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Graustark

by George Barr McCutcheon · English · Gutenberg #5142 · 526,469 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Graustark

Author: George Barr McCutcheon


        
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #5142]
                Most recently updated: March 12, 2018

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger


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GRAUSTARK

By George Barr McCutcheon



I. MR. GRENFALL LORRY SEEKS ADVENTURE


Mr. Grenfall Lorry boarded the east-bound express at Denver with all the
air of a martyr. He had traveled pretty much all over the world, and
he was not without resources, but the prospect of a twenty-five hundred
mile journey alone filled him with dismay. The country he knew; the
scenery had long since lost its attractions for him; countless newsboys
had failed to tempt him with the literature they thrust in his face, and
as for his fellow-passengers--well, he preferred to be alone. And so it
was that he gloomily motioned the porter to his boxes and mounted the
steps with weariness.

As it happened, Mr. Grenfall Lorry did not have a dull moment after the
train started.

He stumbled on a figure that leaned toward the window in the dark
passageway. With reluctant civility he apologized; a lady stood up to
let him pass, and for an instant in the half light their eyes met, and
that is why the miles rushed by with incredible speed.

Mr. Lorry had been dawdling away the months in Mexico and California.
For years he had felt, together with many other people, that a
sea-voyage was the essential beginning of every journey; he had started
round the world soon after leaving Cambridge; he had fished through
Norway and hunted in India, and shot everything from grouse on the
Scottish moors to the rapids above Assouan. He had run in and out of
countless towns and countries on the coast of South America; he had done
Russia and the Rhone valley and Brittany and Damascus; he had seen
them all--but not until then did it occur to him that there might be
something of interest nearer home. True he had thought of joining
some Englishmen on a hunting tour in the Rockies, but that had fallen
through. When the idea of Mexico did occur to him he gave orders to pack
his things, purchased interminable green tickets, dined unusually well
at his club, and was off in no time to the unknown West.

There was a theory in his family that it would have been a decenter
thing for him to stop running about and settle down to work. But his
thoughtful father had given him a wealthy mother, and as earning a
living was not a necessity, he failed to see why it was a duty. “Work is
becoming to some men,” he once declared, “like whiskers or red ties,
but it does not follow that all men can stand it.” After that the family
found him “hopeless,” and the argument dropped.

He was just under thirty years, as good-looking as most men, with no
one dependent upon him and an income that had withstood both the Maison
Doree and a dahabeah on the Nile. He never tired of seeing things and
peoples and places. “There's game to be found anywhere,” he said, “only
it's sometimes out of season. If I had my way--and millions--I should
run a newspaper. Then all the excitements would come to me. As it
is--I'm poor, and so I have to go all over the world after them.”

This agreeable theory of life had worked well; he was a little bored at
times--not because he had seen too much, but because there were not
more things left to see. He had managed somehow to keep his enthusiasms
through everything--and they made life worth living. He felt too a
certain elation--like a spirited horse--at turning toward home, but
Washington had not much to offer him, and the thrill did not last. His
big bag and his hatbox--pasted over with foolish labels from continental
hotels--were piled in the corner of his compartment, and he settled back
in his seat with a pleasurable sense of expectancy. The presence in the
next room of a very smart appearing young woman was prominent in his
consciousness. It gave him an uneasiness which was the beginning of
delight. He had seen her for only a second in the passageway, but that
second had made him hold himself a little straighter. “Why is it,” he
wondered, “that some girls make you stand like a footman the moment
you see them?” Grenfall had been in love too many times to think of
marriage; his habit of mind was still general, and he classified
women broadly. At the same time he had a feeling that in this case
generalities did not apply well; there was something about the girl that
made him hesitate at labelling her “Class A, or B, or Z.” What it was
he did not know, but--unaccountably-she filled him with an affected
formality He felt like bowing to her with a grand air and much dignity.
And yet he realized that his successes had come from confidence.

At luncheon he saw her in the dining car. Her companions were
elderly persons--presumably her parents. They talked mostly in
French--occasionally using a German word or phrase. The old gentleman
was stately and austere--with an air of deference to the young woman
which Grenfall did not understand. His appearance was very striking; his
face pale and heavily lined; moustache and imperial gray; the eyebrows
large and bushy, and the jaw and chin square and firm. The white-haired
lady carried her head high with unmistakable gentility. They were all
dressed in traveling suits which suggested something foreign, but not
Vienna nor Paris; smart, but far from American tastes.

Lorry watched the trio with great interest. Twice during luncheon
the young woman glanced toward him carelessly and left an annoying
impression that she had not seen him. As they left the table and passed
into the observation car, he stared at her with some defiance. But she
was smiling, and her dimples showed, and Grenfall was ashamed. For
some moments he sat gazing from the car window--forgetting his
luncheon-dreaming.

When he got back to his compartment he rang vigorously for the porter. A
coin was carelessly displayed in his fingers. “Do you suppose you could
find out who has the next compartment, porter?”

“I don't know their name, sub, but they's goin' to New York jis as fas'
as they can git thuh. I ain' ax um no questions, 'cause thuh's somethin'
'bout um makes me feel's if I ain' got no right to look at um even.”

The porter thought a moment.

“I don' believe it'll do yuh any good, suh, to try to shine up to tha'
young lady. She ain' the sawt, I can tell yuh that. I done see too many
guhls in ma time--”

“What are you talking about? I'm not trying to shine up to her. I only
want to know who she is--just out of curiosity.” Grenfall's face was a
trifle red.

“Beg pahdon, suh; but I kind o' thought you was like orh' gent'men when
they see a han'some woman. Allus wants to fin' out somethin' 'bout huh,
suh, yuh know. 'Scuse me foh misjedgin' yuh, suh. Th' lady in question
is a foh'ner--she lives across th' ocean, 's fuh as I can fin' out.
They's in a hurry to git home foh some reason, 'cause they ain' goin' to
stop this side o' New York, 'cept to change cahs.”

“Where do they change cars?”

“St. Louis--goin' by way of Cincinnati an' Washin'ton.”

Grenfall's ticket carried him by way of Chicago. He caught himself
wondering if he could exchange his ticket in St. Louis.

“Traveling with her father and mother, I suppose?”

“No, suh; they's huh uncle and aunt. I heah huh call 'em uncle an' aunt.
Th' ole gent'man is Uncle Caspar. I don' know what they talk 'bout. It's
mostly some foh'en language. Th' young lady allus speaks Amehican to me,
but th' old folks cain't talk it ver' well. They all been to Frisco,
an' the hired he'p they's got with 'em say they been to Mexico, too. Th'
young lady's got good Amehican dollahs, don' care wha' she's been. She
allus smiles when she ask me to do anythin', an' I wouldn' care if she
nevah tipped me, 's long as she smiles thataway.”

“Servants with them, you say?”

“Yas, suh; man an' woman, nex' section t'other side the ole folks.
Cain't say mor'n fifteen words in Amehican. Th' woman is huh maid, an'
the man he's th' genial hustler fer th' hull pahty.”

“And you don't know her name?”

“No, sun, an' I cain't ver' well fin' out.”

“In what part of Europe does she live?”

“Australia, I think, suh.”

“You mean Austria.”

“Do I? 'Scuse ma ig'nance. I was jis' guessin' at it anyhow; one place's
as good as 'nother ovah thuh, I reckon.”

“Have you one of those dollars she gave you?”

“Yes, sub. Heh's a coin that ain' Amehican, but she says it's wuth
seventy cents in our money. It's a foh'en piece. She tell me to keep
it till I went ovah to huh country; then I could have a high time with
it--that's what she says--'a high time'--an' smiled kind o' knowin'
like.”

“Let me see that coin,” said Lorry, eagerly taking the silver piece from
the porter's hand. “I never saw one like it before. Greek, it looks to
me, but I can't make a thing out of these letters. She gave it to you?”

“Yas, suh--las' evenin'. A high time on seventy cents! That's
reediculous, ain't it?” demanded the porter scornfully.

“I'll give you a dollar for it. You can have a higher time on that.”

The odd little coin changed owners immediately, and the new possessor
dropped it into his pocket with the inward conviction that he was the
silliest fool in existence. After the porter's departure he took the
coin from his pocket, and, with his back to the door, his face to the
window, studied its lettering.

During the afternoon he strolled about the train, his hand constantly
jingling the coins. He passed her compartment several times, yet
refrained from looking in. But he wondered if she saw him pass.

At one little station a group of Indian bear hunters created
considerable interest among the passengers. Grenfall was down at the
station platform at once, looking over a great stack of game. As he
left the car he met Uncle Caspar, who was hurrying toward his niece's
section. A few moments later she came down the steps, followed by the
dignified old gentleman. Grenfall tingled with a strange delight as she
moved quite close to his side in her desire to see. Once he glanced at
her face; there was a pretty look of fear in her eyes as she surveyed
the massive bears and the stark, stiff antelopes. But she laughed as she
turned away with her uncle.

Grenfall was smoking his cigarette and vigorously jingling the coins in
his pocket when the train pulled out. Then he swung on the car steps and
found himself at her feet. She was standing at the top, where she had
lingered a moment. There was an expression of anxiety, in her eyes as
he looked up into them, followed instantly by one of relief. Then she
passed into the car. She had seen him swing upon the moving steps and
had feared for his safety--had shown in her glorious face that she was
glad he did not fall beneath the wheels. Doubtless she would have been
as solicitous had he been the porter or the brakeman, he reasoned, but
that she had noticed him at all pleased him.

At Abilene he bought the Kansas City newspapers. After breakfast he
found a seat in the observation car and settled himself to read.
Presently some one took a seat behind him. He did not look back, but
unconcernedly cast his eyes upon the broad mirror in the opposite car
wall. Instantly he forgot his paper. She was sitting within five feet of
him, a book in her lap, her gaze bent briefly on the flitting buildings
outside. He studied the reflection furtively until she took up the book
and began to read. Up to this time he had wondered why some nonsensical
idiot had wasted looking-glasses on the walls of a railway coach; now he
was thinking of him as a far-sighted man.

The first page of his paper was fairly alive with fresh and important
dispatches, chiefly foreign. At length, after allowing himself to become
really interested in a Paris dispatch of some international consequence,
he turned his eyes again to the mirror. She was leaning slightly
forward, holding the open book in her lap, but reading, with straining
eyes, an article in the paper he held.

He calmly turned to the next page and looked leisurely over it. Another
glance, quickly taken, showed to him a disappointed frown on the pretty
face and a reluctant resumption of novel reading. A few moments later he
turned back to the first page, holding the paper in such a position
that she could not see, and, full of curiosity, read every line of the
foreign news, wondering what had interested her.

Under ordinary circumstances Lorry would have offered her the paper,
and thought nothing more of it. With her, however, there was an air that
made him hesitate. He felt strangely awkward and inexperienced beside
her; precedents did not seem to count. He arose, tossed the paper over
the back of the chair as if casting it aside forever, and strolled to
the opposite window and looked out for a few moments, jingling his coins
carelessly. The jingle of the pieces suggested something else to him.
His paper still hung invitingly, upside down, as he had left it, on the
chair, and the lady was poring over her novel. As he passed her he drew
his right hand from his pocket and a piece of money dropped to the floor
at her feet. Then began an embarrassed search for the coin--in the
wrong direction, of course. He knew precisely where it had rolled, but
purposely looked under the seats on the other side of the car. She drew
her skirts aside and assisted in the search. Four different times he
saw the little piece of money, but did not pick it up. Finally, laughing
awkwardly, he began to search on her side of the car. Whereupon she rose
and gave him more room. She became interested in the search and bent
over to scan the dark corners with eager eyes. Their heads were very
close together more than once. At last she uttered an exclamation, and
her hand went to the floor in triumph. They arose together, flushed and
smiling. She had the coin in her hand.

“I have it,” she said, gaily, a delicious foreign tinge to the words.

“I thank you--” he began, holding out his hand as if in a dream of
ecstacy, but her eyes had fallen momentarily on the object of their
search.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, the prettiest surprise in the world coming into her
face. It was a coin from her faraway homeland, and she was betrayed
into the involuntary exclamation. Instantly, however, she regained her
composure and dropped the piece into his outstretched hand, a proud
flush mounting to her cheek, a look of cold reserve to her eyes. He had,
hoped she would offer some comment on what she must have considered a
strange coincidence, but he was disappointed. He wondered if she even
heard him say:

“I am sorry to have troubled you.”

She had resumed her seat, and, to him, there seemed a thousand miles
between them. Feeling decidedly uncomfortable and not a little abashed,
he left her and strode to the door. Again a mirror gave him a thrill.
This time it was the glass in the car's end. He had taken but a
half dozen steps when the brown head was turned slyly and a pair of
interested eyes looked after him. She did not know that he could see
her, so he had the satisfaction of observing that pretty, puzzled face
plainly until he passed through the door.

Grenfall had formed many chance acquaintances during his travels,
sometimes taking risks and liberties that were refreshingly bold. He
had seldom been repulsed, strange to say, and as he went to his section
dizzily, he thought of the good fortune that had been his in other
attempts, and asked himself why it had not occurred to him to make the
same advances in the present instance. Somehow she was different. There
was that strange dignity, that pure beauty, that imperial manner, all
combining to forbid the faintest thought of familiarity.

He was more than astonished at himself for having tricked her a few
moments before into a perfectly natural departure from indifference.
She had been so reserved and so natural that he looked back and asked
himself what had happened to flatter his vanity except a passing show
of interest. With this, he smiled and recalled similar opportunities in
days gone by, all of which had been turned to advantage and had resulted
in amusing pastimes. And here was a pretty girl with an air of mystery
about her, worthy of his best efforts, but toward whom he had not dared
to turn a frivolous eye.

He took out the coin and leaned back in his chair, wondering where it
came from. “In any case,” he thought, “it'll make a good pocket-piece
and some day I'll find some idiot who knows more about geography than I
do.” Mr. Lorry's own ideas of geography were jumbled and vague--as if he
had got them by studying the labels on his hat-box. He knew the places
he had been to, and he recognized a new country by the annoyances of the
customs house, but beyond this his ignorance was complete. The coin,
so far as he knew, might have come from any one of a hundred small
principalities scattered about the continent. Yet it bothered him a
little that he could not tell which one. He was more than curious about
a very beautiful young woman--in fact, he was, undeniably interested in
her. He pleasantly called himself an “ass” to have his head turned by a
pretty face, a foreign accent and an insignificant coin, and yet he was
fascinated.

Before the train reached St. Louis he made up his mind to change cars
there and go to Washington with her. It also occurred to him that
he might go on to New York if the spell lasted. During the day he
telegraphed ahead for accommodations; and when the flyer arrived in
St. Louis that evening he hurriedly attended to the transferring and
rechecking of his baggage, bought a new ticket, and dined. At eight
he was in the station, and at 8:15 he passed her in the aisle. She was
standing in her stateroom door, directing her maid. He saw a look of
surprise flit across her face as he passed. He slept soundly that night,
and dreamed that he was crossing the ocean with her.

At breakfast he saw her, but if she saw him it was when he was not
looking at her. Once he caught Uncle Caspar staring at him through his
monocle, which dropped instantly from his eye in the manner that is
always self-explanatory. She had evidently called the uncle's attention
to him, but was herself looking sedately from the window when Lorry
unfortunately spoiled the scrutiny. His spirits took a furious bound
with the realization that she had deigned to honor him by recognition,
if only to call attention to him because he possessed a certain coin.

Once the old gentleman asked him the time of day and set his watch
according to the reply. In Ohio the manservant scowled at him because he
involuntarily stared after his mistress as she paced the platform
while the train waited at a station. Again, in Ohio, they met in the
vestibule, and he was compelled to step aside to allow her to pass. He
did not feel particularly jubilant over this meeting; she did not even
glance at him.

Lorry realized that his opportunities were fast disappearing, and that
he did not seem to be any nearer meeting her than when they started. He
had hoped to get Uncle Caspar into a conversation and then use him, but
Uncle Caspar was as distant as an iceberg. “If there should be a wreck,”
 Grenfall caught himself thinking, “then my chance would come; but I
don't see how Providence is going to help me in any other way.”

Near the close of the day, after they left St. Louis, the train began
to wind through the foothills of the Alleghenies. Bellaire, Grafton and
other towns were left behind, and they were soon whirling up the steep
mountain, higher and higher, through tunnel after tunnel, nearer and
nearer to Washington every minute. As they were pulling out of a little
mining town built on the mountain side, a sudden jar stopped the train.
There was some little excitement and a scramble for information. Some
part of the engine was disabled, and it would be necessary to replace
it before the “run” could proceed.

Lorry strolled up to the crowd of passengers who were watching the
engineer and fireman at work. A clear, musical voice, almost in his
ear, startled him, for he knew to whom it belonged. She addressed the
conductor, who, impatient and annoyed, stood immediately behind him.

“How long are we to be delayed?” she asked. Just two minutes before
this same conductor had responded most ungraciously to a simple question
Lorry had asked and had gone so far as to instruct another inquisitive
traveler to go to a warmer climate because he persisted in asking for
information which could not be given except by a clairvoyant. But now
he answered in most affable tones: “We'll be here for thirty minutes, at
least, Miss--perhaps longer.” She walked away, after thanking him, and
Grenfall looked at his watch.

Off the main street of the town ran little lanes leading to the mines
below. They all ended at the edge of a steep declivity. There was a drop
of almost four hundred feet straight into the valley below. Along the
sides of this valley were the entrances to the mines. Above, on the
ledge, was the machinery for lifting the ore to the high ground on which
stood the town and railroad yards.

Down one of these streets walked the young lady, curiously interested in
all about her. She seemed glad to escape from the train and its people,
and she hurried along, the fresh spring wind blowing her hair from
beneath her cap, the ends of her long coat fluttering.

Lorry stood on the platform watching her; then he lighted a cigarette
and followed. He had a vague feeling that she ought not to be alone
with all the workmen. She started to come back before he reached her,
however, and he turned again toward the station. Then he heard a sudden
whistle, and a minute later from the end of the street he saw the train
pulling out. Lorry had rather distinguished himself in college as a
runner, and instinctively he dashed up the street, reaching the tracks
just in time to catch the railing of the last coach. But there he
stopped and stood with thumping heart while the coaches slid smoothly
up the track, leaving him behind. He remembered he was not the only
one left, and he panted and smiled. It occurred to him--when it was too
late--that he might have got on the train and pulled the rope or called
the conductor, but that was out of the question now. After all, it might
not be such a merry game to stay in that filthy little town; it did not
follow that she would prove friendly.

A few moments later she appeared--wholly unconscious of what had
happened. A glance down the track and her face was the picture of
despair.

Then she saw him coming toward her with long strides, flushed and
excited. Regardless of appearances, conditions or consequences, she
hurried to meet him.

“Where is the train?” she gasped, as the distance between them grew
short, her blue eyes seeking his beseechingly, her hands clasped.

“It has gone.”

“Gone? And we--we are left?”

He nodded, delighted by the word “we.”

“The conductor said thirty minutes; it has been but twenty,” she cried,
half tearfully, half angrily, looking at her watch. “Oh, what shall I
do?” she went on, distractedly. He had enjoyed the sweet, despairing
tones, but this last wail called for manly and instant action.

“Can we catch the train? We must! I will give one thousand dollars. I
must catch it.” She had placed her gloved hand against a telegraph
pole to steady her trembling, but her face was resolute, imperious,
commanding.

She was ordering him to obey as she would have commanded a slave. In her
voice there was authority, in her eye there was fear. She could control
the one but not the other.

“We cannot catch the flyer. I want to catch it as much as you and”--here
he straightened himself--“I would add a thousand to yours.” He hesitated
a moment-thinking. “There is but one way, and no time to lose.”

With this he turned and ran rapidly toward the little depot and
telegraph office.




II. TWO STRANGERS IN A COACH


Lorry wasted very little time. He dashed into the depot and up to the
operator's window.

“What's the nearest station east of here?”

“P----,” leisurely answered the agent, in some surprise.

“How far is it?”

“Four miles.”

“Telegraph ahead and hold the train that just left here.”

“The train don't stop there.”

“It's got to stop there--or there'll be more trouble than this road has
had since it began business. The conductor pulled out and left two of
his passengers--gave out wrong information, and he'll have to hold his
train there or bring her back here. If you don't send that order I'll
report you as well as the conductor.” Grenfall's manner was commanding.
The agent's impression was that he was important that he had a right to
give orders. But he hesitated.

“There's no way for you but to get to P---- anyway,” he said, while
turning the matter over in his mind.

“You stop that train! I'll get there inside of twenty minutes. Now, be
quick! Wire them to hold her--or there'll be an order from headquarters
for some ninety-day lay-offs.” The agent stared at him; then turned to
his instrument, and the message went forward. Lorry rushed out. On the
platform he nearly ran over the hurrying figure in the tan coat.

“Pardon me. I'll explain things in a minute,” he gasped, and dashed
away. Her troubled eyes blinked with astonishment.

At the end of the platform stood a mountain coach, along the sides of
which was printed in yellow letters: “Happy Springs.” The driver was
climbing up to his seat and the cumbersome trap was empty.

