CHAPTER XII

THE EMBARRASSMENTS OF THE DUKE OF BALLYWINKLE

Mr. Frank Collins, of the Atlanta _Palladium_, trod the ties beyond

Kildare with a light heart, gaily swinging a suit-case. He had walked

far, but a narrow-brim straw hat, perched on the back of his head, and

the cheery lilt of the waltz he whistled spoke for a jaunty spirit. As

his eye ranged the landscape he marked a faint cloud of smoke rising

beyond a lonely strip of wood; and coming to a dilapidated piece of

track that led vaguely away into the heart of the forest, he again noted

the tiny smoke-cloud. On such a day the half-gods go and the gods

arrive; and the world that afternoon knew no cheerfuller spirit than the

_Palladium's_ agile young commissioner. Mr. Collins was not only in

capital health and spirits but he rejoiced in that delicious titillation

of expectancy which is the chief compensation of the journalist's life.

His mission was secret, and this in itself gave flavor to his errand;

and, moreover, it promised adventures of a kind that were greatly to his

liking.

As the woodland closed in about him and the curving spur carried him

farther from the main right of way he ceased whistling and his steps

became more guarded. Suddenly a man rose from the bushes and leveled a

long arm at him detainingly.

"Stop, young man, stop where you are!"

"Hello!" called Collins, pausing. "Well, I'm jiggered if it ain't old

Cookie. I say, old man, is the untaxed juice flowing in the forest

primeval or what brings you here?"

Cooke grinned as he recalled the reporter, whom he remembered as a

particularly irrepressible specimen of his genus whom he had met while

pursuing moonshiners in Georgia. The two shook hands amiably midway of

the two streaks of rust.

"Young man, I think I told you once before that your legs were

altogether too active. I want you to light right out of here--skip!"

"Not for a million dollars. Our meeting is highly opportune, Cookie.

It's not for me to fly in the face of Providence. I'm going to see

what's doing down here."

"All right," replied Cooke. "Take it all in and enjoy yourself; but

you're my prisoner."

"Oh, that will be all right! So long as I'm with you I can't lose out."

"March!" called Cooke, dropping behind; and thus the two came in a few

minutes to the engine, the cars and the caboose. From the locomotive a

slight smoke still trailed hazily upward.

Thomas Ardmore, coatless and hatless, sat on the caboose steps writing

messages on a broad pad, while a telegraph instrument clicked busily

within. One of his men had qualified as operator and a pile of messages

at his elbow testified to Ardmore's industry. Ardmore clutched in his

left hand a message recently caught from the wire which he re-read from

time to time with increasing satisfaction. It had been sent from Ardsley

and ran:

I shall ride to-night on the road that leads south beyond the red

bungalow, and on the bridle-path that climbs the ridge on the west,

called Sunset Trail. A certain English gentleman will accompany me.

It will be perfectly agreeable to me to come back alone.

G. D.

Ardmore was still writing when Cooke stood beneath him under the caboose

platform.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Ardmore, but this is our first prisoner."

Ardmore signed a despatch and then looked up and took the pipe from his

mouth. Collins lifted his hat politely.

"Ah, Mr. Ardmore, you see I have taken advantage of your exceedingly

kind invitation to look you up in North Carolina."

"He was looking for you very hard when I found him, Mr. Ardmore,"

interposed Cooke.

"Your appearance delights me," said Ardmore, extending his hand to the

reporter. "It was nice of you to walk out here to find me. Wouldn't they

put you up at the house?"

"Well, the fact is I didn't stop there. My paper sent me in this general

direction on business, but I had every honorable intention of making you

that visit after I finished my assignment. But Cookie here says I'm

arrested."

"He's a dangerous character and can't be allowed to run loose in these

parts. I'm going to tie him up," said Cooke.

"May I ask you, Mr. Collins, just what you are doing here?" inquired

Ardmore.

"You may, and I'll bet a boiled goose that Cooke and I are on the same

job."

"What are you looking for?" demanded Ardmore's chief of staff.

"It's a big story if I get it, and I have every intention of getting

it," said Collins guardedly.

"Out with it!" commanded Ardmore.

"The fact is, then, that I'm looking for a person of importance."

"Go right on, please."

"And that person is the governor of North Carolina, who is mysteriously

absent from Raleigh. He attended the Cotton Planters' Convention in New

Orleans. He got as far as Atlanta on his way home and then disappeared.

I need not say to gentlemen of your intelligence that a lost governor is

ripe fruit in my business, and I have reason to believe that for some

purpose of his own the governor of North Carolina is hiding in this very

neighborhood."

Cooke glanced at Ardmore for instructions, but the master of Ardsley

preferred to keep the matter in his own hands.

"So you want to find the governor of North Carolina, do you? Well you

shall not be disappointed. You are too able and zealous to be wasted on

journalism. I have a feeling that you are destined to higher things.

Something told me when we met in Atlanta that fate had set us apart for

each other. That was why I asked you to visit me when I really didn't

know but that, after learning where the spoons are kept, you would skip

without leaving your subsequent address. But now there is important

business on hand and the state of North Carolina will take the liberty

of borrowing you from Georgia until the peace of the Old North State is

restored. And now, Collins, I will make a disclosure that will

undoubtedly startle you a good deal, but you are no longer employed by

the Atlanta _Palladium_, and your obligations to that journal must be

transferred to the state in which you now stand. You came here, Collins,

to look for the governor of North Carolina, and your wits and your

argus-nose for news have served you well. You have found the governor of

North Carolina: I am he!"

Collins had stood during this recital in the middle of the track, with

his legs wide apart, calmly fanning himself with his hat; but as Ardmore

proceeded the reporter's hand dropped to his side, and a grin that had

overspread his face slowly yielded to a blank stare.

"Would you mind repeating those last words?"

"_I_ am the governor of North Carolina, Mr. Collins. The manner in which

I attained that high office is not important. It must suffice that I am

in sole charge of the affairs of this great state, without relief from

valuation or appraisement laws and without benefit of clergy. And we

have much to do here; mere social conversation must await an ampler

time. I now appoint you publicity agent to the governor. Your business

is to keep the people fooled--all the people all the time. In other

words, you are chief liar to the administration, a position of vast

responsibility, for which you have, if I am a judge of character, the

greatest talents. You will begin by sending out word that Governor

Dangerfield has given up all other work at present but the destruction

of the Appleweight gang. These stories that the governor has hidden

himself to dodge certain duties are all punk--do you understand?--he is

serving the people as he has always served them, faithfully and with the

noblest self-sacrifice. That's the sort of stuff I want you to jam into

the newspapers all over the world. And remember--my name does not appear

in the business at all--neither now nor hereafter."

"But by the ghost of John C. Calhoun, don't you see that I'm losing the

chance of my life in my own profession? There's a story in this that

would put me to the top and carry me right into New York," and Collins

glanced about for his suit-case, as though meditating flight.

"Your appointment has gone into effect," said Ardmore with finality,

"and if you bolt you will be caught and made to walk the plank. And so

far as your future is concerned, you shall have a newspaper of your own

anywhere you please as soon as this war is over."

The three men adjourned to the caboose where Ardmore told Collins all

that it seemed necessary for the newspaper man to know; and within half

an hour the new recruit had entered thoroughly into the spirit of the

adventure, though his mirth occasionally got the better of him, and he

bowed his head in his hands and surrendered himself to laughter.

Thereafter, until the six o'clock supper was ready, he kept the operator

occupied. He sent to the _Palladium_ a thoroughly plausible story giving

prominence to the Appleweight case and laying stress on Governor

Dangerfield's vigorous personality and high sense of official

responsibility. He sent queries to leading journals everywhere, offering

exclusive news of the rumored disappearance of North Carolina's

governor. His campaign of publicity for the state administration was

broadly planned, though he was losing a great opportunity to beat the

world with a stunning story of the amazing nerve with which Ardmore, the

young millionaire, had assumed the duties of governor of North Carolina

in the unaccountable absence of Governor Dangerfield from his capital.

The whole thing was almost too good to be true, and Collins put away the

idea of flight only upon realizing the joyous possibilities of sharing,

no matter how humbly, in the fate of an administration which was

fashioning the drollest of card houses. He did not know, and was not to

know until long afterward, just how the young master of Ardsley had

leaped into the breach; but Ardmore was an extraordinary person, whose

whims set him quite apart from other men, and while, even if he escaped

being shot, the present enterprise would undoubtedly lead to a long term

in jail, Collins had committed himself to Ardmore's cause and would be

faithful to it, no matter what happened.

Ardmore took Collins more fully into his confidence during the lingering

twilight, and the reporter made many suggestions that were of real

value. Meanwhile Cooke's men brought three horses from the depths of

the forest, and saddled them. Cooke entered the caboose for a final

conference with Ardmore and a last look at the maps.

"Too bad," remarked the acting governor, "that we must wait until

to-morrow night to pick up the Appleweights, but our present business is

more important. It's time to move, Cooke."

They rode off in single file on the faintest of trails through the

woods, Cooke leading and Ardmore and Collins following immediately

behind him. The great host of summer stars thronged the sky, and the

moon sent its soft effulgence across the night. They presently forded a

noisy stream, and while they were seeking the trail again on the farther

side an owl hooted a thousand yards up the creek, and while the line

re-formed Cooke paused and listened. Then the owl's call was repeated

farther off and so faintly that Cooke alone heard it. He laid his hand

on Ardmore's rein:

"There's a foot-trail that leads along that creek, and it's very rough

and difficult to follow. Half a mile from here there used to be a still,

run by one of the Appleweights. We smashed it once, but no doubt they

are operating again by this time. That hoot of the owl is a warning

common among the pickets put out by these people. Wireless telegraphy

isn't in it with them. Every Appleweight within twenty miles will know

in half an hour how many there are of us and just what direction we are

taking. We must not come back here to-night. We must put up on your

place somewhere and let them think, if they will, we are guests of yours

out for an evening ride."

"That's all right. Unless we complete this job in about two days my

administration is a fizzle," said Ardmore, as they resumed their march

through the forest. There was a wilder fling to the roll of the land

now, but the underbrush was better cleared, and the trail had become a

bridle-path that had known man's care.

"This is some of Paul's work," said Ardmore; "and if I am not very much

mistaken we are on my land now and headed straight enough for the

wagon-road that leads south beyond the red bungalow. These roads in here

were planned to give variety, but I never before appreciated how

complicated they are."

The path stretched away through the heavy forest, and they climbed to a

ridge that commanded a wide region that lay bathed in silver moonlight,

so softly luminous that it seemed of the stuff of shadows made light.

Westward, a mile distant, lay Ardsley, only a little below the level of

the ridge and touched with a faint purple as of spring twilight.

Ardmore sat his saddle, quietly contemplating the great house that

struck him almost for the first time as imposing. He felt, too, a little

heartache that he did not quite understand. He was not sure whether it

was the effect of the moon, or whether he was tired, or what it was,

though he thought perhaps the moon had something to do with it. His own

house, of which he was sincerely fond, seemed mistily hung between

heaven and earth, in the moonlight, a thing not wholly of this world;

and in his depression of spirit he reflected for a moment on his own

aimless, friendless life; he knew then that he was lonely and that there

was a great void in his mind and heart and soul and he knew also that

Jerry Dangerfield and not the moon was the cause of his melancholy.

"We'd better be moving," suggested Cooke.

"It's too bad to leave that picture," remarked Collins, sighing. "Had I

the lyre of Gray I should compose an _Ode on a Distant Prospect of

Ardsley Castle_, which would ultimately reach the school readers and

bring me fame more enduring than brass."

"Did you say brass?" ironically scoffed Cooke.

Whereupon the _Palladium's_ late representative laughed softly and

muttered to himself,

"Proud pile, by mighty Ardmore's hand upreared!"

"Cut it out," commanded Cooke, "or I'll drop you into the ravine. Look

below there!"

