n for a long ride possibly, a cold ride certainly. Within the city
limits the car moved decorously, but when the suburbs were reached, the
driver put on all his power. He drove carefully, too, as one who must
make haste but cannot afford accident.

Nikky grew very uncomfortable. His long legs ached. The place between
the shoulders where the concierge had landed his powerful blows throbbed
and beat. Also he was puzzled, and he hated being puzzled. He was
unarmed, too. He disliked that most of all. Generally speaking, he felt
his position humiliating. He was a soldier, not a spy. His training had
been to fight, not to hide and watch.

After a time he raised his head. He made out that they were going east,
toward the mountains, and he cursed the luck that had left his revolver
at home. Still he had no plan but to watch. Two hours' ride, at their
present rate, would take them over the border and into Karnia.

Nikky, although no thinker, was not a fool, and he knew rather better
than most what dangers threatened the country from outside as well.
Also, in the back of his impulsive head was a sort of dogged quality
that was near to obstinacy. He had started this thing and he would see
it through. And as the car approached the border, he began to realize
that this was not of the Terrorists at home, but something sinister,
abroad.

With a squealing of brakes the machine drew up at the frontier. Here was
a chain across the highway, with two sets of guards. Long before they
reached it, a sentry stepped into the road and waved his lantern.

Nikky burrowed lower into the car, and attempted to look like a rug. In
the silence, while the sentry evidently examined a passport and flashed
a lantern over the chauffeur, Nikky cursed the ticking of his watch, the
beating of his own heart.

Then came a clanking as the chain dropped in the road. The car bumped
over it, and halted again. The same formalities, this time by Karnian
sentries. A bit more danger, too, for the captain in charge of the guard
asked for matches, and dangled a careless hand over the side, within a
few inches of Nikky's head. Then the jerk following a hasty letting-in
of the clutch, and they were off again.

For some time they climbed steadily. But Nikky, who knew the road, bided
his time. Then at last, at two o'clock, came the steep ascent to the
very crest of the mountain, and a falling-back, gear by gear, until they
climbed slowly in the lowest.

Nikky unfolde