While they waited in the bare upper room of the inn for Zmai, the big Servian tramped up the mountain side with an aching head and a heart heavy with dread.  The horse he had left tied in a thicket when he plunged down through the Claiborne place had broken free and run away; so that he must now trudge back afoot to report to his masters.  He had made a mess of his errands and nearly lost his life besides.  The bullet from Oscar’s revolver had cut a neat furrow in his scalp, which was growing sore and stiff as it ceased bleeding.  He would undoubtedly be dealt with harshly by Chauvenet and Durand, but he knew that the sooner he reported his calamities the better; so he stumbled toward Lamar, pausing at times to clasp his small head in his great hands.  When he passed the wild tangle that hid Armitage’s bungalow he paused and cursed the two occupants in his own dialect with a fierce vile tongue.  It was near midnight when he reached the tavern and climbed the rickety stairway to the room where the two men waited.

Chauvenet opened the door at his approach, and they cried aloud as the great figure appeared before them and the lamplight fell upon his dark blood-smeared face.

“The letters!” snapped Chauvenet.

“Is the message safe?” demanded Durand.

“Lost; lost; they are lost!  I lost my way and he nearly killed me,—­the little soldier,—­as I crossed a strange field.”

When they had jerked the truth from Zmai, Chauvenet flung open the door and bawled through the house for the innkeeper.

“Horses; saddle our two horses quick—­and get another if you have to steal it,” he screamed.  Then he turned into the room to curse Zmai, while Durand with a towel and water sought to ease the ache in the big fellow’s head and cleanse his face.

“So that beggarly little servant did it, did he?  He stole that paper I had given you, did he?  What do you imagine I brought you to this country for if you are to let two stupid fools play with you as though you were a clown?”

The Servian, on his knees before Durand, suffered the torrent of abuse meekly.  He was a scoundrel, hired to do murder; and his vilification by an angered employer did not greatly trouble him, particularly since he understood little of Chauvenet’s rapid German.

In half an hour Chauvenet was again in a fury, learning at Lamar that the operator had gone down the road twenty miles to a dance and would not be back until morning.

The imperturbable Durand shivered in the night air and prodded Chauvenet with ironies.

“We have no time to lose.  That message must go tonight.  You may be sure Monsieur Armitage will not send it for us.  Come, we’ve got to go down to Storm Springs.”

They rode away in the starlight, leaving the postmaster alarmed and wondering.  Chauvenet and Durand were well mounted on horses that Chauvenet had sent into the hills in advance of his own coming.  Zmai rode grim and silent on a clumsy plow-horse, which was the best the publican could find for him.  The knife was not the only weapon he had known in Servia; he carried a potato sack across his saddle-bow.  Chauvenet and Durand sent him ahead to set the pace with his inferior mount.  They talked together in low tones as they followed.