er ladyship. "Of course
Cecil is not a coward."

"Thank you, my dear. Never fear, ladies and gentlemen; I shall attend
to this person. He won't soon forget what I have to say to him,"
promised Lord Bazelhurst, mentally estimating the number of brandies
and soda it would require in preparation.

"This afternoon?" asked his wife, with cruel insistence.

"Yes, Evelyn--if I can find him."

And so it was that shortly after four o'clock, Lord Bazelhurst,
unattended at his own request, rode forth like a Lochinvar, his steed
headed bravely toward Shaw's domain, his back facing his own home with
a military indifference that won applause from the assembled house
party.

"I'll face him alone," he had said, a trifle thickly, for some unknown
reason, when the duke offered to accompany him. It also might have
been noticed as he cantered down the drive that his legs did not stick
out so stiffly, nor did his person bob so exactingly as on previous
but peaceful expeditions.

In fact, he seemed a bit limp. But his face was set determinedly for
the border line and Shaw.

CHAPTER II

IN WHICH A YOUNG WOMAN TRESPASSES

Mr. Shaw was a tall young man of thirty or thereabouts, smooth-faced,
good-looking and athletic. It was quite true that he wore a red
coat when tramping through his woods and vales, not because it was
fashionable, but because he had a vague horror of being shot at by
some near-sighted nimrod from Manhattan. A crowd of old college
friends had just left him alone in the hills after spending several
weeks at his place, and his sole occupation these days, aside from
directing the affair's about the house and grounds, lay in the efforts
to commune with nature by means of a shotgun and a fishing-rod. His
most constant companion was a pipe, his most loyal follower a dog.

As he sauntered slowly down the river road that afternoon, smiling
retrospectively from time to time as he looked into the swift, narrow
stream that had welcomed his adversaries of the morning, he little
thought of the encounter in store for him. The little mountain stream
was called a river by courtesy because it was yards wider than the
brooks that struggled impotently to surpass it during the rainy
season. But it was deep and turbulent in places and it had a roar at
times that commanded the respect of the foolhardy.

"The poor devils might have drowned, eh, Bonaparte?" he mused,
addressing the dog at his side. "Confounded nuisance, getting