"Great Scott, but you're the right sort of girl. The wall is too high, but the gate is possible. I'll try it," he answered. With difficulty, having only slight knowledge of heavy cars, he backed the machine against the gate. Then the girl caught the top with her hands, standing on the back cushions. Steingall was no light weight for her soft shoulders, but she uttered no word until she heard him drop heavily on the gravel drive within. "Thank goodness!" she whispered. "There are three of them now. I only wish I was there, too!" CHAPTER XXIII "HE WHO FIGHTS AND RUNS AWAY--" "I don't like the proposition, an' that's a fact," muttered Fowle, lifting a glass of whisky and glancing furtively at Voles, when the domineering eyes of the superior scoundrel were averted for a moment. "Whether you like it or not, you've got to lump it," was the ready answer. "I don't see that. I agreed to help you up to a certain point----" Voles swung around at him furiously, as a mastiff might turn on a wretched mongrel. "Say, listen! If I'm up to the neck in this business, you're in it over your ears. You can't duck now, you white-livered cur! The cops know you. They had you in their hands once, and warned you to leave this girl alone. If I stand in the dock you'll stand there, too, and I'm not the man to say the word that'll save you." "But she's with her aunt. She's under age. Her aunt is her legal guardian. I know a bit about the law, you see. This notion of yours is a bird of another color. Sham weddings are no joke. It will mean ten years." "Who wants you to go in for a sham wedding, you swab?" "You do, or I haven't got the hang of things." Voles looked as though he would like to hammer his argument into Fowle with his fists. He forebore. There was too much at stake to allow a sudden access of bad temper to defeat his ends. He was tired of vagabondage. It was true, as he told his brother long before, that he hungered for the flesh-pots of Egypt, for the life and ease and gayety of New York. An unexpected vista had opened up before him. When he came back to the East his intention was to squeeze funds out of Meiklejohn wherewith to plunge again into the outer wilderness. Now events had conspired to give him some chance of earning a fortune quickly, had not the irony of fate raised the winsome face and figure of Winifred as a bogey from the grave to bar his path. So he choked back his wrath, and shoved the decanter of spirits across the table to his morose companion. They were sitting in the hall of Gateway House, about the hour that Carshaw and the detective, tired by their weary hunt through East Orange, sought the inn. "Now look here, Fowle," he said, "don't be a poor dub, and don't kick at my way of speaking. _Por Dios!_ man, I've lived too long in the sage country to scrape my tongue to a smooth spiel like my--my friend, the Senator. Let's look squarely at the facts. You admire the girl?" "Who wouldn't? A pippin, every inch of her."