ride out alone from King's Highway again," I defied. "For, if you do, and I find you—"

"Good-by, Mr. Carleton. You'd be splendid in vaudeville," she mocked from her saddle, where she had got with all the ease of a cowboy, without any help from me. "Black velvet mask and gadzooks, madam—I must certainly tell Edith. It will amuse her, I'm sure."

"No, you won't tell Edith," I flung after her, but I don't know if she heard.

She rode away down the steep slope, the roan leaning back stiffly against the incline, and I stood watching her like a fool. I didn't think it would be good policy to follow her. I tried to roll a cigarette—in case she might look back to see how I was taking her last shot. But she didn't, and I threw the thing away half-made. It was a case where smoke wouldn't help me.

If I hadn't made my chance any better, I knew I couldn't very well make it worse; but there was mighty little comfort in that reflection. And what a bluff I had put up! Carry her off and marry her? Lord knows I wanted to, badly enough! But—



CHAPTER XIV.

Frosty Disappears.

On the way back to the ranch I overtook Frosty mooning along at a walk, with his shoulders humped in the way a man has when he's thinking pretty hard. I had left Frosty with the round-up, and I was pretty much surprised to see him here. I didn't feel in the mood for conversation, even with him; but, to be decent, I spurred up alongside and said hello, and where had he come from? There was nothing in that for a man to get uppish about, but he turned and actually glared at me.

"I might be an inquisitive son-of-a-gun and ask you the same thing," he growled.

"Yes, you might," I agreed. "But, if you did, I'd be apt to tell you to depart immediately for a place called Gehenna—which is polite for hell."

"Well, same here," he retorted laconically; and that ended our conversation, though we rode stirrup to stirrup for eight miles.

I can't say that, after the first shock of surprise, I gave much time to wondering what brought Frosty home. I took it he had had a row with the wagon-boss. Frosty is an independent sort and won't stand a word from anybody, and the wagon-boss is something of a bully. The gait they were traveling, out there with the wagons, was fraying the nerves of the whole bunch before I left. And that was all I thought about Frosty.

I had troubles of my own, about that time. I had put up my bluff, and I kept wondering what I should do if Beryl King called me. There wasn't much chance that she would, of course; but, still, she wasn't that kind of girl who always does the conventional thing and the expected thing, and I had seen a gleam in her eyes that, in a man's, I should call deviltry, pure and simple. If I should meet her out somewhere, and she even looked a dare—I'll confess one thing: for a whole week I was mighty shy of riding out where I would be apt to meet her; and you can call me a coward if you like.

Still, I had schemes, plenty of them. I wanted her—Lord knows how I wanted her!—and I got pretty desperate, sometimes. Once I saddled up with the fixed determination of riding boldly—and melodramatically—into King's Highway, facing old King, and saying: "Sir, I love your daughter. Let bygones be bygones. Dad and I forgive you, and hope you will do the same. Let us have peace, and let me have Beryl—" or something to that effect.

He'd only have done one of two things; he'd have taken a shot at me, or he'd have told me to go to the same old place where we consign unpleasant people. But I didn't tempt him, though I did tempt fate. I went over to the little butte, climbed it pensively, and sat on the flat rock and gazed forlornly at the mouth of the pass.

I had the rock to myself, but I made a discovery that set the nerves of me jumping like a man just getting over a—well, a season of dissipation. In the sandy soil next the rock were many confused footprints—the prints of little riding-boots; and they looked quite fresh. She had been there, all right, and I had missed her! I swore, and wondered what she must think of me. Then I had an inspiration. I rolled and half-smoked eight cigarettes, and scattered the stubs with careful carelessness in the immediate vicinity of the rock. I put my boots down in a clear spot of sand where they left marks that fairly shouted of my presence. Then I walked off a few steps and studied the effect with much satisfaction. When she came again, she couldn't fail to see that I had been there; that I had waited a long time—she could count the cigarette stubs and so form some estimate of the time—and had gone away, presumably in deep disappointment. Maybe it would make her feel a little less sure of herself, to know that I was camping thus earnestly on her trail. I rode home, feeling a good deal better in my mind.

That night it rained barrelsful. I laid and listened to it, and gritted my teeth. Where was all my cunning now? Where were those blatant footprints of mine that were to give their own eloquent message? I could imagine just how the water was running in yellow streams off the peak of that butte. Then it came to me that, at all events, some of the cigarette-stubs would be left; so I turned over and went to sleep.

