“Lord, Claiborne, you don’t know what’s ahead of us! It’s the greatest thing that ever happened. I never expected anything like this—not on my cheerfulest days. Dearest Jules is out looking for a telegraph office to pull off the Austrian end of the rumpus. Well, little good it will do him! And we’ll catch him and Durand and that Servian devil and lock them up here till Marhof decides what to do with him. We’re off!”
“All ready, sir;” said Oscar briskly.
“It’s half-past two. They didn’t get off their message at Lamar, because the office is closed and the operator gone, and they will keep out of the valley and away from the big inn, because they are rather worried by this time and not anxious to get too near Marhof. They’ve probably decided to go to the next station below Lamar to do their telegraphing. Meanwhile they haven’t got me!”
“They had me and didn’t want me,” said Claiborne, mounting his own horse.
“They’ll have a good many things they don’t want in the next twenty-four hours. If I hadn’t enjoyed this business so much myself we might have had some secret service men posted all along the coast to keep a lookout for them. But it’s been a great old lark. And now to catch them!”
Outside the preserve they paused for an instant.
“They’re not going to venture far from their base, which is that inn and post-office, where they have been rummaging my mail. I haven’t studied the hills for nothing, and I know short cuts about here that are not on maps. They haven’t followed the railroad north, because the valley broadens too much and there are too many people. There’s a trail up here that goes over the ridge and down through a wind gap to a settlement about five miles south of Lamar. If I’m guessing right, we can cut around and get ahead of them and drive them back here to my land.”
“To the Port of Missing Men! It was made for the business,” said Claiborne.
“Oscar, patrol the road here, and keep an eye on the bungalow, and if you hear us forcing them down, charge from this side. I’ll fire twice when I get near the Port to warn you; and if you strike them first, give the same signal. Do be careful, Sergeant, how you shoot. We want prisoners, you understand, not corpses.”
Armitage found a faint trail, and with Claiborne struck off into the forest near the main gate of his own grounds. In less than an hour they rode out upon a low-wooded ridge and drew up their panting, sweating horses—two shadowy videttes against the lustral dome of stars. A keen wind whistled across the ridge and the horses pawed the unstable ground restlessly. The men jumped down to tighten their saddle-girths, and they turned up their coat collars before mounting again.