Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/212

 might get through without being nabbed. If we succeed, we might rush on through Carcassonne, instead of stopping there to-night; for the farther away we get and the more towns we can say we've passed through without being detained, the better for our chances of ultimate escape."

"But I don't want to miss Carcassonne," she objected. "You've told me so much about the place that I've been looking forward to it more than to almost anything else."

So had I, if the truth were known, but I had looked forward to visiting Carcassonne with her before I had "drunk and seen the spider." In other words, before Mr. Payne had joined our party. However, I couldn't bear to have her disappointed, for his fault, too; besides, I'm vain enough to like hearing from her lips the flattering words, "Brown, you are so resourceful!" Therefore I stirred up my brains in the effort to be resourceful now.

"We might hide the car in Carcassonne if we could once get in," I mysteriously suggested; "then you could steal up on foot to the cité by moonlight, and when you'd had your fill of sight-seeing steal back to the car again and make a rush for it."

"Splendid!" cried Miss Randolph, clapping her hands. Behold, I had made a hit!

The car was stopped, the tea-basket got out, and who so indispensable as the late despised Brown? Brown it was who went to a cottage hard by and procured drinking-water, since, not expecting to stop, we had come out unprovided. Brown it was who saved the methylated spirit from upsetting, and