I wish to say, before I forget it, that I don't think I am deceitful by nature. You see, it changes a fellow a lot to get all tangled up in his feelings over a girl that doesn't seem to care a rap for you. He does things that are positively idiotic At any rate, I did. And I could sympathize some with Barney MacTague; only, his girl had a crooked nose and no eyebrows to speak of, so he hadn't the excuse that I had. Take a girl with eyes like Beryl—

A couple of days after that—days when I hadn't the nerve to go near the little butte—Frosty drew six months' wages and disappeared without a word to anybody. He didn't come back that night, and the next day Perry Potter, who knows well the strange freaks cowboys will sometimes take when they have been working steadily for a long time, suggested that I ride over to Kenmore and see if Frosty was there, and try my powers of persuasion on him—unless he was already broke; in which case, according to Perry Potter, he would come back without any persuading. Perry Potter added dryly that it wouldn't be out of my way any, and would only be a little longer ride. I must say I looked at him with suspicion. The way that little dried-up sinner found out everything was positively uncanny.

Frosty, as I soon discovered, was not in Kenmore. He had been, for I learned by inquiring around that he had passed the night there at that one little hotel. Also that he had, not more than two hours before—or three, at most—hired a rig and driven on to Osage. A man told me that he had taken a lady with him; but, knowing Frosty as I did, I couldn't quite swallow that. It was queer, though, about his hiring a rig and leaving his saddle-horse there in the stable. I couldn't understand it, but I wasn't going to buy into Frosty's affairs unless I had to. I ate my dinner dejectedly in the hotel—the dinner was enough to make any man dejected—and started home again.



CHAPTER XV.

The Broken Motor-car.

Out where the trail from Kenmore intersects the one leading from Laurel to and through King's Highway, I passed over a little hill and came suddenly upon a big, dark-gray touring-car stalled in the road. In it Beryl King sat looking intently down at her toes. I nearly fell off my horse at the shock of it, and then my blood got to acting funny, so that my head felt queer. Then I came to, and rode boldly up to her, mentally shaking hands with myself over my good luck. For it was good luck just to see her, whether anything came of it or not.

"Something wrong with the wheelbarrow?" I asked her, with a placid superiority.

She looked up with a little start—she never did seem to feel my presence until I spoke to her—and frowned prettily; but whether at me or at the car, I didn't know.

"I guess something must be," she answered quite meekly, for her. "It keeps making the funniest buzz when I start it—and it's Mr. Weaver's car, and he doesn't know—I—I borrowed it without asking, and—"

"That car is all right," I bluffed from my saddle. "It's simply obeying instructions. It comes under the jurisdiction of my private Providence, you see. I ordered it that you should be here, and in distress, and grateful for my helping hand." How was that for straight nerve?

"Well, then, let's have the helping hand and be done. I should be at home, by now. They will wonder—I just went for a—a little spin, and when I turned to go back, it started that funny noise. I—I'm afraid of it. It—might blow up, or—or something."

She seemed in a strangely explanatory mood, that was, to say the least, suspicious. Either she had come out purposely to torment me, or she was afraid of what she knew was in my mind, and wanted to make me forget it. But my mettle was up for good. I had no notion of forgetting, or of letting her.

"I'll do what I can, and willingly," I told her coolly. "It looks like a good car—an accommodating car. I hope you are prepared to pay the penalty—"

"Penalty?" she interrupted, and opened her eyes at me innocently; a bit too innocently, I may say.

"Penalty; yes. The penalty of letting me find you outside of King's Highway, alone," I explained brazenly.

She tried a lever hurriedly, and the car growled up at her so that she quit. Then she pulled herself together and faced me nonchalantly.

"Oh-h. You mean about the black velvet mask? I'm afraid—I had forgotten that funny little—joke." With all she could do, her face and her tone were not convincing.

I gathered courage as she lost it. "I see that I must demonstrate to you the fact that I am not altogether a joke," I said grimly, and got down from my horse.

I don't, to this day, know what she imagined I was going to do. She sat very still; the kind of stillness a rabbit adopts when he hopes to escape the notice of an enemy. I could see that she hardly breathed, even.

