pass that would lead him across the next valley on his way to the

Old Forest, where he hoped to find some excellent shooting.

All his life Barney had promised himself that some day he should

visit his mother's native land, and now that he was here he found it

as wild and beautiful as she had said it would be.

Neither his mother nor his father had ever returned to the little

country since the day, thirty years before, that the big American

had literally stolen his bride away, escaping across the border but

a scant half-hour ahead of the pursuing troop of Luthanian cavalry.

Barney had often wondered why it was that neither of them would ever

speak of those days, or of the early life of his mother, Victoria

Rubinroth, though of the beauties of her native land Mrs. Custer

never tired of talking.

Barney Custer was thinking of these things as his machine wound up

the picturesque road. Just before him was a long, heavy grade, and

as he took it with open muffler the chugging of his motor drowned

the sound of pounding hoof beats rapidly approaching behind him.

It was not until he topped the grade that he heard anything unusual,

and at the same instant a girl on horseback tore past him. The speed

of the animal would have been enough to have told him that it was

beyond the control of its frail rider, even without the added

testimony of the broken bit that dangled beneath the tensely

outstretched chin.

Foam flecked the beast's neck and shoulders. It was evident that

the horse had been running for some distance, yet its speed was

still that of the thoroughly frightened runaway.

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