tly elevated nose, "because it won't
work. I pulled out the ignition button and--and nothing happened.
Then I tried to force down the starter pedal and the crazy thing won't
go down."

"I see," said Packard interestedly. "Don't know a whole lot about
cars, do you?"

"The world wasn't made overnight," she said tartly. "I've had this
pesky thing a month. Do you know what's the matter?"

He took his time in replying. He was so long about it, in fact, that
Miss Blue Cloak stirred uneasily and finally shot him a questioning
look over her shoulder, just to make sure, he suspected, that he hadn't
slipped away and left her.

"Well?" she asked again.

"Speak to me?" he repeated himself, pretending to start from a deep
abstraction. "Oh, do I know what's the matter? Sure!"

She waited a reasonable length of time for him to go on. He, secure in
the sense of his own mastery of the situation, waited for her. Between
them they allowed it to grow very quiet there in the wood by the lake
shore. He saw her glance furtively at the lowering sun.

"If you do know," she said finally and somewhat faintly, but as
frigidly as ever, "will you tell me or won't you?"

"Why," he said, as though he had not thought of it, "I don't know. If
I were really sure that I was needed. You know it's mighty hard
telling these days when you stumble upon a damsel in distress whether a
stranger's aid is welcome or not. If there's one thing I won't do it's
shove myself forward when I'm not wanted."

"You're a nasty animal!" she cried hotly.

"For all I know," he resumed in an untroubled tone, "the end of your
journey may be just around the bend, about a hundred yards off. And if
I plunged in to be of assistance I might be suspected of being a fresh
guy."

"It's half a dozen miles to the ranch-house," she condescended to tell
him. "And it's going to get dark in no time. And if you want to know,
Mr. Smarty, that's as close as I've ever come or ever will come to
asking anything of any man that ever lived."

He could have sat there until dark just for the sheer joy of teasing
her, making her pay a little for her recent treatment of him. But
there was a note of finality in her voice which did not escape him; in
another moment she would jump down and go on on foot and he knew it.
So at last he rode up to the car, dismounted, and lifted the hood.

"Ignition," he ordered her.

She pulled out the little button again. His eyes upon hers,