"Never mind, sweetheart; don't let it fuss you so. It will turn out all
right, I know it will."

"Oh, I can't run any farther," she gasped despairingly.

"Poor little chap! Let me carry you?"

"You big ninny!"

"We are at least three miles from your house, dear, and surrounded by
deadly perils. Can you climb a tree?"

"I can--but I won't!" she refused flatly, her cheeks very red.

"Then I fancy we'll have to keep on in this manner. It's a confounded
shame--the whole business. Just as I thought everything was going so
smoothly, too. It was all arranged to a queen's taste--nothing was left
undone. Bracken was to meet us at his uncle's boathouse down there,
and--good heavens, there was a shot!"

The sharp crack of a rifle broke upon the still, balmy air, as they say
in the "yellow-backs," and the fugitives looked at each other with
suddenly awakened dread.

"The fools!" grated the man.

"What do they mean?" cried the breathless girl, very white in the face.

"They are trying to frighten us, that's all. Hang it! If I only knew the
lay of the land. I'm completely lost, Marjory. Do you know precisely