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then shall you do?" she asked rather breathlessly.
    "That depends wholly on your story," he said, glancing up at the two bound men. "Now, what has happened here?"
    One coherent thought rose through the waves of her pounding temples. Sammy and the Reverend would not return for over an hour, and somewhere in that time she must escape from this
    man to warn them. Libertine neighed angrily nearby, making plain her displeasure with her mistress' situation. "Please, loose me—"
    "Not in your wildest dreams," he said simply.
    "Oh but…” She squirmed to give credence to the complaint, "You're hurting me so." "What an inconsistent little fool," he chuckled. "After holding me at gun point, you would
    now beg privileges of your sex?"
    "But I can't talk like this! Truly!"
    "You better try because I've already mentioned the only other position you're likely to get from me."
    This confirmed the growing suspicion that he was hard-nosed and mean, cruel in the extreme. She had not lived with the Reverend's mendacity without picking up a few tricks. "I know what this must look like," she began dramatically. "But honestly, you mistake the circumstances!
    You see," her tone lifted higher as the lie came to her. "My uncle, Sammy and I are the victims here! We were traveling to Carlisle when these two ... bandits over there tried to rob us. Well! Few men can best Sammy—our Negro—or my uncle. And I can assure you—and you can see for yourself—they soon reversed the situation. They tied the highwaymen up and knocked them out, as you see there, and left me to guard them while they went to fetch the proper authorities."
    Nothing in all her life, even in these last awful minutes, scared her as much as the changed emotion on his face. He said only, "The next lie you tell will be your last; I will make you regret the breath it was uttered in."
    She waited for her next breath, which would not come. The silence filled with the sound of rushing water and the ever present cries of birds, flying with a freedom she had cause to envy.
    "I'm growing impatient with you." The hard lines of his face gave credibility to the statement.
    Joy in no way wanted to discover what happened when his small patience wore thin, yet all she could think of was--"I can't tell you."
    "Only slightly better than a lie. Why not?" Now his tone suggested the casual interest of teatime chatter, and his apparent capriciousness left her stunned.
    "It could risk the lives of many innocent people," she replied.
    "Innocent?' He chuckled. "I've seen more innocence in the spread of a whore's thighs."
    Unbelievably, the metaphor brought quick color to her cheeks, and this, more than any one thing, surprised him. He stared in sudden wonder. Try as he would, he could not reconcile that single blush with the girl's behavior. This added dangerously to both his curiosity and impatience, and he was just about to make his threats explicit when suddenly one of the bound men groaned and tried to lift his head again.
    Still maintaining the lowered attack stance, Rake barked angrily, and Ram glanced up, for a moment distracted. Joy Claret saw the chance—her only chance—and before her fear could caution her, she stiffened purposely, cast her gaze behind her captor and screamed, "No! Don't shoot him!"
    She never wasted a moment to marvel at the speed of Ram's reflexes. The words had not left her mouth, and Ram was off her, standing in his own attack stance at an invisible perpetrator.
    Alerted and barking, Rake dashed to his master's side, adding confusion to the startling few seconds it took Ram to search the surroundings and see that no one was there. Just as he turned back around to catch her, Joy vaulted her nervous mount with an agility that gave lift to Ram's brow. Libertine leaped into the air, and the last thing Joy heard—the only thing she heard—was the fine sound of Ram Barrington's laughter.

    * * * * *

Chapter Two

    Startled, Libertine leaped in the air, and not having bothered