f the road
crackled, overhead the towering palms waved, near the roadside the
stiff grass bent noisily in the breeze, and around them momentarily
day grew clearer and brighter.

As the morning advanced and the boys strode on nearing the pine woods,
robins and bluebirds, shrikes and chewinks greeted them; and as they
stopped for luncheon near a broad, open trail in the barren woodland
a buzzard sailed above the tree-tops and peered at them curiously.

In the meantime Norton, Hugh and Billy had started promptly twenty
minutes after the departure of the machine. Billy was in high
spirits and declared that he scented adventure in the air. For
an hour, however, nothing occurred to disturb the peaceful sway
of Nature, and Billy was about to abandon his attitude of expectation.

Suddenly the stillness was broken by the uneven rattle of rapidly
moving wheels over the shell road. Then the clatter of pounding hoofs
further shattered the silence.

"It comes!" shouted Billy dramatically. Around a bend in the road
came a galloping white horse, old and lean, dragging at its heels a
reeling hurdy-gurdy cart.

Billy sprang for the horse's head. Almost at his touch the old
creature stopped submissively.

"The poor old nag is all in," said Billy sympathetically, patting
her quivering neck.

Meanwhile Hugh and Roy Norton had righted the music cart, and Hugh
impulsively seized the handle of the machine and turned it to test
its condition.

"Hi---yi---yi!"

A dark-skinned foreigner came into sight, running toward them down
the road.

He frowned at them darkly and dashed up to the old horse, swinging
a short whip threateningly. Before the lash could fall on the
still trembling beast, however, Hugh and Billy had sprung simultaneously
upon the man.

"None of that!" cried Hugh, wresting the whip from the man's grasp.

The infuriated foreigner turned upon him with an avalanche of rapid
words, struggling to break away from his captors.

At that Norton stepped into view before him. With a few gestures,
a few faltering Italian and French words, and with great calmness
and good nature, he managed to tell the man that his wagon was safe,
and that the boys were willing to let him go if he would not beat
the poor, tired, old horse.

Norton's manner, more than anything else, impressed the angry man.
His scowls gave way to a pleasant expression and he nodded
smilingly. The boys stepped back and the hurdy-gurdy driver busied
h