ur Chauvenet was again in a fury, learning at Lamar that the
operator had gone down the road twenty miles to a dance and would not be
back until morning.

The imperturbable Durand shivered in the night air and prodded Chauvenet
with ironies.

"We have no time to lose. That message must go tonight. You may be sure
Monsieur Armitage will not send it for us. Come, we've got to go down to
Storm Springs."

They rode away in the starlight, leaving the postmaster alarmed and
wondering. Chauvenet and Durand were well mounted on horses that
Chauvenet had sent into the hills in advance of his own coming. Zmai rode
grim and silent on a clumsy plow-horse, which was the best the publican
could find for him. The knife was not the only weapon he had known in
Servia; he carried a potato sack across his saddle-bow. Chauvenet and
Durand sent him ahead to set the pace with his inferior mount. They
talked together in low tones as they followed.

"He is not so big a fool, this Armitage," remarked Durand. "He is quite
deep, in fact. I wish it were he we are trying to establish on a throne,
and not that pitiful scapegrace in Vienna."

"I gave him his chance down there in the valley and he laughed at me. It
is quite possible that he is not a fool; and quite certain that he is not
a coward."

"Then he would not be a safe king. Our young friend in Vienna is a good
deal of a fool and altogether a coward. We shall have to provide him with
a spine at his coronation."

"If we fail--" began Chauvenet.

"You suggest a fruitful but unpleasant topic. If we fail we shall be
fortunate if we reach the hospitable shores of the Argentine for future
residence. Paris and Vienna would not know us again. If Winkelried
succeeds in Vienna and we lose here, where do we arrive?"

"We arrive quite where Mr. Armitage chooses to land us. He is a gentleman
of resources; he has money; he laughs cheerfully at misadventures; he has
had you watched by the shrewdest eyes in Europe,--and you are considered
a hard man to keep track of, my dear Durand. And not least important,--he
has to-night snatched away that little cablegram that was the signal to
Winkelried to go ahead. He is a very annoying and vexatious person, this
Armitage. Even Zmai, whose knife made him a terror in Servia, seems
unable to cope with him."

"And the fair daughter of the valley--"

"Pish! We are not discussing the young lady."

"I can understand how unpleasant the subject must be to you,