dded car-seat.

"All right," he said, as though the whole thing were settled, on the
spot. But it wasn't so simple as it seemed.

"How about this car?" I demanded. His eye met mine; and I made note of
the fact that he was compelled to look away.

"I suppose we'll have to hide it somewhere," he finally acknowledged.

"And how'll you hide a car of that size on the open prairie?" I
inquired.

"Couldn't we bury it?" he asked with child-like simplicity.

"It's pretty well that way now, isn't it? But I saw it three miles
off," I reminded him.

"Couldn't we pile a load of prairie-hay over it?" he suggested next,
with the natural cunning of the criminal. "Then they'd never suspect."

"Suspect what?" I asked.

"Suspect where we got it," he explained.

"Kindly do not include me in any of your activities of this nature," I
said with all the dignity that Paddy would permit of, for he was
getting restless by this time.

"But you've included yourself in the secret," he tried to argue, with
a show of injured feelings. "And surely, after you've wormed that out
of me, you're not going to deliver a poor devil over to--"

"You can have perfect confidence in me," I interrupted, trying to be
stately but only succeeding, I'm afraid, in being stiff. And he nodded
and laughed in a companionable and _laisser-faire_ sort of way as he
started his engine and took command of the wheel.

Then began a battle which I had to watch from a distance because Paddy
evinced no love for that purring and whining thing of steel as it
rumbled and roared and thrashed and churned up the mud at its flying
heels. It made the muskeg look like a gargantuan cake-batter, in which
it seemed to float as dignified and imperturbable as a schooner in a
canal-lock. But the man at the wheel kept his temper, and reversed,
and writhed forward, and reversed again. He even waved at me, in a
grim sort of gaiety, as he rested his engine and then went back to the
struggle. He kept engaging and releasing his clutch until he was able
to impart a slight rocking movement to the car. And again the big
motor roared and churned up the mud and again Paddy took to prancing
and pirouetting like a two-year-old. But this time the spinning rear
wheels appeared to get a trace of traction, flimsy as it was, for the
throbbing gray mass moved forward a little, subsided again, and once
more nosed a few inches ahead. Then the engine whined in a still
higher key, and slowly but surely th