“Want to make ten dollars?” cried Grenfall.

“What say?” demanded the driver, half falling to the ground.

“Get me to P---- inside of twenty minutes, and I'll give you ten
dollars. Hurry up! Answer!”

“Yes, but, you see, I'm hired to--”

“Oh, that's all right! You'll never make money easier. Can you get us
there in twenty minutes?”

“It's four mile, pardner, and not very good road, either. Pile in, and
we'll make it er kill old Hip and Jim. Miss the train?”

“Get yourself ready for a race with an express train and don't ask
questions. Kill 'em both if you have to. I'll be back in a second!”

Back to the station he tore. She was standing near the door, looking up
the track miserably. Already night was falling. Men were lighting the
switch lanterns and the mountains were turning into great dark shadows.

“Come quickly; I have a wagon out here.”

Resistlessly she was hurried along and fairly shoved through the open
door of the odd-looking coach. He was beside her on the seat in an
instant, and her bewildered ears heard him say:

“Drive like the very deuce!” Then the door slammed, the driver clattered
up to his seat, and the horses were off with a rush.

“Where are we going?” she demanded, sitting very straight and defiant.

“After that train--I'll tell you all about it when I get my breath. This
is to be the quickest escape from a dilemma on record--providing it is
an escape.” By this time they were bumping along the flinty road at a
lively rate, jolting about on the seat in a most disconcerting manner.
After a few long, deep breaths he told her how the ride in the Springs
hack had been conceived and of the arrangement he had made with the
despatcher. He furthermore acquainted her with the cause of his being
left when he might have caught the train.

“Just as I reached the track, out of breath but rejoicing, I remembered
having seen you on that side street, and knew that you would be left.
It would have been heartless to leave you here without protection, so
I felt it my duty to let the train go and help you out of a very ugly
predicament.”

“How can I ever repay you?” she murmured. “It was so good and so
thoughtful of you. Oh, I should have died had I been left here alone. Do
you not think my uncle will miss me and have the train sent back?” she
went on sagely.

“That's so!” he exclaimed, somewhat disconcerted. “But I don't know,
either. He may not miss you for a long time, thinking you are in some
other car, you know. That could easily happen,” triumphantly.

“Can this man get us to the next station in time?” she questioned,
looking at the black mountains and the dense foliage. It was now quite
dark.

“If he doesn't bump us to death before we get half way there. He's
driving like the wind.”

“You must let me pay half his bill,” she said, decidedly, from the dark
corner in which she was huddling.

He could find no response to this peremptory request.

“The road is growing rougher. If you will allow me to make a suggestion,
I think you will see its wisdom. You can escape a great deal of ugly
jostling if you will take hold of my arm and cling to it tightly. I
will brace myself with this strap. I am sure it will save you many hard
bumps.”

Without a word she moved to his side and wound her strong little arm
about his big one.

“I had thought of that,” she said, simply. “Thank you.” Then, after
a moment, while his heart thumped madly: “Had it occurred to you that
after you ran so hard you might have climbed aboard the train and
ordered the conductor to stop it for me?”

“I--I never thought of that?” he cried, confusedly.

“Please do not think me ungrateful. You have been very good to me, a
stranger. One often thinks afterward of things one might have done,
don't you know? You did the noblest when you inconvenienced yourself for
me. What trouble I have made for you.” She said this so prettily that he
came gaily from the despondency into which her shrewdness, bordering
on criticism, had thrown him. He knew perfectly well that she was
questioning his judgment and presence of mind, and, the more he thought
of it, the more transparent became the absurdity of his action.

“It has been no trouble,” he floundered “An adventure like this is worth
no end of--er--inconvenience, as you call it. I'm sure I must have lost
my head completely, and I am ashamed of myself. How much anxiety I could
have saved you had I been possessed of an ounce of brains!”

“Hush! I will not allow you to say that. You would have me appear
ungrateful when I certainly am not. Ach, how he is driving! Do you think
it dangerous?” she cried, as the hack gave two or three wild lurches,
throwing him into the corner, and the girl half upon him.

“Not in the least,” he gasped, the breath knocked out of his body. Just
the same, he was very much alarmed. It was as dark as pitch outside and
in, and he could not help wondering how near the edge of the mountain
side they were running. A false move of the flying horses and they might
go rolling to the bottom of the ravine, hundreds of feet below. Still,
he must not let her see his apprehension. “This fellow is considered the
best driver in the mountains,” he prevaricated. Just then he remembered
having detected liquor on the man's breath as he closed the door behind
him. Perhaps he was intoxicated!

“Do you know him?” questioned the clear voice, her lips close to his
ear, her warm body pressing against his.

“Perfectly. He is no other than Lighthorse Jerry, the king of stage
drivers.” In the darkness he smiled to himself maliciously.

“Oh, then we need feel no alarm,” she said, reassured, not knowing that
Jerry existed only in the yellow-backed novel her informant had read
when a boy.

There was such a roaring and clattering that conversation became almost
impossible. When either spoke it was with the mouth close to the ear of
the other. At such times Grenfall could feel her breath on his cheek,
Her sweet voice went tingling to his toes with every word she uttered.
He was in a daze, out of which sung the mad wish that he might clasp
her in his arms, kiss her, and then go tumbling down the mountain. She
trembled in the next fierce lurches, but gave forth no complaint. He
knew that she was in terror but too brave to murmur.

Unable to resist, he released the strap to which he had clung so grimly,
and placed his strong, firm hand encouragingly over the little one that
gripped his arm with the clutch of death. It was very dark and very
lonely, too!

“Oh!” she cried, as his hand clasped hers. “You must hold to the strap.”

“It is broken!” he lied, gladly, “There is no danger. See! My hand does
not tremble, does it? Be calm! It cannot be much farther.”

“Will it not be dreadful if the conductor refuses to stop?” she cried,
her hand resting calmly beneath its protector. He detected a tone of
security in her voice.

“But he will stop! Your uncle will see to that, even if the operator
fails.”

“My uncle will kill him if he does not stop or come back for me,” she
said, complacently.

“I was mot wrong,” thought Grenfall; “he looks like a duelist. Who the
devil are they, anyhow?” Then aloud: “At this rate we'd be able to beat
the train to Washington in a straight-away race. Isn't it a delightfully
wild ride?”

“I have acquired a great deal of knowledge in America, but this is the
first time I have heard your definition of delight. I agree that it is
wild.”

For some moments there was silence in the noisy conveyance. Outside, the
crack of the driver's whip, his hoarse cries, and the nerve-destroying
crash of the wheels produced impressions of a mighty storm rather than
of peace and pleasure.

“I am curious to know where you obtained the coin you lost in the car
yesterday,” she said at last, as if relieving her mind of a question
that had been long subdued.

“The one you so kindly found for me?” he asked, procrastinatingly.

“Yes. They are certainly rare in this country.”

“I never saw a coin like it until after I had seen you,” he confessed.
He felt her arm press his a little tighter, and there was a quick
movement of her head which told him, dark as it was, that she was trying
to see his face and that her blue eyes were wide with something more
than terror.

“I do not understand,” she exclaimed.

“I obtained the coin from a sleeping-car porter who said some one gave
it to him and told him to have a 'high time' with it,” he explained in
her ear.

“He evidently did not care for the 'high time,'” she said, after a
moment. He would have given a fortune for one glimpse of her face at
that instant.

“I think he said it would be necessary to go to Europe in order to
follow the injunction of the donor. As I am more likely to go to Europe
than he, I relieved him of the necessity and bought his right to a 'high
time.'”

There was a long pause, during which she attempted to withdraw herself
from his side, her little fingers struggling timidly beneath the big
ones.

“Are you a collector of coins?” she asked at length, a perceptible
coldness in her voice.

“No. I am considered a dispenser of coins. Still, I rather like the idea
of possessing this queer bit of money as a pocket-piece. I intend to
keep it forever, and let it descend as an heirloom to the generations
that follow me,” he said, laughingly. “Why are you so curious about it?”

“Because it comes from the city and country in which I live,” she
responded. “If you were in a land far from your own would you not be
interested in anything--even a coin--that reminded you of home?”

“Especially if I had not seen one of its kind since leaving home,” he
replied, insinuatingly.

“Oh, but I have seen many like it. In my purse there are several at this
minute.”

“Isn't it strange that this particular coin should have reminded you of
home?”

“You have no right to question me, sir,” she said, coldly, drawing away,
only to be lurched back again. In spite of herself she laughed audibly.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, tantalizingly.

“When did he give it you?”

“Who?”

“The porter, sir.”

“You have no right to question me,” he said.

“Oh!” she gasped. “I did not mean to be inquisitive.”

“But I grant the right. He gave it me inside of two hours after I first
entered the car.”

“At Denver?”

“How do you know I got on at Denver?'

“Why, you passed me in the aisle with your luggage. Don't you remember?”

Did he remember! His heart almost turned over with the joy of knowing
that she had really noticed and remembered him. Involuntarily his glad
fingers closed down upon the gloved hand that lay beneath them.

“I believe I do remember, now that you speak of it,” he said, in a
stifled voice. “You were standing at a window?”

“Yes; and I saw you kissing those ladies goodby, too. Was one of them
your wife, or were they all your sisters? I have wondered.”

“They--they were--cousins,” he informed her, confusedly, recalling an
incident that had been forgotten. He had kissed Mary Lyons and Edna
Burrage--but their brothers were present. “A foolish habit, isn't it?”

“I do not know. I have no grown cousins,” she replied, demurely. “You
Americans have such funny customs, though. Where I live, no gentleman
would think of pressing a lady's hand until it pained her. Is it
necessary?” In the question there was a quiet dignity, half submerged
in scorn, so pointed, so unmistakable that he flushed, turned cold with
mortification, and hastily removed the amorous fingers.

“I crave your pardon. It is such a strain to hold myself and you against
the rolling of this wagon that I unconsciously gripped your hand harder
than I knew. You--you will not misunderstand my motive?” he begged,
fearful lest he had offended her by his ruthlessness.

“I could not misunderstand something that does not exist,” she said,
simply, proudly.

“By Jove, she's beyond comparison!” he thought.

“You have explained, and I am sorry I spoke as I did. I shall not again
forget how much I owe you.”

“Your indebtedness, if there be one, does not deprive you of the liberty
to speak to me as you will. You could not say anything unjust without
asking my forgiveness, and when you do that you more than pay the debt.
It is worth a great deal to me to hear you say that you owe something to
me, for I am only too glad to be your creditor. If there is a debt, you
shall never pay it; it is too pleasant an account to be settled with
'you're welcome.' If you insist that you owe much to me, I shall refuse
to cancel the debt, and allow it to draw interest forever.”

“What a financier!” she cried. “That jest was worthy of a courtier's
deepest flattery. Let me say that I am proud to owe my gratitude to you.
You will not permit it to grow less.”

“That was either irony or the prettiest speech a woman ever uttered,” he
said, warmly. “I also am curious about something. You were reading
over my shoulder in the observation car--” “I was not!” she exclaimed,
indignantly. “How did you know that?” she inconsistently went on.

“You forget the mirror in the opposite side of the car.”

“Ach, now I am offended.”

“With a poor old mirror? For shame! Yet, in the name of our American
glass industry, I ask your forgiveness. It shall not happen again. You
will admit that you were trying to read over my shoulder. Thanks for
that immutable nod. Well, I am curious to know what you were so eager to
read.”

“Since you presume to believe the mirror instead of me, I will tell you.
There was a despatch on the first page that interested me deeply.”

“I believe I thought as much at the time. Oh, confound this road!”
 For half a mile or more the road had been fairly level, but, as the
ejaculation indicates, a rough place had been reached. He was flung
back in the corner violently, his head coming in contact with a sharp
projection of some kind. The pain was almost unbearable, but it was
eased by the fact that she had involuntarily thrown her arm across his
chest, her hand grasping his shoulder spasmodically.

“Oh, we shall be killed!” she half shrieked. “Can you not stop him? This
is madness--madness!”

“Pray be calm! I was to blame, for I had become careless. He is earning
his money, that's all. It was not stipulated in the contract that he was
to consider the comfort of his passengers.” Grenfall could feel himself
turn pale as something warm began to trickle down his neck. “Now tell me
which despatch it was. I read all of them.”

“You did? Of what interest could they have been?”

“Curiosity does not recognize reason.”

“You read every one of them?”

“Assuredly.”

“Then I shall grant you the right to guess which interested me the most.
You Americans delight in puzzles, I am told.”

“Now, that is unfair.”

“So it is. Did you read the despatch from Constantinople?” Her arm fell
to her side suddenly as if she had just realized its position.

“The one that told of the French ambassador's visit to the Sultan?”

“Concerning the small matter of a loan of some millions--yes. Well,
that was of interest to me inasmuch as the loan, if made, will affect my
country.”

“Will you tell me what country you are from?”

“I am from Graustark.”

“Yes; but I don't remember where that is.”

“Is it possible that your American schools do not teach geography? Ours
tell us where the United States are located.”

“I confess ignorance,” he admitted.

“Then I shall insist that you study a map. Graustark is small, but I am
as proud of it as you are of this great broad country that reaches from
ocean to ocean. I can scarcely wait until I again see our dear crags
and valleys, our rivers and ever-blue skies, our plains and our towns. I
wonder if you worship your country as I love mine.”

“From the tenor of your remarks, I judge that you have been away from
home for a long time,” he volunteered.

“We have seen something of Asia, Australia, Mexico and the United States
since we left Edelweiss, six months ago. Now we are going home--home!”
 She uttered the word so lovingly, so longingly, so tenderly, that he
envied the homeland.

There was a long break in the conversation, both evidently wrapped in
thought which could not be disturbed by the whirl of the coach. He was
wondering how he could give her up, now that she had been tossed into
his keeping so strangely. She was asking herself over and over again how
so thrilling an adventure would end.

They were sore and fatigued with the strain on nerve and flesh. It was
an experience never to be forgotten, this romantic race over the wild
mountain road, the result still in doubt. Ten minutes ago--strangers;
now--friends at least, neither knowing the other. She was admiring him
for his generalship, his wonderful energy; he was blessing the fate
that had come to his rescue when hope was almost dead. He could scarcely
realize that he was awake. Could it be anything but a vivid fancy from
which he was to awaken and find himself alone in his berth, the buzzing,
clacking carwheels piercing his ears with sounds so unlike those that
had been whispered into them by a voice, sweet and maddening, from out
the darkness of a dreamland cab?


“Surely we must be almost at the end of this awful ride,” she moaned,
yielding completely to the long suppressed alarm. “Every bone in my body
aches. What shall we do if they have not held the train?”

“Send for an undertaker,” he replied grimly, seeing policy in jest. They
were now ascending an incline, bumping over boulders, hurtling through
treacherous ruts and water-washed holes, rolling, swinging, jerking,
crashing. “You have been brave all along; don't give up now. It is
almost over. You'll soon be with your friends.”

“How can I thank you”' she cried, gripping his arm once more. Again his
hand dropped upon hers and closed gently.

“I wish that I could do a thousand times as much for you,” he said,
thrillingly, her disheveled hair touching his face so close were his
lips. “Ah, the lights of the town!” he cried an instant later. “Look!”

He held her so that she could peer through the rattling glass window.
Close at hand, higher up the steep, many lights were twinkling against
the blackness.

Almost before they realized how near they were to the lights, the horses
began to slacken their speed, a moment later coming to a standstill. The
awful ride was over.

“The train! the train!” she cried, in ecstacy. “Here, on the other side.
Thank heaven!”

He could not speak for the joyful pride that distended his heart almost
to bursting. The coach door flew open, and Light-horse Jerry yelled:

“Here y'are! I made her!”

“I should say you did!” exclaimed Grenfall, climbing out and drawing her
after him gently. “Here's your ten.”

“I must send you something, too, my good fellow,” cried the lady. “What
is your address--quick?”

“William Perkins, O----, West Virginny, ma'am.”

Lorry was dragging her toward the cars as the driver completed the
sentence. Several persons were running down the platform, dimly lighted
from the string of car windows She found time to pant as they sped
along:

“He was not Light-horse Jerry, at all!”




III. MISS GUGGENSLOCKER


He laughed, looking down into her serious upturned face. A brief smile
of understanding flitted across her lips as she broke away from him
and threw herself into the arms of tall, excited Uncle Caspar. The
conductor, several trainmen and a few eager passengers came up, the
former crusty and snappish.

“Well, get aboard!” he growled. “We can't wait all night.”

The young lady looked up quickly, her sensitive face cringing beneath
the rough command. Lorry stepped instantly to the conductor's side,
shook his finger vigorously under his nose, and exclaimed in no
uncertain tones:

“Now, that's enough from you! If I hear another word out of you, I'll
make you sweat blood before tomorrow morning. Understand, my friend.”

“Aw, who are you?” demanded the conductor, belligerently.

“You'll learn that soon enough. After this you'll have sense enough to
find out whom you are talking to before you open that mouth of yours.
Not another word!” Mr. Grenfall Lorry was not president of the road,
nor was he in any way connected with it, but his well assumed air of
authority caused the trainman's ire to dissolve at once.

“Excuse me, sir. I've been worried to death on this run. I meant no
offence. That old gentleman has threatened to kill me. Just now he
took out his watch and said if I did not run back for his niece in two
minutes he'd call me out and run me through. I've been nearly crazy
here. For the life of me, I don't see how you happened to be--”

“Oh, that's all right. Let's be off,” cried Lorry, who had fallen some
distance behind his late companion and her uncle. Hurrying after them,
he reached her side in time to assist her in mounting the car steps.

“Thank you,” smiling down upon him bewitchingly. At the top of the steps
she was met by her aunt, behind whom stood the anxious man-servant and
the maid. Into the coach she was drawn by the relieved old lady, who
was critically inspecting her personal appearance when Lorry and the
foreigner entered.

“Ach, it was so wild and exhilarating, Aunt Yvonne,” the girl was
saying, her eyes sparkling. She stood straight and firm, her chin in the
air, her hands in those of her aunt. The little traveling cap was on
the side of her head, her hair was loose and very much awry, strands
straying here, curls blowing there in utter confusion. Lorry fairly
gasped with admiration for the loveliness that would not be vanquished.

“We came like the wind! I shall never, never forget it,” she said.

“But how could you have remained there, child? Tell me how it happened.
We have been frantic,” said her aunt, half in English, half in German.

“Not now, dear Aunt Yvonne. See my hair! What a fright I must be!
Fortunate man, your hair cannot be so unruly as mine. Oh!” The
exclamation was one of alarm. In an instant she was at his side, peering
with terrified eyes at the bloodstains on his neck and face. “It is
blood! You are hurt! Uncle Caspar, Hedrick--quick! Attend him! Come to
my room at once. You are suffering. Minna, find bandages!”

She dragged him to the door of her section before he could interpose a
remonstrance.

“It is nothing--a mere scratch. Bumped my head against the side of the
coach. Please don't worry about it; I can care for myself. Really, it
doesn't--”

“But it does! It has bled terribly. Sit there! Now, Hedrick, some
water.”

Hedrick rushed off and was back in a moment with a basin of water, a
sponge and a towel, and before Grenfall fully knew what was happening,
the man-servant was bathing his head, the others looking on anxiously,
the young lady apprehensively, her hands clasped before her as she bent
over to inspect the wound above his ear.

“It is quite an ugly cut,” said Uncle Caspar, critically. “Does it pain
you, sir?”

“Oh, not a great deal,” answered Lorry, closing his eyes comfortably. It
was all very pleasant, he thought.

“Should it not have stitches, Uncle Caspar?” asked the sweet, eager
voice.

“I think not. The flow is staunched. If the gentleman will allow Hedrick
to trim the hair away for a plaster and then bandage it I think the
wound will give him no trouble.” The old man spoke slowly and in very
good English.

“Really, Uncle, is it not serious?”

“No, no,” interposed Grenfall Lorry. “I knew it was a trifle. You cannot
break an American's head. Let me go to my own section and I'll be ready
to present myself, as good as new, in ten minutes.”

“You must let Hedrick bandage your head,” she insisted. “Go with him,
Hedrick.”

Grenfall arose and started toward his section, followed by Hedrick.

“I trust you were not hurt during that reckless ride,” he said, more as
a question, stopping in the aisle to look back at her.

“I should have been a mass of bruises, gashes and lumps had it not been
for one thing,” she said, a faint flush coming to her cheek, although
her eyes looked unfalteringly into his. “Will you join us in the dining
car? I will have a place prepared for you at our table.”

“Thank you. You are very good. I shall join you as soon as I am
presentable.”

“We are to be honored, sir,” said the old gentleman, but in such a
way that Grenfall had a distinct feeling that it was he who was to be
honored. Aunt Yvonne smiled graciously, and he took his departure.
While Hedrick was dressing the jagged little cut, Grenfall complacently
surveyed the patient in the mirror opposite, and said to himself a
hundred times: “You lucky dog! It was worth forty gashes like this. By
Jove, she's divine!”