Looking off from the ridge they saw a man and a woman riding along a

strip of road from which the timber had been cut. The night was so

still, the gray light so subdued, that the two figures moved as steadily

and softly as shadow pictures on a screen.

The slow even movement of the riders was interrupted suddenly. The man,

who was nearer the remote observers, had stopped and bent toward the

woman as though to snatch her rein, when her horse threw up its head and

fell back on its haunches. Then the woman struck the man a blow with her

riding-crop, and galloped swiftly away along the white ribbon-like road.

In the perfect night-silence it was like a scene of pantomime.

"That's all right!" cried Cooke. "Come along! We'll cut into that road

at the bungalow."

They swung their horses away from the ridge and back into the

bridle-path, which once more dipped sharply down into heavy timber,

Cooke leading the way, and three of the best hunters known to the

Ardsley stables flew down the clear but winding path. The incident which

the trio had witnessed required no interpretation: the girl's blow and

flight had translated it into language explicit enough.

Ardmore thanked his German forester a thousand times for the admirable

bridle-path over which they galloped, with its certain footing beneath

and clean sweep from the boughs above. The blood surged hotly through

his heart, and he was angry for the first time in his life; but his head

was cool, and the damp air of the forest flowing by tranquilized him

into a new elation of spirit. Jerry Dangerfield was the dearest and

noblest and bravest girl in the world--he knew that: and she was clever

and resourceful enough to devise means for preserving her father's

official and private honor; and not less quick to defend herself from

insult from a titled scoundrel. She was the most inexplicable of girls;

but at the same time she was beyond any question the wisest. The thought

that he should now see her soon, after all the years that had passed

since he had introduced her to his sister at Raleigh, filled him with

wild delight, and he prayed that in her mad flight from the Duke of

Ballywinkle no harm might come to her.

The three men rode out into the broad highway at the red bungalow and

paused to listen.

"He hasn't got here yet. Only one person has passed and these must be

the tracks of the girl's horse," said Cooke, who had dismounted and

struck matches, the better to observe the faint hoof-prints in the hard

shell road.

"He'll be along in a minute. Let us get into the shadow of the bungalow,

and when he comes we'll ride out and nail him. The bungalow's a sort of

way house. I often stop here when I'm out on the estate and want to

rest, I have the key in my pocket."

As Ardmore's keys jingled in the lock Cooke cried out softly. Their

quarry was riding swiftly toward them, and he drew rein before the

bungalow as Cooke and Collins rode out to meet him.

"I say," panted the duke.

"You are our prisoner. Dismount and come into this house."

"Prisoner, you fool! I'm a guest at Ardsley and I'm looking for a lady."

"That's a very unlikely story. Collins, help the gentleman down;" and

the reporter obeyed instructions with so much zeal that the noble

gentleman fell prone, and was assisted to his feet with a fine mockery

of helpfulness.

"I tell you I'm looking for a lady whose horse ran away with her! I'm

the Duke of Ballywinkle and brother-in-law to Mr. Ardmore. I'll have you

sent to jail if you stop me here."

"Come along, Duke, and we'll see what you look like," said Cooke,

leading the way to the bungalow veranda. Within Ardmore was lighting

lamps. There was a long room finished in black oak, with a fireplace at

one end, and a table in the center. The floors were covered with

handsome rugs and the walls were hung with photographs and etchings.

Ardmore sat on the back of a leather settee in a pose assumed at the

moment of the duke's entrance. It was a pose of entire nonchalance, and

Ardmore's cap, perched on the back of his head, and his brown hair

rumpled boyishly, added to the general effect of comfort and ease.

The duke blinked for a moment in the lamplight, then he roared out

joyously:

"Ardy, old man!" and advanced toward his brother-in-law with

outstretched hand.

"Keep him off; he's undoubtedly quite mad," said Ardmore, staring

coldly, and bending his riding-crop across his knees. "Collins, please

ride on after the lady and bring her back this way."

Cooke had seated the prisoner rather rudely in a chair, and the noble

duke, having lost the power of speech in amazement and fright, rubbed

his eyes and then fastened them incredulously on Ardmore; but there was

no question about it, he had been seized with violence; he had been

repudiated by his own brother-in-law--the useless, stupid Tommy Ardmore,

who, at best, had only a child's mind for pirate stories and who was

indubitably the most negligible of negligible figures in the drama of

life as the duke knew it.

"Cooke," began Ardmore, addressing his lieutenant gravely from his perch

on the settee, "what is the charge against this person?"

"He says he's a duke," grinned Cooke, taking his cue from Ardmore's

manner. "And he says he's visiting at Ardsley."

"That," said Ardmore with decision, "is creditable only to the

gentleman's romantic imagination. His face is anything but dukely, and

there's a red streak across it which points clearly to the recent sharp

blow of a weapon; and no one would ever strike a duke. It's utterly

incredible," and Ardmore lifted his brows and leaned back with his arms

at length and his hands clasping the riding-crop, as he contemplated

with supreme satisfaction the tell-tale red line across the duke's

cheek.

The Duke of Ballywinkle leaped to his feet, the color that suffused his

pale face hiding for the moment the mark of the riding-stick.

"What the devil is this joke, Ardy?" screamed the duke. "You know I'm a

guest at your house; you know I'm your sister's husband. I was riding

with Miss Dangerfield and her horse ran away with her, and she may come

to harm unless I go after her. This cut on the face I got from a low

limb of one of your infernal trees. You are putting me in a devil of an

embarrassing position by holding me here."

He spoke with dignity, and Ardmore heard him through in silence; but

when he had finished, the master of Ardsley pointed to the chair.

"As I understand you, you are pleading not guilty; and you pretend to

some acquaintance with me; but I am unable to recall you. We may have

met somewhere, sometime, but I really don't know you. The title to which

you pretend is unfamiliar to me; but I will frankly disclose to you that

I, sir, am the governor of North Carolina."

"The what?" bleated the duke, his eyes bulging.

"I repeat, that I am the governor of North Carolina, and as a state of

war now exists in my unhappy kingdom, I, sir, have assumed all the

powers conferred upon the three coördinate branches of government under

the American system, namely, or if you prefer it, I will say, to wit:

the legislative, the executive and the judicial. It is thus not only my

privilege but my painful duty to pass upon your case in all its sad

aspects. As I have already suspended the writ of habeas corpus and set

aside the right to trial by jury we will consider that I sit here as the

supreme court."

"For God's sake, Ardy--" howled the duke.

"That remark I will not now construe as profanity, but don't let it

occur again. The first charge against you is that of insulting a woman

on the Sunset Trail in the estate called Ardsley, owned by a person

known in law as Thomas Ardmore. There are three witnesses to the fact

that you tried to stop a woman in the road, and that streak on your face

is even more conclusive. Are you guilty or not guilty?"

"You are mad! You are crazy!" shouted the duke; but his face was very

white now, and the mark of the crop flamed scarlet.

"You are guilty, beyond any question. But the further charge against

you that you pretend to be--what did he say his name was, Cooke?--that

you pretend to be the Duke of Ballywinkle must now be considered. That

is quite right, is it; you say you are the Duke?"

"Yes; you fool!" howled the duke. "I'll have the law on you for this!

I'll appeal to the British ambassador."

"I advise you not to appeal to anybody," said Ardmore, "and the British

ambassador is without jurisdiction in North Carolina. You have yourself

asserted that you are the Duke of Ballywinkle. Why Ballywinkle? Why not

Argyll; why not Westminster? Why not, if duke you must be, the noble

Duke of York?"

The Duke of Ballywinkle sat staring, stupefied. The whole thing was one

of his silly brother-in-law's stupid jokes; there was no question of

that; and Tommy Ardmore was always a bore; but in spite of the comfort

he derived from these reflections the duke was not a little uneasy; for

he had never seen his brother-in-law in just this mood, and he did not

like it. Ardmore was carrying the joke too far; and there was an

assurance in Ardmore's tone, and a light in Ardmore's eyes that were

ominous. Cooke had meanwhile lighted his pipe and was calmly smoking

until his chief should have his fling.

Ardmore now drew from his pocket Johnston's _American Politics_ with an

air of greatest seriousness.

"Cooke," he said, half to himself as he turned the pages, "do you

remember just what the constitution says about dukes? Oh, yes; here we

are! Now, Mr. Duke of Ballywinkle, listen to what it says here in

Section IX of the Constitution of the United States, which reads exactly

as follows in this book: 'No title of nobility shall be granted by the

United States: And no person holding any office of profit or trust under

them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present,

emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king,

prince, or foreign state.' And it says in Section X that 'No state shall

grant any title of nobility.' Now, Mr. Ballywinkle, it is perfectly

clear that this government can't recognize anything that it can't

create, for that would be foolish. As I, the governor of North Carolina,

can't make a duke, I can't see one. You are therefore wholly illegal;

it's against the most sacred law of the land for you to be here at all;

and, painful though it is to me, it is nevertheless my duty to order you

to leave the United States at once, never to return. In fact, if you

ever appear in the United States again, I hereby order that you be

hanged by the neck until you be dead. One of Mr. Cooke's men will

accompany you to New York to-morrow and see to it that you take passage

on a steamer bound for a British port. The crime of having insulted a

woman will still hang over you until you are well east of Sandy Hook,

and I advise you not to risk being tried on that charge in North

Carolina, as my people are very impulsive and emotional and lynchings

are not infrequent in our midst. You shall spend to-night in my official

caboose some distance from here, and your personal effects will be

brought from Ardsley, where, you have said, you are a guest of Mr.

Thomas Ardmore, who is officially unknown to me. The supreme court will

now adjourn."

Cooke pulled the limp, bewildered duke to his feet, and dragged him from

the bungalow.

As they stepped out on the veranda Collins rode up in alarm.

"I followed this road to a cross-road where it becomes a bridle-path and

runs off into the forest. There I lost all trace of the lady, but here

is her riding-crop."

"Cooke, take your prisoner to the caboose; and Collins, come with me,"

commanded Ardmore; and a moment later he and the reporter rode off

furiously in search of Jerry Dangerfield.

CHAPTER XIII

MISS DANGERFIELD TAKES A PRISONER

A dozen men carrying rifles across their saddle-bows rode away from

Habersham's farm on the outskirts of Turner Court House and struck a

rough trail that led a devious course over the hills. At their head rode

the guide of the expedition--a long silent man on a mule. Griswold and

Habersham followed immediately behind him on horseback. Their plans had

been carefully arranged before they left their rendezvous, and save for

an occasional brief interchange between the prosecuting attorney and the

governor's special representative, the party jogged on in silence.

Habersham's recruits were, it may be said, farmers of the border, who

had awaited for years just such an opportunity as now offered to avenge

themselves upon the insolent Appleweights. Nearly every man of the party

had some private score to settle, but they had all been sworn as special

constables and were sobered by the knowledge that the power of the state

of South Carolina was back of them.

Thus, at the very hour that Mr. Ardmore and his lieutenants rode away

from the lonely anchorage of the caboose, Professor Griswold and his

cavalcade set out for Mount Nebo Church. While the master of Ardsley was

revenging himself upon the Duke of Ballywinkle, his dearest friend,

against whom he had closed the doors of his house, was losing no time in

setting forth upon a mission which, if successful, would seriously

interfere with all Mr. Ardmore's hopes and plans. Ardmore's scarlet

fever telegram no longer rankled in the breast of the associate

professor of admiralty of the University of Virginia, for Griswold knew

that no matter what might be the outcome of his effort to uphold the

dignity of the sovereign state of South Carolina, his participation in

any such adventure would so cover his friend with envy that he would

have him forever at his mercy. Thomas Ardsley deserved punishment--there

was no doubt of that, and as Professor Griswold was not more or less

than a human being, he took comfort of the reflection.