But when I reached her, I only got a wrench out of the tool-box and yanked open the hood to see what ailed the motor. I knew something of that make of car; in fact, I had owned one before I got the Yellow Peril, and I had a suspicion that there wasn't much wrong; a loosened nut will sometimes sound a good deal more serious than it really is. Still, a half-formed idea—a perfectly crazy idea—made me go over the whole machine very carefully to make sure she was all right.

When I was through I stood up and found that she was regarding me curiously, yet with some amusement. She seemed to feel herself mistress of the situation, and to consider me as an interesting plaything. I didn't approve that attitude.

"At all events," she said when she met my eyes, and speaking as if there had been no break in our conversation, "you are rather a good joke. Thank you so much."

I put away the wrench, fastened the lid of the tool-box, and then I faced her grimly. "I see mere words are wasted on you," I said. "I shall have to carry you off—Beryl King; I shall carry you off if you look at me that way again!"

She did look that way, only more so. I wonder what she thought a man was made of, to stand it. I set my teeth hard together.

"Have you got the—er—the black velvet mask?" she taunted, leaning just the least bit toward me. Her eyes—I say it deliberately—were a direct challenge that no man could refuse to accept and feel himself a man after.

"Mask or no mask—you'll see!" I turned away to where my horse was standing eying the car with extreme disfavor, picked up the reins, and glanced over my shoulder; I didn't know but she would give me the slip. She was sitting very straight, with both hands on the wheel and her eyes looking straight before her. She might have been posing for a photograph, from the look of her. I tied the reins with a quick twist over the saddle-horn and gave him a slap on the rump. I knew he would go straight home. Then I went back and stepped into the car just as she reached down and started the motor. If she had meant to run away from me she had been just a second too late. She gave me a sidelong, measuring glance, and gasped. The car slid easily along the trail as if it were listening for what we were going to say.

"I shall drive," I announced quietly, taking her hands gently from the wheel. She moved over to make room mechanically, as if she didn't in the least understand this new move of mine. I know she never dreamed of what was really in my heart to do.

"You will drive—where?" her voice was politely freezing.

"To find that preacher, of course," I answered, trying to sound surprised that she should ask, I sent the speed up a notch.

"You—you never would dare!" she cried breathlessly, and a little anxiously.

"The deuce I wouldn't!" I retorted, and laughed in the face of her. It was queer, but my thoughts went back, for just a flash, to the time Barney had dared me to drive the Yellow Peril up past the Cliff House to Sutro Baths. I had the same heady elation of daredeviltry. I wouldn't have turned back, then, even if I hadn't cared so much for her.

She didn't say anything more, and I sent the car ahead at a pace that almost matched the mood I was in, and that brought White Divide sprinting up to meet us. The trail was good, and the car was a dandy. I was making straight for King's Highway as the best and only chance of carrying out my foolhardy design. I doubt if any bold, bad knight of old ever had the effrontery to carry his lady-love straight past her own door in broad daylight.

Yet it was the safest thing I could do. I meant to get to Osage, and the only practicable route for a car lay through the pass. To be sure, there was a preacher at Kenmore; but with the chance of old King being there also and interrupting the ceremony—supposing I brought matters successfully that far—with a shot or two, did not in the least appeal to me. I had made sure that there was plenty of gasoline aboard, so I drove her right along.

"I hope your father isn't home," I remarked truthfully when we were slipping into the wide jaws of the pass.

"He is, though; and so is Mr. Weaver. I think you had better jump out here and run home, or it is not a velvet mask you will need, but a mantle of invisibility." I couldn't make much of her tone, but her words implied that even yet she would not take me seriously.

"Well, I've neither mask nor mantle," I said, "But the way I can fade down the pass will, I think, be a fair substitute for both."

She said nothing whatever to that, but she began to seem interested in the affair—as she had need to be. She might have jumped out and escaped while I was down opening the gate—but she didn't. She sat quite still, as if we were only out on a commonplace little jaunt. I wondered if she didn't have the spirit of adventure in her make-up, also. Girls do, sometimes. When I had got in again, I turned to her, remembering something.

"Gadzooks, madam! I command you not to scream," I quoted sternly.

At that, for the first time in our acquaintance, she laughed; such a delicious, rollicky little laugh that I felt ready, at the sound, to face a dozen fathers and they all old Kings.

