iling up the slope in Dick's footsteps with a
determination unexpected in a man of his appearance and mode of life.

On the other side of the ancient causeway, at the very foot of the
slope, Amaryllis, full of courage and calculation, but with a heart
beating painfully until her moment for action should come.

This, she had resolved, must be the moment when she should lose sight of
the last runner; and by turning her head sideways, though never raising
it, she could see that Dick had the same idea; for he had so directed
his flight that he and Melchard were soon hidden from her, while the
lumbering Mut-mut, wasting huge force, it seemed, upon each short
stride, pounding along the lower ground, vanished only when, reaching
his chosen line of ascent, he began to mount the hill.

Then Amaryllis rose, lifted the voluminous skirt, tucked the hem into
the waistband, and ran, with long flashes of grey stocking, for the
abandoned car.

Dick, still leading his enemies on, saw her in one of his calculating
looks behind him. And his heart leapt into his throat for pride of the
woman that could listen to, comprehend and interpret orders--and carry
them out with a stride like that.

He prolonged his backward look, and Melchard, below him, observed that
it was directed over his head, and turned his eyes in the same
direction.

He saw the girl running, pulled a weapon from his hip and tried a long
shot.

The crack of the Browning had hardly reached her ears before Amaryllis
was in the driving-seat. But not for a flicker did she turn her eyes
from the business of the moment.

Melchard, with his left hand on his hip and the barrel of the automatic
resting on the upturned elbow close to his chin, was on the point of
firing again at the very moment when Mut-mut, having reached the top of
the ridge, was running back to meet Dick, and Dick, coming down the
slope at the best of his prodigious though uneven stride, was within two
paces of Melchard's back.

At the sound of his rushing approach, and in the very act of firing,
Melchard started. The shot went wide, and the man turned himself and his
weapon on the enemy that was nearer even than he guessed.

In the very moment of wheeling about, he received a rugger hand-off on
his right jaw, which launched him many yards, sideways down the slope,
to land and turn literally heels over head as he fell.

His pistol fell more slowly and further, after describing a wavering arc
over his