The guide of the expedition pushed his mule forward at a fast walk,

making no excuses to Griswold and Habersham for the roughness of the

trails he chose, nor troubling to give warning of sharp turns where a

horse, being less wise than a mule, tobogganed madly before finding a

foothold. Occasionally a low hanging limb switched the associate

professor sharply across the face, but his temper continued serene where

the trail was darkest and steepest, and he found himself ignoring

Habersham's occasional polite questions about the university in his

effort to summon up in memory certain ways of Barbara Osborne which

baffled him. He deplored the time he had given to the study of a stupid

profession like the law, when, if he had applied himself with equal

diligence to poetry, he might have made for himself a place at least as

high in belles-lettres. In his college days he had sometimes thrummed a

guitar, and there was a little song in his heart, half formed, and with

only a line or two as yet tangible, which he felt sure he could write

down on paper if it were not that the bugles summoned him to war; it was

a song of a white rose which a lover wore in his heart, through winter

and summer, and it never changed, and the flight of the seasons had no

manner of effect on it.

"Check up, cain't you?" snarled the man on the mule, laying hold of

Griswold's rein; and thus halted, Griswold found that they had been

circling round a curiously symmetrical, thickly wooded hill, and had

finally come to a clearing whence they were able to gaze far off toward

the north.

"We are almost out of bounds," said Habersham, pointing. "Over there

somewhere, across the hills, lies North Carolina. I am as thoroughly

lost as you can possibly be; but these men know where they are. How far

is it, Billy"--he addressed the silent guide--"to Mount Nebo?"

"About four mile, and I reckon we'd better let out a leetle now or

they'll sing the doxology before we git thar."

"What's that light away off there?" asked Habersham.

The guide paused to examine it, and the faint glow far down the vale

seemed to perplex him. He spoke to one or two other natives and they

viewed the light ruminatively, as is their way.

"Thet must be on Ardmore's land," said the leader finally. "It shoots

out all sorts o' ways round hyeh, and I reckon thet's about wheh Raccoon

Creek cuts through."

"That's very likely," said Habersham. "I've seen the plat of what

Ardmore owns on this side the border at the court house, and I remember

that there's a long strip in Mingo County that is Ardsley land. Ardmore

has houses of one kind and another scattered all over the estate and

those lights may be from one of them. You know the place, don't you?"

"Yes; I've visited there," admitted Griswold. "But we'd better give it a

wide berth. The whole estate is simply infested with scarlet fever.

They're quarantined."

"I guess that's a joke," said Habersham. "There's a big party on there

now, and I have seen some of the guests in Turner's within a day or

two."

"Within how many days?" demanded Griswold, his heart sinking at the

thought that Ardmore had lied to him to keep him away from Ardsley--from

Ardmore's house! The thought of it really hurt him now. Could it be

possible that Ardmore had guests so distinguished that he, Griswold, was

not worthy to make their acquaintance! He experienced a real pang as he

thought that here he was, within a short ride of the home of his dearest

friend, the man whom most he loved of all men, and that he had been

denied the door of that friend's house.

"Come on!" called Habersham.

Half the company rode ahead to gain the farther side of the church; the

remainder, including Griswold and Habersham, soon dismounted and tied

their horses out of sight of the country road which they had latterly

been following.

"We are in plenty of time," said Habersham, looking at his watch. "The

rest of the boys are closing in from the other side and they will be

ready for Appleweight when he finishes his devotions. We've been

studying the old man's habits and he has a particular place where he

ties his horse back of the church. It's a little apart from the fence

where most of the congregation hitch and he chose it, no doubt, because

in case of a surprise he would have plenty of room for maneuvering. Two

men are going to lay for him, seize and gag him and carry him into the

wood back of the church; and then we're off across the state line to

lock him up in jail at Kildare and give Governor Dangerfield the shock

of his life."

"It sounds simple enough; but it won't be long before Appleweight's

friends miss him. You must remember that they are a shrewd lot."

"We've got to take our chances. Let's hope we are as shrewd as they

are," replied Habersham.

They moved softly through the wood and presently the faint sound of

singing reached them.

"Old Rabdick has finished his sermon and we'll know the worst in a few

minutes."

One of the party had already detached himself and crept forward toward

the church, to meet his appointed comrade in the enterprise, who was to

come in from the other side.

The clapboard church presented in the moonlight the austerest outlines,

and as the men waited, a rude though unseen hand was slamming the wooden

shutters that protected the windows from impious violence.

"We could do with less moon," muttered Habersham, as he and Griswold

peered through the trees into the churchyard.

"There goes Bill Appleweight now," whispered one of the natives at his

elbow, and Griswold felt his heart-beats quicken as he watched a tall

figure silhouetted against the church and moving swiftly toward the rear

of the building. At the front of the church voices sounded, as the

departing worshipers rode or drove slowly away.

Habersham laid his hand suddenly on Griswold's arm.

"They've got him! They've nailed him! See! There! They're yanking him

back into the timber. They've taken him and his horse!"

Griswold saw nothing but a momentary confusion of shadows, then perfect

silence hung over the woods behind the little church. The congregation

was slowly dispersing, riding away in little groups. Suddenly a voice

called out in the road a hundred yards beyond the church:

"Hey there! Where's Bill?"

"Oh, he's gone long ago!" yelled another.

In a moment more the church door slammed and a last figure rode rapidly

away.

"Now we'll see what's happened," said Habersham. "It looks almost too

easy."

The members of Griswold's party who had been thrown round to the farther

side of the church began to appear, one at a time. There was no

nervousness among any of the band--a fact that impressed Griswold. They

were all risking much in this enterprise, but they were outwardly

unperturbed, and chewing their tobacco silently while they awaited the

return of the two active agents in the conspiracy who had dealt directly

with Appleweight. Habersham counted heads, and announced all present or

accounted for.

The tall leader who had ridden the mule was the first to rise out of the

underbrush, through which he had crawled circuitously from the rear of

the church. His companion followed a few seconds later.

"We've got Bill, all tied and gagged and a-settin' of his hoss," drawled

the leader, "and the hoss is tied to the back fence. Rest o' his boys

thought he'd gone ahead, but they may miss him and come back. He's safe

enough, and ef we keep away from him we'll be ready to light out ef the

gang scents trouble and comes back to look fer Bill."

"You're sure he's tied up so he can't break away or yell?"

"He's as good as dead, a-settin' of his hoss in the thicket back theh."

"And now," said Habersham, "what we've got to do is to make a run for it

and land him across the border, and stick him into a North Carolina

jail, where he rightfully belongs. The question is, can we do it all in

one night, or had we better lock him up somewhere on this side the line

and take another night for it? The sheriff over there in Kildare is

Appleweight's cousin, but we'll lock him up with Bill, to make a family

party of it."

"We'd better not try too much to-night," counseled Griswold. "It's a big

thing to have the man himself. If it were not for the matter of putting

Governor Dangerfield in a hole, I'd favor hurrying with Appleweight to

Columbia, just for the moral effect of it on the people of South

Carolina. We'd make a big killing for the administration that way,

Habersham."

"Yes, you'd make a killing all right, but you'd have Bill Appleweight on

your hands, which Governor Osborne has not until lately been anxious

for," replied Habersham, in a low tone that was heard by no one but his

old preceptor.

"You'd better get over the idea that we're afraid of this outlaw,"

rejoined Griswold. "The governor of North Carolina dare not call his

soul his own where these hill people are concerned; but the governor of

South Carolina is a different sort."

"The governor of North Carolina is filling the newspapers with his own

virtuous intentions in the matter," remarked Habersham, "but his sudden

zeal puts one upon inquiry."

"I hope you don't imply that the motives of the governor of South

Carolina are not the worthiest?" demanded Griswold hotly.

"Most certainly not!" returned the prosecuting attorney; but a smile

flitted across his face--a smile which, in the darkness, Griswold did

not see. "The two governors are very different men--wholly antipodal

characters, in fact," and again Habersham smiled to himself.

While they thus stood on South Carolina soil, waiting for the safe and

complete dispersion of the Mount Nebo congregation before seizing the

captive they had gagged and tied at the rear of the little church, the

fates were ordering a very different termination of the night's

business.

Miss Jerry Dangerfield, galloping away from the Duke of Ballywinkle,

with no thought but to widen the distance between them, turned off at

the first cross-road, which began well enough, but degenerated rapidly

into a miserable trail, through which she was obliged to walk her horse.

Before she was aware of it she was in the midst of a clearing where

laborers had lately been cutting timber, and she found, on turning to

make her way out, that she was quite lost, for three trails, all

seemingly alike, struck off into the forest. She spoke aloud to the

horse to reassure herself, and smiled as she viewed the grim phalanx of

stumps. She must, however, find her way back to Ardsley, for there were

times when Jerry Dangerfield could be very serious with herself, though

it rarely pleased her to be serious with other people; and she knew that

the time had long passed for her return to the house. If her conspiracy

with Thomas Ardmore had proved successful, the duke would not return to

the great house; but her own prolonged absence was something that had

not been in her program.

She did not know then that three men had witnessed her flight from the

duke, or that they had taken swift vengeance upon him for his

unpardonable conduct in the moon-blanched road. It was not Jerry's way

to accept misfortune tamely, and after circling the wall of timber that

shut her in, in the hope of determining where she had entered, she chose

a trail at random and plunged into the woods. She assumed that probably

all the roads and paths on the estate led more or less directly to the

great house or to some lodge or bungalow. She had lost her riding-crop

in her mad flight, and she broke off a switch, tossing its leaves into

the moonlight and laughing softly as they rained about her.

Jerry began whistling gently to herself, for she had never been lost

before, and it is not so bad, when you have a good horse, a fair path,

sweet odorous woods and the moon to keep you company. She forded a brook

that was silver to eye and ear, and let her horse stand midway of it for

joy in the sight and sound. She had kept no account of time, but rather

imagined that it had not been more than half an hour since the Duke of

Ballywinkle left her so unceremoniously.

Suddenly ahead of her through the woods floated the sound of

singing--one of those strange, wavering _pieux cantiques_ peculiar to

the South. She rode on, thinking to find help and a guide back to

Ardsley; then the music ceased, and lights now flashed faintly before

her, but she went forward guardedly.

"I'm much more lost than I thought I was, for I must be away off the

estate," she reflected. She turned and rode back a few rods and

dismounted, and tied her horse to a sapling. She was disappointed at not

finding a camp of Ardmore's wood-cutters, to whom she would

unhesitatingly have confided herself; but it seemed wise now to exercise

caution in drawing to herself the attention of strangers. She did not

know that she had crossed the state line and was in South Carolina, or

that the singing she had heard floated from the windows of Mount Nebo

Church.

She became now the astonished witness of a series of incidents that

occurred so swiftly as fairly to take her breath away. A tall, loosely

articulated man came from the direction of the church and walked toward

her. She knelt at the tree and watched, the moonlight giving her a

clear view of a rustic somewhat past middle age, whose chief

characteristics seemed to be a grizzled beard and long arms that swung

oddly at his side. The brim of his wool hat was turned up sharply from

his forehead, and she had a glimpse of the small, keen, gray eyes with

which he swept the forest before him. He freed a horse which she had not

before noticed, and she concluded that he would not approach nearer, for

she expected him to mount and ride away to join others of the

congregation whom she heard making off in a road beyond the church.

Then, with a quickness and deftness that baffled her eyes, two men rose

beside him just as he was about to mount; there was no outcry and no

sound of scuffling, so quick was the descent and so perfect the

understanding between the captors. In a moment the man was gathered up,

bound, and flung on his saddle. She had a better view of him, now that

he was hatless, though a gag had been forced into his mouth and a

handkerchief tied over his eyes, so that he presented a grotesque

appearance. Jerry was so absorbed that she forgot to be afraid; never in

her life had she witnessed anything so amazing as this; and now, to her

more complete bewilderment, the captors, after carefully inspecting

their work and finding it satisfactory, seemed to disappear utterly from

the face of the earth.

