long motor-coat and dragged
him down the steps. Reluctantly, almost resistingly, the visitor
stumbled after him, casting backward amazed glances at the beautiful
lady. Fred thrust him into the seat beside the chauffeur. Pointing at
the golf-cap and automobile goggles which the stranger was stupidly
twisting in his hands, Fred whispered fiercely:

"Put those on! Cover your face! Don't speak! The man knows what to do."

With eager eyes and parted lips James the chauffeur was waiting for the
signal. Fred nodded sharply, and the chauffeur stooped to throw in the
clutch. But the car did not start. From the hedge beside the driveway,
directly in front of the wheels, something on all fours threw itself
upon the gravel; something in a suit of purple-gray; something torn
and bleeding, smeared with sweat and dirt; something that cringed and
crawled, that tried to rise and sank back upon its knees, lifting to the
glare of the head-lights the white face and white hair of a very old,
old man. The kneeling figure sobbed; the sobs rising from far down in
the pit of the stomach, wrenching the body like waves of nausea. The man
stretched his arms toward them. From long disuse his voice cracked and
broke.

"I'm done!" he sobbed. "I can't go no farther! I give myself up!"

Above the awful silence that held the four young people, the prison
siren shrieked in one long, mocking howl of triumph.

It was the stranger who was the first to act. Pushing past Fred, and
slipping from his own shoulders the long motor-coat, he flung it over
the suit of purple-gray. The goggles he clapped upon the old man's
frightened eyes, the golf-cap he pulled down over the white hair. With
one arm he lifted the convict, and with the other dragged and pushed him
into the seat beside the chauffeur. Into the hands of the chauffeur he
thrust the roll of bills.

"Get him away!" he ordered. "It's only twelve miles to the Connecticut
line. As soon as you're across, buy him clothes and a ticket to Boston.
Go through White Plains to Greenwich--and then you're safe!"

As though suddenly remembering the presence of the owner of the car, he
swung upon Fred. "Am I right?" he demanded.

"Of course!" roared Fred. He flung his arm at the chauffeur as though
throwing him into space.

"Get-to-hell-out-of-here!" he shouted.

The chauffeur, by profession a criminal, but by birth a human being,
chuckled savagely and this time threw in the clutch. With a grinding of
gravel