As we came chugging up to the house, several faces appeared in the doorway as if to welcome and scold the runaway. I saw old King with his pipe in his mouth; and there were Aunt Lodema and Weaver. They were all smiling at the escapade—Beryl's escapade, that is—and I don't think they realized just at first who I was, or that I was in any sense a menace to their peace of mind.

When we came opposite and showed no disposition to stop, or even to slow up, I saw the smiles freeze to amazement, and then—but I hadn't the time to look. Old King yelled something, but by that time we were skidding around the first shed, where Shylock had been shot down on my last trip through there. It was a new shed, I observed mechanically as we went by. I heard much shouting as we disappeared, but by that time we were almost through the gantlet. I made the last turn on two wheels, and scudded away up the open trail of the pass.



CHAPTER XVI.

One More Race.

A faint toot-toot warned from behind.

"They've got out the other car," said Beryl, a bit tremulously; and added, "it's a much bigger one than this."

I let her out all I dared for the road we were traveling; and then there we were, at that blessed gate. I hadn't thought of it till we were almost upon it, but it didn't take much thought; there was only one thing to do, and I did it.

I caught Beryl by an arm and pulled her down to the floor of the car, not taking my eyes from the trail, or speaking. Then I drove the car forward like a cannon-ball. We hit that gate like a locomotive, and scarcely felt the jar. I knew the make of that motor, and what it could do. The air was raining splinters and bits of lamps, but we went right on as if nothing had happened, and as fast as the winding trail would allow. I knew that beyond the pass the road ran straight and level for many a mile, and that we could make good time if we got the chance.

Beryl sat half-turned in the seat, glancing back; but for me, I was busy watching the trail and taking the sharp turns in a way to lift the hair of one not used to traveling by lightning. I will confess it was ticklish going, at that pace, and there were places when I took longer chances than I had any right to take. But, you see, I had Beryl—and I meant to keep her.

That Weaver fellow must have had a bigger bump of caution than I, or else he'd never raced. I could hear them coming, but they didn't seem to be gaining; rather, they lost ground, if anything. Presently Beryl spoke again, still looking back.

"Don't you think, Mr. Carleton, this joke has gone far enough? You have demonstrated what you could do, if—"

I risked both our lives to glance at her. "This joke," I said, "is going to Osage. I want to marry you, and you know it. The Lord and this car willing, I'm going to. Still, if you really have been deceived in my intentions, and insist upon going back, I shall stop, of course, and give you back to your father. But you must do it now, at once, or—marry me."

She gave me a queer, side glance, but she did not insist. Naturally I didn't stop, either.

We shot out into the open, with the windings of the pass behind, and then I turned the old car loose, and maybe we didn't go! She wasn't a bad sort—but I would have given a good deal, just then, if she had been the Yellow Peril stripped for a race. I could hear the others coming up, and we were doing all we could; I saw to that.

"I think they'll catch us," Beryl observed maliciously. "Their car is a sixty h.p. Mercedes, and this—"

"Is about a forty," I cut in tartly, not liking the tone of her; "and just plain American make. But don't you fret, my money's on Uncle Sam."

She said no more; indeed, it wasn't easy to talk, with the wind drawing the breath right out of your lungs. She hung onto her hat, and to the seat, and she had her hands full, let me tell you.

The purr of their motor grew louder, and I didn't like the sound of it a bit. I turned my head enough to see them slithering along close—abominably close. I glimpsed old King in the tonneau, and Weaver humped over the wheel in an unpleasantly businesslike fashion.

I humped over my own wheel and tried to coax her up a bit, as if she had been the Yellow Peril at the wind-up of a close race. For a minute I felt hopeful. Then I could tell by the sound that Weaver was crowding up.

"They're gaining, Mr. Carleton!" Beryl's voice had a new ring in it, and I caught my breath.

"Can you get here and take the wheel and hold her straight without slowing her?" I asked, looking straight ahead. The trail was level and not a bend in it for half a mile or so, and I thought there was a chance for us. "I've a notion that friend Weaver has nerves. I'm going to rattle him, if I can; but whatever happens, don't loose your grip and spill us out. I won't hurt them."

Her hands came over and touched mine on the wheel. "I've raced a bit myself," she said simply. "I can drive her straight."

I wriggled out of the way and stood up, glancing down to make sure she was all right. She certainly didn't look much like the girl who was afraid because something "made a funny noise." I suspected that she knew a lot about motors.

