drew the flat
packet from her cartridge sack at the same time and slid it deftly under
a rotting log. Then, calm but very pale, she stood upright to face
events.

The first man wore a red and yellow bandanna handkerchief over the lower
half of his face, pulled tightly across a bony nose. He held a long
pistol nearly parallel to his own body; and when he came up to where she
was standing he poked the muzzle into her stomach.

She did no flinch; he said nothing; she looked intently into the two
ratty eyes fastened on her over the edge of his bandanna.

Five other men were surrounding her, but they all wore white masks of
vizard shape, revealing chin and mouth.

They were different otherwise, also, wearing various sorts and patterns
of sport clothes, brand new, and giving them an odd, foreign appearance.

What troubled her most was the silence the maintained. The man wearing
the bandanna was the only one who seemed at all a familiar figure, --
merely, perhaps, because he was American in build, clothing, and
movement.

He took her by the shoulder, turned her around and gave her a shove
forward. She staggered a step or two; he gave her another shove and she
comprehended that she was to keep on going.

Presently she found herself in a steep, wet deer-trail rising upward
through a gully. She knew that runway. It led up Star Peak.

Behind her as she climbed she heard the slopping, panting tread of men;
her wind was better than theirs; she climbed lithely upward, setting a
pace which finally resulted in a violent jerk backward, -- a savage,
wordless admonition to go more slowly.

As she climbed she wondered whether she should have fired an alarm shot
on the chance of the State Trooper, Stormont, hearing it.

But she had thought only of the packet at the moment of surprise. And
now she wondered whether, when freed, she could ever again find that
rotting log.

Up, up, always up along the wet gully, deep with silt and
frost-splintered rock, she toiled, the heavy grasping of men behind her.
Twice she was jerked to a halt while her escort rested.

Once, without turning, she said unsteadily: "Who are you? What have I
done to you?"

There was no reply.

"What are you going to do to me----" she began again, and was shaken by
the shoulder until silent.

At last the vast arch of the eastern sky sprang out ahead, where stunted
spruces stood out against the sunshine and the intense heat of midday
fell upon bare