Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Suzanne Shell, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: THE FLYING MERCURY] THE FLYING MERCURY By ELEANOR M INGRAM Author of THE GAME AND THE CANDLE With Illustrations by EDMUND FREDERICK Decorations by BERTHA STUART INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT 1910 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY * * * * * _To_ MY MOST DELIGHTFUL COMRADES AND INDULGENT MOTOR INSTRUCTORS --MY TWO BROTHERS * * * * * I The roaring reports of the motor fell into abrupt silence, as the driver brought his car to a halt. "You signaled?" he called across the grind of set brakes. In the blending glare of the searchlights from the two machines, the gray one arriving and the limousine drawn to the roadside, the young girl stood, her hand still extended in the gesture which had stopped the man who now leaned across his wheel. "Oh, please," she appealed again. On either side stretched away the Long Island meadows, dark, soundless, apparently uninhabited. Only this spot of light broke the monotony of dreariness. A keen, chill, October wind sighed past, stirring the girl's delicate gown as its folds lay unheeded in the dust, fluttering her fur-lined cloak and shaking two or three childish curls from the bondage of her velvet hood. The driver swung himself down and came toward her with the unhasting swiftness of one trained to the unexpected. "I beg pardon--can I be of some use?" he asked. "We are lost," she confessed hurriedly. "If you could set us right, I should be grateful. I--we must get home soon. I have been a guest at a house somewhere here, and started to return to New York this afternoon. The chauffeur does not know Long Island; we can not seem to find any place. And now we have lost a tire. I was afraid--" She broke off abruptly, as her companion descended from the limousine. "We only want to know the way; we're all right," he explained. "This is my cousin; I came out after her, you see. Don't get so worried, Emily--we'll go straight on as soon as Anderson changes the tire."