A bullet clipped close. Beryl set her teeth into her lips, but grittily refrained from turning to look. I breathed freer.

"Now, don't get scared," I warned, balanced myself as well as I could in the swaying car, and sent a shot back at them.

Weaver came up to my expectations. He ducked, and the car swerved out of the trail and went wavering spitefully across the prairie. Old King sent another rifle-bullet my way—I must have made a fine mark, standing up there—and he was a good shot. I was mighty glad he was getting jolted enough to spoil his aim.

Weaver came to himself a bit and grabbed frantically for brake and throttle and steering-wheel all at once, it looked like. He was rattled, all right; he must have given the wheel a twist the wrong way, for their car hit a jutting rock and went up in the air like a pitching bronco, and old King sailed in a beautiful curve out of the tonneau.

I was glad Beryl didn't see that. I watched, not breathing, till I saw Weaver scramble into view, and Beryl's dad get slowly to his feet and grope about for his rifle; so I knew there would be no funeral come of it. I fancy his language was anything but mild, though by that time we were too far away to hear anything but the faint churning of their motor as their wheels pawed futilely in the air.

They were harmless for the present. Their car tilted ungracefully on its side, and, though I hadn't any quarrel with Weaver, I hoped his big Mercedes was out of business. I put away my gun, sat down, and looked at Beryl.

She was very white around the mouth, and her hat was hanging by one pin, I remember; but her eyes were fixed unswervingly upon the brown trail stretching lazily across the green of the grass-land, and she was driving that big car like an old hand.

"Well?" her voice was clear, and anxious, and impatient.

"It's all right," I said. I took the wheel from her, got into her place, and brought the car down to a six-mile gait. "It's all right," I repeated triumphantly. "They're out of the race—for awhile, at least, and not hurt, that I could see. Just plain, old-fashioned mad. Don't look like that, Beryl!" I slowed the car more. "You're glad, aren't you? And you will marry me, dear?"

She leaned back panting a little from the strain of the last half-hour, and did things to her hat. I watched her furtively. Then she let her eyes meet mine; those dear, wonderful eyes of hers! And her mouth was half-smiling, and very tender.

"You silly!" That's every word she said, on my oath.

But I stopped that car dead still and gathered her into my arms, and—Oh, well, I won't trail off into sentiment, you couldn't appreciate it if I did.

It's a mercy Weaver's car was done for, or they could have walked right up and got their hands on us before we'd have known it.



CHAPTER XVII.

The Final Reckoning.

About four o'clock we reached the ferry, just behind a fagged-out team and a light buggy that had in it two figures—one of whom, at least, looked familiar to me.

"Frosty, by all that's holy!" I exclaimed when we came close enough to recognize a man. "I clean forgot, but I was sent to Kenmore this morning to find that very fellow."

"Don't you know the other?" Beryl laughed teasingly. "I was at their wedding this morning, and wished them God-speed. I never dreamed I should be God-speeded myself, directly! I drove Edith, over to Kenmore quite early in the car, and—"

"Edith!"

"Certainly, Edith. Whom else? Did you think she would be left behind, pining at your infidelity? Didn't you know they are old, old sweethearts who had quarreled and parted quite like a story? She used to read your letters so eagerly to see if you made any remark about him; you did, quite often, you know. I drove her over to Kenmore, and afterward went off toward Laurel just to put in the time and not arrive home too soon without her—which might have been awkward, if father took a notion to go after her. I'm so glad we came up with them." She stood up and waved her hand at Edith.

I shouted reassurances to Frosty, who was looking apprehensively back at us. But it was a facer. I had never once suspected them of such a thing.

"Well," I greeted, when we overtook them and could talk comfortably; "this is luck. When we get across to Pochette's you can get in with us, Mr. and Mrs. Miller, and add the desired touch of propriety to our wedding."

They did some staring themselves, then, and Beryl blushed delightfully—just as she did everything else. She was growing an altogether bewitching bit of femininity, and I kept thanking my private Providence that I had had the nerve to kidnap her first and take chances on her being willing. Honest, I don't believe I'd ever have got her in any other way.

