Fenner was mixed up in it. Billy knew her only by sight. She always
grinned at him and said: "Hello, Billee!" in her pretty dimpled way. He
didn't care for her himself. He had accepted her as a part of life, a
necessary evil. She wore her hair queer, and had very short tight
skirts, and high heels. She painted her face and vamped, but that was
her affair. He had heretofore tolerated her because she seemed in some
way to be under Mark Carter's recent protection. Therefore he had
growled "Ello!" grimly whenever she accosted him and let it go at that.
If it had come to a show down he would have stood up for her because he
knew that Mark would, that was all. Mark knew his own business. Far be
it from Billy to criticize his hero's reasons. Perhaps it was one of
Mark's weaknesses. It was up to him. That was the code of a "white man"
as Billy had learned it from "the fellas."

But this was a different matter. This involved Mark's honor. It was up
to him to find Mark!

Billy did not take the High road down from his detour. He cut across
below the Crossroads, over rough ground, among the underbrush, and
parting the low growing trees was lost in the gloom of the woods. But
he knew every inch of ground within twenty miles around, and darkness
did not take away his sense of direction. He crashed along among the
branches, making steady headway toward the spot where he had left his
bicycle, puffing and panting, his face streaked with dirt, his eyes
bleared and haggard, his whole lithe young body straining forward and
fighting against the dire weariness that was upon him, for it was not
often that he stayed up all night. Aunt Saxon saw to that much at
least.

The sky was growing rosy now, and he could hear the rumbling of the