teadied her and made her feel wonderfully
safe once more, and strange to say she found herself lifting up another
queer little kind of a prayer. It had never been her habit to pray much
except in form. Her heart had seldom needed anything that money could not
supply.

The man had stumbled across the gully and up toward the barn. They could
hear him swearing at the unevenness of the ground, and Ruth held her
breath and prayed again. A moment more and he was fumbling about for the
barn door and calling for a flash light. Then, like the distant sound of
a mighty angel of deliverance came the rumble of a car in the distance.
The men heard it and took it for their quarry on ahead. They climbed into
their car again and were gone like a flash.

John Cameron did not wait for them to get far away. He set the car in
motion as soon as they were out of sight, and its expensive mechanism
obeyed his direction almost silently as he guided it around the barn,
behind the haystack and back again into the road over which they had just
come.

"Now!" he said as he put the car to its best speed and switched on its
headlights again. "Now we can beat them to it, I guess, if they come back
this way, which I don't think they will."

The car dashed over the ground and the three sat silent while they passed
into the woods and over the place where they had first met Cameron. Ruth
felt herself trembling again, and her teeth beginning to chatter from the
strain. Cameron seemed to realize her feeling and turned toward her:

"You've been wonderful!" he said flashing a warm look at her, "and you,
too, mother!" lifting his voice a little and turning his head toward the
back seat. "I don't believe any other two women in Bryne Haven could have
gone through a scene like that and kept absolutely still. You were
great!" There was that in his voice that lifted Ruth's heart more than
any praise she had ever received for anything. She wanted to make some
acknowledgment, but she found to her surprise that tears were choking her
throat so that she could not speak. It was the excitement, of course, she
told herself, and struggled to get control of her emotion.

They emerged from the woods and in sight of the Pike at last, and Cameron
drew a long breath of relief.

"There, I guess we can hold our own with anyone, now," he said settling
back in his seat, but relaxing none of his vigilance toward the car which
sped along the highway like a winged thing. "But it