sense
of humor--I assure you I have one! Of course, if I were not a person of
very great distinction Chauvenet and his friend Durand would not have
crossed the ocean and brought with them a professional assassin, skilled
in the use of smothering and knifing, to do away with me. You are in luck
to be alive. We are dangerously near the same size and build--and in the
dark--on horseback--"

"That was funny. I knew that if I ran for it they'd plug me for sure, and
that if I waited until they saw their mistake they would he afraid to
kill me. Ugh! I still taste the red soil of the Old Dominion."

"Come, Captain! Let us give the horses a chance to prove their blood.
These roads will be paste in a few hours."

The dawn was breaking sullenly, and out of a gray, low-hanging mist a
light rain fell in the soft, monotonous fashion of mountain rain. Much of
the time it was necessary to maintain single file; and Armitage rode
ahead. The fog grew thicker as they advanced; but they did not lessen
their pace, which had now dropped to a steady trot.

Suddenly, as they swept on beyond Lamar, they heard the beat of hoofs and
halted.

"Bully for us! We've cut in ahead of them. Can you count them,
Claiborne?"

"There are three horses all right enough, and they're forcing the beasts.
What's the word?"

"Drive them back! Ready--here we go!" roared Armitage in a voice intended
to be heard.

They yelled at the top of their voices as they charged, plunging into the
advancing trio after a forty-yard gallop.

"'Not later than Friday'--back you go!" shouted Armitage, and laughed
aloud at the enemy's rout. One of the horses--it seemed from its rider's
yells to be Chauvenet's--turned and bolted, and the others followed
back the way they had come.

Soon they dropped their pace to a trot, but the trio continued to fly
before them.

"They're rattled," said Claiborne, "and the fog isn't helping them any."

"We're getting close to my place," said Armitage; and as he spoke two
shots fired in rapid succession cracked faintly through the fog and they
jerked up their horses.

"It's Oscar! He's a good way ahead, if I judge the shots right."

"If he turns them back we ought to hear their horses in a moment,"
observed Claiborne. "The fog muffles sounds. The road's pretty level in
here."

"We must get them out of it and into my territory for safety. We're
within a mile of the gate and we ought to be able to crowd them into that
long open stri