and took aim
at her heart.

"Your blood be on your own head, then! I never missed yet!" he cried,
and pulled the trigger.

But the powder only flashed in the pan. With an oath he pulled the other
and did likewise with it, but quite as fruitlessly.

Then he leaped down and tried to grip Maisie's horse by the bridle, for
he was a stark carle and no coward.

But her horse obeyed the guiding hand. With a swing to the left she
swept out of his reach, so as to catch the bridle of the horse which
carried the mails and which, fresh from the stable, was inclined to crop
the herbage. Then she rode away leaving the man standing amazed and
speechless in the middle of the road. He started to run after his
assailant, but Maisie sent a bullet back, which halted him. For by
chance it struck a stone among the red dust at his feet, and went
through between his legs buzzing like a bumblebee. And this is indeed a
thing which would have halted most folk.

It was with a fearful heart that Maisie Lennox, in the deepest shades of
the wood, ripped open the bags. Almost the first paper she came upon was
her father's death warrant. With trembling hand she turned over the
papers to find mine also. But there were only Privy Council letters and
documents in cypher. Over and over she turned them, her heart, I doubt
not, hammering loudly. But there was not another warrant anywhere. It
must have been sent forward by another hand. It might even be in
Edinburgh already, she thought. Almost she had returned the letters to
the bag and left them at the tree foot, when she noted a little bulge in
the thickness of the leather near the clasp. In a moment she had her
knife within, and there, enclosed in a cypher letter to the President of
the Council, was a free pardon, signed and sealed, wanting only the name
inserted. Without doubt it was intended for some of the private friends
of Duke Queensberry. But at sight of it Maisie's heart gave a still
greater stound, and without a moment for consideration she galloped off
towards Edinburgh, upon the fresh horse of his Majesty's post rider.
When she came to the first woods over the crown of the dreary hill road,
she put off the lad's apparel and dressed again as the quiet maid upon
her travels, whom none would suspect of bold robbery of his Majesty's
despatches upon his own highway.

Then as she took the road to Edinburgh, consider what a turmoil and
battle there was in her heart. She says that she saw not th