ed the runabout. He drew a
roll of tire tape from under the seat and bound it cruelly around her
lips. He took ropes and tied her hands and feet, placed her in the
seat beside him and started the machine. If Harry, struggling to rise
out of the dust of the road, could have seen Pauline now, bound and
gagged beside Hicks in the runabout, he would have known her to be in
greater peril than ever the balloon had brought her.

Pauline was not long unhidden. As the quick ear of Hicks caught the
sound of wheels, he grasped her roughly by the arm and thrust her into
the bottom of the machine. Without taking his hand from the lever or
slackening speed, he pulled a blanket over her and tucked it in with
one hand.

"Don't move, either," he growled, "or you know."

A farmer on his wagon came around a bend. His cheery "good morning"
brought only a grunt from Hicks, but the sound of the kind voice
thrilled Pauline. She struggled under the blanket and almost reached a
sitting posture before Hicks crushed her back.

The runabout had flashed by, but the farmer had seen something that
alarmed even his stolid mind.

When a half mile up the road he came upon a young man, dazed and
wounded, staggering through the dust, he drew rein and leaped out.

A draught of whiskey from the farmer's bottle braced Harry.

"You passed them on the road?" he cried.

"A machine with a man in it and somethin' else--somethin' in the
bottom of it that moved," said the farmer.

"A horse," said Harry, "quick--one of yours will do."

The farmer hesitated. Harry thrust money into his hand. "Quick," he
shouted.

Together they unharnessed the team. Coatless and hatless, tattered,
wounded and stained, Harry swung himself to the bare back of a
stirrupless steed and galloped out on what he knew was the most
dangerous of all the pathways of Pauline.

CHAPTER XII

THE OLD GRIGSBY HOUSE PAYS PENANCE

To young Bassett, of The American, the excitement of existence, since
he became a reporter and joined the jehus of the truth wagon, had
consisted mainly of "chasing pictures" in the afternoons and going to
strings of banquets at night. He had no more enthusiasm for
photographs than he had for banquets. Word painting and graining was
his art. And so when a big story walked up and beckoned to him he was
as happy as a boy in love.

It had been a dull day for news. The evening papers were barren of
suggestions and the assignments had run o