[Illustration]

In the woods to her left she thought she heard a horse neigh; then she

saw shadows moving in that direction; and again, from the road, she

heard the brief debate of the two men as to the whereabouts of "Bill";

and it struck Jerry humorously that he would not soon see his friends

unless they came and helped him out of his predicament.

It may help to an understanding of Miss Jerry Dangerfield's character if

it is recorded here that never in her short life had she failed to

respond to the call of impulse. She was lost in the woods, and strange

men lurked about; a man had been attacked, seized, and left sitting in a

state of absurd helplessness on a horse presumably his own, and there

was no guessing what dire penalty his captors had in store for him. He

certainly looked deliciously funny as he sat there in the shadows,

vigorously twisting his arms and head in an effort to free himself.

Quiet reigned in the neighborhood of the church; the lights had blinked

out; the bang of the closing shutters reassured Jerry, and she crept on

her knees toward the unconscious captive, loosed his horse's rein and

led it rapidly toward her own horse, a little farther back in the

woods. Her blindfolded prisoner, thinking his original captors were

carrying him off, renewed his efforts to free himself. He tested the

ropes and straps with which he was fastened by throwing himself first to

one side, then to the other, as far as his gyves would permit, at the

same time frothily chewing his gag.

Jerry gained her own saddle in the least bit of a panic, and when she

had mounted and made sure of the leading-strap with which her prisoner's

horse was provided, she rode on at a rapid walk until she reached the

clearing, where the stumps again grimly mocked her. She stopped to

listen, and heard through the still night first one cry and then many

voices in various keys of alarm and rage. Then she bent toward the

prisoner, tore the bandage from his eyes, and with more difficulty freed

him of the gag. He blinked and spluttered at this unexpected

deliverance, then blinked and spluttered afresh at seeing that his

captor was a young woman, who was plainly not of his world. Jerry

watched him wonderingly, then addressed him in her most agreeable tone.

"You were caught and tied by two men over there by a church. I saw them,

and when they went off and left you, I came along and brought you with

me, thinking to save your life. I want to get home as quickly as

possible, and though I do not know you, and am quite sure we never met

before, I hope you will kindly guide me to Ardsley, and thereby render

me a service I shall always deeply appreciate."

Mr. Bill Appleweight, _alias_ Poteet, was well hardened to the shocks of

time, but this pleasant-voiced girl, coolly sitting her horse, and

holding his own lank steed by a strap, was the most amazing human being

that had yet dawned on his horizon. He was not stupid, but Jerry's

manner of speech had baffled more sophisticated minds than

Appleweight's, and the sweet sincerity of her tone, and her frank

countenance, hallowed as it was by the moonlight, wrought in the

outlaw's mind a befuddlement not wholly unlike that which had possessed

the wits of many young gallants south of the Potomac who had laid siege

to Jerry Dangerfield's heart. But the cries behind them were more

pronounced, and Appleweight was nothing if not a man of action.

"Take these things off'n me," he commanded fiercely, "and I'll see y'

safe to Ardsley."

"Not in the least," replied Jerry, who was herself not unmindful of the

voices behind. "You will kindly tell me the way, and I will accommodate

my pace to that of your own somewhat ill-nourished beast. And as there's

a mob looking for you back there, all ready to hang you to one of these

noble forest trees, I advise you to use more haste and less caution in

pointing the way."

Appleweight lifted his head and took his bearings. Then he nodded toward

one of the three trails which had so baffled Jerry when first she broke

into the clearing.

"Thet's the nighest," said Appleweight, "and we'd better git."

She set the pace at a trot, and was relieved in a few minutes to pass

one or two landmarks which she remembered from her flight through the

woods. As they splashed through the brook she had forded, she was quite

confident that the captive was playing her no trick, but that in due

course she should strike the highroad to Ardsley which she had abandoned

to throw off the Duke of Ballywinkle.

It was now ten o'clock, and the moon was sinking behind the forest

trees. Jerry took advantage of an occasional straight strip of road to

go forward at a gallop, but these stretches did not offer frequently,

and the two riders kept pretty steadily to a smart trot. They presented

a droll picture as they moved through the forest--the girl, riding

cross-saddle, with the stolen captive trailing after. Occasionally Mr.

Appleweight seemed to be talking to himself, but whether he was praying

or swearing Jerry did not trouble herself to decide. It was enough for

her that she had found a guide out of the wilderness by stealing a

prisoner from his enemies, and this was amusing, and sent bubbling in

her heart those quiet springs of mirth that accounted for so much in

Jerry Dangerfield.

As they walked their horses through a bit of sand, the prisoner spoke:

"Who air y'u, little gal?"

Jerry turned in the saddle, so that Appleweight enjoyed a full view of

her face.

"I am perfectly willing to tell you my name, but first it would be more

courteous for you to tell me yours, particularly as I am delivering you

from a band of outlaws who undoubtedly intended to do you harm."

"I reckon they air skeered to foller us, gal. They air afeard to tackle

th' ole man, onless they jump in two t' one; and they cain't tell who

helped me git away."

He laughed--a curious, chuckling laugh. He had ceased to struggle at his

bonds, but seemed resigned to his strange fate. He had not answered

Jerry's question, and had no intention of doing so. The sudden attack at

the church had aroused all his cunning. Appleweight, _alias_ Poteet, was

an old wolf, and knew well the ways of the trapper; but the bold attempt

to kidnap him was a new feature of the game as heretofore played along

the border. He did not make it out; nor was he wholly satisfied with the

girl's explanation of her own presence in that out-of-the-way place. She

might be a guest at Ardsley, as she pretended, but women folk were

rarely seen on the estate, and never in such remote corners of it as

Mount Nebo Church. As he pondered the matter, it seemed incredible that

this remarkable young person, whose innocence was so beguiling, should

be in any way leagued with his foes.

He had several times called out directions as they crossed other paths

in the forest, and they now reached the main trunk road of the estate.

The red bungalow, Jerry knew, was not far away. Her prisoner spoke

again.

"Little gal, I'm an ole man, and I hain't never done y'u no harm. Your

haouse is only a leetle way up thar, and I cain't be no more use to y'u.

I want t' go home, and if y'u'll holp me ontie this yere harness--" and

he grinned as he viewed his bonds in the fuller light of the open road.

Then hoof-beats thumped the soft earth of another of the trails that

converged at this point, and Ardmore and Collins flashed out upon Jerry

and her captive, amid a wild panic of horses.

Appleweight twisted and turned in his saddle but Jerry instantly held up

her hand and arrested the inquiries of her deliverers.

"Mr. Ardmore, this gentleman was most rudely set upon by two strangers

as he was leaving a church over there somewhere in the woods. I was

lost, and as his appearance at the time and place seemed almost

providential, I begged him to guide me toward home, which he has most

courteously done," and Jerry, to give the proper touch to her

explanation, twitched the strap by which she held her prisoner's horse,

so that it danced, adding a fresh absurdity to the wobbling figure of

its bound rider.

"You are safe!" cried Ardmore in a low tone, to which Jerry nodded

carelessly, in a way that directed attention to the more immediate

business at hand. He was not at once sure of his cue, but there seemed

to be something familiar in the outlines of the man on horseback, and

full identification broke upon him now with astounding vividness.

"Jugs," he began, addressing the prisoner smilingly, "dear old Jugs, to

think we should meet again! Since you handed me that jug on the rear end

of the train, a few nights ago, life has had new meanings for me, and

I'm just as sorry as can be that I gave you the buttermilk. I wouldn't

have done such a thing for billions in real money. And now that you have

fallen into the excellent hands of Miss Dangerfield--"

"Dangerfield!" screamed the prisoner, lifting himself as high in the

saddle as his bonds would permit.

"Certainly," replied Ardmore. "Your rescuer is none other than Miss

Geraldine Dangerfield."

"Why, gal," began the outlaw, "ef your pa's the guv'nor of No'th

Caroline, him an' me's old frien's."

"Then will you kindly tell me your name?" asked Jerry.

"Allow me to complete the introductions," interrupted Collins, who had

hung back in silence. "Unless my eyes deceive me, which is wholly

improbable, this is a gentleman whom I once interviewed in the county

jail at Raleigh, and he was known at that time as William Appleweight,

_alias_ Poteet."

"You air right," admitted the prisoner without hesitation, and then,

addressing Jerry: "Yer pa would be glad to know his dorter had helped an

ole frien' like me, gal. Ye may hev heard him speak o' me."

"But how about that message in the cork of the jug you put on the train

at Kildare?" demanded Ardmore. "And why did you send your brother to try

to scare me to death at Raleigh?"

"That is not the slightest importance," interrupted Jerry, gently

playing with the tether which held Mr. Appleweight; "nor does it matter

that papa and this gentleman are friends. If this is, indeed, the famous

outlaw, Mr. William Appleweight, then, papa or no papa, friend or no

friend, he is a prisoner of the state of North Carolina."

"Pris'ner!" bawled Appleweight,--"an' you the guv'nor's gal--"

"You have hit the situation exactly, Mr. Appleweight; and as far as the

office of governor is concerned, it is capably filled by the young

gentleman on your left, Mr. Thomas Ardmore. Let us now adjourn to his

house, where, if I am not mistaken, a bit of cold fowl is usually to be

found on the sideboard at this hour. But hold"--and Jerry checked her

horse--"where can we lodge this gentleman, Mr. Ardmore, until we decide

upon his further fate?"

"We might put him in the wine cellar," suggested Ardmore.

"No," interposed Collins. "I fancy that much of your fluid stock has

paid revenue tax, and most of it has passed none too lightly through the

custom-house. It would be unwarrantably cruel to lock Mr. Appleweight in

such quarters, with the visible marks of taxation all around him. Still,

the sight of the stamps would probably destroy his thirst, though his

rugged independence might so far assert itself that he would smash a few

of your most expensive importations out of sheer deviltry."

"He shall be treated with the greatest consideration," said Jerry, and

thereafter, no further adventure befalling them, they reached Ardsley,

where their arrival occasioned the greatest excitement.

CHAPTER XIV

A MEETING OF OLD FRIENDS

Habersham's men had proved exceedingly timid when it came to the

business of threshing the woods for Appleweight, whom they regarded with

a new awe, now that he had vanished so mysteriously. They had searched

the woods guardedly, but the narrow paths that led away into the dim

fastnesses of Ardsley were forbidding, and these men were not without

their superstitions. They had awaited for years an opportunity to strike

at the Appleweight faction; they had at last taken their shot, and had

seemingly brought down their bird; but their lack of spirit in

retrieving the game had been their undoing. They had only aroused their

most formidable enemy, who would undoubtedly lose no time in seeking

revenge. They were a dolorous band who, after warily beating the woods,

dispersed in the small hours of the morning, having found nothing but

Appleweight's wool hat, which only added to their mystification.

"We ought to have taken him away on the run," said Habersham bitterly,

as he and Griswold discussed the matter on the veranda of the

prosecutor's house and watched the coming of the dawn. "I didn't realize

that those fellows lived in such mortal terror of the old man; but they

refused to make off with him until the last of his friends had got well

out of the way. I ought to have had more sense myself than to have

expected the old fox to sit tied up like a calf ready for market. We had

all his friends accounted for--those that weren't at prayer meeting were

marked down somewhere else, and we had a line flung pretty well round

the church. Appleweight's deliverance must have come from somewhere

inside the Ardmore property. Perhaps the game warden picked him up."

"Perhaps the Indians captured him," suggested Griswold, yawning, "or

maybe some Martian came down on a parachute and hauled him up. Or, as

scarlet fever is raging at Mr. Ardmore's castle,"--and his tone was

icy--"Appleweight was probably seized all of a sudden, and broke away in

his delirium. Let's go to bed."

