nd pulled the throttle out as far as it would go. Its
engine clamoring, its rigid tracks transmitting every shock and
battering them, the tankette flogged forward through the brush. There
was gunfire booming behind them, and there were other motors sputtering
into life.

There was no one among the nobles to drive as well as Geoffrey
could--certainly no one who could keep up with him at night, in country
he knew. He could probably depend on that much.

He lit the carbide lamp over the panel.

Geoffrey looked at the crest worked into the metal, and laughed. He had
even managed to steal Dugald's tankette.

* * * * *

By morning, they were a good fifty miles away from where the battle had
been fought. They were almost as far as the Delaware River, and the
ground was broken into low hills, each a little higher than the last.
Geoffrey had only been this far away from his home a few times, before
his father's death, and then never in this direction. Civilization was
not considered to extend this far inland. When a young man went on his
travels, preparatory for the day when he inherited his father's holdings
and settled down to maintain them, he went along the coast, perhaps as
far as Philadelphia or Hartford.

Geoffrey had always had a lively interest in strange surroundings. He
had regretted the day his journeyings came to an end--not that he
hadn't regretted his father's passing even more. Now, as dawn came up
behind them, he could not help turning his head from side to side and
looking at the strangely humped land, seeing for the first time a
horizon which was not flat. He found himself intrigued by the thought
that he had no way of knowing what lay beyond the next hill--that he
would have to travel, and keep traveling, to satisfy a perpetually
renewed curiosity.

All this occupied one part of his mind. Simultaneously, he wondered how
much farther they'd travel in this vehicle. The huge sixteen-cylinder
in-line engine was by now delivering about one-fourth of its rated fifty
horsepower, with a good half of its spark plugs hopelessly fouled and
the carburetor choked by the dust of yesterday's battle.

They were very low on shot and powder charges for the two-pounder turret
cannon, as well. The tankette had of course never been serviced after
the battle. There was one good thing--neither had their pursuers'.
Looking back, Geoffrey could see no sign of them. But he could also see
the pl