In a fever of eager haste he bathed and attired himself for dinner, the
imperturbable Hedrick assisting. One query filled the American's mind:
“I wonder if I am to sit beside her.” And then: “I have sat beside her!
There can never again be such delight!”

It was seven o'clock before his rather unusual toilet was completed.
“See if they have gone to the diner, Hedrick,” he said to the
man-servant, who departed ceremoniously.

“I don't know why he should be so damned polite,” observed Lorry,
gazing wonderingly after him. “I'm not a king. That reminds me. I must
introduce myself. She doesn't know me from Adam.”

Hedrick returned and announced that they had just gone to the dining car
and were awaiting him there. He hurried to the diner and made his way
to their table. Uncle Caspar and his niece were facing him as he came
up between the tables, and he saw, with no little regret, that he was to
sit beside the aunt--directly opposite the girl, however. She smiled up
at him as he stood before them, bowing. He saw the expression of inquiry
in those deep, liquid eyes of violet as their gaze wandered over his
hair.

“Your head? I see no bandage,” she said, reproachfully.

“There is a small plaster and that is all. Only heroes may have
dangerous wounds,” he said, laughingly.

“Is heroism in America measured by the number of stitches or the size of
the plaster?” she asked, pointedly. “In my country it is a joy, and not
a calamity. Wounds are the misfortune of valor. Pray, be seated, Mr.
Lorry is it not?” she said, pronouncing it quaintly.

He sat down rather suddenly on hearing her utter his name. How had she
learned it? Not a soul on the train knew it, he was sure.

“I am Caspar Guggenslocker. Permit me, Mr. Lorry, to present my wife and
my niece, Miss Guggenslocker,” said the uncle, more gracefully than he
had ever heard such a thing uttered before.

In a daze, stunned by the name,--Guggenslocker, mystified over their
acquaintance with his own when he had been foiled at every fair attempt
to learn theirs, Lorry could only mumble his acknowledgments. In all
his life he had never lost command of himself as at this moment.
Guggenslocker! He could feel the dank sweat of disappointment starting
on his brow. A butcher,--a beer maker,--a cobbler,--a gardener,--all
synonyms of Guggenslocker. A sausage manufacturer's niece--Miss
Guggenslocker! He tried to glance unconcernedly at her as he took up
his napkin, but his eyes wavered helplessly. She was looking serenely at
him, yet he fancied he saw a shadow of mockery in her blue eyes.

“If you were a novel writer, Mr. Lorry, what manner of heroine would
you choose?” she asked, with a smile so tantalizing that he understood
instinctively why she was reviving a topic once abandoned. His
confusion was increased. Her uncle and aunt were regarding him
calmly,--expectantly, he imagined.

“I--I have no ambition to be a novel writer,” he said, “so I have not
made a study of heroines.”

“But you would have an ideal,” she persisted.

“I'm sure I--I don't--that is, she would not necessarily be a heroine.
Unless, of course, it would require heroism to pose as an ideal for such
a prosaic fellow as I.”

“To begin with, you would call her Clarabel Montrose or something
equally as impossible. You know the name of a heroine in a novel must
be euphonious. That is an exacting rule.” It was an open taunt, and
he could see that she was enjoying his discomfiture. It aroused his
indignation and his wits.

“I would first give my hero a distinguished name. No matter what the
heroine's name might be--pretty or otherwise--I could easily change it
to his in the last chapter.” She flushed beneath his now bright, keen
eyes and the ready, though unexpected retort. Uncle Caspar placed his
napkin to his lips and coughed. Aunt Yvonne studiously inspected her
bill of fare. “No matter what you call a rose, it is always sweet,” he
added, meaningly.

At this she laughed good-naturedly. He marveled at her white teeth
and red lips. A rose, after all. Guggenslocker, rose; rose, not
Guggenslocker. No, no! A rose only! He fancied he caught a sly look of
triumph in her uncle's swift glance toward her. But Uncle Caspar was not
a rose--he was Guggenslocker. Guggenslocker--butcher! Still, he did not
look the part--no, indeed. That extraordinary man a butcher, a gardener,
a--and Aunt Yvonne? Yet they were Guggenslockers.

“Here is the waiter,” the girl observed, to his relief. “I am famished
after my pleasant drive. It was so bracing, was it not Mr. Grenfall
Lorry?”

“Give me a mountain ride always as an appetizer,” he said, obligingly,
and so ended the jest about a name.

The orders for the dinner were given and the quartette sat back in their
chairs to await the coming of the soup. Grenfall was still wondering how
she had learned his name, and was on the point of asking several times
during the conventional discussion of the weather, the train and the
mountains. He considerately refrained, however, unwilling to embarrass
her.

“Aunt Yvonne tells me she never expected to see me alive after the
station agent telegraphed that we were coming overland in that awful old
carriage. The agent at P---- says it is a dangerous road, at the very
edge of the mountain. He also increased the composure of my uncle and
aunt by telling them that a wagon rolled off yesterday, killing a man,
two women and two horses. Dear Aunt Yvonne, how troubled you must have
been.”

“I'll confess there were times when I thought we were rolling down the
mountain,” said Lorry, with a relieved shake of the head.

“Sometimes I thought we were soaring through space, whether upward or
downwards I could not tell. We never failed to come to earth, though,
did we?” she laughingly asked.

“Emphatically! Earth and a little grief,” he said, putting his hand to
his head.

“Does it pain you?” she asked, quickly.

“Not in the least. I was merely feeling to see if the cut were still
there. Mr--Mr. Guggenslocker, did the conductor object to holding the
train?” he asked, remembering what the conductor had told him of the old
gentleman's actions.

“At first, but I soon convinced him that it should be held,” said the
other, quietly.

“My husband spoke very harshly to the poor man,” added Aunt Yvonne.
“But, I am afraid, Caspar, he did not understand a word you said. You
were very much excited.” The sweet old lady's attempts at English were
much more laborious than her husband's.

“If he did not understand my English, he was very good at guessing,”
 said her husband, grimly.

“He told me you had threatened to call him out,” ventured the young man.

“Call him out? Ach, a railroad conductor!” exclaimed Uncle Caspar, in
fine scorn.

“Caspar, I heard you say that you would call him out,” interposed his
wife, with reproving eyes.

“Ach, God! God! I have made a mistake! I see it all! It was the
other word I meant--down not out! I intended to call him down, as you
Americans say. I hope he will not think I challenged him.” He was very
much perturbed.

“I think he was afraid you would,” said Lorry.

“He should have no fear. I could not meet a railroad conductor. Will you
please tell him I could not so condescend? Besides, dueling is murder in
your country, I am told.”

“It usually is, sir. Much more so than in Europe.” The others looked
at him inquiringly. “I mean that in America when two men pull
their revolvers and go to shooting at each other, some one is
killed--frequently both. In Europe, as I understand it, a scratch with a
sword ends the combat.”

“You have been misinformed,” exclaimed Uncle Caspar, his eyebrows
elevated.

“Why, Uncle Caspar has fought more duels than he can count,” cried the
girl, proudly.

“And has he slain his man every time?” asked Grenfall, smilingly,
glancing from one to the other. Aunt Yvonne shot a reproving look at the
girl, whose face paled instantly, her eyes going quickly in affright to
the face of her uncle.

“God!” Lorry heard the old gentleman mutter. He was looking at his bill
of fare, but his eyes were fixed and staring. The card was crumpling
between the long, bony fingers. The American realized that a forbidden
topic had been touched upon.

“He has fought and he has slain,” he thought as quick as a flash, “He is
no butcher, no gardener, no cobbler. That's certain!”

“Tell us, Uncle Caspar, what you said to the conductor,” cried the young
lady, nervously.

“Tell them, Caspar, how alarmed we were,” added soft-voiced Aunt Yvonne.
Grenfall was a silent, interested spectator. He somehow felt as if a
scene from some tragedy had been reproduced in that briefest of moments.
Calmly and composedly, a half smile now in his face, the soldierly
Caspar narrated the story of the train's run from one station to the
other.

“We did not miss you until we had almost reached the other station. Then
your Aunt Yvonne asked me where you had gone. I told her I had not seen
you, but went into the coach ahead to search. You were not there. Then I
went on to the dining car. Ach, you were not there. In alarm I returned
to our car. Your aunt and I looked everywhere. You were not anywhere.
I shall never forget your aunt's face when she sank into a chair, nor
shall I feel again so near like dying as when she suggested that you
might have fallen from the train. I sent Hedrick ahead to summon the
conductor, but he had hardly left us when the engine whistled sharply
and the train began to slow up in a jerky fashion. We were very pale
as we looked at each other, for something told us that the stop was
unusual. I rushed to the platform meeting Hedrick, who was as much
alarmed as I. He said the train had been flagged, and that there must
be something wrong. Your aunt came out and told me that she had made a
strange discovery.”

Grenfall observed that he was addressing himself exclusively to the
young lady.

“She had found that the gentleman in the next section was also missing.
While we were standing there in doubt and perplexity, the train came to
a standstill, and soon there was shouting on the outside. I climbed down
from the car and saw that we were at a little station. The conductor
came running toward me excitedly.

“'Is the young lady in the car?' he asked.

“'No. For Heaven's sake, what have you heard?' I cried.

“'Then she has been left at O----,' he exclaimed, and used some very
extraordinary American words.

“I then informed him that he should run back for you, first learning
that you were alive and well. He said he would be damned if he
would--pardon the word, ladies. He was very angry, and said he would
give orders to go ahead, but I told him I would demand restitution of
his government. He laughed in my face, and then I became shamelessly
angry. I said to him:

“'Sir, I shall call you down--not out, as you have said--and I shall run
you through the mill.'

“That was good American talk, sir, was it not, Mr. Lorry? I wanted
him to understand me, so I tried to use your very best language. Some
gentlemen who are traveling on this train and some very excellent ladies
also joined in the demand that the train be held. His despatch from
O---- said that you, Mr. Lorry, insisted on having it held for twenty
minutes. The conductor insulted you, sir, by saying that you had
more--ah, what is it?--gall than any idiot he had ever seen. When he
said that, although I did not fully understand that it was a reflection
on you, so ignorant am I of your language, I took occasion to tell him
that you were a gentleman and a friend of mine. He asked me your name,
but, as I did not know it, I could only tell him that he would learn it
soon enough. Then he said something which has puzzled me ever since. He
told me to close my face. What did he mean by that, Mr. Lorry?”

“Well, Mr. Guggenslocker, that means, in refined American, 'stop
talking,'” said Lorry, controlling a desire to shout.

“Ach, that accounts for his surprise when I talked louder and faster
than ever. I did not know what he meant. He said positively he would not
wait, but just then a second message came from the other station. I did
not know what it was then, but a gentleman told me that it instructed
him to hold the train if he wanted to hold his job. Job is situation,
is it not? Well, when he read that message he said he would wait just
twenty minutes. I asked him to tell me how you were coming to us, but he
refused to answer. Your aunt and I went at once to the telegraph man
and implored him to tell us the truth, and he said you were coming in a
carriage over a very dangerous road. Imagine our feelings when he said
some people had been killed yesterday on that very road.

“He said you would have to drive like the--the very devil if you got
here in twenty minutes.”

“We did, Uncle Caspar,” interrupted Miss Guggenslocker, naively. “Our
driver followed Mr. Lorry's instructions.”

Mr. Grenfall Lorry blushed and laughed awkwardly. He had been admiring
her eager face and expressive eyes during Uncle Caspar's recital. How
sweet her voice when it pronounced his name, how charming the foreign
flavor to the words.

“He would not have understood if I had said other things,” he explained,
hastily.

“When your aunt and I returned to the train we saw the conductor holding
his watch. He said to me: 'In just three minutes we pull out. If they
are not here by that time they can get on the best they know how. I've
done all I can: I did not say a word, but went to my section and had
Hedrick get out my pistols. If the train left before you arrived it
would be without its conductor. In the meantime, your Aunt Yvonne was
pleading with the wretch. I hastened back to his side with my pistols in
my pocket. It was then that I told him to start his train if he dared.
That man will never know how close he was to death. One minute passed,
and he coolly announced that but one minute was left. I had made up my
mind to give him one of my pistols when the time was up, and to tell
him to defend himself. It was not to be a duel, for there was nothing
regular about it. It was only a question as to whether the train should
move. Then came the sound of carriage wheels and galloping horses.
Almost before we knew it you were with us. I am so happy that you were
not a minute later.”

There was something so cool and grim in the quiet voice, something so
determined in those brilliant eyes, that Grenfall felt like looking up
the conductor to congratulate him. The dinner was served, and while
it was being discussed his fair companion of the drive graphically
described the experience of twenty strange minutes in a shackle-down
mountain coach. He was surprised to find that she omitted no part, not
even the hand clasp or the manner in which she clung to him. His ears
burned as he listened to this frank confession, for he expected to
hear words of disapproval from the uncle and aunt. His astonishment was
increased by their utter disregard of these rather peculiar details.
It was then that he realized how trusting she had been, how serenely
unconscious of his tender and sudden passion. And had she told her
relatives that she had kissed him, he firmly believed they would have
smiled approvingly. Somehow the real flavor of romance was stricken from
the ride by her candid admissions. What he had considered a romantic
treasure was being calmly robbed of its glitter, leaving for his memory
the blurr of an adventure in which he had played the part of a gallant
gentleman and she a grateful lady. He was beginning to feel ashamed of
the conceit that had misled him. Down in his heart he was saying: “I
might have known it. I did know it. She is not like other women.” The
perfect confidence that dwelt in the rapt faces of the others forced
into his wondering mind the impression that this girl could do no wrong.

“And, Aunt Yvonne,” she said, in conclusion, “the luck which you say is
mine as birthright asserted itself. I escaped unhurt, while Mr. Lorry
alone possesses the pain and unpleasantness of our ride.”

“I possess neither,” he objected. “The pain that you refer to is a
pleasure.”

“The pain that a man endures for a woman should always be a pleasure,”
 said Uncle Caspar smilingly.

“But it could not be a pleasure to him unless the woman considered it a
pain,” reasoned Miss Guggenslocker. “He could not feel happy if she did
not respect the pain.”

“And encourage it,” supplemented Lorry, drily. “If you do not remind me
occasionally that I am hurt, Miss Guggenslocker, I am liable to forget
it.” To himself he added: “I'll never learn how to say it in one
breath.”

“If I were not so soon to part from you I should be your physician,
and, like all physicians, prolong your ailment interminably,” she said,
prettily.

“To my deepest satisfaction,” he said, warmly, not lightly. There was
nothing further from his mind than servile flattery, as his rejoinder
might imply. “Alas!” he went on, “we no sooner meet than we part. May I
ask when you are to sail?”

“On Thursday,” replied Mr. Guggenslocker.

“On the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse,” added his niece, a faraway look
coming into her eyes.

“We are to stop off one day, to-morrow, in Washington,” said Aunt
Yvonne, and the jump that Lorry's heart gave was so mighty that he was
afraid they could see it in his face.

“My uncle has some business to transact in your city, Mr. Lorry. We are
to spend tomorrow there and Wednesday in New York. Then we sail. Ach,
how I long for Thursday!” His heart sank like lead to the depths from
which it had sprung. It required no effort on his part to see that
he was alone in his infatuation. Thursday was more to her than his
existence; she could forget him and think of Thursday, and when she
thought of Thursday, the future, he was but a thing of the past, not
even of the present.

“Have you always lived in Washington, Mr. Lorry?” asked Mrs.
Guggenslocker.

“All my life,” he replied wishing at that moment that he was homeless
and free to choose for himself.

“You Americans live in one city and then in another,” she said. “Now, in
our country generation after generation lives and dies in one town. We
are not migratory.”

“Mr. Lorry has offended us by not knowing where Graustark is located on
the map,” cried the young lady, and he could see the flash of resentment
in her eyes.

“Why, my dear sir, Graustark is in--” began Uncle Caspar, but she checked
him instantly.

“Uncle Caspar, you are not to tell him. I have recommended that he
study geography and discover us for himself. He should be ashamed of his
ignorance.”

He was not ashamed, but he mentally vowed that before he was a day older
he would find Graustark on the map and would stock his negligent brain
with all that history and the encyclopedia had to say of the unknown
land. Her uncle laughed, and, to Lorry's disappointment, obeyed the
young lady's command.

“Shall I study the map of Europe, Asia or Africa?” asked he, and they
laughed.

“Study the map of the world,” said Miss Guggenslocker, proudly.

“Edelweiss is the capital?”

“Yes, our home city,--the queen of the crags,” cried she. “You should
see Edelweiss, Mr. Lorry. It is of the mountain, the plain and the sky.
There are homes in the valley, homes on the mountain side and homes in
the clouds.”

“And yours? From what you say it must be above the clouds--in heaven.”

“We are farthest from the clouds, for we live in the green valley,
shaded by the white topped mountains. We may, in Edelweiss, have what
climate we will. Doctors do not send us on long journeys for our health.
They tell us to move up or down the mountain. We have balmy spring,
glorious summer, refreshing autumn and chilly winter, just as we like.”

“Ideal! I think you must be pretty well toward the south. You could not
have July and January if you were far north.”

“True; yet we have January in July. Study your map. We are discernible
to the naked eye,” she said, half ironically.

“I care not if there are but three inhabitants Graustark, all told, it
is certainly worthy of a position on any map,” said Lorry, gallantly;
and his listeners applauded with patriotic appreciation. “By the way,
Mr. Gug--Guggenslocker, you say the conductor asked you for my name
and you did not know it. May I ask how you learned it later on?” His
curiosity got the better of him, and his courage was increased by the
champagne the old gentleman had ordered.

“I did not know your name until my niece told it to me after your
arrival in the carriage,” said Uncle Caspar.

“I don't remember giving it to Miss Guggenslocker at any time,” said
Lorry.

“You were not my informant,” she said, demurely.

“Surely you did not guess it.”

“Oh, no, indeed. I am no mind reader.”

“My own name was the last thing you could have read in my mind, in that
event, for I have not thought of it in three days.”

She was sitting with her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands, a
dreamy look in her blue eyes.

“You say you obtained that coin from the porter on the Denver train?”

“Within two hours after I got aboard.”

“Well, that coin purchased your name for me,” she said, calmly,
candidly. He gasped.

“You--you don't mean that you--” he stammered.

“You see, Mr. Lorry, I wanted to know the name of a man who came nearest
my ideal of what an American should be. As soon as I saw you I knew
that you were the American as I had grown to know him through the
books,--big, strong, bold and comely. That is why I bought your name
of the porter. I shall always say that I know the name of an ideal
American,--Grenfall Lorry.”

The ideal American was not unmoved. He was in a fever of fear and
happiness,--fear because he thought she was jesting, happiness because
he hoped she was not. He laughed awkwardly, absolutely unable to express
himself in words. Her frank statement staggered him almost beyond the
power of recovery.

There was joy in the knowledge that she had been attracted to him at
first sight, but there was bitterness in the thought that he had come to
her notice as a sort of specimen, the name of which she had sought as a
botanist would look for the name of an unknown flower.

“I--I am honored,” he at last managed to say, his eyes gleaming with
embarrassment. “I trust you have not found your first judgment a faulty
one.” He felt very foolish after this flat remark.

“I have remembered your name,” she said, graciously. His heart swelled.

“There are a great many better Americans than I,” he said. “You forget
our president and our statesmen.”

“I thought they were mere politicians.”

Grenfall Lorry, idealized, retired to his berth that night, his head
whirling with the emotions inspired by this strange, beautiful woman.
How lovely, how charming, how naive, how queenly, how indifferent, how
warm, how cold--how everything that puzzled him was she. His last waking
thought was:

“Guggenslocker! An angel with a name like that!”




IV. THE INVITATION EXTENDED


They were called by the porter early the next morning. The train was
pulling into Washington, five hours late. Grenfall wondered, as he
dressed, whether fortune would permit him to see much of her during her
brief day in the capital. He dreamed of a drive over the avenues, a
trip to the monument, a visit to the halls of congress, an inspection of
public buildings, a dinner at his mother's home, luncheon at the Ebbitt,
and other attentions which might give to him every moment of her day in
Washington. But even as he dreamed, he was certain that his hopes could
not be gratified.

After the train had come to a standstill he could hear the rustle of
her garments in the next compartment. Then he heard her sweep into the
passage, greet her uncle and aunt, utter a few commands to the maid,
and, while he was adjusting his collar and necktie, pass from the car.
No man ever made quicker time in dressing than did Lorry. She could
hardly have believed him ideal had she seen his scowling face or heard
the words that hissed through his impatient teeth.

“She'll get away, and that'll be the end of it,” he growled, seizing his
traps and rushing from the train two minutes after her departure. The
porter attempted to relieve him of his bags on the platform, but he
brushed him aside and was off toward the station.

“Nice time for you, to call a man, you idiot,” was his parting shot for
the porter, forgetting of course, that the foreigners had been called
at the same time. With eyes intent on the crowd ahead, he plunged along,
seeing nobody in his disappointed flight. “I'll never forgive myself if
I miss her,” he was wailing to himself. She was not to be seen in the
waiting rooms, so he rushed to the sidewalk.

