it was her knight! Her excited eyes met his. "I've come for
you," he called gayly, and her face glorified with amazed joy.

"He'll kill you!" she gasped in sudden terror. "Hurry!"

Ben was already taking off the crepe shawl and putting her arms into the
sleeves of a leather coat. A shout came from the top of the hill. Rufus
Carder appeared, yelling and running. His gun was in his hand. The men
from the fields, who had heard and seen the aeroplane, and Pete, who had
not yet had time to reach them, all came running in excitement to see
the great bird which had alighted in such an unlikely spot.

"He'll kill you!" gasped Geraldine again. A shot rang out on the air.

Ben laughed as he pushed a helmet down over her head.

"It can't be done," he cried, as excited as she. He threw the shawl into
the cockpit, lifted the girl in after it, buckled the safety belt across
her, jumped in himself, and the great bird began to flit along the
ground and quickly to rise.

Another wild shot rang out, and frightful oaths. Geraldine heard the
former, though the latter were inaudible, and she became tense from her
head to the little feet which pushed against the foot-board as if to
hasten their flight. She clutched the side of the veering plane. With
every rod they gained her relief grew. Ben, looking into her face for
signs of fear, received a smile which made even his enviable life better
worth living than ever before. No exultant conqueror ever experienced
greater thrills. Up, up, up, they flew out of reach of bullets and all
the sordidness of earth; and when the meadow became a blur Geraldine
felt like a disembodied spirit, so great was her exaltation. Not a
vestige of fear assailed the heart which had so recently wondered if the
cranberry pond was deep enough to still its misery. She rejoiced to be
near the low-lying, fleecy clouds which a little while ago had aroused
her apprehensions for the morrow. Let come what would, she was safe from
Rufus Carder and she was free. Her sentiment for her leather-coated
deliverer was little short of adoration. Gratitude seemed too poor a
term. He had taken her from hell, and it seemed to her as they went up,
up, up, they must be nearing heaven. At last he began flying in a direct
line.

Below was her former jailer, foaming at the mouth, and Pete, poor Pete,
lying on the ground rolling in an agony of loss. "She's gone, she's
gone," he moaned and sobbed, over and over; and even Carder saw that if