An' dis is Letty-Lou"

Ricky lifted off the cover. Val stared at the canvas

"It's a genuine Audubon," Charity said

_Zzzzzrupp_! Satan was industriously ripping the remnants of lining from
its interior

The canoe floated almost of its own volition into a dead and distorted
strip of country

At the bayou at last, they wriggled Jeems awkwardly into the boat

Then came a tree burdened with a small 'coon which stared at the boy
piteously, its eyes green in the light

Ricky held aloft a great war sword. There could be no doubt in any of
them--the Luck of Lorne had returned

RALESTONE LUCK

_How hold ye Lorne?_

By the oak leaf,
By the sea wave,
By the broadsword blade,
Thus hold we Lorne!

_The oak leaf is dust,
The sea wave is gone,
The broadsword is rust,
How now hold ye Lorne?_

By our Luck, thus hold we Lorne!

CHAPTER I

THE RALESTONES COME HOME

"Once upon a time two brave princes and a beautiful princess set out to
make their fortunes--" began the dark-haired, dark-eyed boy by the
roadster.

"Royalty is out of fashion," corrected Ricky Ralestone somewhat
indifferently. "Can't you do better than that?" She gave her small, pert
hat an exasperated tweak which brought the unoffending bowl-shaped bit
of white felt into its proper position over her right eyebrow. "How long
does it take Rupert to ask a single simple question?"

Her brother Val watched the gas gage on the instrument board of the
roadster fluctuate wildly as the attendant of the station shook the hose
to speed the flow of the last few drops. Five gallons--a dollar ten. Did
he have that much? He began to assemble various small hoards of change
from different pockets.

"Do you think we're going to like this?" Ricky waved her hand vaguely in
a gesture which included a dilapidated hot-dog stand and a stretch of
road white-hot under the steady baking of the sun.

"Well, I think that Pirate's Haven is slightly different from our
present surroundings. Where's your proper pride? Not everyone can be
classed among the New Poor," Val observed judiciously.

"Nobility in the bread line." His sister sniffed with what she fondly
believed was the air of a Van Astor dowager.

"Nobility?"

"We never relinquished the title, did we? Rupert's still the Marquess of
Lorne."

"After some two hundred years in America I am afraid that we would find
ourselves strangers in England. And Lorne