“Baggage transferred?”

“Cab, sir?”

“Go to the devil--yes, here! Take these traps and these checks and rush
my stuff to No.----, W---- Avenue. Trunks just in on B.& O.,” he cried,
tossing his burdens to a transfer man and giving him the checks so
quickly that the fellow's sleepy eyes opened wider than they had been
for a month. Relieved of his impedimenta, he returned to the station.

“Good morning, Mr. Lorry. Are you in too much of a hurry to see your
friends?” cried a clear, musical voice, and he stopped as if shot. The
anxious frown flew from his brow and was succeeded instantaneously by a
glad smile. He wheeled and beheld her, with Aunt Yvonne, standing near
the main entrance to the station. “Why, good morning,” he exclaimed,
extending his hand gladly. To his amazement she drew herself up
haughtily and ignored the proffered hand. Only for a brief second did
this strange and uncalled--for hauteur obtain. A bright smile swept over
her face, and her repentant fingers sought his timidly, even awkwardly.
Something told him that she was not accustomed to handshaking; that same
something impelled him to bend low and touch the gloved fingers with his
lips. He straightened, with face flushed, half fearful lest his act
had been observed by curious loungers, and he had taken a liberty in
a public place which could not be condoned. But she smiled serenely,
approvingly. There was not the faintest sign of embarrassment or
confusion in the lovely face. Any other girl in the world, he thought,
would have jerked her hand away and giggled furiously. Aunt Yvonne
inclined her head slightly, but did not proffer her hand. He wisely
refrained from extending his own. “I thought you had left the station,”
 he said.

“We are waiting for Uncle Caspar, who is giving Hedrick instructions.
Hedrick, you know, is to go on to New York with our boxes. He will have
them aboard ship when we arrive there. All that we have with us is hand
luggage. We leave Washington to-night.”

“I had hoped you might stay over for a few days.”

“It is urgent business that compels us to leave so hastily, Mr. Lorry.
Of all the cities in the world, I have most desired to see the capital
of your country. Perhaps I may return some day. But do not let us detain
you, if you are in a hurry.”

He started, looked guilty, stammered something about baggage, said he
would return in a moment, and rushed aimlessly away, his ears fiery.

“I'm all kinds of a fool,” he muttered, as he raced around the
baggage-room and then back to where he had left the two ladies. Mr.
Guggenslocker had joined them and they were preparing to depart. Miss
Guggenslocker's face expressed pleasure at seeing him.

“We thought you would never return, so long were you gone,” she cried,
gaily. He had been gone just two minutes by the watch! The old gentleman
greeted him warmly, and Lorry asked them to what hotel they were going.
On being informed that they expected to spend the day at the Ebbitt,
he volunteered to accompany them, saying that he intended to breakfast
there. Quicker than a flash a glance, unfathomable as it was brief,
passed between the three, not quickly enough, however, to escape
his keen, watchful eyes, on the alert since the beginning of his
acquaintance with them, in conjunction with his ears, to catch something
that might satisfy, in a measure, his burning curiosity. What was the
meaning of that glance? It half angered him, for in it he thought he
could distinguish annoyance, apprehension, dismay or something equally
disquieting. Before he could stiffen his long frame and give vent to
the dignified reconsideration that flew to his mind, the young lady
dispelled all pain and displeasure, sending him into raptures, by
saying:

“How good of you! We shall be so delighted to have you breakfast with
us, Mr. Lorry, if it is convenient for you. You can talk to us of your
wonderful city. Now, say that you will be good to us; stay your hunger
and neglect your personal affairs long enough to give us these early
morning hours. I am sure we cannot trouble you much longer.”

He expostulated gallantly and delightedly, and then hurried forth to
call a cab. At eight o'clock he breakfasted with them, his infatuation
growing deeper and stronger as he sat for the hour beneath the spell of
those eyes, the glorious face, the sweet, imperial air that was a part
of her, strange and unaffected. As they were leaving the dining-room he
asked her if she would not drive with him.

His ardent gallantry met with a surprising rebuke. The conversation
up to that moment had been bright and cheery, her face had been the
constant reflector of his own good spirits, and he had every reason in
the world to feel that his suggestion would be received with pleasure.
It was a shock to him, therefore, to see the friendly smile fade from
her eyes and a disdainful gleam succeed it. Her voice, a moment ago
sweet and affable, changed its tone instantly to one so proud and
arrogant that he could scarcely believe his ears.

“I shall be engaged during the entire day, Mr. Lorry,” she said, slowly,
looking him fairly in the eyes with cruel positiveness. Those eyes of
his were wide with surprise and the glowing gleam of injured pride.
His lips closed tightly; little red spots flew to his cheeks and
then disappeared, leaving his face white and cold; his heart throbbed
painfully with the mingled emotions of shame and anger. For a moment he
dared not speak.

“I have reason to feel thankful that you are to be engaged,” he said
at last, calmly, without taking his eyes from hers. “I am forced to
believe, much to my regret, that I have offended when I intended to
please. You will pardon my temerity.”

There was no mistaking the resentment in his voice or the glitter in his
eyes. Impulsively her little hand was stretched forth, falling upon his
arm, while into her eyes came again the soft glow and to her lips the
most pathetic, appealing smile, the forerunner of a pretty plea for
forgiveness. The change startled and puzzled him more than ever. In one
moment she was unreasonably rude and imperious, in the next gracious and
imploring.

“Forgive me,” she cried, the blue eyes battling bravely against the
steel in the grey ones above. “I was so uncivil! Perhaps I cannot make
you understand why I spoke as I did, but, let me say, I richly deserved
the rebuke. Pray forgive me and forget that I have been disagreeable. Do
not ask me to tell you why I was so rude to you just now, but overlook
my unkind treatment of your invitation. Please, Mr. Lorry, I beg of
you--I beg for the first time in my life. You have been so good to me;
be good to me still.”

His wrath melted away like snow before the sunshine. How could he resist
such an appeal? “I beg for the first time in my life,” whirled in his
brain. What did she mean by that?

“I absolve the penitent,” he said, gravely.

“I thank you. You are still my ideal American--courteous, bold and
gentle. I do not wonder that Americans can be masterful men. And now I
thank you for your invitation, and ask you to let me withdraw my implied
refusal. If you will take me for the drive, I shall be delighted and
more than grateful.”

“You make me happy again,” he said, softly, as they drew near the elder
members of the party, who had paused to wait for them. “I shall ask your
uncle and aunt to accompany us.”

“Uncle Caspar will be busy all day, but I am sure my aunt will be
charmed. Aunt Yvonne, Mr. Lorry has asked us to drive with him over the
city, and I have accepted for you. When are we to start, Mr. Lorry?”

Mr. and Mrs. Guggenslocker stared in a bewildered sort of manner
at their niece. Then Aunt Yvonne turned questioning eyes toward her
husband, who promptly bowed low before the tall American and said:

“Your kind offices shall never be forgotten, sir. When are the ladies to
be ready?”

Lorry was weighing in his mind the advisability of asking them to dine
in the evening with his mother, but two objections presented themselves
readily. First, he was afraid of this perverse maid; second, he had not
seen his mother. In fact, he did not know that she was in town.

“At two o'clock, I fancy. That will give us the afternoon. You leave at
nine to-night, do you not?”

“Yes. And will you dine with us this evening?” Her invitation was so
unexpected, in view of all that had happened, that he looked askance.
“Ach, you must not treat my invitation as I did yours!” she cried,
merrily, although he could detect the blush that returns with the
recollection of a reprimand. “You should profit by what I have been
taught.” The girl abruptly threw her arm about her aunt and cried, as
she drew away in the direction of her room: “At two, then, and at dinner
this evening. I bid you good morning, Mr. Lorry.”

The young man, delighted with the turn of affairs, but dismayed by what
seemed a summary dismissal, bowed low. He waited until the strange trio
entered the elevator and then sauntered downstairs, his hands in his
pockets, his heart as light as air. Unconsciously he jingled the coins.
A broad smile came over his face as he drew forth a certain piece.
Holding it between his thumb and forefinger he said:

“You are what it cost her to learn my name, are you? Well, my good
fellow, you may be very small, but you bought something that looks
better than Guggenslocker on a hotel register. Your mistress is an odd
bit of humanity, a most whimsical bit, I must say. First, she's no and
then she's yes. You're lucky, my coin, to have fallen into the custody
of one who will not give you over to the mercy of strangers for the sake
of a whim. You are now retired on a pension, well deserved after valiant
service in the cause of a most capricious queen.”

In an hour he was at home and relating to his mother the story of his
wanderings, neglecting, for reasons best known to himself, the events
which occurred after Denver had been left behind, except for a casual
allusion to “a party of foreigners.” At one o'clock, faultlessly
attired, he descended to the brougham, telling Mrs. Lorry that he
had invited some strangers to see the city. On the way downtown he
remembered that he was in business, the law business--and that it would
be well to drop in and let his uncle know he was in the city. On second
thought, however, he concluded it was too near two o'clock to waste any
time on business, so the office did not know that he was in town until
the next day, and then to no great extent.

For several hours he reveled in her society, sitting beside her in that
roomy brougham, Aunt Yvonne opposite, explaining to her the many places
of interest as they passed. They entered the Capitol; they saw the White
House, and, as they were driving back to the hotel, passed the President
of the United States.

Miss Guggenslocker, when informed that the President's carriage was
approaching, relaxed gracefully from the stately reserve that had
been puzzling him, and revealed an eager curiosity. Her eyes fastened
themselves upon the President, Lorry finding entertainment in the
changes that came over her unconscious face. Instead of noting the
veneration he had expected, he was astonished and somewhat provoked to
see a slight curl of disgust at the corners of her mouth, a pronounced
disappointment in her eyes. Her face expressed ridicule, pure and
simple, and, he was shocked to observe, the exposure was unconscious,
therefore sincere.

“You do not like our ruler?” he said, as the carriage whirled by. He was
returning his hat to his head as he spoke.

“I cannot say. I do not know him,” she replied, a tinge of sarcasm in
her voice. “You Americans have one consolation; when you tire of a ruler
you can put another in his place. Is it not wise to do so quite often?”

“I don't think wise is the word. Expedient is better. I am to infer that
you have no politics.”

“One house has ruled our land for centuries. Since I came to your land
I have not once seen a man wave his hat with mad adulation and cry from
his heart: 'Long live the President!' For centuries, in my country,
every child has been born with the words: 'Long live the Prince!' in his
heart, and he learns to say them next after the dear parental words are
mastered. 'Long live the Prince!' 'Long live the Princess!' are tributes
of love and honor that greet our rulers from birth to death. We are not
fickle, and we have no politics.”

“Do your rulers hear tin horns, brass bands, campaign yells,
firecrackers and stump speeches every four years? Do they know what it
means to be the voluntary choice of a whole nation? Do they know what
it is to rule because they have won the right and not because they were
born to it? Has there ever been a homage-surfeited ruler in your land
who has known the joy that comes with the knowledge that he has earned
the right to be cheered from one end of the country to the other? Is
there not a difference between your hereditary 'Long live the Prince'
and our wild, enthusiastic, spontaneous 'Hurrah for Cleveland!' Miss
Guggenslocker? All men are equal at the beginning in our land. The man
who wins the highest gift that can be bestowed by seventy millions of
people is the man who had brains and not title as a birthright.” He was
a bit exasperated.

“There! I have displeased you again. You must pardon my antiquated
ideas. We, as true and loyal subjects of a good sovereign, cannot forget
that our rulers are born, not made. Perhaps we are afflicted at times
with brainless monarchs and are to be pitied. You are generous in
your selection of potentates, be generous, then, with me, a benighted
royalist, who craves leniency of one who may some day be President of
the United States.”

“Granted, without discussion. As possible, though not probable,
President of the United States, I am magnanimous to an unfortunate who
can never hope to be princess, no matter how well she might grace the
gilded throne.”

She greeted this glowing remark with a smile so intoxicating that he
felt himself the most favored of men. He saw that smile in his mind's
eye for months afterward, that maddening sparkle of joy, which flashed
from her eyes to the very bottom of his heart, there to snuggle forever
with Memory's most priceless treasures. Their dinner was but one more
phase of this fascinating dream. More than once he feared that he was
about to awake to find bleak unhappiness where exquisite joy had reigned
so gloriously. As it drew to an end a sense of depression came over him.
An hour at most was all that he could have with her. Nine o'clock
was drawing nigh with its regrets, its longings, its desolation. He
determined to retain the pleasures of the present until, amid the
clanging of bells and the roll of car wheels, the dismal future began.
His intention to accompany them to the station was expressed as they
were leaving the table. She had begun to say good-by to him when
he interrupted, self-consciousness forcing the words hurriedly and
disjointedly from his lips:

“You will let me go to the station with you. I shall--er--deem it a
pleasure.”

She raised her eyebrows slightly, but thanked him and said she would
consider it an honor. His face grew hot and his heart cold with the
fancy that there was in her eyes a gleam which said: “I pity you, poor
fellow.”

Notwithstanding his strange misgiving and the fact that his pride had
sustained quite a perceptible shock, he drove with them to the station.
They went to the sleeping car a few minutes before the time set for the
train's departure, and stood at the bottom of the steps, uttering the
good-bys, the God-speeds and the sincere hope that they might meet
again. Then came the sharp activity of the trainmen, the hurry of
belated passengers. He glanced soberly at his watch.

“It is nine o'clock. Perhaps you would better get aboard,” he said, and
proceeded to assist Aunt Yvonne up the steps. She turned and pressed his
hand gently before passing into the car.

“Adieu, good friend. You have made it so very pleasant for us,” she
said, earnestly.

The tall, soldierly old gentleman was waiting to assist his niece into
the coach.

“Go first, Uncle Caspar,” the girl made Lorry happy by saying. “I can
easily come up unaided.”

“Or I can assist her,” Lorry hastened to add, giving her a grateful look
which she could not misunderstand. The uncle shook hands warmly with the
young man and passed up the steps. She was following when Lorry cried,

“Will you not allow me?”

She laughingly turned to him from the steps and stretched forth her
hand.

“And now it is good-by forever. I am so sorry that I have not seen more
of you,” she said. He took her hand and held it tightly for a moment.

“I shall never forget the past few days,” he said, a thrill in his
voice. “You have put something into my life that can never be taken
away. You will forget me before you are out of Washington, but I--I
shall always see you as you are now.”

She drew her hand away gently, but did not take her eyes from his
upturned face.

“You are mistaken. Why should I forget you--ever? Are you not the ideal
American whose name I bought? I shall always remember you as I saw
you--at Denver.”

“Not as I have been since?” he cried.

“Have you changed since first I saw you?” she asked, quaintly.

“I have, indeed, for you saw me before I saw you. I am glad I have not
changed for the worse in your eyes.”

“As I first knew you with my eyes I will say that they are trustworthy,”
 she said tantalizingly.

“I do not mean that I have changed externally.”

“In any other case my eyes would not serve,” she cried, with mock
disappointment. “Still,” she added, sweepingly, “you are my ideal
American. Good-by! The man has called 'all aboard!'”

“Good-by!” he cried, swinging up on the narrow step beside her. Again he
clasped her hand as she drew back in surprise. “You are going out of my
land, but not out of my mind. If you wish your eyes to see the change in
me, you have only to look at them in a mirror. They are the change--they
themselves! Goodby! I hope that I may see you again.”

She hesitated an instant, her eyes wavering beneath his. The train was
moving slowly now.

“I pray that we may meet,” she said, softly, at last,--so softly that he
barely heard the words. Had she uttered no sound he could have been
sure of her response, for it was in her telltale eyes. His blood leaped
madly. “You will be hurt if you wait till the train is running at full
speed,” she cried, suddenly returning to the abandoned merry mood. She
pushed him gently in her excitement. “Don't you see how rapidly we are
moving? Please go!” There was a terror in her eyes that pleased him.

“Good-by, then,” he cried.

“Adieu, my American,” she cried quickly.

As he swung out, ready to drop to the ground, she said, her eyes
sparkling with something that suggested mischief, her face more
bewitching than ever under the flicker of the great arc lights:

“You must come to Edelweiss to see me. I shall expect you!” He thought
there was a challenge in the tones. Or was it mockery?

“I will, by heaven, I will!” he exclaimed.

A startled expression flashed across her face, and her lips parted as
if in protestation. As she leaned forward, holding stoutly to the
hand-rail, there was no smile on her countenance.

A white hand fluttered before his eyes, and she was gone. He stood, hat
in hand, watching the two red lights at the end of the train until they
were lost in the night.




V. SENTIMENTAL EXCHANGE


If Lorry slept that night he was not aware of it. The next morning,
after he had breakfasted with his mother, he tried in vain to recall a
minute of the time between midnight and eight a.m. in which he did not
think of the young woman who had flown away with his tranquillity. All
night long he tossed and thought. He counted ten thousand black sheep
jumping over a pasture fence, but, after the task was done and the
sheep had scattered, he was as far from sleep as ever. Her face was
everywhere. Her voice filled his ear with music never-ceasing, but it
was not the lulling music that invites drowsiness. He heard the clock
strike the hours from one to eight, when he arose, thoroughly disgusted
with himself. Everything seemed to taste bitter or to look blue. That
breakfast was a great strain on his natural politeness. He worshipped
his mother, but in several instances that morning he caught himself
just in time to prevent the utterance of some sharp rejoinder to her
pleasant, motherly queries. Twice she was compelled to repeat questions,
his mind being so far away that he heard nothing save words that another
woman had uttered, say twenty-four hours before. His eyes were red, and
there was a heavy droop to the lids; his tones were drawling and his
voice strangely without warmth; his face was white and tired.

“You are not well, Grenfall,” his mother said, peering anxiously into
his eyes. “The trip has done you up. Now, you must take a good, long
rest and recover from your vacation.”

He smiled grimly.

“A man never needs a rest so much as he does at the end of his vacation,
eh, mother? Well, work will be restful. I shall go to the office this
morning and do three days' work before night. That will prove to you
that I am perfectly well.”

He made a pretence of reading the morning paper. There was nothing to
interest him on' those cold, commonplace pages, not one thing--but
wait! A thought struck him suddenly, and for ten minutes he searched the
columns assiduously, even nervously. Then he threw down the paper with a
sigh of relief.

There was nothing to indicate that her train had been wrecked. She had
undoubtedly reached New York in safety. He looked at his watch. She was
probably enjoying her breakfast at that very moment. Perhaps she was
thinking of him and--perhaps not. The memory of that last tender hand
clasp and the soft glow in her eyes stood like a wall between the fear
that she had forgotten and the certainty that she remembered. Had not
this memory kept him awake? That and the final, mysterious emotion which
had shown itself in her face as he had last looked upon it? A thousand
times had he pondered over that startled look and the signs of
agitation. Was it fear? Was it dismay? Was it renunciation? Whatever
it was, it sorely disturbed him; it had partly undone the charm of the
moment before--the charm that could not and would not be gainsaid.

True to his intention, he went to the office early, virtuously inclined
to work. His uncle greeted him warmly and a long conference over
business affairs followed. To Lorry's annoyance and discomfiture he
found himself frequently inattentive. Several important cases were
pending, and in a day or two they were to go into court with a damage
suit of more than ordinary consequence. Lorry, senior, could not repress
his gratification over the return of his clever, active nephew at such
an opportune time. He had felt himself unable to handle the case alone;
the endurance of a young and vigorous mind was required for the coming
battle in chancery.

They lunched together, the elder eager and confidential, the other
respectful and--absent-minded. In the afternoon the junior went over the
case, and renewed search for authorities and opinions, fully determined
to be constant in spite of his inclination to be fickle. Late in the
day he petulantly threw aside the books, curtly informed his astonished
uncle that he was not feeling well, and left the office. Until dinner
time he played billiards atrociously at his club; at dinner his mother
sharply reproved him for flagrant inattentions; after dinner he smoked
and wondered despondently. To-morrow she was to sail! If he could but
see her once more!

At 7:30 his mother found him in the library, searching diligently
through the volume of the encyclopedia that contained the G's. When she
asked what he was looking for he laughed idiotically, and, in confusion,
informed her that he was trying to find the name of the most important
city in Indiana. She was glancing at the books in the case when she was
startled by hearing him utter an exclamation and then lean to his feet.

“Half-past seven! I can make it!”

“What is the matter, Gren dear?”

“Oh!” he ejaculated, bringing himself up with a start. “I
forgot--er--yes, mother, I'll just have time to catch the train, you
know. Will you kindly have Mary clean up this muss of books and so
forth? I'm off, you see, to New York--for a day only, mother,--back
tomorrow! Important business--just remembered it, you know,--ahem!
Good-by, mother! Good-by!” he had kissed her and was in the hall before
she fairly understood what he was talking about. Then she ran after him,
gaining the hallway in time to see him pass through the street door,
his hat on the side of his head, his overcoat fluttering furiously as
he shoved his arms into the sleeves. The door slammed, and he was off to
New York.