At eight o'clock he and Habersham rode into Turner Court House, and

Griswold went at once to the inn to change his clothes. No further steps

could be taken until some definite report was received as to

Appleweight's whereabouts. The men who had attempted the outlaw's

capture had returned to their farms, and were most demurely cultivating

the soil. Griswold was thoroughly disgusted at the ridiculous failure of

Habersham's plans, and not less severe upon himself for failing to push

matters to a conclusion the moment the outlaw was caught, instead of

hanging back to await the safe dispersion of the Mount Nebo

congregation.

It had been the most puerile transaction possible, and he was aware that

a report of it, which he must wire at once to Miss Barbara Osborne,

would not impress that young woman with his capacity or trustworthiness

in difficult occasions. The iron that had already entered into his soul

drove deeper. He had ordered a fresh horse, and was resolved to return

to Mount Nebo Church for a personal study of the ground in broad

daylight.

As he crossed the musty parlor of the little hotel, to his great

astonishment Miss Osborne's black Phoebe, stationed where her eyes

ranged the whole lower floor of the inn, drew attention to herself in an

elaborate courtesy.

"Miss Barb'ra wish me t' say she done come heah on business, and she

like fo' to see yo' all right away. She done bring huh seddle, and war

a-gwine ridin' twell you come back. She's a-gittin' ready, and I'll go

tell huh you done come. She got a heap o' trubble, thet young missis, so

she hev," and the black woman's pursed lips seemed to imply that

Professor Griswold was in some measure responsible for Miss Osborne's

difficulties.

As he stared out into the street a negro brought a horse bearing a

better saddle than Mingo County had ever boasted, and hitched it near

the horse he had secured for himself. An instant later he heard a quick

step above, and Miss Osborne, sedately followed by the black woman, came

down-stairs. She smiled and greeted him cordially, but there was trouble

in her brown eyes.

"I didn't warn you of my coming. I didn't want to be a nuisance to you;

but there's a new--a most unaccountable perplexity. It doesn't seem

right to burden you with it--you have already been so kind about helping

me; but I dare not turn to our oldest friends--I have been afraid to

trust father's friends at all since Mr. Bosworth acted so traitorously."

"My time is entirely at your service, Miss Osborne; but I have a

shameful report to make of myself. I must tell you how miserably I have

failed, before you trust me any further. We--that is to say, the

prosecuting attorney of this county and a party he got together of

Appleweight's enemies--caught the outlaw last night--took him with the

greatest ease--but he got away from us! It was all my fault, and I'm

deeply disgusted with myself!"

He described the capture and the subsequent mysterious disappearance of

Appleweight, and confessed the obvious necessity for great caution in

further attempts to take the outlaw, now that he was on guard. Barbara

laughed reassuringly at the end of the story.

"Those men must have felt funny when they went back to get the prisoner

and found that he had gone up into the air. But there's a new feature of

the case that's more serious than the loss of this man--" and the

trouble again possessed her eyes.

"Well, it's better not to have our problems too simple. Any lawyer can

win an easy case--though I seem to have lost my first one for you," he

added penitently.

She made no reply, but drew from her purse a cutting from a newspaper

and handed it to him.

"That's from last night's Columbia _Vidette_, which is very hostile to

my father."

He was already running over the heavily leaded column that set forth

without equivocation the fact that Governor Osborne had not been in

Columbia since he went to New Orleans. It scouted the story that he was

abroad in the state on official business connected with the Appleweight

case--the yarn which Griswold had forced upon the friendly reporter at

the telegraph office in Columbia. The governor of a state, the _Vidette_

went on to elaborate, could not vanish without leaving some trace of

himself, and a _Vidette_ representative had traced the steps of Governor

Osborne from New Orleans until--the italics are the _Vidette's_--he had

again entered South Carolina _under cover of night and for purposes

which, for the honor of the state, the Vidette hesitated to disclose_.

The writer of the article had exhausted the possibilities of gentle

suggestion and vague innuendo in an effort to create an impression of

mystery and to pique curiosity as to further developments, which were

promised at any hour. Griswold's wrath was aroused, not so much against

the newspaper, which he assumed had some fire for its smothered trifle

of smoke, but against the governor of South Carolina himself, who was

causing the finest and noblest girl in the world infinite anxiety and

pain.

"The thing is preposterous," he said lightly. "The idea that your father

would attempt to enter his own state surreptitiously is inconceivable

in these days when public men are denied all privacy, and when it's any

man's right to deceive the press if he finds it essential to his own

comfort and peace; but the intimation that your father is in South

Carolina for any dishonorable purpose is preposterous. One thing,

however, is certain, Miss Osborne, and that is that we must produce your

father at the earliest possible moment."

"But"--and Barbara hesitated, and her eyes, near tears as they were,

wrought great havoc in Griswold's soul--"but father must not be found

until this Appleweight matter is settled. You understand without making

me speak the words--that he might not exactly view the matter as we do."

It was a painful subject; and the fact that she was driven by sheer

force of circumstances to appeal to him, a stranger, to aid her to

perform a public service in her father's name rallied all his good

impulses to her standard. It was too delicate a matter for discussion;

it was a thing to be ignored; and he assumed at once a lighter tone.

"Come! We must solve the riddle of the lost prisoner at once, and your

father will undoubtedly give an excellent account of himself when he

gets ready. Meanwhile the fiction that he is personally carrying the

war into the Appleweight country must be maintained, and I shall step to

the railway station and wire the Columbia newspaper in his name that he

is in Mingo County on the trail of the outlaws."

The messages were composed by their joint efforts at the station, with

not so much haste but that an associate professor of admiralty,

twenty-nine years old, could defer in the most trifling matters to the

superior literary taste of a girl of twenty whose brown eyes were very

pleasant to meet in moments of uncertainty and appeal.

He signed the messages Charles Osborne, Governor, with a flourish

indicative of the increased confidence and daring which Miss Osborne's

arrival had brought to the situation.

"And now," said Griswold, as they rode through the meager streets of

Turner's, "we will go to Mount Nebo Church and see what we can learn of

Appleweight's disappearance."

"The North Carolina papers are making a great deal of Governor

Dangerfield's activity in trying to put down outlawry on the border,"

said Barbara. "Marked copies of the newspapers are pouring into papa's

office. I can but hold Mr. Bosworth responsible for that. We may count

upon it that he will do all in his power to annoy us"--and then, as

Griswold looked at her quickly, he was aware that she had colored and

averted her eyes; and while, as a lawyer, he was aware that words of two

letters might be provocative of endless litigation of the bitterest

sort, he had never known before that _us_, in itself the homeliest of

words, could cause so sweet a distress. It seemed that an interval of

several years passed before either spoke again.

"We are quite near the estate of your friend, Mr. Ardmore, aren't we?"

asked Barbara presently.

"I fancy we are," replied Griswold, but with a tone so coldly at

variance with his previous cordial references to the master of Ardsley

that Barbara looked at him inquiringly.

"I'm sorry that I should have given you the impression, Miss Osborne,

that Mr. Ardmore and I are friends, as I undoubtedly did at Columbia. He

has, for some unaccountable reason, cut my acquaintance in a manner so

unlike him that I do not pretend to explain it; nor, I may add, is it of

the least importance."

"I was a little surprised," returned Barbara, with truly feminine

instinct for mingling in the balm of consolation the bitterest and most

poisonous herbs, "that you should have had for a friend a man who

frankly follows girls whose appearance he fancies. Even Mr. Ardmore's

democratic enthusiasm for the down-trodden laundry girl does not wholly

mitigate the winking episode."

"He had, only a few days ago, invited me to visit him, though I had been

to his house so often that the obscurest servant knew that I was

privileged even beyond the members of Mr. Ardmore's own family in my

freedom of the place. When I saw that his house would be a convenient

point from which to study the Appleweight situation, I wired him that I

was on the way, and to my utter amazement he replied that he could not

entertain me--that scarlet fever was epidemic on the estate--on those

almost uncounted acres!"

And with a gulp and a mist in his eyes, Griswold drew rein and pointed,

from a hill that had now borne them to a considerable height, toward

Ardsley itself, dreamily basking in the bright morning sunlight within

its cincture of hills, meadows and forest.

"I never saw the place before! It's perfectly splendid!" cried Barbara,

forgetting that Griswold must be gazing upon it with the eyes of an

exile viewing grim, forbidding battlements that once hailed him in

welcome.

"It's one of the most interesting houses in America," observed

Griswold, who strove at all times to be just.

"There's a flag flying--I can't make out what it is," said Barbara.

"It's probably to give warning of the scarlet fever; it would be like

Ardy to do that. But we must hurry on to Mount Nebo."

He knew the ways of Ardsley thoroughly; better, in fact, than its owner

ever had in old times; but in his anger at Ardmore he would not set foot

on the estate if he could possibly avoid doing so in reaching the scene

of the night's contretemps. He found without difficulty the trail taken

by Habersham's men, and in due course of time they left their horses a

short distance from the church and proceeded on foot.

"It seems all the stupider in broad daylight," said Griswold, after he

had explained just what had occurred, and how the captors, in their

superstitious awe of Appleweight, had been afraid to carry him off the

moment they were sure of him, but had slipped back among their fellows

to wait until the coast was perfectly clear. To ease his deep chagrin

Barbara laughed a good deal at the occurrence as they tramped over the

scene discussing it. They went into the woods back of the church, where

Griswold began to exercise his reasoning powers.

"Some one must have come in from this direction and freed the man and

taken him away," he declared.

He knelt and marked the hoof-prints where Appleweight had been left

tied; but the grass here was much trampled, and Griswold was misled by

the fact, not knowing that news of Appleweight's strange disappearance

had passed among the outlaw's friends by the swift telegraphy of the

border, and that the whole neighborhood had been threshed over hours

before. It might have been some small consolation to Griswold had he

known that Appleweight's friends and accomplices were as much at a loss

to know what had become of the chieftain as the men who had tried so

ineffectually to kidnap him. From the appearance of the trampled grass

many men had taken a hand in releasing the prisoner, and this impression

did not clarify matters for Griswold.

"Where does this path lead?" asked Barbara.

"This is Ardsley land here, this side of the church, and that trail

leads on, if I remember, to the main Ardsley highway, with which various

other roads are connected--many miles in all. It's inconceivable that

the deliverers of this outlaw should have taken him into the estate,

where a sort of police system is maintained by the forestry corps. I

don't at all make it out."

He went off to explore the heavy woods on each side of the trail that

led into Ardsley, but without result. When he came gloomily back he

found that in his absence Barbara had followed the bridle-path for a

considerable distance, and she held out to him a diminutive pocket

handkerchief, which had evidently been snatched away from its owner--so

Barbara explained--by a low-hanging branch of an oak, and flung into a

blackberry bush, where she had found it. It was a trifle, indeed, the

slightest bit of linen, which they held between them by its four corners

and gravely inspected.

"Feminine, beyond a doubt," pronounced Griswold sagely.

"It's a good handkerchief, and here are two initials worked in the

corner that may tell us something--'G. D.' It probably belongs to some

guest at Ardsley. And there's a very faint suggestion of orris--it's a

city handkerchief," said Barbara with finality, "but it has suffered a

trifle in the laundry, as this edge is the least bit out of drawing from

careless ironing."

"And I should say, from a certain crispness it still retains, that it

hasn't been in the forest long. It hasn't been rained on, at any rate,"

added Griswold.

"But even the handkerchief doesn't tell us anything," said Barbara,

spreading it out, "except that some woman visitor has ridden here within

a few days and played drop the handkerchief with herself or somebody

else to us unknown."

"She may have been a scarlet fever patient from Ardsley; you'd better

have a care!" And Griswold's tone was bitter.

"I'm not afraid; and as I have never been so near Ardsley before, I

should like to ride in and steal a glimpse. There's little danger of

meeting the lord of the manor, I suppose, or any of his guests at this

hour, and we need not go near the house."

