The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1918-04-17

the car moved decorously. but when
the suburbs were reached the driver
put on all his power. He drove care
fully. too. MS one who must make haste
but cannot afford accident.
Milky grew very uncomfortable.
His long legs ached. The place be-
tween the shoulders where the CON
cierge had landed his powerful blows
throbbed and beat Also he was
puzzled, and he hated being puzzled.
He was unarmed, too. He disllked
that most of all.
After time he raised his head. He
made out that they were going east,
toward the mountains, and he cursed
the luck that had left his revolver at
home. Still he had no plan but to
watch. Two hours ride, at their pres
ent rate, would take them over the
border and into Karnia.
With squeallng of brakes the ma
chine drew up at the frontier. Here
was q chain across the highway, with
two sets of guards. Long before they
reached it, sentry stepped into the
road and waved his lantern.
Milky burrowed lower into the car.
and attempted to look like rug. In
the silence, while the sentry evidently
examined passport and flashed Il
lantern over the chauffeur, Milky
cursed the ticking Of his watch, the
beating of his own heart.
Then came q clanking as the chain
dropped in the road. The car bumped
over it, and halted again. The same
formallties, this time by Karnian
sentries. Then the jerk following a
hasty letting-in of the clutch, and they
were off again.
For some time they climbed steadily.
But Milky, who knew the road, biden
his time. Then at last, at two o'clock,
came the steep ascent to the very
crest of the mountain, and falling
back, gear by gear, until they climbed
slowly in the lowest.
Milky unfolded his length quietly.
The gears were grinding, the driver
bent low over his wheel. Very de-
libcrately, now that he knew what he
was going to do, Milky unbuttoned his
tunic and slipped it off. 1t was rash
thing, this plan he had in mind. rash
under any circumstances, in a moving
car-particularly rash here, where be-
tween the cliff and a precipice that
fell far away below, was only wind
ing ribbon of uneven road.
Milky, he waited his moment, and
then, with one singularly efficient ges-
ture, he flung his tunic over the
chautfeur's head. He drove car
himself did Nikky-not his own, of
course; he was far too poor-and he
counted on one thing-an automobile
driver acts from the spinal cord, and
not from the brain. Therefore his
brain may be seething with thousand
rrenZies, but he will shove out clutch
and brake feet in an emergency, and
hold them out.
So it happened. The mans hands
left the wheel, but he stopped his car.
Not too soon. Not before 1t had struck
curve out toward the edge of the
precipice. But stop it did, on the very
edge of eternity, and the chauffeur
held it there.
"Set the hand brake!" Milky said.
The lamps were near enough the edge
to make him dizzy.
The chauffeur ceased struggling, and
set the hand brake. His head was stin
covered. But having done that, he
commenced struggle more furious
than forceful, for both of them were
handicapped.
And now Milky was forced to an
unsolGierlike thing that he afterward
tried to forget. For the driver de-
veloped unexpected strength, refused
to submit, got the tunic off his head,
and, seeing himself attacked by one
man only, took courage and fell to.
He picked up wrench from the seat
beside him, and made a furious pass
at Nikky's head. Milky ducked and,
after struggle secured the weapon.
All this in the car, over the seat back.
1t was then that Milky raised the
wrench and stunned his man with it.
1t was hateful. The very dull thud
of it was sicllening. And there was a
bad minute or two when he thought
he had killed his opponent. The man
had sunk down in his seat, a sodden
lump of inanimate human flesh. And
Milky, whose business, in way, was
killing, was Mortified.
The chauffeur wakened ten minutes
later, to find himself securely tied with
his own towing rope, and lying ex-
tremely close to, the edge of death
Beside him on the ground sat steady
eyed young man with a cut lip. The
young man had lighted cigarette, and
was placing it carefully in the unin-
jured side of his mouth.
"Just as soon as you are up to it,"
said Milky, 1--WE shall have little
talk"
The chauffeur muttered something in
the peasant patols of Karnia.
"Come, comet" Milky observed.
"Speak up. No hiding behind strange