e? How I wish I could see it! What color is it?"

"Spotted."

There followed a long silence, during which we went farther and farther
off the road.

"Jake," said the judge, "whose house is that we just passed?"

"It's that new Irishman's," said I. "Mike Cosgrove, ain't that his
name?"

"Well, then," said the judge, "we're off the road. Stop!"

"Yes," I said, "I made the wrong turn back there. It's only a little
farther."

The judge was plainly put out about this. He even wanted to go back to
the regular road again, and when I explained that we would soon reach a
trail which would lead right into the Centre, he still persisted.

"If we were to be robbed on this out-of-the-way road," said he, "it
would look funny."

"It would look funnier," I said, "if we were to go back and then get
robbed. Any one waiting to rob us would be on the regular road,
wouldn't they?"

So I stubbornly drove on, the judge grumbling all the while for a mile
or so. Then he and Mrs. Stone began talking in a low tone, under the
cover of which Virginia resumed her conversation with me.

"You are a stubborn Dutchman," said she. To which I saw no need of
making any reply.

"You seemed to have a good time," she said, presently.

"I didn't," said I. "I'm nobody by the side of such people as Bob Wade.
I wasn't even invited. I'm just paid to come along with the judge to
protect the county's money. You'll never see me again at any of your
grand kissing parties."

"It was the first I ever went to," said she; "but you seemed to know
what to do pretty well--you and Kittie Fleming."

This stumped me for a while, and we drove on in silence.

"I didn't kiss her," I said.

"It looked like it," said Virginia.

"She kissed me," I protested.

"You seemed to like it," she insisted.

"I didn't!" I said, mad all over. "And I quit just as soon as the
kissing began."

"You ought to have stayed," she said stiffly. "The fun was just
beginning when you flounced out."

And then came one of the interesting events of this eventful night. We
turned into the main road to Monterey Centre, just where Duncan
McAlpine's barn now stands, and I thought I saw down in the hollow where
it was still dark, though the light was beginning to dawn in the east, a
clump of dark objects like cattle or horses--or horsemen. As I looked,
they moved into the road as if to stop us. I drew my pistol, fired it
over their heads, and they scattered. Then, I was scared still m