When we stopped at Pochette's door the girls ran up and tangled their arms around each other and wasted enough kisses to make Frosty and me swear. And they whispered things, and then laughed about it, and whispered some more, and all we could hear was a gurgle of "You dear!" and the like of that. Frosty and I didn't do much; we just looked at each other and grinned. And it's long odds we understood each other quite as well as the girls did after they'd whispered and gurgled an hour.

We had an early dinner—or supper—and ate fried bacon and stewed prunes—and right there I couldn't keep the joke, but had to tell the girls about how Frosty and I had deviled Beryl's father, that time. They could see the point, all right, and they seemed to appreciate it, too.

After that, we all talked at once, sometimes; and sometimes we wouldn't have a thing to say—times when the girls would look at each other and smile, with their eyes all shiny. Frosty and I would look at them, and then at each other; and Frosty's eyes were shiny, too.

Then we went on, with the motor purring love-songs and sliding the miles behind us, while Frosty and Edith cooed in the tonneau behind us, and didn't thank us to look around or interrupt. Beryl and I didn't say much; I was driving as fast as was wise, and sometimes faster. There was always the chance that the other car would come slithering along on our trail. Besides, it was enough just to know that this was real, and that Beryl would marry me just as soon as we found a preacher. There was no incentive to linger along the road.

It yet lacked an hour of sunset when we slid into Osage and stopped before a little goods-box church, with a sample of the same style of architecture chucked close against one side.

We left the girls with the preacher's wife, and Frosty wrote down our ages—Beryl was twenty-one, if you're curious—and our parents' names and where we were born, and if we were black or white, and a few other impertinent things which he, having been through it himself, insisted was necessary. Then he hustled out after the license, while I went over to the dry-goods and jewelry store to get a ring. I will say that Osage puts up a mighty poor showing of wedding-rings.

We were married. I suppose I ought to stop now and describe just how it was, and what the bride wore, and a list of the presents. But it didn't last long enough to be clear in my mind. Everything is a bit hazy, just there. I dropped the ring, I know that for certain, because it rolled under an article of furniture that looked suspiciously like a folding-bed masquerading as a cabinet, and Frosty had to get down on all fours and fish it out before we could go on. And Edith put her handkerchief to her mouth and giggled disreputably. But, anyway, we got married.

The preacher gave Beryl an impressive lily-and-rose certificate, which caused her much embarrassment, because it would not go into any pocket of hers or mine, but must be carried ostentatiously in the hand. I believe Edith was a bit jealous of that beflowered roll. Her preacher had been out of certificates, and had made shift with a plain, undecorated sheet of foolscap that Frosty said looked exactly like a home-made bill of sale. I told Edith she could paint some lilies around the edge, and she flounced out with her nose in the air.

We had decided that we must go back in the morning and face the music. We had no desire to be arrested for stealing Weaver's car, and there was not a man in Osage who could be trusted to drive it back. Then the girls needed a lot of things; and though Frosty had intended to take the next train East, I persuaded him to go back and wait for us.

Beryl said she was almost sure her father would be nice about it, now there was no good in being anything else. I think that long roll of stiff paper went a long way toward strengthening her confidence; she simply could not conceive of any father being able to resist its appeal and its look of finality.

We all got into the car again, and went up to the station, so I might send a wire to dad. It seemed only right and fair to let him know at once that he had a daughter to be proud of.

"Good Lord!" I broke out, when we were nearly to the depot "If that isn't—do any of you notice anything out on the side-track, over there?" I pointed an unsteady finger toward the purple and crimson sunset.

"A maroon-colored car, with dark-green—" Beryl began promptly.

"That's it," I cut in. "I was afraid joy had gone to my head and was making me see crooked. It's dad's car, the Shasta. And I wonder how the deuce she got here!"

"Probably by the railroad," said Edith flippantly.

I drove over to the Shasta, and we stopped. I couldn't for the life of me understand her being, there. I stared up at the windows, and nodded dazedly to Crom, grinning down at me. The next minute, dad himself came out on the platform.

"So it's you, Ellie?" he greeted calmly. "I thought Potter wasn't to let you know I was coming; he must be getting garrulous as he grows old. However, since you are here, I'm very glad to see you, my boy."

"Hello, dad," I said meekly, and helped Beryl out. I wasn't at all sure that I was glad to see him, just then. Telling dad face to face was a lot different from telling him by telegraph. I swallowed.

