desire to protect and guard this unfortunate child.

"And when I was Crown Prince what were you, way back there in the

beautiful days of our childhood?" asked Barney.

"Why, I was what I still am, your majesty," replied the girl.

"Princess Emma von der Tann."

So the poor child, beside thinking him a king, thought herself a

princess! She certainly was mad. Well, he would humor her.

"Then I should call you 'your highness,' shouldn't I?" he asked.

"You always called me Emma when we were children."

"Very well, then, you shall be Emma and I Leopold. Is it a

bargain?"

"The king's will is law," she said.

They had come to a very steep hillside, up which the

half-obliterated trail zigzagged toward the crest of a flat-topped

hill. Barney went ahead, taking the girl's hand in his to help her,

and thus they came to the top, to stand hand in hand, breathing

heavily after the stiff climb.

The girl's hair had come loose about her temples and a lock was

blowing over her face. Her cheeks were very red and her eyes bright.

Barney thought he had never looked upon a lovelier picture. He

smiled down into her eyes and she smiled back at him.

"I wished, back there a way," he said, "that that little brook had

been as wide as the ocean--now I wish that this little hill had been

as high as Mont Blanc."

"You like to climb?" she asked.

"I should like to climb forever--with you," he said seriously.

She looked up at him quickly. A reply was on her lips, but she

never uttered it, for at that moment a ruffian in picturesque rags

leaped out from behind a near-by bush, confronting them with leveled

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