He saw that she was really curious, and it was not in his heart to

refuse her, so they followed the bridle-path through the cool forest,

and came in due course to the clearing where Jerry had first confessed

herself lost, and thereafter had suffered the captured outlaw to point

her the way home.

"The timber has been cut here since my last visit, but I remember the

bridle-paths very well. They all reach the highroad of the estate

ultimately. We may safely take this one, which has been the most used

and which climbs a hill that gives a fine outlook."

The path he chose had really been beaten into better condition than

either of the others, and they rode side by side now. A deer feeding on

a grassy slope raised its head and stared at them, and a fox scampered

wildly before them. It seemed that they were shut in from all the world,

these two, who but a few days before had never seen each other, and it

was a relief to him to find that she threw off her troubles and became

more animated and cheerful than he had yet seen her. His comments on her

mount, which was sorry enough, were amusing; and she paused now and then

to peer into the tops of the tallest trees, under the pretense that

Appleweight had probably reverted to the primordial and might be found

at any minute in one of the branches above them. Her dark green habit,

and the soft hat to match, with its little feather thrust into the side,

spoke for real usage; and the gauntleted hand that swung lightly at her

side inadvertently brushed his own once--and he knew that this must not

happen again! When their eyes met it was with frank confidence on her

part, and it seemed to him that they were very old friends, and that

they had been riding through this forest, or one identical with it,

since the world began. It is thus that a man with any imagination feels

first about a woman who begins to interest him--that there was never any

beginning to their acquaintance that can be reckoned as time and

experience are measured, but that he has known her for countless years;

and if there be a poetic vein in him, he will indulge in such fancies as

that he has seen her as a priestess of Aphrodite in the long ago,

dreaming upon the temple steps; or that he has watched her skipping

pebbles upon the violet storied sea against a hazy background of cities

long crumbled into dust. Such fancies as these are a part of love's

gentle madness, and luckier than she knows is the girl who awakens in a

lover this eager idealization. If he can turn a verse for her in which

she is added to the sacred Nine, personifying all sweet, gentle and

gracious things, so much the better.

Just what he, on the other hand, may mean to her; just what form of

deification he evokes in her, he can never know; for the women who write

of such matters have never been those who are sincere or worth heeding,

and they never will be, so long as woman's heart remains what it has

been from the beginning--far-hidden, and filled with incommunicable

secret beliefs and longings, and tremulous with fears that are beyond

man's power to understand.

Griswold had missed the white rose that he had begun to associate with

Barbara, and he grew suddenly daring and spoke of it.

"You haven't your rose to-day."

"Oh, I'm beyond the source of supply! I have a young friend, a girl, who

makes her living as a florist--not a purely commercial enterprise, for

she experiments and develops new varieties, and is quite wonderful; and

that white rose is her own creation--it is becoming well known. She

named it for me, and she sends me at least one every day--she says it's

my royalty--if that's what you lawyers call that sort of thing."

"We lawyers rarely have anything so interesting as that to apply the

word to! So that rose is the Barbara?" and it gave him a feeling of

recklessness to find himself speaking her name aloud. "There are large

conservatories on the estate, over there somewhere; I might risk the

scarlet fever by attacking the gardener and demanding a Barbara for

you."

"I'm afraid my little flower hasn't attained to the grandeur of

Ardsley," she laughed. "But pray, where are we?"

They had reached the highroad much sooner than Griswold had expected,

and he checked his horse abruptly, remembering that he was _persona non

grata_ on this soil.

"We must go back; I mustn't be seen here. The workmen are scattered all

about the place, and they all know me."

"Oh, just a little farther! I want to see the towers of the castle!"

If she had asked him to jump into the sea he would not have hesitated;

and he was so happy at being with her that his heart sang defiance to

Ardmore and the splendors of Ardsley.

They were riding now toward the red bungalow, where he had often

sprawled on the broad benches and chaffed with Ardmore for hours at a

time. Tea was served here sometimes when there were guests at the house;

and Griswold wondered just who were included in the party that his

quondam friend was entertaining, and how Mrs. Atchison was progressing

in her efforts to effect a match between Daisy Waters and her brother.

The drives were nearly all open to the public, so that by the letter of

the law he was no intruder; but beyond the bungalow he must not go.

Sobered by the thought of his breach with Ardmore, he resolved not to

pass the bungalow whose red roof was now in sight.

"It's like a fairy place, and I feel that there can be no end to it,"

Barbara was saying. "But it isn't kind to urge you in. We certainly are

doing nothing to find Appleweight, and it must be nearly noon."

It was just then--he vividly recalls the moment--as Griswold felt in his

waistcoat for his watch--that Miss Jerry Dangerfield, with Thomas

Ardmore at her side, galloped into view. They were racing madly, like

irresponsible children, and bore boisterously down upon the two

pilgrims.

Jerry and Ardmore, hatless and warm, were pardonably indignant at thus

being arrested in their flight, and the master of Ardsley, feeling for

once the dignity of his proprietorship, broke out stormily.

"I would have you know--I would have you know--" he roared, and then his

voice failed him. He stared; he spluttered; he busied himself with his

horse, which was dancing in eagerness to resume the race. He quieted the

beast, which nevertheless arched and pawed like a war-horse, and then

the master of Ardsley bawled:

"Grissy! I say, Grissy!"

Miss Osborne and Professor Griswold, on their drooping Mingo County

nondescripts, made a tame picture before Ardmore and his fair companion

on their Ardsley hunters. The daughter of the governor of South Carolina

looked upon the daughter of the governor of North Carolina with high

disdain, and it need hardly be said that this feeling, as expressed by

glacial glances, was evenly reciprocal, and that in the contemptuous

upward tilt of two charming chins the nicest judgment would have been

necessary to any fair opinion as to which state had the better argument.

The associate professor of admiralty was known as a ready debater, and

he quickly returned his former friend's salutation, and in much the

contumelious tone he would have used in withering an adversary before a

jury.

"Pardon me, but are you one of the employees here?"

"Why, Grissy, old man, don't look at me like that! How did you--"

"I owe your master an apology for riding upon his property at a time

when pestilence is giving you cause for so much concern. The death-rate

from scarlet fever is deplorably high--"

"Oh, Grissy!" cried Ardmore.

"You have addressed me familiarly, by a nickname sometimes used by

intimate friends, though I can't for the life of me recall you. I want

you to know that I am here in an official capacity, on an errand for the

state of South Carolina."

Miss Dangerfield's chin, which had dropped a trifle, pointed again into

the blue ether.

"You will pardon me," she said, "but an agent of the state of South

Carolina is far exceeding his powers when he intrudes upon North

Carolina soil."

"The state of South Carolina does what it pleases and goes where it

likes," declared Miss Barbara Osborne warmly, whereupon Mr. Ardmore, at

a glance from his coadjutor, waxed righteously indignant.

"It's one thing, sir, for you to ride in here as a sight-seer, but quite

another for you to come representing an unfriendly state. You will

please choose which view of the matter I shall take, and I shall act

accordingly."

Griswold's companion spoke to him earnestly in a low tone for a moment,

and then Griswold addressed Ardmore incisively.

"I don't know what you pretend to be, sir; but it may interest you to

know that _I_ am the governor of South Carolina!"

"And this gentleman," cried Jerry, pointing to Ardmore with her

riding-crop, "though his hair is mussed and his scarf visibly untied, is

none other than the governor of North Carolina, and he is not only on

his own property, but in the sovereign state of which he is the chief

executive."

Professor Griswold lifted his hat with the least flourish.

"I congratulate the state of North Carolina on having reposed authority

in hands so capable. If this young lady is correct, sir, I will serve

official notice on you that I have reason to believe that a person named

Appleweight, a fugitive from justice, is hiding on your property and in

your state, and I now formally demand that you surrender him forthwith."

"If I may introduce myself," interposed Jerry, "I will say to you that

my name is Geraldine Dangerfield, and that this Appleweight person is

now at Mr. Ardmore's house."

"I suppose," replied Miss Osborne with gentle irony, "that he has the

pink parlor and leads the conversation at table."

"You are quite mistaken," replied Ardmore; "but if it would afford you

any satisfaction to see the outlaw you may look upon him in my wine

cellar, where, only an hour ago, I left him sitting on a case of

Chateau Bizet '82. My further intentions touching this scoundrelly South

Carolinian I need not now disclose; but I give you warning that the

Appleweight issue will soon and forever be terminated and in a manner

that will greatly redound to the credit and the glory of the Old North

State."

Professor Griswold's hand went to his mustache with a gesture that smote

Ardmore, for he knew that it hid that inscrutable smile that had always

baffled him.

"I trust," said Griswold, "that the prisoner, whom we can not for a

moment concede to be the real Appleweight, will not be exposed to

scarlet fever, pending a settlement of this matter. It is my

understanding that the Bizet '82 is a fraudulent vintage that has never

been nearer France than Paris, Illinois, and if the prisoner in your

cellar drinks of it I shall hold you officially responsible for the

consequences. And now, I have the honor to bid you both good morning."

He and Barbara swung their horses round and retraced their way, leaving

Ardmore and Jerry gazing after them.

When the shabby beasts from the stable at Turner Court House had borne

Miss Osborne and Griswold out of sight beyond the bungalow, Ardmore

turned blankly to Jerry.

"Have I gone blind or anything? Unless I'm crazy that was dear old

Grissy, but who is that girl?"

"That is Miss Barbara Osborne, and I hope she has learned such a lesson

that she will not be snippy to me any more, if she _is_ the

president-general of the Daughters of the Seminole War."

"But where do you suppose she found Grissy?"

"I don't know, I'm sure; nor, Mr. Ardmore, do I care."

"He said he represented the state of South Carolina--do you suppose the

governor has really employed him?"

"I do not," said Jerry emphatically; "for he appears intelligent, and

intelligence is something that would never appeal to Governor Osborne.

It is quite possible," mused Jerry aloud, "that Miss Osborne's father

has disappeared like mine, and that she is running his office with Mr.

Griswold's aid. If so, we shall probably have some fun before we get

through with this."

"If that's true we shall have more than fun!" exclaimed Ardmore,

thoroughly aroused. "You don't know Grissy. He's the smartest man alive,

and if he's running this Appleweight case for Governor Osborne, he'll

keep us guessing. Why did I ever send him that scarlet fever telegram,

anyhow? He'll fight harder than ever for that and all I wanted was to

keep him away until we had got all through with this business here so I

could show him what a great man I had been and how I had been equal to

an opportunity when it offered."

"I wish you to remember, Mr. Ardmore, that you still have _your_

opportunity, and that I expect you to carry this matter through to a

safe conclusion and to the honor of the Old North State."

"I have no intention of failing, Miss Dangerfield;" and with this they

turned and rode slowly back toward the house.

Professor Griswold and Miss Osborne were silent until the forest again

shut them in.

Then, in a sequestered spot, Griswold suddenly threw up his head and

laughed long and loud.

"It doesn't strike me as being so amusing," remarked Miss Osborne. "They

have Appleweight in their wine cellar and I don't see for the life of me

how we are going to get him out."

"What's funny, Miss Osborne, is Ardy--that he and I should be pitted

against each other in a thing of this kind is too utterly ridiculous.

Ardy acting as governor of North Carolina beats anything that ever

happened on this continent. But how do you suppose he ever met Miss

Dangerfield, who certainly is a self-contained young woman?"

"The answer to that riddle is so simple," replied Miss Osborne, "that I

am amazed that you fail to see it for yourself. Miss Dangerfield is

undoubtedly the girl with the winking eye."

"Oh, no!" protested Griswold.

"I don't hesitate to announce that as a fact. Miss Geraldine

Dangerfield, beyond any question, is the young lady whom Mr. Ardmore,

your knight errant friend, went forth for to seek. Just how they met we

shall perhaps learn later on. But just now it seems rather necessary for

us to adopt some plan of action, unless you feel that you do not wish to

oppose your friend."

