on again, annoyed at even so small a loss of time.

When, being about three miles from Bristol town, and looking ahead over
a straight line of road, he suddenly pulled up and turned into the
shelter of a wood. Some two hundred yards away were two or three
houses. A man stood at the roadside. It was Carteaux. Rene heard the
clink of a hammer on the anvil.

To be sure of his man, he fastened his horse and moved nearer with care,
keeping within the edge of the wood. Yes, it was Carteaux. The doctor
had not lied. If the secretary were going to France, or only on some
errand to New York, was now to De Courval of small moment. His horse
must have cast a shoe. As Carteaux rode away from the forge. De Courval
mounted, and rode on more rapidly.

Within two miles of Bristol, as he remembered, the road turned at a
sharp angle toward the river. A half mile away was an inn where the
coaches for New York changed horses. It was now five o'clock, and
nearing the dusk of a November day. The rain was over, the sky
darkening, the air chilly, the leaves were fluttering slowly down, and a
wild gale was roaring in the great forest which bounded the road. He
thought of the gentler angelus of another evening, and, strange as it
may seem, bowed his head, and like many a Huguenot noble of his mother's
race, prayed God that his enemy should be delivered into his hands. Then
he stopped his horse and for the first time recognized that it had been
raining heavily and that it were well to renew the priming of his
pistols. He attended to this with care, and then rode quickly around the
turn of the road, and came upon Carteaux walking his horse.

"Stop, Monsieur!" he called, and in an instant he was beside him.

Carteaux turned at the call, and, puzzled for a moment, said: "What is
it?"--and then at once knew the man at his side.

He was himself unarmed, and for a moment alarmed as he saw De Courval's
hand on the pistol in his holster. He called out, "Do you mean to murder
me?"

"Not I. You will dismount, and will take one of my pistols--either; they
are loaded. You will walk to that stump, turn, and yourself give the
word, an advantage, as you may perceive."

"And if I refuse?"

"In that case I shall kill you with no more mercy than you showed my
father. You have your choice. Decide, and that quickly."

Having dismounted as he spoke, he stood with a grip on Carteaux' bridle,
a pistol in hand, and looking up at the face of his enemy. Carteau