!" he exclaimed, as the
owner met him in the doorway.

"I'd 'a' been a dead man if you hadn't come this minute," Ponk growled
back.

"Congratulations! The good die young," York returned. "I failed to get
through to the place I wanted to see. That Saturday rain filled the dry
upper channels where a bridge would rot in the tall weeds, but an
all-day rain puts a dangerous flood in every ford, so I came back in
time to save your life. What's your grievance?"

Ponk's face was agonizing between smiles and tears. "Well, spite of all
I, or _anybody_ could do, Miss Swaim takes my little gadabout this
morning and makes off with it."

"And broke the wind-shield? I told you to keep her at home."

York still refused to be serious.

"I don't know what's broke, except my feelin's. You tried yet to _keep_
her anywhere? She would go off to that danged infernal blowout section
of the country, _and she ain't back yet_."

York Macpherson grasped the little man by the arm. "Not back yet! Where
is she, then?"

"She ain't; that's all I know," Ponk responded, flatly. "Yes, yes,
yonder she is just soarin' into the avenue up by 'Castle Cluny' this
minute. Thank the Lord an' that Quaker-colored gadabout!"

"Tell her I'll see her at the hotel as soon as I get my mail," York
said, and he hurried to his office.

A few minutes later Jerry Swaim brought the gray runabout up to the
doorway of the garage.

Ponk assisted her from it and took the livery hire mechanically.

"Thank you, Miss Swaim. Hope you had a safe day. No'm, that's too much,"
handing back a coin of the change. "That's regular. Yes'm." Then, as an
afterthought, he added, with a bow, "York Macpherson he's in town again,
an' he's waitin' to see you in the hotel 'parlor.'"

"Oh!" a gasp of surprise and relief. "Thank you, Mr. Ponk. Yes, I have
had a safe day." And Jerry was gone.

The little man stared after her for a full minute. Then he gave a long
whistle.

"She's a Spartan, an' she's goin' to die game. I'll gamble on that with
Rockefeller. This is the rummiest, bummiest world I ever lived in," he
declared to himself. "Why _the_ dickens does the blowouts have to fall
on the just as well as the unjust 's what I respectfully rise to ask of
the Speaker of all good an' perfect gifts. An' I'm goin' to keep the
floor till I get the recognition of Chair."

York Macpherson was standing with his back to the window, so that his
face was in the shadow, when Jerry Swaim came int