said, shuddering. "Of course I know him."

"But even suppose that the he passes Kruger--down there in the hollow,
where the road bends in toward us, you can see Lefty himself. I wired
him to come, and there he is."

"Lefty?" asked the girl, aghast.

"Lefty himself," said John Mark. "You see how much I respect Ronicky
Doone's fighting properties? Yes, Lefty himself, the great, the
infallible Lefty!"

She turned her back on the white road which led from the village and
faced the sea.

"If we are down here long enough," he said, "I'll have a little wharf
built inside that cove. You see? Then we can bring up a motor boat and
anchor it in there. Do you know much about boats?"

"Almost nothing."

"That's true, but we'll correct it. Between you and me, if I had to
choose between a boat and a horse I don't know which I should--"

Two sharp detonations cut off his words. While he raised a startled hand
for silence they remained staring at one another, and the long, faint
echoes rolled across the hills.

"A revolver shot first, far off," he said, "and then a rifle shot. That
metallic clang always means a rifle shot."

He turned, and she turned with him. Covering their eyes from the white
light of the sun they peered at the distant road, where, as he had
pointed out, the two hills leaned together and left a narrow footing
between.

"The miracle has happened," said John Mark in a perfectly sober voice.
"It is Ronicky Doone!"

Chapter Twenty-seven

_The Last Stand_

At the same instant she saw what his keener eye had discerned the moment
before. A small trail of dust was blowing down the road, just below the
place where the two hills leaned together. Under it was the dimly
discernible, dust-veiled form of a horseman riding at full speed.

"Fate is against me," said John Mark in his quiet way. "Why should this
dare-devil be destined to hunt me? I can gain nothing by his death but
your hate. And, if he succeeds in breaking through Lefty, as he has
broken through Kruger, even then he shall win nothing. I swear it!"

As he spoke he looked at her in gloomy resolution, but the girl was on
fire--fear and joy were fighting in her face. In her ecstasy she was
clinging to the man beside her.

"Think of it--think of it!" she exclaimed. "He has done what I said he
would do. Ah, I read his mind! Ronicky Doone, Ronicky Doone, was there
ever your like under the wide, wide sky? He's brushed Kruger out of his
way--"