ing down the hall.

At the same moment the automobile that a few minutes before had passed
up the road came limping to the gate, and a half-dozen men in uniform
sprang out of it. From the window Lathrop saw them spread across the
lawn and surround the house.

"They've got him!" he said. He pointed to the prostrate figure on the
floor. "He and the other one," he explained, breathlessly, "are New York
crooks! They have been looting in the wake of the Reds, disguised as
soldiers. I knew they weren't even amateur soldiers by the mistakes in
their make-up, and I made that bluff of riding away so as to give them
time to show what the game was. Then, that provost guard in the motor
car stopped me, and when they said who they were after, I ordered them
back here. But they had a flat tire, and my bicycle beat them."

In his excitement he did not notice that the girl was not listening,
that she was very pale, that she was breathing quickly, and trembling.

"I'll go tell them," he added, "that the other one they want is up
here."

Miss Farrar's strength instantly returned.

With a look of terror at the now groaning figure on the floor, she
sprang toward Lathrop, with both hands clutching him by his sleeves.

"You will _not!_" she commanded. "You will not leave me alone!"

Appealingly she raised her face to his startled countenance. With a
burst of tears she threw herself into his arms. "I'm afraid!" she
sobbed. "Don't leave me. Please, no matter what I say, never leave me
again!"

Between bewilderment and joy, the face of Lathrop was unrecognizable. As
her words reached him, as he felt the touch of her body in his arms, and
her warm, wet cheek against his own, he drew a deep sigh of content, and
then, fearfully and tenderly, held her close.

After a pause, in which peace came to all the world, he raised his head.

"Don't worry!" he said. "You can _bet_ I won't leave you!"

End of Project Gutenberg's Once Upon A Time, by Richard Harding Davis

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