The train was ready to pull out when he reached the station, and it was
only by a hard run that he caught the last platform, panting but happy.
just twenty-four hours before she had left Washington, and it was
right here that she had smiled and said she would expect him to come to
Edelweiss. He had had no time to secure a berth in the sleeper, but was
fortunately able to get one after taking the train. Grenfall went to
sleep feeling both disappointed and disgusted. Disappointed because of
his submission to sentiment; disgusted because of the man who occupied
the next section. A man who is in love and in doubt has no patience with
the prosaic wretch who can sleep so audibly.

After a hasty breakfast in New York he telephoned to the steamship
company's pier and asked the time of sailing for the Kaiser Wilhelm.
On being informed that the ship was to cast off at her usual hour, he
straightway called a cab and was soon bowling along toward the busy
waterway. Directly he sat bolt upright, rigid and startled to find
himself more awakened to the realization of his absurd action. Again it
entered his infatuated head that he was performing the veriest schoolboy
trick in rushing to a steamship pier in the hope of catching a final,
and at best, unsatisfactory glimpse of a young woman who had appealed
to his sensitive admiration. A love-sick boy could be excused for such a
display of imbecility, but a man--a man of the world'. Never!

“The idea of chasing down to the water's edge to see that girl is
enough to make you ashamed of yourself for life, Grenfall Lorry,” he
apostrophized. “It's worse than any lovesick fool ever dreamed of doing.
I am blushing, I'll be bound. The idiocy, the rank idiocy of the thing!
And suppose she should see me staring at her out there on the pier? What
would she think of me? I'll not go another foot! I won't be a fool!”

He was excited and self-conscious and thoroughly ashamed of the trip
into which his impetuous adoration had driven him. Just as he was
tugging at the door in the effort to open it that he might order the
driver to take him back to the hotel, a sly tempter whispered something
in his ear; his fancy was caught, and he listened:

“Why not go down to the pier and look over the passenger list, just to
see if she has been booked safely? That would be perfectly proper and
sensible, and besides it will be a satisfaction to know that she gets
off all right. Certainly! There's nothing foolish in that.... Especially
as I am right on the way there.... And as I have come so far...
there's no sense in going back without seeing whether she has secured
passage.... I can find out in a minute and then go home. There won't be
anything wrong in that. And then I may have a glimpse of her before the
ship leaves the pier. She must not see me, of course. Never! She'd laugh
at me! How I'd hate to see her laughing at me!” Then, sinking back again
with a smile of justification on his face, he muttered: “We won't
turn back; we'll go right ahead. We'll be a kind of a fool, but not so
foolish as to allow her to see us and recognize us as one.”

Before long they arrived at the wharf, and he hurried to the office near
by. The clerk permitted him to look over the list. First he ran through
the first-class passengers, and was surprised to find that there was
no such name as Guggenslocker in the list. Then he went over the second
class, but still no Guggenslocker.

“Hasn't Mr. Guggenslocker taken passage?” he demanded, unwilling to
believe his eyes.

“Not on the Kaiser Wilhelm, sir.”

“Then, by George, they'll miss the boat!” Lorry exclaimed. “Maybe
they'll be here in a few minutes.”

“They can't get anything but steerage now, sir. Everything else is
gone.”

“Are you sure they haven't taken passage?” asked the bewildered Lorry,
weakly.

“You can see for yourself,” answered the young man, curtly. Lorry
was again in a perspiration, this time the result of a vague, growing
suspicion that had forced itself into his mind. He wandered aimlessly
away, his brain a chaos of speculation. The suspicion to which he had
given countenance grew, and as it enlarged he suffered torment untold.
Gradually he came to the conclusion that she had fooled him, had lied to
him. She did not intend to sail on the Wilhelm, at all. It was all very
clear to him now, that strangeness in her manner, those odd occasional
smiles What was she? An adventuress! That sweet-faced girl a little
ordinary coquette, a liar? He turned cold with the thought. Nor was
she alone in her duplicity. Had not her uncle and aunt been as ready
to deceive him? Were they trying to throw him off their track for some
subtle purpose? Had they done something for which they were compelled
to fly the country as quickly as possible? No! Not that! They certainly
were not fleeing from justice. But why were they not on board the Kaiser
Wilhelm?

Suddenly he started as if he had been struck, and an involuntary
exclamation of pain and horror escaped his lips. Perhaps something
unforeseen had happened--an accident--illness--even death!

The clanging of bells broke upon his ears and he knew that the great
ship was about to depart. Mechanically, disconsolately he walked out and
paced the broad, crowded wharf. All was excitement. There was the rush
of people, the shouts, the cheers, the puffing of tugs, the churning
of water, and the Kaiser Wilhelm was off on its long voyage.
Half-heartedly, miserably and in a dazed condition he found a place in
the front row along the rail. There were tears in his eyes, tears of
anger, shame and mortification. She had played with him!

Moodily he watched the crowd of voyagers hanging over the rails of the
moving leviathan of the deep. A faint smile of irony came to his lips.
This was the boat on which his heart was to have been freighted from
native shores. The craft was sailing, but it was not carrying the cargo
that he had, in very good faith, consigned to Graustark. His heart was
certainly not on board the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse.

Gloomily his disappointed eyes swept along the rail of the big steamer,
half interested in spite of themselves. Twice they passed a certain
point on the forward deck, unconscious of a force that was attracting
them in that direction. The third time he allowed them to settle for an
instant on the group of faces and figures and then stray off to other
parts of the ship. Some strange power drew them again to the forward
deck, and this time he was startled into an intent stare. Could he
believe those eyes? Surely that was her figure at the rail--there
between the two young women who were waving their handkerchiefs so
frantically. His heart began to jump up and down, wildly, doubtingly,
impatiently. Why could not that face be turned toward the wharf as the
others were? There was the blue coat but not the blue cap. A jaunty
sailor hat sat where the never-to-be-forgotten cap had perched. The
change was slight, but it was sufficient to throw him into the most
feverish state of uncertainty. An insane desire to shout a command to
this strange young woman came over him.

The ship was slowly opening a gap between herself and the wharf, and he
knew that in a few moments recognition would be impossible. Just as he
was losing hope and was ready to groan with despair, the face beneath
the sailor hat was turned squarely in his direction. A glaze obscured
his eyes, a numbness attacked his brain. It was Miss Guggenslocker!

Why was her name omitted from the passenger list? That question was the
first to whirl through his addled brain. He forgot the questionings,
forgot everything a moment later, for, to his amazement and delight and
discomfiture, he saw that she was peering intently at him. A pair of big
glasses was leveled at him for a second and then lowered. He plainly saw
the smile on her face, and the fluttering cambric in her hand. She had
seen him, after all,--had caught him in a silly exhibition of weakness.
Her last impression of him, then, was to be one of which he could not
feel proud. While his heart burned with shame, it could not have been
suspected from the appearance of his face. His eyes were dancing, his
mouth was wide open with joy, his lips were quivering with a suppressed
shout, his cheeks were flushed and his whole aspect bespoke ecstacy. He
waved his hat and then his handkerchief, obtaining from her vigorous and
unrestrained signs of approbation. Her face was wreathed in smiles as
she leaned far over the rail, the picture of animated pleasure.

Making sure that her uncle and aunt were not visible, he boldly placed
his fingers to his lips and wafted a kiss out over the water!

“Now she'll crush me,” he cried to himself, regretting the rash act and
praying that she had not observed it.

Her handkerchief ceased fluttering in an instant, and, with sinking
heart, he realized that she had observed. There was a moment of
indecision on the part of the fair one going out to sea, and then the
little finger tips of both hands went to her lips and his kiss came back
to him!

The people near him were surprised to hear a wild yell from his lips and
then to see him wave his hat so madly that there was some danger of its
being knocked to pieces against the railing or upon the persons of those
who stood too close to escape the whirling consequences. So unexpected
had been her reception of what he considered a calamitous indiscretion
that he was to be pardoned for the ebullition of relief and joy that
followed. Had she drawn a revolver and fired angrily at him he could not
have been more astounded. But, to actually throw a kiss to him--to meet
his imprudence in the same spirit that had inspired it! Too much to
believe! In the midst of his elation, however, there came a reminder
that she did not expect to see him again, that she was playing with him,
that it was a merry jest and not a heartache that filled her bosom at
the parting.

While he was still waving his handkerchief, debating savagely and
joyously the wisdom of the act, she became a part of the distant color
scheme; the blue figure faded and blended into the general tone and
could no longer be distinguished. She was gone, but she had tossed him
a kiss from lips that he should always see. As he turned away from the
water he found himself wondering if there had been tears in her eyes,
but the probability was so remote that he laughed foolishly and aloud A
couple of girls heard the laugh and giggled in sympathy, but he turned a
scowling face upon them and disappeared in the throng.

Uppermost in his bewildered mind was the question: Why is she not in
the passenger list? Acting on a sudden impulse, he again sought out
the clerk in charge and made a most thorough inspection. There was no
Guggenslocker among the names. As a last resort h asked:

“They could not have sailed under an assumed name, could they?”

“I can't say as to that. Where are they going?”

“Graustark.”

But the young man shook his head slowly, Lorry's shaking in unconscious
accord.

“Are you sure that you saw the young lady on board?”

“Well, rather!” exclaimed Lorry, emphatically.

“I was going to say there are a lot of Italian and German singers on the
ship, and you might have been mistaken. But since you are so positive,
it seems very strange that your friends are not on the list.”

So Lorry went away discouraged and with a vague fear that she might have
been a prima donna whose real name was Guggenslocker but whose stage
name was something more euphonious. He instantly put away the thought
and the fear. She was certainly not an opera singer--impossible!
He drove back to his hotel, and made preparations for his return to
Washington. Glancing casually over the register he came to the name
that had been haunting him--Guggenslocker! There were the names, “Caspar
Guggenslocker and four, Graustark.” Without hesitation he began to
question the clerk.

“They sailed on the Kaiser Wilhelm to-day;” said that worthy. “That's
all I know about them. They came yesterday and left to-day.”

Mr. Grenfall Lorry returned to Washington as in a dream--a fairy dream.
The air of mystery that had grown from the first was now an impenetrable
wall, the top of which his curiosity could not scale. Even his fancy,
his imagination, served him not. There was but one point on which he was
satisfied: he was in love. His own condition was no mystery.

Several weeks later he went to New York to question the Captain of
the Wilhelm, hoping to clear away the clouds satisfactorily. To his
amazement, the captain said there had been no Guggenslockers on board
nor had there been persons answering the description, so far as he could
tell.

Through the long hot summer he worked, and worried, and wondered. In the
first, he did little that was satisfactory to himself or to his uncle;
in the second, he did so much that he was advised by his physician to
take a rest; in the last, he indulged himself so extensively that it had
become unbearable. He must know all about her? But how?

The early months of autumn found him pale and tired and indifferent
alike to work and play. He found no pleasure in the society that
had known him as a lion. Women bored him; men annoyed him; the play
suffocated him; the tiresome club was ruining his temper; the whole
world was going wrong. The doctor told him he was approaching nervous
prostration; his mother's anxious eyes could no longer be denied, so he
realized grimly that there was but one course left open to him.

He suggested it to the doctor, to his mother and to his uncle, and they
agreed with him. It involved Europe.

Having fully decided again to cross the sea, his spirits revived. He
became more cheerful, took an interest in things that were going on,
and, by the time the Kaiser Wilhelm sailed in September, was the picture
of health and life.

He was off for Edelweiss--to the strange Miss Guggenslocker who had
thrown him a kiss from the deck that sailing-day.




VI. GRAUSTARK


Two weeks later Grenfall Lorry was landed and enjoying the sensations,
the delights of that wonderful world called by the name of Paris. The
second day after his arrival he met a Harvard man of his time on the
street. Harry Anguish had been a pseudo art student for two years. When
at college he was a hail-fellow-well-met, a leader in athletics and
in matters upon which faculties frown. He and Lorry were warm friends,
although utterly unlike in temperament; to know either of these men
was to like him; between the two one found all that was admirable and
interesting in man. The faults and virtues of each were along such
different lines that they balanced perfectly when lumped upon the
scale of personal estimation. Their unexpected meeting in Paris, was
as exhilarating pleasure to both, and for the next week or so they were
inseparable. Together they sipped absinthe at the cafes and strolled
into the theaters, the opera, the dance halls and the homes of some of
Anguish's friends, French and American.

Lorry did not speak to his friend of Graustark until nearly two weeks
after his arrival in the city. He had discussed with himself the
advisability of revealing his plans to Anguish, fearing the latter's
ridicule with all the cowardice of a man who knows that scoffing is, in
a large measure, justifiable. Growing impatient to begin the search for
the unheard-of country, its capital and at least one of its inhabitants,
he was at last compelled to inform Anguish, to a certain extent, of his
plans for the future. He began by telling him of his intention to take
a run over toward Vienna, Buda-Pesth and some of the Eastern
cities, expecting to be gone a couple of months. To his surprise and
consternation, Anguish enthusiastically volunteered to take the trip
with him, having had the same project in view for nearly a year.

There was nothing left for Lorry but to make a clean breast of it,
which he did shamefacedly, expecting the laughter and raillery of his
light-hearted friend as payment for his confidence. Instead, however,
Anguish, who possessed a lively and romantic nature, was charmed by the
story and proclaimed it to be the most delightful adventure that had
ever happened outside of a story-book.

“Tell me all about her,” he urged, his eyes sparkling with boyish
enthusiasm. And Lorry proceeded to give him a personal description
of the mysterious beauty, introducing him, in the same manner, to
the distinguished uncle and aunt, adding all those details which had
confounded and upset him during his own investigations.

“This is rich!” exclaimed Anguish. “Beats any novel written, I declare.
Begad, old man, I don't blame you for hunting down this wonderful bit of
femininity. With a curiosity and an admiration that had been sharpened
so keenly as yours, I'd go to the end of the world myself to have them
satisfied.”

“I may be able to satisfy but one--curiosity. And maybe not that. But
who knows of Graustark?”

“Don't give up before you've tried. If these people live in such a
place, why, it is to be found, of course. Any railroad guide-book can
locate this land of mystery. There are so many infernal little kingdoms
and principalities over here that it would take a lifetime to get 'em
all straightened out in one's head. To-morrow morning we will go to one
of the big railway-stations and make inquiries. We'll locate Graustark
and then we'll go over and pluck the flower that grows there. All you
need, my boy, is a manager. I'll do the arranging, and your little act
will be the plucking.”

“Easier said than done.”

“She threw a kiss to you, didn't she?”

“Certainly, but, confound it, that was because she never expected to see
me again.”

“Same reason why you threw a kiss to her, I suppose?”

“I know why; I wasn't accountable.”

“Well, if she did it any more wittingly than you did, she is
accountable, and I'd hunt her up and demand an explanation.”

Lorry laughed at his apparent fervor, but was glad that he had confided
in his energetic countryman. Two heads were better than one, and he was
forced to admit to himself that he rather liked the idea of company
in the undertaking. Not that he expected to encounter any particular
difficulty, but that he saw a strange loneliness ahead. Therefore he
welcomed his friend's avowed intention to accompany him to Edelweiss as
a relief instead of an annoyance. Until late in the night they discussed
the coming trip, Anguish finally startling him with a question, just as
he was stretching himself preparatory to the walk to his hotel.

“What are you going to do with her after you find her, Gren, old man?”

Grenfall's brow puckered and he brought himself up with a jerk, puzzled
uncertainty expressing itself in his posture as well as in his face.

“I'll think about that after I have found her,” he replied.

“Think you'll marry her?” persisted the other.

“How do I know?” exclaimed the woman hunter, savagely.

“Oh, of course you don't know--how could you?” apologized Anguish.
“Maybe she won't have you--maybe she is married--all sorts of
contingencies, you know. But, if you'll pardon my inquisitiveness, I'd
like to ask why you are making this wild goose chase half around the
world? just to have another look at her?”

“You asked me if I thought--” Here he stopped.

“I take it for granted, then, that you'd like to. Well, I'm glad that
I've got something definite on which to base operations. The one
object of our endeavors, from now on, is to exchange Guggenslocker for
Lorry--certainly no robbery. A charity, I should say. Good-night! See
you in the morning.”

The next morning the two friends took a cab to several railway stations
and inquired about Graustark and Edelweiss.

“She was stringing you, old man,” said Anguish, after they had turned
away from the third station. He spoke commiseratingly, as he really felt
sorry.

“No!” exclaimed Lorry. “She told me the truth. There is a Graustark and
she lives there. I'll stake my life on those eyes of hers.”

“Are you sure she said it was in Europe?” asked Harry, looking up and
down the street as if he would not have been surprised to see her in
Paris. In his heart he believed that she and her precious relatives had
deceived old Gren. Perhaps their home was in Paris, and nowhere else.
But for Lorry's positiveness he would have laughed heartily at the
other's simple credulity, or branded him a dolt, the victim of some
merry actress's whim. Still, he was forced to admit, he was not in a
position to see matters as they appeared, and was charitable enough to
bide his time and to humor the faith that was leading them from place to
place in the effort to find a land that they knew nothing about.
Lorry seemed so sure, so positive, that he was loath to see his dream
dispelled, his ideal shattered. There was certainly no Graustark;
neither had the Guggenslockers sailed on the Wilhelm, all apparent
evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Lorry had been in a delirium
and had imagined he saw her on the ship. If there, why was not her name
in the list? But that problem tortured the sanguine searcher himself.

At last, in despair, after a fruitless search of two days, Lorry
was willing to submit. With the perverseness common to half-defeated
fighters, Anguish at once protested, forgetting that he had sought to
dissuade his friend the day before.

“We'll go to the library of Paris and take a look through the books and
maps,” he said. “Or, better still, let us go to the post office. There!
Why have we not thought of that? What there is of Graustark they'll know
in the postal service.”

Together they visited the chief post office, where, after being directed
to various deputies and clerks, they at length found the department in
which the information was obtainable. Inside of five minutes they were
in possession of facts that vindicated Miss Guggenslocker, lifted Lorry
to the seventh heaven, and put Mr. Anguish into an agony of impatience.
Graustark was a small principality away off to the east, and Edelweiss
was a city of some seventy-five thousand inhabitants, according to the
postal guide-book.

The Americans could learn no more there, so they went to Baedecker's
office. Here they found a great map, and, after a diligent and almost
microscopic search, succeeded in discovering the principality of
Graustark. Then they looked at each other in dismay.

“It's a devil of a distance to that little red blot on the map,” mused
Lorry, pulling his nose reflectively. “What an outlandish place for a
girl like her to live in,” he continued. “And that sweet-faced old lady
and noble Uncle Caspar! Ye gods! one would think barbarians existed
there and not such people as the Guggenslockers, refined, cultivated
smart, rich. I'm more interested than ever in the place.”

“So am I! I'm willing and ready to make the trip, old man, if you are
still of a mind. It's a lark, and, besides, she may not be the only
pretty and gracious girl there. We've had hard work to find it on the
map, let's not stop till we see Edelweiss on the earth itself.”

They made hasty preparations for the journey. Anguish, romantic and
full of adventure, advised the purchase of a pair of pistols and a
knife apiece, maintaining that, as they were going into an unknown
and mountainous region, they should be prepared for brigands and other
elements of danger. Lorry pooh-poohed the suggestion of brigands, but
indulged his mood by buying some ugly-looking revolvers and inviting the
prospect of something really thrilling in the way of an adventure. With
their traps they were soon whirling through France, bound for a certain
great city, on the road to Edelweiss, one filled with excitement,
eagerness and boyish zeal, the other harrassed by the sombre fear that
a grave disappointment was in store for him. Through the glamour and the
picturesqueness of the adventure there always crept the unconquerable
feeling that he was on a fool's errand, that he was committing a deed
so weak and brainless that it was sure to make him a veritable
laughing-stock when it became known. After all, who was Miss
Guggenslocker--brewer, baker, gardener or sausage-maker.

Traveling, of course, was pleasant at this time of the year, and the
two Americans saw much that interested them along the way. Their
French, especially Anguish's, was of great value to them, for they found
occasion to use it at all times and in all places. Both spoke German
fairly well, and took every opportunity to brush up in that language,
Lorry remembering that the Guggenslockers used many expressions that
showed a preference for the Teutonic. The blithe Anguish, confident and
in high feather, was heart and soul in the odd expedition of love, and
talked incessantly of their reception by the far-away hostess, their
impressions and the final result. His camera and sketching materials
were packed away with his traps. It was his avowed intention to
immortalize the trip by means of plate, palate and brush.

At the end of two days they reached a certain large city,--the first
change, and then seven hundred miles to another. The distance from this
point to the capital of Graustark was two hundred miles or more, chiefly
through mountainous lands. Somewhat elated by the cheerful information
there received, they resumed the journey to Edelweiss, the city of vale,
slope and park,--summer, fall and winter. Changing cars at the end of
the second day out, they sat back in the dusty seats of their carriage
and sighed with relief.