"Dad, let me introduce you to Miss—Mrs. Beryl King—that is, Carleton; my wife." I got that last word out plain enough, at any rate.

Dad stared. For once I had rather floored him. But he's a thoroughbred, all right; you can't feaze him for longer than ten seconds, and then only in extreme cases. He leaned down over the rail and held out his hand to her.

"I'm very glad to meet you, Mrs. Beryl King—that is, Carleton," he said, mimicking me. "Come up and give your dad-in-law a proper welcome."

Beryl did. I wondered how long it had been since dad had been kissed like that. It made me gulp once or twice to think of all he had missed.

Frosty and Edith came up, then, and Edith shook hands with dad and I introduced Frosty. Five minutes, there on the platform, went for explanations. Dad didn't say much; he just listened and sized up the layout. Then he led us through the vestibule into the drawing-room. And I knew, from the look of him, that we would get his verdict straight. But it was a relief not to see his finger-tips together.

"Perry Potter wrote me something of all this," he observed, settling himself comfortably in his pet chair. "He said this young cub needed looking after, or King—your father, Mrs. Carleton—would have him by the heels. I thought I'd better come and see what particular brand of—er—

"As for the motor, I might make shift to take it back myself, seeing Potter hasn't got a rig here to meet me. And if you'd like a little jaunt in the Shasta, you four, you're welcome to her for a couple of weeks or so. I'm not going back right away. Ellis has done his da—er—is married and off my hands, so I can take a vacation too. I can arrange transportation over any lines you want, before I start for the ranch. Will that do?"

I guess he found that it would, from the way Edith and Beryl made for him.

Frosty glanced out of the window and motioned to me. I looked, and we both bolted for the door, reaching it just as old King's foot was on the lower step of the platform. Weaver, looking like chief mourner at a funeral, was down below in his car. King came up another step, glaring and evidently in a mood for war and extermination.

"How d'y' do, King?" Dad greeted over my shoulder, before I could say a word. He may not have had his finger-tips together, but he had the finger-tip tone, all right, and I knew it was a good man who would get the better of him. "Out looking for strays? Come right up; I've got two brand new married couples here, and I need some sane person pretty bad to help me out." There was the faintest possible accent on the sane.

Say, it was the finest thing I had ever seen dad do. And it wasn't what he said, so much as the way he said it. I knew then why he had such, a record for getting his own way.

King swallowed hard and glared from dad to me, and then at Beryl, who had come up and laid my arm over her shoulder—where it was perfectly satisfied to stay. There was a half-minute when I didn't know whether King would shoot somebody, or have apoplexy.

"You're late, father," said Beryl sweetly, displaying that blessed certificate rather conspicuously. "If you had only hurried a little, you might have been in time for the we-wedding."

I squeezed my arm tight in approval, and came near choking her. King gasped as if somebody had an arm around his neck, too, and was squeezing.

"Oh, well, you're here now, and it's all right," put in dad easily, as though everything was quite commonplace and had happened dozens of times to us. "Crom will have dinner ready soon, though as he and Tony weren't notified that there would be a wedding-party here, I can't promise the feast I'd like to. Still, there's a bottle or two good enough to drink even their happiness in, Homer. Just send your chauffeur down to the town, and come in." (Good one on Weaver, that—and, the best part of it was, he heard it.)

King hesitated while I could count ten—if I I counted fast enough—and came in, following us all back through the vestibule. Inside, he looked me over and drew his hand down over his mouth; I think to hide a smile.

"Young man, yuh seem born to leave a path uh destruction behind yuh," he said. "There's a lot uh fixing to be done on that gate—and I don't reckon I ever will find the padlock again."

His eyes met the keen, steady look of dad, stopped there, wavered, softened to friendliness. Their hands went out half-shyly and met. "Kids are sure terrors, these days," he remarked, and they laughed a little. "Us old folks have got to stand in the corners when they're around."

* * * * *

King's Highway is open trail. Beryl and I go through there often in the Yellow Peril, since dad gave me outright the Bay State Ranch and all pertaining thereto—except, of course, Perry Potter; he stays on of his own accord.

Frosty is father King's foreman, and Aunt Lodema went back East and stayed there. She writes prim little letters to Beryl, once in awhile, and I gather that she doesn't approve of the match at all. But Beryl does, and, if you ask me, I approve also. So what does anything else matter?

THE END