flash, to the time Barney had
dared me to drive the _Yellow Peril_ up past the Cliff House to Sutro
Baths. I had the same heady elation of daredeviltry. I wouldn't have
turned back, then, even if I hadn't cared so much for her.

She didn't say anything more, and I sent the car ahead at a pace that
almost matched the mood I was in, and that brought White Divide sprinting
up to meet us. The trail was good, and the car was a dandy. I was making
straight for King's Highway as the best and only chance of carrying out my
foolhardy design. I doubt if any bold, bad knight of old ever had the
effrontery to carry his lady-love straight past her own door in broad
daylight.

Yet it was the safest thing I could do. I meant to get to Osage, and the
only practicable route for a car lay through the pass. To be sure, there
was a preacher at Kenmore; but with the chance of old King being there
also and interrupting the ceremony--supposing I brought matters
successfully that far--with a shot or two, did not in the least appeal to
me. I had made sure that there was plenty of gasoline aboard, so I drove
her right along.

"I hope your father isn't home," I remarked truthfully when we were
slipping into the wide jaws of the pass.

"He is, though; and so is Mr. Weaver. I think you had better jump out here
and run home, or it is not a velvet mask you will need, but a mantle of
invisibility." I couldn't make much of her tone, but her words implied
that even yet she would not take me seriously.

"Well, I've neither mask nor mantle," I said, "But the way I can fade down
the pass will, I think, be a fair substitute for both."

She said nothing whatever to that, but she began to seem interested in the
affair--as she had need to be. She might have jumped out and escaped
while I was down opening the gate--but she didn't. She sat quite still,
as if we were only out on a commonplace little jaunt. I wondered if she
didn't have the spirit of adventure in her make-up, also. Girls do,
sometimes. When I had got in again, I turned to her, remembering
something.

"Gadzooks, madam! I command you not to scream," I quoted sternly.

At that, for the first time in our acquaintance, she laughed; such a
delicious, rollicky little laugh that I felt ready, at the sound, to face
a dozen fathers and they all old Kings.

As we came chugging up to the house, several faces appeared in the doorway
as if to welcome and scold the runaway. I saw old King with his pip