cience--of
the right old Pilgrim Fathers' brand--goes a long way in politics."

"But you promised me you were not going to spoil him--only it doesn't
matter; you can't."

Ormsby chuckled openly, and when she questioned "What?" he said:

"I was just wondering what you would say if you knew what he is into now;
if you could guess, for instance, that his backers have put up a cool
hundred thousand to be used as he sees fit?"

"Oh!" she exclaimed; and there was dismay and sharp disappointment in her
voice. "You don't mean that he is going to bribe these men?"

"No," he said, relenting. "As a matter of fact, I don't know precisely
what he is doing with the money, but I guess it is finding its way into
legitimate channels. I'll make him give me an itemized expense account for
your benefit when it's all over, if you like."

"It would be kinder to tell me more about it now," she pleaded.

"No; I'll let him have that pleasure, after the fact--if we can get him
pardoned out before you go back East."

She was silent so long that he stole another sidewise look between his
snubbings of the brake-pedal. Her face was white and still, like the face
of one suddenly frost-smitten, and he was instantly self-reproachful.

"Don't look that way," he begged. "It hurts me; makes me feel how heavy my
hand is when I'm doing my best to make it light. He is trying a rather
desperate experiment, to be sure, but he is in no immediate personal
danger. I believe it or I shouldn't be here; I should be with him."

She asked no more questions, being unwilling to tempt him to break
confidence with Kent. But she was thinking of all the desperate things a
determined man with temperamental unbalancings might do when the touring
car rolled noiselessly down the final hill into the single street of
Megilp.

There was but one vehicle in the street at the moment; a freighter's
ore-wagon drawn by a team of mules, meekest and most shambling-prosaic of
their tribe. The motor-car was running on the spent velocity of the
descent, and Ormsby thought to edge past without stopping. But at the
critical instant the mules gave way to terror, snatched the heavy wagon
into the opposite plank walk, and tried to climb a near-by telephone pole.
Ormsby put his foot on the brake and something snapped under the car.

"What was that?" Elinor asked; and Ormsby got down to investigate.

"It is our brake connection," he announced, after a brief inspection. "And
we are fiv