victim described
as a chauffeur's coat of leather, breeches and puttees, and a fur
greatcoat over all.

"Had the snow commenced when this happened?"

"Not then; sir. Shortly after."

"Go out with the driver," the Chancellor ordered one of his men, "and
watch the road for the tracks of another car. Go slowly."

So it was that, after an hour or so, they picked up Nikky's trail, now
twenty-four hours old but still clear, and followed it. The Chancellor
was awake enough by this time, and bending forward. The man they had
rescued slept heavily. As the road descended into the foothills, there
were other tracks in the thin snow, and more than once they roused
Nikky's victim to pick out his own tire marks. He obeyed dully. When
at last the trail turned from the highway toward the shooting-box at
Wedeling, Mettlich fell back with something between a curse and a groan.

"The fool!" he muttered. "The young fool! It was madness."

At last they drew up at an inn in the village on the royal preserve, and
the Chancellor, looking rather gray, alighted. He directed that the man
they had rescued be brought in. The Chancellor was not for losing him
just yet. He took a room for him at the inn, and rather cavalierly
locked him in it.

The dull-eyed landlord, yawning as he lighted the party upstairs with
candles, apparently neither noticed nor cared that the three of them
surrounded a fourth, and that the fourth looked both sullen and ill.

The car, with one of the secret-service men, Mettlich sent on to follow
Nikky's trail, and to report it to him. The other man was assigned to
custody of the chauffeur. The Chancellor, more relieved than he would
have acknowledged, reflected before a fire and over a glass of hot milk
that he was rather unpropitiously bringing Karl a bride!

It was almost four in the morning when the police agent returned. The
track he had followed apparently led into the grounds of Wedeling, but
was there lost in many others. It did not, so far as he could discover,
lead beyond the lodge gates.

The Chancellor sipped his hot milk and considered. Nikky Larisch a
prisoner in Karl's hands caused him less anxiety than it would have a
month before. But what was behind it all?

The inn, grumbling at its broken rest, settled down to sleep again. The
two secret-service agents took turns on chairs outside their prisoner's
door, glancing in occasionally to see that he still slept in his
built-in bed.

At a little bef