If
he were suspicious, keenly alert, he might prevent their ultimate
escape, but if he were merely a simple hunter John might make friends
with him and use him for his purposes. Then his thoughts came quickly
back to Julie. He believed that she had left the castle without
resistance of any kind. She would be glad to escape from Zillenstein and
Auersperg, no matter where that escape might take her.
Another half-hour and the crest was but a hundred yards or so away. How
thankful he was now that he had put on extra speed despite the ascent
and had driven the machine hard, because the road would soon be blotted
from sight! Heavy flakes of snow had begun to fall and with the rising
wind they were coming faster and faster.
He dimly made out a pine wood on his right, and, then, in the center of
it the outline of a low building which he knew must be the hunting
lodge. He slowed down the machine, took the last little curve, and
stopped before the door of the lodge. But in that minute the snow had
become a driving white storm.
He leaped out, knocked hard on the door of the lodge, and, no answer
coming, threw himself heavily against it. It burst open, revealing only
an interior of darkness, but he turned quickly back to the automobile,
threw wide its door and beckoned with peremptory command to the two dark
figures sitting within.
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