"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
revolver. He was so close that the muzzle of the weapon almost
touched Barney's face. In that the fellow made his mistake.