"Oppose him! I have got to whip him to the dust if I shake down the very

towers of his stronghold! It's well we have the militia on the road.

With the state army at our back we can show Tommy Ardmore a few things

in state administration that are not dreamed of in his philosophy."

"Do you suppose they really have Appleweight?" asked Barbara.

"Not for a minute! They told us that story merely to annoy us when they

found what we were looking for. That touch about the wine cellar is

characteristically Ardmoresque. If they had Appleweight you may be sure

they wouldn't keep him on the premises."

Whereupon, they rode back to Turner Court House much faster than they

had come.

CHAPTER XV

THE PRISONER IN THE CORN-CRIB

Jerry and Ardmore sat at a long table in the commodious Ardsley library,

which was a modification of a Gothic chapel. It was on the upper floor,

with broad windows that had the effect of bringing the landscape

indoors, and the North Carolina sky is, we must concede, a pleasant

thing to have at one's elbow. A large accumulation of mail from the

governor's office at Raleigh had been forwarded, and Jerry insisted that

it must be opened and disposed of in some way. Governor Dangerfield was,

it appeared, a subscriber to a clipping bureau, and they had been

examining critically a batch of cuttings relating to the New Orleans

incident. Most of them were in a frivolous key, playfully reviving the

ancient query as to what the governor of North Carolina really said to

the governor of South Carolina. Others sought causes for the

widely-reported disappearance of the two governors; and still other

reports boldly maintained that Governors Dangerfield and Osborne were

at their capitals engaged in the duties of their respective offices.

"It's a good thing we got hold of Collins" observed Ardmore, putting

down a clipping from a New York paper in which the reports of Governor

Dangerfield's disappearance were analyzed and tersely dismissed; "for he

knows how to write and he's done a splendid picture of your father on

his throne attending to business; and his little stingers for Osborne

are the work of genius."

"There's a certain finish about Mr. Collins' lying that is refreshing,"

replied Jerry, "and I can not help thinking that he has a brilliant

future before him if he enters politics. Nothing pains me more than a

careless, ill-considered, silly lie, which is the best that most people

can do. But it would be very interesting to know whether Governor

Osborne has really disappeared, or just how your friend the Virginia

professor has seized the reins of state. Do you suppose he got a jug

from somewhere, and met Miss Osborne and--"

"Do you think--do you think--she may have--er possibly--closed one eye

in his direction?" asked Ardmore dubiously.

"Mr. Ardmore"--and Jerry pointed at him with a bronze paper-cutter to

make sure of his attention--"Mr. Ardmore, if you ever imply again by

act, word or deed that I winked at you I shall never, never speak to you

again. I should think that a man with a nice sister like Mrs. Atchison

would have a better opinion of women than you seem to have. I never saw

you until you came to my father's house to tell me about the jug--and

you know I didn't. And as for that Barbara Osborne, while I don't doubt

that even in South Carolina a Daughter of the Seminole War might wink at

a gentleman in a moment of extreme provocation, I doubt if she did, for

she lacks animation, and has no more soul than a gum overshoe."

The obvious inconsistency of this pronouncement caused Ardmore to frown

in the stress of his thought; and he stared helplessly along the line of

the accusing paper-cutter into Jerry's eyes.

"Oh, cheer up!" she cried in her despair of him; "and forget it, forget

it, forget it! I'll say this to you, Mr. Ardmore, that if I ever winked

at you--and I never, never did--I'm sorry I did it! Some time when you

haven't so much work on your hands as you have this morning just think

that over and let me know where you land. And now, look at these things,

please."

"What is all this stuff?" he demanded, as she tossed him a pile of

papers.

"They refer to the application for pardon of a poor man who's going to

be hanged for murder to-morrow unless we do something for him; and he

has a wife and three little children, and he has never committed any

other crime but to break into a smoke-house and steal a side of bacon."

"Did he shoot in self-defense, or how was it?" asked Ardmore judicially.

"He killed a painless dentist who pulled the wrong tooth," answered

Jerry, referring to the papers.

"If that's all I don't think we can stand for hanging him. I read a

piece against capital punishment in a magazine once and the arguments

were very strong. The killing of a dentist should not be a crime anyhow,

and if you know how to pardon a man, why let's do it; but we'd better

wait until the last minute, and then send telegram to the sheriff to

stop the proceedings just before he pulls the string, which makes it

most impressive, and gives a better effect."

"I believe you are right about it," said Jerry. "There's an old pardon

right here in this bundle which we can use. It was made out for another

man who stole a horse that afterwards died, which papa said was a

mitigating circumstance; but the week before his execution the man

escaped from jail before papa could pardon him."

"Suppose we don't let them hang anybody while we're running the state,"

suggested Ardmore; "it's almost as though you murdered a man yourself,

and I couldn't tie my neckties afterwards without a guilty feeling. I

can't imagine anything more disagreeable than to be hanged. I heard all

of _Tristan und Isolde_ once, and I have seen half an Ibsen play, and

those were hard things to bear, but I suppose hanging would be just as

painful and there would be no supper afterwards to cheer you up."

"You shouldn't speak in that tone of _Afterwards_, Mr. Ardmore," said

Jerry severely. "It isn't religious. And while we're on the subject of

religion, may I ask the really, truly wherefore of Miss Daisy Waters'

sudden return to Newport?" and Jerry's tone and manner were carelessly

demure.

"She went home," replied Ardmore, grinning; "she left Ardsley for two

reasons, one of which she stated at the breakfast table and the other

she handed me privately."

"She said at the breakfast table that she was called home by incipient

whooping cough in the household of her brother-in-law's cousin's

family."

"As she has no brother-in-law, that can not be true. What she said to me

privately was that the house party had grown very much larger than Mrs.

Atchison had originally planned it, and that I am so busy that so many

guests must be a burden."

Jerry stroked her cheek reflectively.

"I thought Miss Waters wouldn't last long after I asked her if rusty

nail water really would remove freckles. My own freckles are exactly

seven in number and I am not ashamed of them, but Miss Waters seemed

very sensitive on the subject, though I thought her freckles useful in

diverting attention from her drugstore hair."

"Did you say seven?" inquired Ardmore, gazing eagerly into Jerry's face.

"I make it only six, and there's one away over there under your left eye

that seems very lonesome, as though it suffered keenly from being so far

away from its brothers and sisters on the other side of your nose."

"Mr. Ardmore"--and Jerry again indicated the person addressed by

pointing with the paper-cutter--"Mr. Ardmore, it is downright impudent

of you to talk to me about my appearance in any terms, but when you

speak of my face as though it were a map in a geography and of my

freckles as though they were county seats, or lakes, or strange places

in China, then I must protest with all my strength. If you don't change

the subject immediately I shall refuse to pardon this person who killed

the painless dentist, and he shall be hanged by the neck till he be

dead; and you, Mr. Thomas Ardmore, will be guilty of his murder."

The discussion of Miss Jerry Dangerfield's freckles ceased abruptly on

the appearance of Big Paul, the forester.

"A body of South Carolina militia is marching across country from the

south. One of my men heard of it down at Turner Court House last night

and rode to where the troops were encamped. He learned that it was a

practice march for the militia. There's several companies of infantry,

so he reports, and a piece of artillery."

"Bully for old Grissy!" exclaimed Ardmore. "They're coming this way, are

they, Paul?" And the three bent over the map.

"That is the place, sir. They seem to be planning to get around Turner's

without stirring up the town. But it would take a good deal to wake up

Turner's," laughed the big German.

Jerry placed her finger on the state line.

"If they dare cross that--if they as much as dare!"

"If they dare we shall show them a few things. Take all the men you

need, Paul, to watch their movements. That will do."

The forester lingered.

"You remember that we spoke the other day of the log house on Raccoon

Creek, where the Appleweights had driven off our man?"

"Yes, Paul. It is where the state line crosses the heavy woods and the

farthest outpost, so to speak, on my property. When you cross the little

creek, you're in South Carolina. You said some of these Appleweight

fellows had been cutting off the timber down there, if I remember

rightly."

"Yes, sir," replied the forester, twirling his cap awkwardly. "But some

of the people on the estate have said--"

He broke off in an embarrassment so unlike him that Jerry and Ardmore

looked at him curiously.

"Well, Paul, what's the matter? If the cabin has been burned down it's

no serious matter."

"Why, sir; some of the men passing there at night say they see lights

and hear sounds in the cabin, though no one from the estate goes there.

A child died in the house last spring and--well, you know how some of

these people are!"

"Ghosts!" cried Ardmore. "The property is growing more valuable all the

time! Tell them that whoever captures the ghost and brings it here shall

have a handsome present. So far it's only a light in an abandoned

house--is that it?"

"Well, they say it's very strange," and it was clear that the German was

not wholly satisfied to have his employer laugh off the story.

"Cheer up, Paul. We have bigger business on hand than the chasing of

ghosts just now. When we get through with these other things I'll go

over there myself and take a look at the spook."

As Paul hurried away, Jerry seized a pen and wrote this message:

Rutherford Gillingwater,

Adjutant-General, Camp Dangerfield,

Azbell, N. C.:

Move all available troops by shortest route to Kildare at once and

report to me personally at Ardsley. Make no statements to

newspapers. Answer.

DANGERFIELD,

Governor.

"I guess that will bring him running," said Ardmore, calling a servant

and ordering the message despatched immediately. "But when he comes,

expecting to report to the governor and finds that he isn't here, what

do you suppose he will do?"

"Mr. Ardmore," began Jerry, in the tone of sweet tolerance with which

one arraigns a hopeless child, "Mr. Ardmore, there are times when you

tax my patience severely. You don't seem to grasp the idea that we are

not making explanations to inferiors in our administration. Colonel

Gillingwater will undoubtedly be a good deal surprised to get that

message, but when the first shock is over he will obey the orders of his

commander-in-chief. And the fact that he is ordered to report to Ardsley

will not be lost on him, for he will see in that a possible social

opportunity, and a chance to wear some of his uniforms that he has never

worn before. He will think that papa is really here to test the

efficiency of the troops, and that as papa is a guest at Ardsley, which

we know he isn't, there will probably be some great social functions in

this house, with papa's staff dressed up and all shiny in gold braid.

Since Rutherford Gillingwater had the typhoid fever during the Spanish

War I have not been sure that he is as much interested in fighting as

he is in the purely circus work of being a soldier. I just now recall

that when papa was about to order out the troops to stop a railroad

strike last spring, Rutherford Gillingwater went to all the trouble of

having tonsilitis and was so ill that he could hardly leave his room

even after the strike had been settled by arbitration. If he knew that

there was likely to be a terrible battle over here instead of nice long

dinners and toasts to "The Old North State," "Our Governor," and "The

Governor's Daughter," his old wounds, that he never had, might trouble

him so that they'd have to wrap him up in cotton and carry him home."

Before luncheon a message was received from Gillingwater, to this

effect:

Governor William Dangerfield,

Ardsley, N. C.:

En route with our entire available force in the field. I am riding

ahead with all speed, and will report at Ardsley at nine o'clock.

Is full military dress _de rigueur_?

GILLINGWATER, Adjutant-General.

"Isn't that just like Rutherford! He's afraid he won't be dressy enough;

but if he knew that the South Carolina troops might shoot holes in his

uniform he wouldn't be due here for a couple of weeks, instead of at

nine o'clock to-night;" and Jerry laughed merrily.

They debated more seriously this telegram from Collins at Raleigh sent

the previous evening:

Can't maintain this bluff much longer. Even the friendly newspapers

are growing suspicious. State credit jeopardized by disappearance

of Treasurer Foster. Billings, of Bronx Loan and Trust, here in a

great fury over bond matter. Do you know governor's whereabouts?

