menacing lope, a huge, yellow-white, bloodhound, with hanging dew laps,
and following him a great Dane whose velvety black form held a real
ferocity. They leaped high with their forefeet against the iron fence,
striving frantically to reach the two men on the other side.

"They are more dangerous than the mountain lion, those dogs," said
Berwick.

"I'm very glad to be on this side of the fence," admitted Jim. "We
wouldn't stand much show without our guns."

"I thought you ate them alive," laughed John Berwick, referring to the
incident in the wood.

"It was to keep you from being eaten up yourself," grinned Jim. "Say,
Chief, let's move out of range, or these beasts will rouse the whole
country."

"All right, Captain," agreed Berwick, using Jim's sea title, and as they
were rather at sea, it was quite appropriate. They reached a large rock
that stood out on the plain away from the house, and sat down on it,
until the noise of the baying had ceased.

"Did you think to fetch a lunch with you on this festive occasion,
James?" inquired Berwick.

"Bah Jove, old chap," replied James, "we left in such haste that it
slipped my mind, don't yer know."

"I wish your mind hadn't been so slippery," remarked the engineer. "If
you could only have had presence of mind enough to have brought an olive
or two."

"I tell you, Chief," said Jim, airily, "I'll have the dinner ready by
the time you get your dress suit. But coming down to the plain English
of it, I'm starved. Think of the exercise we have had since leaving the
restaurant to join our friend on the sidewalk."

"A man who would put you to all that trouble to speak to him is no
gentleman," declared John Berwick whimsically.

"He deserves to be hung," said Jim savagely; "anyone who would impose on
a trustful nature like yours and make you run over twenty miles of
landscape! But cheer up, John, I have a hunch that we will strike a pay
streak of grub yet. Let's take one more scout around that mysterious
castle yonder and then we will make a bee line for the nearest lunch
counter."

"Any time you give the word."

"Well, I suppose that 'all's quiet along the Potomac,' so let's move."

"Agreed, James," said the engineer.

Then the two friends slipped through the soft darkness of the night and
fog until they reached the iron rampart of the fence and went past the
great gates. There was a gilt monogram on either side and in the center,
but these things did not interest