She did look that way, only more so. I wonder what she thought a man was made of, to stand it. I set my teeth hard together. "Have you got the--er--the black velvet mask?" she taunted, leaning just the least bit toward me. Her eyes--I say it deliberately--were a direct challenge that no man could refuse to accept and feel himself a man after. "Mask or no mask--you'll see!" I turned away to where my horse was standing eying the car with extreme disfavor, picked up the reins, and glanced over my shoulder; I didn't know but she would give me the slip. She was sitting very straight, with both hands on the wheel and her eyes looking straight before her. She might have been posing for a photograph, from the look of her. I tied the reins with a quick twist over the saddle-horn and gave him a slap on the rump. I knew he would go straight home. Then I went back and stepped into the car just as she reached down and started the motor. If she had meant to run away from me she had been just a second too late. She gave me a sidelong, measuring glance, and gasped. The car slid easily along the trail as if it were listening for what we were going to say. "I shall drive," I announced quietly, taking her hands gently from the wheel. She moved over to make room mechanically, as if she didn't in the least understand this new move of mine. I know she never dreamed of what was really in my heart to do. "You will drive--where?" her voice was politely freezing. "To find that preacher, of course," I answered, trying to sound surprised that she should ask, I sent the speed up a notch. "You--you never would _dare_!" she cried breathlessly, and a little anxiously. "The deuce I wouldn't!" I retorted, and laughed in the face of her. It was queer, but my thoughts went back, for just a flash, to the time Barney had dared me to drive the _Yellow Peril_ up past the Cliff House to Sutro Baths. I had the same heady elation of daredeviltry. I wouldn't have turned back, then, even if I hadn't cared so much for her. She didn't say anything more, and I sent the car ahead at a pace that almost matched the mood I was in, and that brought White Divide sprinting up to meet us. The trail was good, and the car was a dandy. I was making straight for King's Highway as the best and only chance of carrying out my foolhardy design. I doubt if any bold, bad knight of old ever had the effrontery to carry his lady-love straight past her own door in broad daylight. Yet it was the safest thing I could do. I meant to get to Osage, and the only practicable route for a car lay through the pass. To be sure, there was a preacher at Kenmore; but with the chance of old King being there also and interrupting the ceremony--supposing I brought matters successfully that far--with a shot or two, did not in the least appeal to me. I had made sure that there was plenty of gasoline aboard, so I drove her right along.