d so far as running-gear was concerned. After changing the ruined
tire he backed down the road and turned to stop near where Ruenke lay.
Opening the rear door, Kurt picked him up as if he had been a sack of
wheat and threw him into the car. Next he secured the rifle that had
been such a burden and had served him so well in the end.

"Get in, Miss Anderson," he said, "and show me where to drive you home."

She got in beside him, making a grimace as she saw Ruenke lying behind
her. Kurt started and ran slowly by the damaged car.

"He knocked a wheel off. I'll have to send back."

"Oh, I thought it was all over when we hit!" said the girl.

Kurt experienced a relaxation that was weakening. He could hardly hold
the wheel and his mood became one of exaltation.

"Father suspected this Ruenke," went on Lenore. "But he wanted to find
out things from him. And I--I undertook--to twist Mr. Germany round my
finger. I made a mess of it.... He lied. I didn't make love to him. But
I listened to his love-making, and arrogant German love-making it was!
I'm afraid I made eyes at him and let him believe I was smitten.... Oh,
and all for nothing! I'm ashamed... But he lied!"

Her confidence, at once pathetic and humorous and contemptuous,
augmented Kurt's Homeric mood. He understood that she would not even let
him, for a moment, have a wrong impression of her.

"It must have been hard," agreed Kurt. "Didn't you find out anything at
all?"

"Not much," she replied. Then she put a hand on his sleeve. "Your
knuckles are all bloody."

"So they are. I got that punching our German friend."

"Oh, how you did beat him!" she cried. "I had to look. My ire was up,
too!... It wasn't very womanly--of me--that I gloried in the sight."

"But you cried out--you pulled me away!" exclaimed Kurt.

"That was because I was afraid you'd kill him," she replied.

Kurt swerved his glance, for an instant, to her face. It was at once
flushed and pale, with the deep blue of downcast eyes shadowy through
her long lashes, exceedingly sweet and beautiful to Kurt's sight. He
bent his glance again to the road ahead. Miss Anderson felt kindly and
gratefully toward him, as was, of course, natural. But she was somehow
different from what she had seemed upon the other occasions he had seen
her. Kurt's heart was full to bursting.

"I might have killed him," he said. "I'm glad--you stopped me.
That--that frenzy of mine seemed to be the breaking of a dam. I have