“Unless we jump the track, this train will land us in the city we are
looking for,” said Anguish, stretching out his legs comfortably. “I'll
admit it has been a tiresome journey, and I'll be glad when we can step
into a decent hotel, have a rub, and feel like white men once more. I
am beginning to feel like these dirty Slavs and Huns we saw 'way back
there.”

“There's one thing certain,” said Lorry, looking out of the window.
“The people and the habitations are different and the whole world seems
changed since we left that station. Look at those fellows on horseback
over there.”

“What did I tell you about brigands and robbers!” exclaimed Anguish.
“If those fellows are not bandits I'll lose faith in every novel I ever
read.”

The train rolled slowly past three mounted men whose steeds stood like
statues upon a little knoll to the right of the track, men and beasts
engaged in silent contemplation of the cars. The men, picturesquely
attired and looking fierce, carrying long rifles, certainly bore an
aspect that suggested the brigand. When the guard entered the carriage
Anguish asked in German for some information concerning the riders.

“Dey're frontier police-guards,” responded the man in English, smiling
at their astonishment. Both Americans arose and shook hands with him.

“By George, it's good to hear a man talk white man's language,” cried
Anguish.

“How do you come to be holding a job on this road? An Englishman?”
 demanded Lorry. He looked anything but English.

“I'm not an Englishman,” said the guard, flushing slightly. “My name's
Sitzky, and I'm an American, sir.”

“An American!” exclaimed Lorry. Sitzky grew loquacious.

“Sure! I used to be a sailor on a United States man-o'war. A couple of
years ago I got into trouble down at Constantinople and had to get out
of de service. After dat I drifted up dis way and went to railroadin'.”
 He hadn't exactly the manner of a man-of-warsman.

“How long have you been on this road?” asked Grenfall.

“'Bout a year, I should t'ink. Been on dis branch only two months,
dough.”

“Are you pretty well acquainted in Edelweiss?''

“Oh, I run in dere every other day--in an' out ag'in. It's a fine
place,--purtiest you ever saw in your life. The town runs right up the
mountain to the tip-top where the monks are--clear up in d' clouds. Dey
say it snows up dere almost all d' time.”

Later on, from the loquacious guard, the two Americans learned quite
a good bit about the country and city to which they were going. His
knowledge was somewhat limited along certain lines, but quite clear as
to others.

“Dis Graustark, 's fer as I know, is eeder a sort o' state or somet'ing
belongin' to de Umpire, governed by it's own rulers. Edelweiss is de
capital, d' big guns of d' land lives dere. I've walked out and saw d'
castle where d' Princess and d' royalty hangs out. D' people speak a
language of deir own, and I can't get next to a t'ink dey say. But once
in a while you find some guy dat talks French or German. Dey've got a
little standin' army of two t'ree t'ousand men an' dey've got de hottest
uniforms you ever did see--red an' black an' gold. I don't see why d'
United Rates can't get up somethin' foxy fer her soldiers to wear. Had a
war over here not long ago, I understand--somethin' like ten or fifteen
years ago. Dere's another little country up north of Graustark, and dey
got in a wrangle 'bout somethin', and dey tell me in Edelweiss dat for
'bout a year dey fought like Sam Patch.”

“Which was victorious?” demanded Lorry, deeply interested.

“I'm not sure. To hear d' Edelweiss people talk you'd t'ink dey licked
d' daylights out of d' other slobs, but somehow I got next to d' fact
dat dem other fellows captured de city an' went after a slashin' big
war indemnity. I don't know much 'bout it, an' maybe I'm clear off but
I t'ink d' Graustark army was trashed. Every t'ing is prosperous now,
dough, an' you'd never know dere'd been a war. It's d'most peaceable
town I ever saw.”

“Did you ever hear of the Guggenslockers?” asked the irrepressible
Anguish, and Lorry felt like kicking him.

“In Edelweiss? Never did. Friends of yours?”

“Acquaintances,” interposed Lorry, hastily, frowning at Anguish.

“You won't have any trouble findin' 'em if dere anybody at all,” said
Sitzky, easily. “D' hotel people ought to be able to tell you all 'bout
'em.”

“By the way, what is the best hotel there?” asked Anguish.

“Dere's d' Burnowentz, one block north of d' depot.” The travelers
looked at one another and smiled, Sitzky observing the action. “Oh,” he
said, pleasantly, “dere's a swell joint uptown called d' Regengetz.
It's too steep fer me, but maybe you gents can stand it. It you'll hang
around d' depot fer a little while after we get in I'll steer you up
dere.”

“We'll make it worth your while, Sitzky,” said Lorry.

“Never mind dat, now. Americans ought to stick together, no matter where
dey are. We'll have a drink an' 'at's all, just to show we're fellow
countrymen.”

“We'll have several drinks, and we'll eat and drink tonight at the
'swell joint' you talk about,” said Anguish.

“We may drink dere, but I'll not eat dere. Dey wouldn't let a railroad
guard inside de feedin' pen. Why, nothin' but royal guys eat dere when
dey're down town shoppin' or exposin' demselves to public gaze.”

True to his word, when they reached Edelweiss late that afternoon
Sitzky, their friend of uncertain origin, hurriedly finished his work
and joined the travelers in the station. Lorry and Anguish were deeply
interested in all they saw, the strange people, the queer buildings,
the odd costumes and the air of antiquity that prevailed. Once upon the
narrow, clean street they saw that Edelweiss was truly a city of the
mountain-side. They had expected something wonderful, but were not
prepared for what they found. The city actually ran up into the clouds.
There was something so grand, so improbable, so unusual in the spectacle
confronting them that they stared like children, aghast and stupefied.
Each had the startling impression that a great human-dotted mountain was
falling over upon his head; it was impossible to subdue the sensation of
dizziness that the toppling town inspired.

“I know how you feel,” observed Sitzky, laughing. “I was just d' same
at first. Tomorrow you walk a little ways up d' side of d' mountain an'
you'll see how much of d' city dere is on level ground down here. Dem
buildings up dere ain't more'n one-fiftieth part of d'town. Dey're
mostly summer homes. It gets hot as blazes down here in d' valley in d'
middle of d' summer and d' rich ones move up d' mountain.”

“How in thunder do people get up to those houses?” demanded Anguish.

“Mules,” answered Sitzky, specifically. “Say! See dat little old feller
comin' on horseback--wid d' white uniform? Well, dat's de chief of
police, an' d' fellers behind him are police guards. 'At's old Dangloss
himself. He's a peach, dey say.”

A short, grizzly-faced man, attired in a white uniform with red
trimmings, followed by three men similarly garbed, rode by, going in the
direction of the passenger station. Dangloss, as Sitzky had called him,
was quite small in stature, rather stout, gray-bearded and eagle-nosed.
His face was keen and red, and not at all the kind to invite
familiarity. As he passed them the railroad guard of American
citizenship touched his cap and the two travelers bowed, whereupon the
chief of police gave them a most profound salutation, fairly sweeping
his saddleskirts with his white cap.

“Polite old codger,” observed Anguish.

“His company manners. Just let him get you in d' sweatbox, if you t'ink
he's polite.”

“Ever been there?”

“Well,” a little confusedly, “I pasted a Graustark baggage-smasher
down in d' yards two weeks ago, an' dey had me up. I proved d' feller
insulted a lady, an' old Dangloss let me off, sayin' I'd ought to have a
medal. Dese guys are great on gallantry when ladies is concerned. If it
hadn't been fer dat, I'd be in d' lock-up now. An' say, you ought to see
d' lock-up! It's a tower, wid dungeons an' all dat sort of t'ing. A man
couldn't no more get out 'n' he could fly up to d' monastery. Dey're
great on law an' order here, too. D' Princess has issued strictest kind
of rules an' everybody has to live up to 'em like as if dey was real
gospel. I t'ought I'd put you next, gents, so's you wouldn't be doin'
anyt'ing crooked here.”

“Thanks,” said Lorry, drily. “We shall try to conduct ourselves
discreetly in the city.”

Probably a quarter mile farther down the narrow, level street they came
to the bazaars, the gaudy stores, and then the hotel. It was truly
a hostelry to inspire respect and admiration in the mind of such as
Sitzky, for it was huge and well equipped with the modern appointments.
As soon as the two Americans had been given their rooms, they sent for
their luggage. Then they went out to the broad piazza, with its columns
and marble balustrades, and looked for Sitzky, remembering their
invitation to drink. The guard had refused to enter the hotel with them,
urging them to allow him to remain on the piazza. He was not there when
they returned, but they soon saw him. On the sidewalk he was arguing
with a white-uniformed police guard, and they realized that he had been
ejected from sacred precincts.

They promptly rescued him from the officer, who bowed and strode away as
soon as they interceded.

“Dese fellers is slick enough to see you are swells and I'm not,” said
Sitzky, not a bit annoyed by his encounter. “I'll bet my head 'at inside
ten minutes old Dangloss will know who you are, where you come from an'
what you're doin' here.”

“I'll bet fifty heads he won't find out what we're doing here,” grinned
Anguish, looking at Lorry. “Well, let's hunt up the thirst department.”

They found the little apartment in which drinks were served at tables,
and before they said good-by to Sitzky in front of the hotel, a half
hour later, that worthy was in exceeding good humor and very much
flushed in the face. He said he would be back in two days, and if they
needed him for any purpose whatever, they could reach him by a note at
the railway station.

“Funny how you run across an American in every nook and corner of the
world,” mused Lorry, as they watched the stocky ex-man-o'warsman stroll
off towards his hotel.

“If we can run across the Guggenslockers as easily, we'll be in luck.
When shall we begin the hunt? Tonight?”

“We can make a few inquiries concerning them. They certainly are people
of importance here.”

“I don't see the name on any of the brewery signs around town,” observed
Anguish, consolingly. “There's evidently no Guggenslocker here.”

They strolled through the streets near the hotel until after six
o'clock, wondering at the quaint architecture, the pretty gardens and
the pastoral atmosphere that enveloped the city. Everybody was busy,
contented, quiet and happy. There was no bustle or strife, no rush, no
beggars. At six they saw hundreds of workingmen on the streets, going to
their homes; shops were closed and there came to their ears the distant
boom of cannon, evidently fired from different points of the compass and
from the highland as well as the lowland.

“The toy army is shooting off the good-night guns,” speculated Anguish.
“I suppose everybody goes to bed now.

“Or to dinner,” substituted Lorry, and they returned to the Regengetx.
The dining hall was spacious and beautiful, a mixture of the oriental
and the mediaeval. It rapidly filled.

“Who the dickens can all these people be? They look well,” Anguish
whispered, as if he feared their nearest neighbors might understand his
English.

“They are unquestionably of the class in which we must expect to find
the Guggenslockers.”

Before the meal was over the two strangers saw that they were attracting
a great deal of attention from the other guests of the house. The women,
as well as the men, were eyeing them and commenting quite freely, it was
easy to see. These two handsome, smooth-faced young Americans were as
men from another world, so utterly unlike their companions were they in
personal appearance. They were taller, broader and more powerfully built
than the swarthy-faced men about them, and it was no wonder that the
women allowed admiration to show in their eyes. Toward the end of the
dinner several officers came in, and the Americans took particular pains
to study them. They were cleanly-built fellows, about medium height,
wiry and active. As a class, the men appeared to average five feet seven
inches in height, some a little taller, some a little shorter. The two
strangers were over six feet tall, broad-shouldered and athletic. They
looked like giants among these Graustark men.

“They're not very big, but they look as if they'd be nasty in a scrap,”
 observed Anguish, unconsciously throwing out his chest.

“Strong as wildcats, I'll wager. The women are perfect, though. Have you
ever seen a smarter set of women, Harry?”

“Never, never! A paradise of pretty women. I believe I'll take out
naturalization papers.”

When the two strangers left the dining-room they were conscious that
every eye in the place was upon them. They drew themselves to their full
height and strode between the tables toward the door, feeling that as
they were on exhibition they ought to appear to the best advantage.
During the evening they heard frequent allusions to “the Americans,”
 but could not understand what was said. The hotel men were more than
obsequious; the military men and citizens were exceedingly deferential;
the women who strolled on the piazza or in the great garden back of the
hotel were discreetly curious.

“We seem to be the whole show here, Gren,” said Anguish, as they sat
down at one of the tables in the garden.

“I guess Americans are rare.”

“I've found one fellow who can speak German and French, and not one,
except our guard who can talk English. That clerk talks German fairly
well. I never heard such a language as these other people use. Say, old
man, we'd better make inquiry about our friends to-night. That clerk
probably won't be on duty to-morrow.”

“We'll ask him before we go to bed,” agreed Lorry, and upon leaving
the brilliantly lighted garden they sought the landlord and asked if
he could tell them where Caspar Guggenslocker lived. He looked politely
incredulous and thoughtful, and then, with profound regret, assured them
he had never heard the name. He said he had lived in Edelweiss all his
life, and knew everybody of consequence in the town.

“Surely there must be such people here,” cried Lorry, almost
appealingly. He felt disheartened and cheated. Anguish was biting his
lips.

“Oh, possibly among the poorer classes. If I were you, sir, I should
call on Captain Dangloss, the Chief of Police. He knows every soul in
Edelweiss. I am positive I have never heard the name. You will find the
Captain at the Tower to-morrow morning.”

The two Americans went to bed, one so dismayed by his disappointment
that he could not sleep for hours.




VII. THE LADY IN THE CARRIAGE


They slept rather late in the morning, first because they were very much
fatigued after their long journey, second for the reason that they had
been unable to woo slumber until long past midnight. Anguish stretched
himself lazily in bed when he heard Lorry's voice from the adjoining
room.

“I suppose we are to consult the police in order to get a clue to your
charmer,” he yawned. “Nice friends you pickup on railway journeys. I'd
be ashamed.”

“Well, Harry, I'll confess I'm disgusted. This has been the most idiotic
thing I've ever done, and if you say the word we'll get out of here on
the first train--freight or passenger. The Guggenslockers--pigs!” Mr.
Lorry was savage.

“Not a bit of it, my boy, not a bit of it. We'll make a house-to-house
canvass if the police fail us. Cheer up, cheer up!”

“You go to thunder!”

“Hold on! Don't talk like that, or I'll go back on you in a minute. I'm
here because I choose to be, and I've more heart in the chase at this
minute than you have. I've not lost hope, We'll find the Guggenslockers
if we have to hire detectives to trace 'em from the United States to
their very doorstep. We're going to see the police after breakfast.”

After breakfast they did go to see the Baron Dangloss. After some
inquiry they found the gloomy, foreboding prison, and Mr. Anguish boldly
pounded on the huge gates. A little shutter flew open, and a man's face
appeared. Evidently he asked what was wanted, but he might as well have
demanded their lives, so far were they from understanding his query.

“Baron Dangloss?” asked Anguish, promptly. The man asked something else,
but as the Americans shook their heads deprecatingly, he withdrew his
face and presently swung open the gates. They entered and he closed the
doors behind them, locking them in. Then he directed them across the
court to an open door in the aged mass of gray stone. As they strode
away from the guard Lorry created consternation by demanding:

“How are we to talk to the Chief if he doesn't understand us or we him?
We should lave brought an interpreter.”

“I forgot about the confounded language. But if he's real he can talk
Irish.” Lorry told him he wasn't funny.

“Is this His Excellency, Baron Dangloss?” asked Anguish, stepping into
a small room and stopping suddenly in the presence of the short, fierce
man they had seen the day before. The American spoke in French.

“It is, gentlemen. Of what service can I be to Messieurs Lorry and
Anguish?” responded the grim little Chief, politely rising from beside
his desk. The visitors looked at one another in surprise.

“If he knows our names on such short notice, he'll certainly know the
Guggenslockers,” said Anguish to his friend, in English.

“Ah, you are looking for some one named Guggenslocker?” asked the
Chief, smiling broadly and speaking excellent English. “You must not be
surprised, gentlemen. I speak many languages. I heard last night that
you were inquiring about one Caspar Guggenslocker, and I have racked
my brain, searched my books, questioned my officers, and I am sorry to
inform you that there is no such person in Edelweiss.”

“I was so well assured of it, Baron Dangloss,” Lorry said.

“The name is totally unknown to me, sir. May I ask why you are searching
for him?”

“Certainly. I met Mr. Guggenslocker, his wife and his niece last spring
in the United States. They invited me to come and see them if I ever
happened to be in this part of the world. As my friend and I were near
here I undertook to avail myself of their invitation.”

“And they said they lived in Edelweiss, Graustark?”

“They did, and I'll humbly confess I did not know much of the
principality of Graustark.”

“That is certainly complimentary, but, then, we are a little out of the
beaten path, so it is pardonable. I was at first under the impression
that you were American detectives with extradition papers for criminals
bearing the name you mention.”

“Oh!” gasped Anguish. “We couldn't find ourselves if we should be
separated, Captain.”

The grizzly-bearded Captain laughed lightly with them, and then
asked Lorry if he would object to giving him the full story of his
acquaintanceship with the alleged Graustarkians. The bewildered and
disheartened American promptly told all he knew about them, omitting
certain tender details, of course. As he proceeded the Chief grew more
and more interested, and, when at last Lorry came to the description of
the strange trio, he gave a sudden start, exposed a queer little
smile for a second or so, and then was as sphynxlike as before. The
ever-vigilant Anguish observed the involuntary start and smile, quick as
the Chief had been to recover himself, and felt a thrill of triumph. To
his anger and impatience, however, the old officer calmly shook his head
at the end of the narrative, and announced that he was as much in the
dark as ever.

“Well, we'll search awhile for ourselves,” declared Anguish, stubbornly,
not at all satisfied.

“You will be wasting your time,” said the Chief, meaningly.

“We've plenty to waste,” retorted the other.

After a few moments they departed, Baron Dangloss accompanying them to
the gate and assuring them that he and his men always would be at their
command. His nation admired the American people, he warmly declared.

“That old codger knows our people, and I'll bet a thousand on it,” said
Harry, angrily, when they had gone some little distance down the street.
Then he told of the queer exposure Dangloss had unwittingly made. Lorry,
more excited than he cared to show, agreed that there was something very
suspicious about this new discovery.

They walked about the quaint town for an hour or two, examining the
buildings, the people and the soldiery with deep interest. From the head
of the main street,--Castle Avenue,--they could plainly see the royal
palace, nearly a mile away. Its towers and turrets, gray and gaunt,
ran up among the green tree-tops and were outlined plainly against the
yellow hills. Countless houses studded the steep mountain slope,
and many people were discerned walking and riding along the narrow,
ledge-like streets which wound toward the summit, far up in the clouds.
Clearly and distinctly could be seen the grim monastery, perched at the
very pinnacle of the mountain, several miles away. Up there it looked
bleak and cold and uninviting, in great contrast to the loveliness and
warmth of the valley. Down below the grass was moist and soft, trees
were approaching the stage where yellow and red tints mingle with the
rich green, flowers were blooming, the land was redolent of the sweet
fragrance of autumn, the atmosphere warm, clear and invigorating. It was
paradise surmounted by desolation, drear and deadening.

Wherever the tall, distinguished Americans walked they formed the center
of observation, and were the cause of comment that bore unmistakable
signs of admiration. They bowed pleasantly to many of those who passed
them, and received in return gracious and profound recognition. Military
men saluted courteously; the women stared modestly and prettily--perhaps
covetously; the merchants and citizens in general bowed and smiled a
welcome that could not have been heartier. The strangers remarked the
absence of vehicles on the main streets. There were pack mules and
horses, human carriers--both male and female--but during the entire
morning they saw not more than six or eight carriages. Vehicles were
used solely by the quality and as a means of transportation for their
persons only. Everybody, with the few exceptions mentioned, walked
or rode horseback. The two friends were delighted with the place, and
Anguish advocated a sojourn of several weeks, even though they did not
find the Guggenslockers, his object being to secure photographs and
sketches of the picturesque people and the strange scenery, and to idle
away some hours upon the glittering boulevards. Grenfall, since he was
in the project so deeply, was so nearly reconciled as to be exhilarated
by the plan. They decided to visit the royal grounds in the afternoon,
providing there was no prohibition, reserving a ride up the hill for the
next day. A gendarme who spoke German fairly well told them that they
could enter the palace park if they obtained a signed order from the
chief steward, who might be found at any time in his home near the
gates.

They were strolling leisurely toward the hotel, for the moment
forgetting their quest in this strange, sunny land, when they espied a
carriage, the most conspicuous of any they had seen. The white horses
were gaily caparisoned, the driver and the footman beside him wore rich
uniforms, the vehicle itself gleamed and glistened with gold and silver
trimmings. A short distance behind rode two young soldiers, swords to
their shoulders, scabbards clanking against their stirrups. Each was
attired in the tight red trousers, shiny boots, close-fitting black
coat with gilt trimmings, and the red cap which the Americans had noted
before because of its brilliancy. People along the street were bowing
deeply to the occupants, two ladies.

“Harry! Look!” exclaimed Lorry, clutching his friend's arm like a
vise. “There in the carriage--on this side!” His voice was hoarse and
trembling.

“Miss Gug--Guggenslocker?” cried Anguish.

“Yes! Yes!” They had stopped and Lorry was grasping a garden wall with
one hand.

