Da-da would never force her to marry that frightful, hideous Prince Boris!

As the car turned north into the hills, and wound slowly back and forth up the steep grade just before leaving the Roman road to enter the road to Vitza a horseman drew rein at the summit of a particularly steep and tortuous stretch, and turning looked back into the valley beneath and behind him.

The lights of a car shown for a moment far in his rear, and then were lost in a sudden turning of the road. The man drew a black mask from his pocket and adjusted it over the lower part of his face. Then he reined his mount close behind a shoulder of rock at a sharp turning of the road, where the shadows veiled him from the sight of the approaching wayfarers. The fingers of his right hand gripped the butt of a long and formidable looking revolver, while those of his left curbed the nervous sidesteppings of his restive mount.

Slowly the big car wound its way up the steep grade. The gears, meshed in second speed, protested loudly, while the exhaust barked in sympathy through an open muffler. Stefan, outwardly calm, was inwardly boiling, as was the water in the radiator before him threatening to do. Silent, but none the less sincere, were the curses where with he cursed the fate which had compelled him to drive "the old car" up Vitza grade which the new car took in high with only a gentle purring.

Almost at the summit there is a curve about a projecting shoulder of rock, and at this point the grade is steepest. More and more slowly the old car moved when it reached this point-there came from the steel and aluminum lungs a few consumptive, coughs which racked the car from bumper to tail light, and as Stefan shifted quickly from second to low the wheels almost stopped, and at the same instant a horseman reined quickly into the center of the road before them, a levelled revolver pointing straight through the frail windshield at the unprotected breast of the astonished Stefan.

"Stand and deliver!" cried a menacing voice that sent a delightful little shiver through the frame of Her Royal Highness, the Princess Mary.

The horseman was directly in front of the car. Stefan was both quick witted and courageous. One single burst of speed and both horse and man would be ridden down. The gears were in low, the car was just at a standstill. Stefan pressed his foot upon the accelerator and let in the clutch. The car should have jumped forward and crushed the life from the presumptuous bandit; but it did nothing of the sort. Instead, it gave voice to a pitiful choking sound, and died.

"Get out!" commanded the brigand.

Stefan set the emergency brake and climbed down into the road. He had played his last trick-there was nothing left to do but obey. Princess Mary was beside him almost as soon as he touched the ground.

"Don't let him know who we are," she warned in a low whisper.

Carlotta followed her mistress, and as she took her place beside her she clasped the latter's hand in hers. The robber dismounted and approached them, and for a moment examined his captives intently.

"One is young and beautiful," was his mental comment; "the other of middle age, with greyish hair," and then, aloud: "Mrs. Bass, you and your daughter will kindly re-enter the machine."

Princess Mary gasped, and squeezed Carlotta's hand. He took them for the Americans! Princess Mary could have danced, so elated was she. So long as the bandit was ignorant of her true identity the chances of trapping him were greatly enhanced; and, too, while the ransom for a rich American's daughter might be large, that which he would demand for a princess of the royal blood would be infinitely greater.

She wondered if this could really be the notorious Rider, this quiet-voiced man, who held open the car door for her and assisted Carlotta and herself back into the tonneau. She had always pictured The Rider as a low and brutal type of man, ignorant, unlettered, boorish; but this bandit had spoken to them in the purest of English. Could it be that The Rider was an American or an Englishman. If so he would speak the common language of Karlova and Margoth in the low vernacular of the underworld, if he spoke it all. She would try him.

"To whom," she asked in her own tongue, "are we indebted for this little surprise? Can it be that we have been honored by the famous Rider?"

The man laughed.

"You have been honored more than you can know, mademoiselle," he replied. "Yes I am The Rider; but you need have no fear if you do as I ask-I only kill those who disobey me,"-the last in a very fierce and terrible voice.

Princess Mary felt a tremor of nervous excitement -a delicious little thrill-run up and down her royal spine. Ali, here was Romance! Here was Adventure! She wished that he would remove his mask-she would like to see the features of this redoubtable brigand who was the terror of two kingdoms-the scourge of the border. Doubtless, she thought, the revealment would prove most unpoetic-a pock marked face, brutal features, the lines which Crime and Vice stamp indelibly upon the countenances of their votaries. On second thought, she preferred that he remain masked, for even though he had answered her in as good Margothian as her own she could not believe that so low a fellow could fail to reflect in his personal appearance his degraded associations and environment.

And now The Rider turned to Stefan. "My man," he said, "we are about to effect an exchange. For the honor of driving your mistress and her daughter I shall relinquish to you my faithful steed.