icked up a telephone.

"Hello, this is H. B. Marvin. I want our private car attached to the
Chicago flyer," he said. "No matter if it holds up the flyer, I'll
have President Grigsby's authorization in your hands in five minutes.
Thank you. Goodbye."

As he reached the door of the machine, a messenger boy turned up the
steps. Harry called to him, took the telegram and read Mrs. Haines'
message: "Pauline kidnapped; come at once."

With a muffled ejaculation, he dropped the slip of paper and sprang
into the car, which in ten minutes pulled up to the station just as the
disgruntled, but curious trainmen were coupling the luxurious Marvinia
to the eighteen-hour express.

Owen coming quietly down the steps of the Marvin house, picked up the
telegram which Harry had let fall. Reading it, he smiled, and he was
still smiling when another messenger boy followed him to the door.
Owen took the second message and the smile broadened into an ugly grin
as he read:

"Raymond Owen Fifth avenue, New York. All's well.
Hicks."

Five days after the disappearance of Pauline, the express stopped again
at Rockvale station. As Harry swung from the rear step to the dingy
platform, there were many curious eyes to observe his arrival, but the
watchers were mostly women and children. The men of Rockvale were
still out on the long hunt for Pauline.

Harry hurried first to the station telephone. Sikes had got Mrs.
Haines on the wire as soon as the smoke of the express had been sighted
ten miles away. But all she could tell Harry was that there was
nothing to tell. His lips were set in a hard line as he hung up the
receiver. He asked a few hasty questions of Sikes, hurried across to
the little hotel, paid for a room and hired a horse. Blankets and
provisions strapped behind, he was out and away up the road to the
mountains within an hour.

And while he urged his sturdy little mount to better speed on his
uncharted journey, Pauline, not twenty miles away, was preparing for
the last journey she might ever make.

The blow had fallen. Her royal place, her immortal power had
vanished.

The Indians had permitted one postponement of the day of battle. She
had said that the Spirits had spoken to her and warned against
bloodshed upon that day. It should be the second day thereafter the
Spirits had said. The Indians were disappointed, but they bowed to the
edict.

The morrow passed quietly, but on the next day--t