“Then it's funny nobody knows the name here. She seems to be someone of
consequence. Good heaven, I don't blame you! She's the most beautiful--”

By this time the carriage was almost opposite and within forty feet of
where they stood. The ladies, Miss Guggenslocker's companion as young
and almost as beautiful as herself had not observed the agitated two,
but Lorry's face was beaming, his hat was off, and he was ready to
spring to the carriage side at a moment's warning. Then the young girl
at the side of the woman whose beauty had drawn a man half around the
world saw the tall strangers, and called her companion's attention to
them. Once more Grenfall Lorry and Miss Guggenslocker were looking into
each other's eyes.

The lady started violently, her eyes grew wide, her lips parted, and her
body was bent forward eagerly, a little gloved hand grasping the side of
the open carriage. Her “ideal American” was bowing low, as was the tall
fellow at his side. When he looked up again his eyes were glowing, his
handsome face was flushed, and he saw her smile, blush furiously and
incline her head gravely. The carriage had swept past, but she turned
her head, and he detected an appealing glance in her eyes, a perplexed
wrinkle across her brow, both of which were swept away an instant later
by the most bewitching of smiles. Again her head was inclined, this time
a trifle more energetically, and then the maddening face was turned from
him. The equipage rolled onward, and there was no effort on her part to
check its progress. The men were left standing alone and disappointed
on the streets of Edelweiss, the object of their search slipping away
as soon as she had been found. Her companion was amazed by the little
scene, it was evident, judging by the eager look on her face as she
turned with a question in her eyes.

“Turned down!” exclaimed the irrepressible Anguish, dolefully. “That's
pretty shabby treatment, old man. But she's quite worth the journey.”

“I'll not go back to America without her. Do you hear that, Harry
Anguish?” He was excited and trembling. “But why didn't she stop?” he
went on, dismally.

“Oh, you dear old fool!” said Anguish.

The two stood looking after the carriage until it turned into a side
street, half way down the shady stretch toward the castle. They saw her
companion glance back, but could not tell whether she did or not. Lorry
looked uneasily at Anguish, and the latter read his thought.

“You are wondering about the Guggenslocker name, eh? I'll tell you
what I've worked out during the past two minutes. Her name is no more
Guggenslocker than mine is. She and the uncle used that name as a blind.
Mark my words, she's quality over here; that's all there is about it.
Now, we must find out just who she really is. Here comes a smart-looking
soldier chap. Let's ask him, providing we can make him understand.”

A young soldier approached, leisurely twirling a cane, for he was
without his side arms. Anguish accosted him in French and then in
German. He understood the latter and was very polite.

“Who was the young lady in the carriage that just passed?” asked Lorry,
eagerly.

The face of the soldier flushed and then grew pale with anger.

“Hold on! I beg pardon, but we are strangers and don't quite understand
your ways. I can't see anything improper in asking such a question,”
 said Anguish, attempting to detain him. The young man struck his hand
from his arm and his eyes fairly blazed.

“You must learn our ways. We never pass comment on a lady. If you do so
in your land, I am sorry for your ladies. I refuse to be questioned by
you. Stand aside, fellow!”

Anguish stood aside in astonishment, and they watched the wrathful
gallant strut down the street, his back as stiff as a board.

“Damned touchy!” growled Anguish.

“You remember what Sitzky said about their respect for the weaker sex.
I guess we'd better keep off that tack or we'll hatch up a duel or two.
They seem to be fire-eaters. We must content ourselves witch searching
out her home and without assistance, too. I've cooled off a bit, Harry,
and, now that I've seen her, I'm willing to go slowly and deliberately.
Let's take our time and be perfectly cool. I am beginning to agree with
your incog. proposition. It's all clearing up in my mind now. We'll go
back to the hotel and get ready for the visit to the palace grounds.”

“Don't you intend to hunt her up? 'Gad, I wouldn't miss a minute if
I had a chance to be with a girl like that! And the other was no
scarecrow. She is rather a beauty, too. Greatest town for pretty women I
ever struck. Vienna is out of it entirely.”

They strolled on to the hotel, discussing the encounter in all its
exhilarating details. Scarcely had they seated themselves on the piazza,
after partaking of a light luncheon, when a man came galloping up to
the walk in front of the hotel. Throwing his bridle rein to a guard,
he hastened to the piazza. His attire was that of a groom and something
about him reminded them of the footman who sat beside the driver of the
carriage they had seen a short time before. He came straight to where
the Americans sat smoking and, bowing low, held before them an envelope.
The address was “Grenfall Lorry Esq.,” but the man was in doubt as to
which was he.

Lorry grasped the envelope, tore it open, and drew forth a daintily
written note. It read:

“My Dear Mr. Lorry:

“I was very much surprised to see you this morning--I may add that I was
delighted. If you will accompany this messenger when he calls for you at
three o'clock tomorrow afternoon, he will conduct you to my home, where
I shall truly be charmed to see you again. Will you bring your friend?

                              “SOPHIA GUGGENSLOCKER.”

Lorry could have embraced the messenger. There was a suspicion of
breathlessness in his voice when he tried to say calmly to Harry:

“An invitation for to-morrow.”

“I knew it would come that way.”

“Also wants you to come.”

“Sha'n't I be in the way?”

“Not at all, my boy. I'll accept for you. After this fellow goes, I'll
let you read the note. Wait until I write an answer.”

Motioning for the man to remain, he hastened to his room, pulled out
some stationery, and feverishly wrote:

“My Dear Miss Guggenslocker:

“I shall be delighted to accompany your messenger to-morrow, and my
friend, Mr. Harry Anguish, will be with me. I have come half way across
the continent to see you, and I shall be repaid if I am with you but
for a moment. You will pardon me if I say that your name has caused me
despair. No one seems to have heard it here, and I was beginning to lose
hope. You may expect me at three, and I thank you for the pleasure you
bestow.

                     “Yours sincerely,

                               “GRENFALL LORRY.”

This note, part of which had been written with misgiving, he gave to the
messenger, who rode away quickly.

“She didn't wait long to write to you, I notice. Is it possible she is
suffering from the effects of those three days on the other side of
the Atlantic? Come to think of it, she blushed when she saw you this
morning,” said Anguish. Lorry handed him her note, which he read and
then solemnly shook hands with its recipient. “Congratulations. I am a
very farsighted young man, having lived in Paris.”




VIII. THE ABDUCTION OF A PRINCESS


That afternoon they went to the palace grounds and inquired for the
chief steward. After a few moments they were shown to his office in a
small dwelling house just inside the gates. The steward was a red-faced
little man, pleasant and accommodating. He could speak German--in fact,
he was a German by birth--and they had no difficulty in presenting their
request. Mr. Fraasch--Jacob Fraasch--was at first dubious, but their
frank, eager faces soon gained for them his consent to see that part of
the great park open to the public. Beyond certain lines they were not to
trespass. Anguish asked how they could be expected to distinguish these
lines, being unacquainted, and the steward grimly informed them that the
members of the royal guard would establish the lines so plainly that it
would be quite clear.

He then wrote for them a pass to the grounds of the royal palace of
Graustark, affixing his seal. In giving this last to them he found
occasion to say that the princess had instructed him to extend every
courtesy possible to an American citizen. It was then that Anguish asked
if he might be permitted to use his camera. There was an instant and
emphatic refusal, and they were told that the pass would be rescinded
if they did not leave the camera outside the gates. Reluctantly Anguish
deposited his luckless box in the steward's office, and they passed into
the broad avenue which led towards the palace.

A guard, who served also as a guide, stepped to their side before
they had taken ten paces. Where he came from they never knew, so
instantaneous was his appearance. He remained with them during the two
hours spent in the wonderful park.

The palace stood in the northwestern part of the grounds, possibly a
half mile from the base of the mountain. Its front faced the mountain
side. The visitors were not permitted to go closer than a quarter of a
mile from the structure, but attained a position from which it could
be seen in all its massive, ancient splendor. Anguish, who had studied
churches and old structures, painted the castles on the Rhine, and was
something of a connoisseur in architecture, was of the opinion that
it had been standing for more than five hundred years. It was a vast,
mediaeval mass of stone, covered with moss and ivy, with towers, turrets
and battlements. There had been a moat in bygone days, but modern ideas
had transformed the waterway into solid, level ground. This they learned
afterwards. Broad avenues approached in several directions, the castle
standing at the far side of a wide circle or parade ground. The open
space before the balconies was fully three hundred yards square, and was
paved. From each side stretched the velvety green with its fountains,
its trees, its arbors, its flowers, its grottos and its red-legged
soldiers.

The park was probably a mile square, and was surrounded by a high wall,
on the top of which were little guard-houses and several masked cannon.
In all their travels the Americans had not seen a more delightful bit of
artifice, and they wandered about with a serene content that would have
appealed to anyone but their voiceless guide. He led them about the
place, allowing them to form their own conclusions, draw their own
inferences and make their own calculations. His only acts were to salute
the guards who passed and to present arms when he had conducted his
charges to the edge of forbidden territory. When they had completed
their tour of inspection their guide rapidly led the way to the wall
that encircled the grounds, reaching it at a point not far from the
castle itself. Here was situated another large gate, through which they
did not pass. Instead, they ascended some steps and came out upon the
high wall. The top of this wall was several feet wide, and walking was
comparatively safe. They soon understood the guide's design. The object
was to walk along this wall until they reached the main gate. Why
this peculiar course was to be taken they could not imagine at first.
Anguish's fertile brain came to the rescue. He saw a number of women in
a distant part of the grounds, and, remembering their guide's haste in
conducting them to the wall, rightly conjectured that it was against
custom for visitors to meet and gaze upon members of the royal
household. The men and women, none of whom could be plainly
distinguished from the far-away wall, were undoubtedly a part of the
castle's family, and were not to be subjected to the curious gaze of
sightseers. Perhaps Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Graustark, was
among them.

They reached the main gate and descended, Anguish securing his camera,
after which they thanked the steward and turned to fee the guide. But he
had disappeared as if the ground had swallowed him.

“Well, it's a fair Versailles,” observed Anguish, as they walked down
the street, glancing back at the frowning wall.

“It all goes to make me wonder why in the name of heaven we have never
heard of this land of Graustark,” said Lorry, still thinking of the
castle's grandeur.

“My boy, there are lots of things we don't know. We're too busy. Don't
you remember that but one-half the world knows how the other half lives?
I'll wager there are not twenty-five people in the United States who
know there is such a country as Graustark.”

“I don't believe that a single soul over there has heard of the place,”
 vouchsafed Lorry, very truthfully.

“I'll accept the amendment,” said Anguish. Then he proceeded to take a
snap-shot of the castle from the middle of the street. He also secured
a number of views of the mountain side, of some odd little dwelling
houses, and two or three interesting exposures of red-robed children.
Everybody, from the children up, wore loose robes, some red, some black,
some blue, but all in solid colors. Beneath these robes were baggy
trousers and blouses among the men, short skirts among the women. All
wore low boots and a sort of turban. These costumes, of course,
were confined to the native civilians. At the hotel the garb of the
aristocrats was vastly different. The women were gowned after the latest
Viennese patterns, and the men, except those of the army, wore
clothes almost as smart as those which covered the Americans. Miss
Guggenslocker--or whatever her name might be--and her carriage companion
were as exquisitely gowned as any women to be seen on the boulevards or
in Hyde Park of an afternoon.

It was late in the afternoon when they returned to the hotel. After
dinner, during which they were again objects of interest, they strolled
off towards the castle, smoking their cigars and enjoying the glorious
air. Being a stranger in a strange land, Lorry acted on the romantic
painter's advice and also stuck a revolver in his pocket. He laughed at
the suggestion tha there might be use for the weapon in such a quiet,
model, well-regulated town, but Anguish insisted:

“I've seen a lot of these fellows around town who look like genuine
brigands and cutthroats, and I think it just as well that we be
prepared,” asserted he, positively, and his friend gratified what he
called a whim.

At ten o'clock the slender moon dropped behind the mountain, and the
valley, which had been touched with its tender light, gradually took on
the somberness and stillness of a star-lit night. The town slumbered at
eleven, and there were few lights to be seen in the streets or in the
houses. Here and there strolled the white-uniformed police guards;
occasionally soldiers hurried barracksward; now and then belated
citizens moved through the dense shadows on the sidewalks, but the
Americans saw still life in its reality. Returning from their stroll
beside the castle-walls, far to the west of where they had entered the
grounds that afternoon, they paused in the middle of Castle Avenue, near
the main gate, and looked down the dark, deserted street. Far away could
be seen the faint glare from their hotel; one or two street-lamps burned
in the business part of the city; aside from these evidences of life
there was nothing but darkness, silence, peacefulness about them
everywhere.

“Think of Paris or New York at eleven o'clock,” said Lorry, a trifle
awed by the solitude of the sleeping city.

“It's as dead as a piece of prairie-land,” said his friend. “'Gad, it
makes me sleepy to look down that street. It's a mile to the hotel, too,
Lorry. We'd better move along.”

“Let's lie down near the hedge, smoke another cigar and wait till
midnight. It is too glorious a night to be lost in sleep,” urged Lorry,
whose heart was light over the joys of the day to come. “I can dream
just as well here, looking at that dark old castle with its one little
tower-light, as I could if I tried to sleep in a hard bed down at the
hotel.”

Anguish, who was more or less of a dreamer himself, consented, and,
after lighting fresh cigars, they threw themselves on the soft, dry
grass near the tall hedge that fenced the avenue as it neared the castle
grounds. For half an hour they talked by fits and starts; long silences
were common, broken only by brief phrases which seemed so to disturb the
one to whom they were addressed that he answered gruffly and not at
all politely. Their cigars, burnt to mere stubs, were thrown away,
and still the waking dreamers stretched themselves in the almost
impenetrable shade of the hedge, one thinking of the face he had seen,
the other picturing in his artist eye the painting he had vowed to
create from the moon-lit castle of an hour ago.

“Some one coming,” murmured the painter, half rising to his elbow
attentively.

“Soldiers,” said the other briefly. “They'll not disturb us.”

“They'll not even see us, I should say. It's as dark as Egypt under this
hedge. They'll pass if we keep quiet.”

The figures of two men could be seen approaching from the city, dim
and ghostly in the semi-blackness of the night. Like two thieves the
Americans waited for them to pass. To their exceeding discomfiture,
however, the pedestrians halted directly in front of their resting
place and seated themselves leisurely upon a broad, flat stone at the
roadside. It was too dark to see if they were soldiers, notwithstanding
the fact that they were less than fifteen feet away.

“He should be here at twelve,” said one of the new comers in a low
voice and in fairly good English. The other merely grunted. There was a
silence of some duration, broken by the first speaker.

“If this job fails and you are caught it will mean years of servitude.”

“But in that case we are to have ten thousand gavvos apiece for each
year we lie in prison. It's fair pay--not only for our failure, but
for our silence,” said the other, whose English was more difficult to
understand.

Anguish's fingers gripped Lorry's leg, but there was no sound from
either of the thoroughly aroused dreamers. “A plot, as I live,” thought
each, with a thrill.

“We must be careful to speak only in English. There are not twenty
people in Edelweiss who understand it, but the night has ears. It is the
only safe tongue. Geddos speaks it well. He should be here.” It was
the first speaker who uttered these words, little knowing that he had
listeners other than the man to whom he spoke.

A dark figure shot across the roadway, and, almost before the Americans
were aware of it, the party numbered three.

“Ah, Geddos, you are punctual.”

“I have found it ever a virtue.” responded the newcomer.

“Have you secured your men?”

“I have, your--”

“Sh! Call me Michael, on your life! They are ready and willing to
undertake the venture?”

“Yes, but they do not understand the true conditions. I have told them
that we are to rob the castle and carry the booty to Ganlook before
morning.”

“They do not know the real object of the raid, then. That is as I
desired. Are they trusty and experienced men?”

“The best--or the worst--that I could find in Vienna. Not one
understands our language, and they are so ignorant of our town that
they are entirely dependent on me. They know nothing whatever of the
Princess, Michael, and will do only as they are told, realizing that if
caught they will be guillotined. I have told them it is the royal palace
we are to rifle. Ostrom, here, and I are the only ones, except yourself
and the men who will aid us inside the castle, who know the truth, sir.”

“It cannot fail, unless those inside prove false or unworthy,” said the
hoarse-voiced Ostrom. Anguish's fingers were gripping Lorry's leg so
fiercely that the blood was ready to burst out, but he did not feel
the pain. Here, then, was some gigantic plot in which the person of the
Princess herself was to be considered. Was it an assassination?

“You have five of these Viennese?”

“Yes. Two to stand beneath the window to receive the booty as we lower
it to the ground, one to stand guard at the west gate and two to attend
the carriage and horses in the ravine beyond the castle.”

“When did these men arrive?”

“This morning. I kept them in my sister's home until an hour ago.
They are now in the ravine, awaiting Ostrom and myself. Are you sure,
Michael, that the guards and the cook have been made to understand every
detail? The faintest slip will mean ruin.”

“They are to be trusted fully. Their pay is to be high enough to make
it an object to be infallible. The guard, Dushan, will leave the gate
unwatched, and you will chloroform him--with his consent, of course. You
will enter, as I have explained before, crawl along in the dark shadow
of the wall until you reach the arbor that leads to the kitchen and
scullery. Here another guard, Rabbo--known to Ostrom as a comrade in Her
Royal Highness's service not more than a year ago--will be encountered.
He will be bound and gagged without the least noise or struggle. Just
as the clock strikes two the cook will walk past the scullery window, in
the basement, thrice, carrying a lighted candle. You will see this light
through the window, and will know that all is well inside the castle.
Ostrom, you will then lead the two Viennese to a place directly beneath
the third window in the Princess's sleeping apartment. There are several
clumps of shrubbery there, and under these they will hide, protected
from the gaze of any watchman who is not with us. You and Geddos will be
admitted to the scullery by the cook, who will conduct you to the hall
leading to Her Highness's bed-room. The man who guards her door is
called Dannox. He will not be at his post, but will accompany you when
you leave the castle. You will understand how carefully you must enter
her room and how deeply she must be chloroformed. In the adjoining room
her lady-in-waiting, the Countess Dagmar, sleeps. If her door is ajar,
you are to creep in and chloroform her, leaving her undisturbed. Then
the Princess is to be wrapped in the cloth you take with you and lowered
from the window to the men below. They are to remain in hiding until
you have left the castle and have reached their side. It will not be
difficult, if caution is observed, for you to get outside of the wall
and to the carriage in the ravine. I have given you this plan of action
before, I know, but I desire to impress it firmly upon your minds. There
must not be the slightest deviation. The precision of clock-work is
necessary.”

The man named Michael hissed the foregoing into the ears of his
companions, the palsied Americans hearing every word distinctly. They
scarcely breathed, so tremendous was the restraint imposed upon their
nerves. A crime so huge, so daring as the abduction of a Princess, the
actual invasion of a castle to commit the theft of a human being just as
an ordinary burglar would steal in and make way with the contents of a
silver chest, was beyond their power of comprehension.

“We understand fully how it is to be done, and we shall get her to
Ganlook on time,” said Geddos, confidently.

“Not a hair of her head must be harmed,” cautioned the arch-conspirator.
“In four days I shall meet you at Ganlook. You will keep her in close
confinement until you hear from me. Have you the guard's uniforms that
you are to wear to-night?”

“They are with the carriage in the ravine; Ostrom and I will don
them before going to the castle. In case we are seen they will throw
observers off the track long enough for us to secure a good start in our
flight.”

“Remember, there is to be no failure. This may mean death to you;
certainly a long prison term if you are apprehended. I know it is a
daring deed, but it is just of the kind that succeeds. Who would dream
that mortal man could find the courage to steal a princess of the
realm from her bed and spirit her away from under the very noses of her
vaunted guardsmen? It is the bold, the impossible plan that wins.”

“We cannot fail if your men on the inside do their work well,”
 said Geddos, repeating what Ostrom had said. “All depends on their
faithfulness.”

“They will not be found wanting. Your cut-throats must be sent on to
Caias with the empty carriage after you have reached Ganlook in safety.
You will need them no more. Ostrom will pay them, and they are to leave
the country as quickly as possible. At Caias they will be able to join
a pack-train that will carry them to the Great Northern Railroad. From
there they will have no trouble in reaching Vienna. You will explain to
them, Geddos. All we need them for, as you know, is to prove by their
mere presence in case of capture that the attempt was no more than a
case of burglary conceived by a band of Viennese robbers. There will be
no danger of capture if you once get her outside the walls. You can be
half way to Ganlook before she is missed from the castle. Nor can she be
found at Ganlook if you follow the instructions I gave last night. It is
now nearly one o'clock, and in half an hour the night will be as dark
as Erebus. Go, men; you have no more time to lose, for this must be
accomplished slowly, carefully, deliberately. There must be no haste
until you are ready for the race to Ganlook. Go, but for God's sake, do
not harm her! And do not fail!”

“Failure means more to us than to you, Michael,” half whispered the
hoarse Ostrom.