"Things are certainly growing more exciting," was Ardmore's comment. "I

suppose even a gifted liar like Collins can't muzzle the press forever."

"You can't go on fooling all North Carolina all the time, either," said

Jerry, "and I suppose when papa gets tired of being scared he will turn

up in Raleigh and tell some plausible story about where he has been and

what has happened. When it comes to being plausible no one can touch

papa."

"Maybe he's dead," suggested Ardmore gloomily.

"That's a real inspiration on your part, Mr. Ardmore; and it's very

sweet of you to mention it, but I have no idea that any harm has come to

papa. It's too much trouble to get elected governor, without dying in

office, and besides, papa is none too friendly with the lieutenant

governor and would never think of allowing such a person to succeed

him. But those bonds seem rather serious and I don't like the idea of

your Mr. Billings making a fuss at Raleigh."

"That will be all right," remarked Ardmore, blotting the last of a

number of telegrams which he had been writing, and pressing a button.

"It's much more important for us to get Appleweight into a South

Carolina jail; and it's not going to be so easy to do, now that Grissy

is working on the other side, and angry at me about that scarlet fever

telegram."

"There may be trouble," said Ardmore to his guests as they sat at

luncheon. "But I should hate to have it said that my guests could not be

taken care of here perfectly. I beg that you will all remain."

"If there's to be a row, why don't you call the police and be done with

it?" asked a sad young member of the company. His motor number had so

often figured in reports of speed law violations that he was known as

Eighteen Eighty. "I thought you came down here for quiet and not to get

into trouble, Ardy."

"If I miss my steamer nine days from to-day, and meanwhile have to eat

horse meat, just as they did in the siege of Paris, I shall be greatly

provoked, to say the least," remarked Mrs. Atchison pleasantly; for her

brother's amazing awakening delighted her and it was a cheering

experience that he promised, of civil war, battle, murder and sudden

death.

"I think I shall spend more time in America after this," remarked

Eighteen Eighty. "I did not know that amusing things ever happened over

here. What did you say the name of this state is?"

"The name of this state," replied Miss Dangerfield, "is North Carolina,

and I have my opinion of any native American who runs around Europe all

the time, and who can visit a place in this country without even knowing

the name of the state he is in."

"But there's really no difference between North and South Carolina, is

there?" persisted Eighteen Eighty.

Jerry put down her fork, and folded her hands beside her plate, while

she addressed the offender.

"Mr. Number Something, the difference between the Old North State and

South Carolina is not merely geographical--it is also intellectual,

ethical and spiritual. But may I ask you whether you know of which state

you are a citizen?"

A laugh rose as the sad young man flushed and looked inquiringly about.

"I voted you in my precinct that time I ran for alderman in New York,"

said Ardmore, "but that's no sign you had a right to vote there. I shot

Ballywinkle through the booth at the same time. I was a reform candidate

and needed votes, but I hoped Bally would get arrested and be sent to

jail. My impression is that you are really a citizen of Rhode Island,

which is where Newport is."

The debate as to Eighteen Eighty's legal residence was interrupted by

the arrival of a summons for Ardmore, who hurriedly left the table.

Big Paul awaited him below, mounted and holding a led-horse.

"There's a line of the South Carolina militia crawling through the woods

toward Raccoon Creek. They insist that it's a practice skirmish and that

they've come over here because the landscape is naturally adapted to

their purposes."

"It's awfully nice of them to like my scenery. You'd better send your

best man out to meet Colonel Gillingwater of the North Carolina militia,

and tell him to march all his troops into the estate by the north gates,

and to be in a hurry. Tell him--tell him Governor Dangerfield is anxious

to have the staff present in full uniform at a grand ball at Ardsley

to-night."

Ardmore rode off alone toward Raccoon Creek to catch a view of the

enemy. How far would Griswold go? This question he kept debating with

himself. His late friend was a lawyer and a serious one whom he had not

believed capable of seizing the militia of one state and using it to

make a military demonstration against another. Ardmore could go as far

as Griswold; yet he was puzzled to know why Griswold was in the field at

all. Miss Dangerfield's suggestion that Griswold's interest in the

daughter of the governor of South Carolina accounted for his presence on

the border seemed plausible at first; and yet the more he thought about

it the less credible it seemed, for he was sure that Griswold had talked

to him about women with the frankness that had characterized all their

intercourse, and Ardmore racked his brains in his effort to recall the

few affairs to which the associate professor of admiralty had pleaded

guilty. Memory brought these back to him slowly. There was an Old Point

Comfort affair, dating back to Griswold's student days, and to which he

had referred with no little feeling once or twice; and there was a York

Harbor affair, that came a little later; and there was the girl he had

met on a steamer, about whom Griswold had shown sensitiveness when

Ardmore had made bold to twit him. But Ardmore could not account for

Miss Osborne, unless his friend had been withholding his confidence

while seemingly wholly frank; and the thought that this must be true

widened the breach between them. And when he was saying to himself that

the daughters of governors are not in the habit of picking up cavaliers

and intrusting state affairs to them and that it was almost

inconceivable that the conscientious Griswold, at the busiest season at

the university, should have taken employment from the governor of South

Carolina, he found that he had struck a stone wall, and he confessed to

himself that the situation was beyond him.

These reflections carried him far toward Raccoon Creek, and when he had

reached that tortuous stream he dismounted and tied his horse, the more

freely to examine the frontier. The Raccoon is never more than eighty

feet wide, but filled with boulders round which the water foams in many

curves and splashes, running away in the merriest ripples, so that it is

never wholly tranquil. By jumping from boulder to boulder he crossed the

turbulent tide and gained the other side with a sense of entering the

enemy's country.

"Now," he muttered, "I am in South Carolina."

He drew out his map and held it against a tree the better to study it,

reassuring himself that his own property line embraced several sections

of the forest on the south side of the state boundary.

"If Grissy shoots me, it will be on my own land," he said aloud.

He cautiously followed the stream until, several hundred yards farther

on, and overhanging the creek, he came upon the log cabin in which big

Paul had reported the presence of a ghost. Paul's story had not

interested him particularly, but now that he was in the neighborhood he

resolved to visit the cabin and learn if possible how ghosts amuse

themselves by day. He had thrust a revolver into his pocket before

leaving the house and while he had no idea that ghosts may be shot, he

now made sure that the weapon was in good order. As he sat on a log

slipping the cylinder through his fingers he heard whistling farther

along the creek, followed quickly by the snapping of twigs under a heavy

tread, and a moment later a tall, slender man broke into view.

The stranger was dressed like a countryman, but he was unmistakably not

of the Ardsley force of workmen, for these wore a rough sort of uniform.

His hands were thrust carelessly into the side pockets of a gray jeans

coat. They were thrust in deep, so that the coat sagged at the pockets.

His trousers were turned up from a pair of rough shoes and he wore a

gray flannel shirt, the collar of which was guiltless of a tie. He was

smooth shaven, and carried in his mouth a short pipe, which he paused to

relight when about a dozen yards from Ardmore. Then, as he held the

lighted match above the pipe bowl for an instant to make sure his

tobacco was burning, Ardmore jumped up and covered him with the pistol.

"I beg your pardon," said the master of Ardsley, "but you're my

prisoner!"

The stranger shook the flame out of the match-stick carefully and threw

it away before turning toward his captor.

"Young man," he said with perfect self-possession, "don't fool with that

gun; it might go off."

His drawl was characteristic of the region; his tone was one of amused

tolerance. Ardmore was short of stature, and his knickerbockers,

leggings and Norfolk jacket were not wholly consonant with the revolver,

which, however, he leveled very steadily at the stranger's head.

"You are an intruder on my property," said the master of Ardsley, "and

unless I'm much mistaken you have been playing ghost in that cabin.

I've heard about you. Your gang has been cutting off my timber about

long enough, and this game of playing ghost to scare my men won't do."

"Stealing your timber?" And the stranger was clearly surprised. He held

his pipe in his hand with his thumb over the bowl and seemed to take a

more serious interest in his captor.

"And now," continued Ardmore, "I'm about tired of having this end of the

country run by the Appleweights, and their disreputable gang, so I'm

going to lock you up."

The stranger turned toward the cabin, one corner of which was plainly

visible, and shrugged his shoulders.

"I have nothing to do with the Appleweights, and I assure you I am not a

timber thief."

"Then you must be the one who has lifted a few steers out of my herd. It

makes no difference just what branch of the business you are engaged in,

for we're picking up all the gang and you've got to come along with me."

The captive showed signs of anger for the first time. His face flushed,

and he took a step toward Ardmore, who immediately threw up the

revolver so that it pointed at the man's head.

"Stop right there! We've got old man Appleweight, so you've lost your

leader, and I tell you the jig's up. We'll have you all in jail before

another twenty-four hours has passed."

"I judge from the tone of your remarks that you are Ardmore, the owner

of Ardsley. Am I right?"

"You are quite right. And you are a member of a disreputable gang of

outlaws that has been bringing shame upon the state of North Carolina.

Now, I want you to march straight ahead of me. Step lively now!" And

Ardmore flourished the pistol menacingly. "March!"

[Illustration]

The man hesitated, flung up his head defiantly, then moved slowly

forward. The flush in his face had deepened and his eyes flashed

angrily; but Ardmore, his cap on the back of his head, himself presented

a figure so severe, so eloquent of righteous indignation, that the

stranger tamely obeyed him.

"We will cross the creek right here," he ordered; "it's a pretty jump

there from that boulder--there, that was bully! Now right along there

over the log--see the trail! Good!"

It was warm and the captive was perspiring freely. He moved along

docilely, and finding that he manifested no inclination to bolt, Ardmore

dropped the revolver to his side, but with his finger on the trigger. He

was very proud of himself; for while to Miss Jerry Dangerfield

undoubtedly belonged the honor of capturing the thief Appleweight, yet

he had single-handed arrested a member of the famous gang, and he had

already resolved upon a convenient method of disposing of his prisoner.

They paused while Ardmore mounted his horse, silencing the captive, who

took the opportunity to break out protestingly against what he termed an

infamous outrage upon personal liberty.

"You've taken me from one state into another without due process of

law," declared the stranger, thinking to impress Ardmore, as that young

gentleman settled himself in his saddle.

"Go right on now; that's a good fellow," replied the master of Ardsley,

lifting the revolver warningly. "Whether it's North Carolina or South

Dakota--it doesn't make a particle of difference to me. As I remarked

before, it's my property, I tell you, and I do what I please here."

"I'll show you whether you do or not," snorted the prisoner, who was

trudging along doggedly with the nose of Ardmore's horse occasionally

poking his back.

They soon reached a field where some laborers were at work, and Ardmore

called them to him for instructions.

"Boys, this is one of the timber thieves; put him in that corn-crib

until I come back for him. The nights are warm; the sky is perfectly

clear; and you will kindly see that he does not lack for food."

Two of the men jumped forward and seized Ardmore's prisoner, who now

broke forth in a torrent of wrath, struggling vigorously in the hands of

the sturdy fellows who had laid violent hands on him.

"That's right, boys; that's right; easy there! Now in he goes."

A series of corn-cribs fringed the field, and into one of these, from

which half the corn had been removed, the prisoner was thrust sprawling

upon the yellow ears, and when he rose and flung himself round, the door

of the corn-crib slammed in his face. He bellowed with rage now, seeing

that his imprisonment was a serious matter, and that it seemed likely to

be prolonged indefinitely.

"They always told me you were a fool," he howled, "but I didn't know

that anything as crazy as you are was loose in the world."

"Thank you. The head of your gang is much more polite. He's sitting on

his case of Chateau Bizet in my wine cellar, playing solitaire."

"Appleweight in your wine cellar!" bawled the captive in astonishment.

"Certainly. I was afraid to lock him in a room with bath for fear it

might give him hydrophobia; but he's perfectly content in the wine

cellar."