business before him; his cablegrams were reassuring on that point.  The fact that he was, in a sense, a fugitive did not trouble him in the least.  He had no intention of allowing Jules Chauvenet’s assassins to kill him, or of being locked up in a Washington jail as the false Baron von Kissel.  If he admitted that he was not John Armitage, it would be difficult to prove that he was anybody else—­a fact touching human testimony which Jules Chauvenet probably knew perfectly well.

On the whole he was satisfied that he had followed the wisest course thus far.  The broad panorama of the morning hills communicated to his spirit a growing elation.  He began singing in German a ballad that recited the sorrows of a pale maiden prisoner in a dark tower on the Rhine, whence her true knight rescued her, after many and fearsome adventures.  On the last stave he ceased abruptly, and an exclamation of wonder broke from him.

They had been riding along a narrow trail that afforded, as Oscar said, a short cut across a long timbered ridge that lay between them and Armitage’s property.  The path was rough and steep, and the low-hanging pine boughs and heavy underbrush increased the difficulties of ascent.  Straining to the top, a new valley, hidden until now, was disclosed in long and beautiful vistas.

Armitage dropped the reins upon the neck of his panting horse.

“It is a fine valley—­yes?” asked Oscar.

“It is a possession worthy of the noblest gods!” replied Armitage.  “There is a white building with colonnades away over there—­is it the house of the reigning deity?”

“It is not, sir,” answered Oscar, who spoke English with a kind of dogged precision, giving equal value to all words.  “It is a vast hotel where the rich spend much money.  That place at the foot of the hills—­do you see?—­it is there they play a foolish game with sticks and little balls—­”

“Golf?  Is it possible!”

“There is no doubt of it, sir.  I have seen the fools myself—­men and women.  The place is called Storm Valley.”

Armitage slapped his thigh sharply, so that his horse started.

“Yes; you are probably right, Oscar, I have heard of the place.  And those houses that lie beyond there in the valley belong to gentlemen of taste and leisure who drink the waters and ride horses and play the foolish game you describe with little white balls.”

“I could not tell it better,” responded Oscar, who had dismounted, like a good trooper, to rest his horse.

“And our place—­is it below there?” demanded Armitage.

“It is not, sir.  It lies to the west.  But a man may come here when he is lonesome, and look at the people and the gentlemen’s houses.  At night it is a pleasure to see the lights, and sometimes, when the wind is right, there is music of bands.”

“Poor Oscar!” laughed Armitage.

His mood had not often in his life been so high.