“Failure means everything to me! I must have her!”

Already the two hirelings were moving off toward the road that ran
west of the castle grounds. Michael watched them for a moment and then
started swiftly in the direction of the city. The watchers had not been
able to distinguish the faces of the conspirators, but they could never
forget the calm, cold voice of Michael, with its quaint, jerky English.

“What shall we do?” whispered Anguish when the men were out of hearing.

“God knows!” answered Lorry. “This is the most damnable thing I ever
heard of. Are we dreaming? Did we really see and hear those men?” He had
risen to his feet, his companion sitting weakly before him.

“There's no question about it! It's a case of abduction, and we have it
in our power to spoil the whole job. By Gad, but this is luck, Gren!”
 Anguish was quivering with excitement as he rose to his feet. “Shall we
notify old Dangloss or alarm the steward? There's no time to be lost if
we want to trap these fellows. The chief devil is bound to escape, for
we can't get him and the others, too, and they won't peach on him. Come,
we must be lively! What are you standing there for? Damn it, the trap
must be set!”

“Wait! Why not do the whole job ourselves?”

“How-what do you mean?”

“Why should we alarm anybody? We know the plans as well as these
scoundrels themselves. Why not follow them right into the castle,
capture them red-handed, and then do the alarming? I'm in for saving the
Princess of Graustark with our own hands and right under the noses
of her vaunted guardsmen, as Michael says.” Lorry was thrilled by the
spirit of adventure. His hand gripped his friend's arm and his face was
close to his ear. “It is the grandest opportunity two human beings ever
had to distinguish themselves!”

“Great heaven, man! We can't do such a thing!” gasped Anguish.

“It's the easiest thing in the world. Besides, if we fail, we have
nothing to lose. If we succeed, see what we've done! Don't hesitate, old
man! Come on! Come on! We'll take 'em ourselves, as sure as fate. Have
you no nerve? What kind of an American are you? This chance won't
come in ten lifetimes! Good God, man, are we not equal to those two
scoundrels?”

“Two? There are at least ten of them!”

“You fool! The three guards are disposed of in advance, two of the
Viennese are left with the horses, two are chucked off under the
princess' window, and one stands at the gate. We can slug the man at the
gate, the fellows under the window are harmless, and that leaves but our
two friends and the cook. We have every advantage in the world. Can't
you see?”

“You are right! Come on! I'll risk it with you. We will save the
Princess of Graustark!”

“Don't you see it will be just as easy for us to enter the castle as for
these robbers? The way will be clear, and will be kept clear. Jove, man,
we need not be more than thirty seconds behind them. Is your pistol all
right?”

By this time the two men were speeding along the grassy stretch toward
the road that ran beside the wall. They looked to their pistols, and
placed them carefully in outside coat pockets.

“We must throw away these heavy canes,” whispered the painter to his
friend, who was a pace or so ahead.

“Keep it! We'll need one of them to crack that fellow's head at the
gate. 'Gad, it's dark along here!”

“How the devil are we to know where to go?”

“We'll stop when we come to the gate where we climbed up the wall
to-day. That is the only entrance I saw along the west wall, and it is
near the castle. Just as soon as the gang enters that gate we'll crawl
up and get rid of the fellow who stands watch.” It was so dark that
they could barely see the roadway, and they found it necessary to cease
talking as they slunk along beside the wall. Occasionally they paused to
listen, fearing that they might draw too close upon the men who had gone
before. At last they came to a big gate and halted.

“Is this the gate?” whispered Anguish.

“Sh! Yes, I'm quite sure. We are undoubtedly near the castle, judging
by the distance we have come. Let us cross the road and lie directly
opposite. Be careful!”

Like panthers they stole across the road and down a short, grassy
embankment. At Anguish's suggestion Lorry wrapped his handkerchief
tightly about the heavy end of his cane, preparing in that way to deaden
the sound of the blow that was to fall upon the Vienna man's head. Then
they threw aside their hats, buttoned their coats tightly, and sank down
to wait, with bounding hearts and tingling nerves, the arrival of the
abductors, mutely praying that they were at the right gate.




IX. THE EXPLOIT OF LORRY AND ANGUISH


During the half hour spent in the grassy ditch or gutter, they spoke not
more than half a dozen times and in the faintest of whispers. They could
hear the guard pacing the driveway inside the ponderous gate, but aside
from his footsteps no sound was distinguishable. A sense of oppression
came over the two watchers as the minutes grew longer and more deathlike
in their stillness. Each found himself wondering why the leaves did
not stir in the trees, why there were no nightbirds, no crickets, no
croaking frogs, no sign of life save that steady, clocklike tread inside
the wall. So dark was it that the wall itself was but a deeper shadow
against the almost opaque blackness beyond. No night, it seemed to them,
had ever been so dark, so still. After the oppression came the strange
feeling of dread, the result of an enforced contemplation of the affair
in which they were to take a hand, ignorant of everything except the
general plan.

They knew nothing of the surroundings. If they failed, there was the
danger of being shot by the guards before an explanation could be made.
If they succeeded, it must be through sheer good fortune and not through
prowess of mind or muscle. Once inside the castle, how could they hope
to follow the abductors at a safe distance and still avoid the danger of
being lost or of running into trusty guards? The longer they lay there
the more hazardous became the part they had so recklessly ventured to
play. In the heart of each there surged a growing desire to abandon
the plan, yet neither could bring himself to the point of proposing the
retreat from the inspired undertaking. Both knew the sensible, judicious
act would be to alarm the guards and thus avoid all possible chance of
a fiasco. With misgivings and doubts in their hearts the two
self-appointed guardians of the Princess lay there upon the grass,
afraid to give up the project, yet fearing the outcome.

“The dickens will be to pay, Lorry, if they dispose of this guard on the
inside and lock the gate. Then how are we to follow?” whispered Anguish.

Lorry was thoughtful for a while. He felt the chill of discouragement in
his heart.

“In that case we must lie outside and wait till they come out with the
Princess. Then make a sudden assault and rescue her. In the darkness we
can make them think there are a dozen rescuers,” he whispered at length.
After a while Anguish asked another appalling question, the outgrowth of
brain-racking study:

“Suppose these fellows, who will be in guards' uniform, should turn
about and capture us. What then? We are strangers, and our story would
not be believed. They could slip away in the excitement and leave us in
a very awkward position.”

“Harry, if we are going to hatch up all sorts of possibilities, let's
give up the thing right now. I have thought of a thousand contingencies,
and I realize how desperate the job is to be. We must either cast
discretion to the winds or we must retreat. Which shall we do?”

“Cast aside discretion and hang our fears,” said the other, once more
inspired. “We'll take chances and hope for the best. If we see we are
going to fail we can then call for the guards. The grounds are doubtless
full of soldiers. The only part I'm worried about is the groping through
that strange, dark castle.”

“We must do some calculating and we must stick close together. By
watching where they station the two Viennese we can figure about what
direction we must take to get to the Princess's room. Sh! Isn't that
some one approaching?”

They strained their ears for a moment and then involuntarily,
spasmodically shook hands, each heaving the deep breath of excitement.
The stealthy rustle of moving bodies was heard, faint, but positive. It
was a moment of suspense that would have strained the nerve of a stone
image. Where were the abductors? On which side of the road and from what
direction did they come? Oh, for the eyes of a cat!

There was a slight shuffling of feet near the gate, a suppressed “Sh?”
 and then deathly silence. The gate opened, a faint creaking attesting
the fact, followed by the heavy breathing of men, the noise of subdued
activity, the scent of chloroform. Some whispering, and then the
creaking of the gate.

“They've gone,” whispered Anguish. Lorry's form arose to a crouching
posture and a moment later he was crossing the road with the tread of
a cat, his cane gripped firmly in his hard. Anguish followed with drawn
revolver. So still was their approach that they were upon the figure of
a man before they were aware of the fact. In the darkness the foremost
American saw the outline of a human figure bending over a long object
on the ground. He could smell chloroform strongly, and grasped the
situation. The Viennese was administering the drug, his companions
having left that duty for him to perform. No doubt the treacherous
guardsman was lying calmly on his back, bound and gagged, welcoming
unconsciousness with a smile of security.

As soon as Lorry gained his bearings fully he prepared to fell the
wretch who was to stand watch. Anguish heard his friend's figure
suddenly shoot to an erect position. A whirring sound as of disturbed
air and then a dull thud. Something rolled over on the ground, and all
was still. He was at Lorry's side in an instant.

“I hope I haven't killed him,” whispered, Lorry. “Quick! Here is his
bottle of ether. Hold it beneath his nose. I am going to pile the body
of this guard crosswise on top of him. He will not be able to arise if
he should recover consciousness.”

All this was done in a moment's time, and the two trackers were headed
for the entrance.

The gate was ajar two or three feet. With turbulent hearts, they stole
through.

“Keep along the wall,” whispered Lorry, “and trust to luck. The castle
is to the left.”

Without hesitation they crept over the noiseless grass, close beside
the wall. Directly they heard sounds near at hand. The abductors were
binding and chloroforming the guard at the arbor. After waiting for some
moments they heard the party glide away in the darkness, and followed.
The body of the guard was lying just outside the mouth of the arbor,
and the odor of chloroform was almost overpowering. Once inside the long
arbor, the Americans moved slowly and with greater caution. There was a
dim light in a basement window ahead. Toward the front of the castle and
in the second story a faint glow came from another window. They guessed
it to be from the Princess' room or from that of the countess.

At last they saw four figures steal past the dim basement light. One
of them halted near the window, and three crept away in the darkness.
Presently one of them returned, and all activity was at an end for the
time being. How near it was to two o'clock the watchers could not tell.
They only knew that they were within twenty-five feet of Geddos and
Ostrom, and that they would not have long to wait.

Soon a bright little blaze of light crossed the basement opening. Then
it returned, crossing a second time, and a third. All was still again.
The soft shuffle of a foot, the rustle of arbor vines, and the form of a
man crawled up to the window. With inconceivable stealth and carefulness
it glided through the aperture, followed by a companion.

Lorry and Anguish were at the opening a second or two later, lying flat
on their stomachs and listening for sounds from within. The dim
light was still there, the window was open, and there was a sound
of whispering. Lorry raised his head and peered through, taking
calculations while the light made it possible. He saw an open door on
the opposite side of the low room, with steps beyond, leading upward.
Between the window and the door there were no obstacles. Up those steps
he saw three men creep, the leader carrying the dim light. The door was
left open, doubtless to afford unimpeded exit from the building in case
of emergency. Harry Anguish touched Lorry's arm.

“I took the two pistols from that Vienna man out there. We may need
them. Here is one for yourself. Go first, Lorry,” he whispered.

Lorry stuck the revolver in his coat pocket and gently slid through
the window to the floor below. His friend followed, and they paused to
listen. Taking Anguish by the hand the other led the way straight to the
spot where he remembered seeing the door.

Boldly the two men began the breathless ascent of the stone steps. The
top was reached, and far ahead, down a narrow hall, they saw the three
men and the dim light moving. Two of them wore uniforms of guards.
Keeping close to the wall their followers crept after them. Up another
flight of steps they went, and then through a spacious hall. The
Americans had no time and no desire to inspect their surroundings. The
wide doors at the far side of the room opened softly, and here the trio
paused. Down a great marble hallway a dim red light shed its soft glow.
It came from the lamp at the foot of the broad staircase.

The cook pointed to the steps, and then gave his thumb a jerk toward the
left. Without the least sign of fear Geddos and Ostrom glided into
the hall and made for the staircase. The watchers could not but feel
a thrill of admiration for these daring wretches. But now a new danger
confronted them. The cook remained standing in the doorway, watching his
fellows in crime! How were they to pass him?

There was no time to be lost. The abductors were creeping up the steps
already, and the cook must be disposed of. He had blown out the light
which he carried, and was now a very dim shadow. Lorry glided forward
and in an instant stood before the amazed fellow, jamming a pistol into
his face.

“A sound and you die!” he hissed.

“Don't move!” came another whisper, and a second revolver touched his
ear. The cook, perhaps, did not know their language, but he certainly
understood its meaning. He trembled, and would have fallen to the floor
had not the strong hand of Lorry pinned him to the wall. The hand was on
his throat, too.

“Chloroform him, Harry, and don't let him make a sound!” whispered the
owner of the hand. Anguish's twitching fingers succeeded those of his
friend on the cook's throat, his pistol was returned to his pocket, and
the little bottle came again into use.

“I'll go ahead. Follow me as soon as you have finished this fellow. Be
careful, and turn to the left when you come to the top.”

Lorry was off across the marble floor, headed for the stairway, and
Anguish was left in charge of the cook, of whom he was to make short
work. Now came the desperate, uncertain part of the transaction. Suppose
he were to meet the two conspirators at the head of the stairs, or in
the hall, or that the other traitor, Dannox, should appear to frustrate
all. It was the most trying moment in the whole life of the reckless
Lorry.

When near the top of the steps he hugged the high balustrade and
cautiously peered ahead. He found himself looking down a long hall, at
the far end of which, to his right, a dim light was burning. There was
no sound and there was no sign of the two men, either to the right or
to the left. His heart felt like lead! They evidently had entered the
Princess's room! How was he to find that room? Slowly he wriggled across
the broad, dark hall, straightening up in the shadow of a great post.
From this point he edged along the wall for a distance of ten or twelve
feet to the left. A sound came from farther down the hall, and he
imagined he heard some one approaching.

His hand came in contact with a heavy hanging or tapestry, and he
quickly squirmed behind its folds, finding himself against a door which
moved as his body touched it. He felt it swing open slightly and drew
back, intending to return to the hall, uncertain and very much undecided
as to the course to pursue. His revolver was in his hand. Just as he was
about to pull aside the curtain a man glided past, quickly followed by
another. Providence had kept him from running squarely into them.
They were going toward the left, and he realized that they were now
approaching the Princess's room. How he came to be ahead of them he
could not imagine. Strange trembling seized his legs, so great was the
relief after the narrow escape. Again he felt the door move slightly
as he pressed against it. The necessity for a partial recovery of his
composure before the next and most important step, impelled him softly
to enter the room for an instant's breath.

Holding to the door he stood inside and drew himself to his full height,
taking a long and tremulous breath. There was no light in the room, but
through the door crack to his left came a dim, broad streak. He now knew
where he was. This room was next to that in which the Princess slept,
for had he not seen the light from her window? Perhaps he was now in the
room of the Countess Dagniar. Next door! Next door! Even now the
daring Geddos and Ostrom were crawling towards the bed of the ruler of
Graustark, not twenty feet away. His first impulse was to cross and open
the door leading to the next room, surmising that it would be unlocked,
but he remembered Anguish, who was doubtless, by this time, stealing up
the stairs. They must not be separated, for it would require two steady,
cool heads to deal with the villains. It was not one man's work. As
he turned to leave the room he thought how wonderfully well they had
succeeded in the delicate enterprise so far.

His knees struck the door, and there was a dull thump, not loud in
reality, but like the report of a gun to him. A sudden rustle in the
darkness of the room and then a sleepy voice, soft and quick, as of a
woman awakening with a start.

“Who is it?”

His heart ceased beating, his body grew stiff and immovable. Again the
voice, a touch of alarm in it now:

“Is that you, Donnox?”

She spoke in German, and the voice came from somewhere in front and
to his right. He could not answer, could not move. The paralysis of
indecision was upon him.

“How is it that the outer door is open?”

This time there was something like a reprimand in the tones, still low.
He almost could see the wide-open, searching eyes.




X. YETIVE


There could be no further hesitation. Something must be done and
instantly. He gently closed the door before answering the third
question. In his nervousness he spoke in English, advancing to the
middle of the room. Impossible to see the woman to whom he hissed this
alarming threat-he only could speculate as to its effect:

“If you utter a sound, madam, I shall kill you. Be calm, and allow me to
explain my presence here!”

He expected her to shriek, forgetting that she might not understand his
words. Instead there was a deathly silence. Had she swooned? His heart
was leaping with hope. But she spoke softly again, tremulously, and in
English:

“You will find my jewels on the dressing table. Take them and go You
will not hurt me?”

“I am not here to do you injury, but to serve your Princess,” whispered
the man. “For God's sake, do not make an outcry. You will ruin
everything. Will you let me explain?”

“Go! Go! Take anything! I can be calm no longer. Oh, how can I expect
mercy at your hands!” Her tones were rising to a wail of terror.

“Sh! Do you want to die?” he hissed, striding to the canopy bed,
discernible as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. “I will kill
you if you utter a sound, so help me God!”

“Oh!” she moaned.

“Listen! You must aid me! Do you hear?”

Another heart-breaking moan. “I am here to save the Princess. There is
a plot to abduct her to-night. Already there are men in the castle,
perhaps in her room. You must tell me where she sleeps. There is no time
to be lost. I am no thief, before God! I am telling you the truth. Do
not be alarmed, I implore you. Trust me, madam, and you will not regret
it. Where does the Princess sleep?” He jerked out these eager, pleading
words quickly, breathlessly.

“How am I to trust you?” came back a whisper from the bed.

“Here is a revolver! Take it and kill me if I attempt the slightest
injury. Where are you?” He felt along the bed with his hand.

“Keep away! Please! Please!” she sobbed.

“Take the pistol! Be calm, and in heaven's name help me to save her.
Those wretches may have killed her already!”

The revolver dropped upon the clothes. He was bending eagerly over,
holding the curtains back.

“My friend is in the hall. We have traced the men to the Princess's
door, I think. My God, be quick! Do you wish to see her stolen from
under your eyes?”

“You are now in the Princess's room,” answered the voice from the bed,
calmer and with some alacrity. “Is this true that you tell me?”

“As God is my witness! And you--you--are you the Princess?” gasped the
man, drawing back.

“I am. Where is Dannox?” She was sitting bolt upright in the bed, the
pistol in her trembling fingers.

“He is one of the conspirators. One of the cooks and two other guards
are in the plot. Can you trust me enough to leave your bed and hide in
another part of the room? The scoundrels have mistaken the door, but
they may be here at any moment. You must be quick! I will protect you--I
swear it! Come, your Highness! Hide!”

Something in the fierce, anxious whisper gave her confidence. The
miracle had been wrought! He had composed this woman under the most
trying circumstances that could have teen imagined. She slipped from the
bed and threw a long, loose silken gown about her.

“Who are you?” she asked, touching his arm.

“I am a foreigner--an American--Grenfall Lorry! Hurry!” he implored.

She did not move for a moment, but he distinctly heard her catch her
breath.

“Am I dreaming?” she murmured, faintly. Her fingers now clutched his arm
tightly.

“I should say not! I don't like to order you around, your Highness,
but--”

“Come---- come to the light!” she interrupted, excitedly. “Over here!”

Noiselessly she drew him across the room until the light fell across
his face. It was not a bright light, but what she saw satisfied her. He
could not see her face, for she stood outside the strip of dusky yellow.

“Two men lie beneath your window, and two are coming to this room.
Where shall I go? Come, be quick, madam! Do you want to be carted off to
Ganlook? Then don't stand there like a--like a--pardon me, I won't say
it.”

“I trust you fully. Shall I alarm the guard?” she whispered, recovering
her self-possession.

“By no means. I want to catch those devils myself. Afterwards we can
alarm the guards!”

“An ideal American!” she surprised him by saying. “Follow me!”

She led him to the doorway. “Stand here, and I will call the Countess.
At this side, where it is dark.”

She opened the door gently and stood in the light for a second. He saw
before him a graceful figure in trailing white, and then he saw her
face. She was Miss Guggenslocker!

“My God!” he hoarsely gasped, staggering toward her. “You! You! The
Princess?”

“Yes, I am the Princess,” she whispered, smiling as she glided away
from his side. His eyes went round in his head, his legs seemed to be
anywhere but beneath him, he felt as though he were rushing toward the
ceiling. For the moment he was actually unconscious. Then his senses
rushed back, recalling his mission and his danger.

“She is sleeping so soundly that I fear to awaken her,” whispered a
soft voice at his back, and he turned.. The Princess was standing in the
doorway.

“Then pray stand back where you will be out of danger. They will be here
in a moment, unless they have been frightened away.”

“You shall not expose yourself,” she said, positively. “Why should you
risk your life now? You have accomplished your object. You have saved
the Princess!”

“Ah--yes, the Princess!” he said. “And I am sorry you are the Princess,”
 he added, in her ear.

“Sh!” she whispered, softly.

The door through which he had first come was softly opened, and they
were conscious that some one was entering. Lorry and the Princess stood
in the dark shadow of a curtain, she close behind his stalwart figure.
He could hear his own heart and hers beating, could feel the warmth of
her body, although it did not touch his. His heart beat with the pride
of possession, of power, with the knowledge that he had but to stretch
out his hand and touch the one woman in all the world.

Across the dim belt of light from the open doorway in which they stood,
crawled the dark figure of a man. Her hand unconsciously touched his
back as if seeking reassurance.

He shivered beneath its gentle weight. Another form followed the first,
pausing in the light to look toward their doorway. The abductor was
doubtless remembering the in

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