r," answered Carrick, standing like a stag who from a
peak challenges his kind.

Carter looked at the man with evident appreciation and a pleased smile
animated his face.

"It will be the old days over again. I warn you, Carrick, you'll have to
hustle to beat me up another hill."

The Cockney laughed in the free masonry of their mutual reminiscences.
"All right, sir, forewarned is forearmed. How soon do we start?"

"Just as soon as you can get our camp kits ready. We'll board the next
steamer for Danzig. I think I'll take the big auto along, too. It may
come in handy."

III

A DUEL--OF WITS

Russian affairs had reached the climax anticipated by the world as the
result of her persistent encroachments in the Orient.

Precipitated by a fiery aggression from Nippon the gasping Slav had been
pushed back across the Yalu. His ships around Port Arthur had been
crippled and destroyed. The astonished nations, Russia included, awoke
to a grim realization of war.

Not only the home staying Japanese, but millions of Russian subjects
joined in the universal acclaim that hailed these first victories of the
war, presaging that the Banners of the Rising Sun were well able to cope
with the armed hordes which held Manchuria in the name of the Great
White Czar.

First grumbling murmurs, next spasmodic disturbances defying police
discipline, afterward outbreaks of thousands of workmen even in the
larger cities, followed by armed and desperate uprisings in different
provinces, demonstrated with seismic violence that an appreciable
portion of domestic sympathy was with the enemies of the Empire.

The autocracy had been feared only while it had been able to assert
universal invincibility.

Plots and counterplots added to the general uneasiness; failing to
soothe them, more than one minister had been dismissed in disgrace.

In the Imperial Palace a war conference had been called with reference
to a new and startling development. A map lay spread upon the table. A
white-haired grand duke arose and placed a finger on the spot indicating
the Russian capital.

"Here is St. Petersburg," he said dogmatically, "while away off here is
Krovitch just across a little river from Germany and Austria. While
those greedy neighbors may be held back now, you could not restrain them
a moment after revolt broke out in that border province. For two
centuries those Krovitzers have been a defiant and stiff-necked race in
spite of every cor