A Tar-Heel Baron

ides aga

rought to von Rittenhe

I'll meet you at twelve o'clock to-morrow on top of Buck Mountain. I think you went to a picnic there when the chestnuts were ripe last

rs t

y Mor

English of this document, and

is a distant spot, ten miles from here. He is strange no

f his adopted land, he proceeded to negotiate w

ng morning when Bob Morgan drew rein before

. No, I'll not send the horse around. And she'll want J

ar as his bridle would allow, and spoke in

bout it until just as he was leaving the house, and he said he didn't want me

n, saw nothing. His only thought was to give her some sport. A fight, more or less, counted but little with him persona

t perhaps men always were cool in such emergencies. To her it meant murder,-the crim

k to her brain and s

e," she panted. "I'll

her gloves, while she extended her foot for Bob to buckle her spur. She h

at, Sydney?" asked Bob,

called to the little negro, who was bringing the horse arou

was Bob, who was catching the girl's

ld wish. She adjusted herself carefully, for she knew how the discomfort of a twisted

eleven now," she said, glancing at a strap watc

pursuit before his mast

fair to keep even the advantage. They had had many a race, Bob and Sydney, and usually it was the girl who was the more cautio

e, and five from there to the foot of Buck Mountain. By a cut across th

saw Sydney turn from the avenue and drive Johnny at a

he commented, as he noticed during his own flight that the

he top of a

, and slackening to allow the gray's approach only when he came to a f

b covered the dozen lengths between

and her white blouse and ruddy hair shone half-way across the unenclosed mea

's going to be bloodshed." And with a view to reassuring her, he caught up with her in the path through the be

Sydney! You don't think it'

b could finish, and his question, meant to inspirit Sydney, had sounded to her

y top of the mountain without fatigue. Her horsewoman's intelligence, however, warned her to think of her animal

ouldn't understand it; but he was beginning to realize that she was taking the adventure s

de, for a few hundred yards, he became not so sure hims

had not overlooked the fact that the stocks of two guns were protruding from the holster that projected f

o his gray. The girl responded to his look, and they set into the steady gal

ve miles lay before them to the foot of the mountain, and to the summit there w

on, on, on to the big hill whose vast bulk was beginning to tower mightily before them. Past the old school-house they dashed, without a glance for its forlorn state of decay; past one of

branch ends are liable to snag a horse's legs. Johnny and Gray Eagle took in their stride the brooks that babbled gayly across the way;

yes from the ground before her, "Is the bridle-path open?" I

e washed. We'd better k

lf a mil

er might del

looked at her watch as they reached

nty minute

Bob. She felt sick and faint, and her

d as he said it that his father had left home for the meet

gh at a half-minute's end. A fairly level bit followed along the ridge of the foot-hill they just had climbed. It was not wide enough for them to travel abreast, and

ter's rains had washed the soil. A trickling spring kept its surfac

e's pain. Now it was a note of fear lest the fall might mean delay. But the brave

e Bob's anxious cry from below,

he called. "Come, J

he bent his hoofs to catch his to

and then a couple of hundred yards of hardly perceptibl

the grade became much more abrupt, and although it was worn fairly smooth by the sleds of the men who planted a?rial cornfi

stopped an instant, took a long breath, s

to hurry, to rush, to fly. Her lips grew white when she saw t

time," she agonized. "O God,

ide the trail among the evergreen sword-fern-a noisy betrayer of the mountain's angle. She did not observe that she was alone, that Bob was not following

, his sides he

go on; do go on! O God,

, still she left the rein upon the horse's neck, for

d, whose slippery, dead grass added another peril to the climb. The trail ende

d horse," she urged. "Five min

en a pang as when she looked last, although it was later than the fatal hour. The continued silence

d. The horse stumbl

God keep them! Oh, Johnny! My dear, faithful

that his labored breathing and the weight of his rider made difficult

lling buds against the sky just over her head,-yet how slow was her advance! The sedge-grass caugh

! And there, just below the crest on the other side, facing each oth