his son.

When he first opened his eyes Laurence was horrified at the change in his father's appearance. The terrified look on his face was indescribable. He moaned faintly, as though in pain, and clutched nervously at the strong arm of his son, who knelt at his side on the floor of the carriage.

"Come, Daddy," Laurence said encouragingly; "you're better now, and the rascal is miles away. Sit up and let us hurry on home. The horses are almost perished with cold."

His son's cheery voice seemed to convince Mr. Carrington that he was safe, for he sat up and allowed himself to be carefully laid back into his favourite corner of the large carriage. Laurence gave orders to Moggin to proceed at once homeward as fast as he could, and so well did the coachman carry out his instructions, and so ready were the horses to proceed to their stables, that Mr. Carrington found himself within his own grounds before twenty minutes had passed.

With Laurence's assistance he alighted and entered the Manse, where the aged butler, Kingsford, was dozing in the hall. He was then conducted to his chamber, and there helped into bed and dosed with a strong brandy-and-soda specially mixed for him by his son.

By this time it was nearly half-past one in the morning, and Laurence Carrington would have been quite justified in retiring to bed. Nevertheless, after leaving his father's bedroom he crept downstairs, much to the butler's astonishment, and, donning an overcoat and a strong pair of boots, made his way out of the house.

The rain had now stopped—a fact that seemed to please him much; not because he would have minded a four-mile trudge in the pouring wet, but because he would now be more likely to discover traces of the mysterious cyclist's tyre-marks in the muddy road that skirts the North Moor. For the rain, had it continued in a downpour similar to that at the time of the strange affair of an hour before, would undoubtedly have blotted out any tracks that the highwayman must have made in effecting his hasty departure.

Whistling to keep up his spirits as he went, Laurence strode on at a quick pace towards the scene of the attack. The wind was howling across the heath and the unearthly noises that accompany any storm were such as might well have unnerved a less determined man than Carrington, particularly after the weird adventures he had gone through.

By the light of the moon, which was now shining brightly, he had no difficulty in discovering the exact spot at which the carriage had stopped, while his own footprints and those of the coachman, as well as the hoof-marks of the restive horses, were distinctly visible. With ease, too, he lighted on the thin track made by the stranger's bicycle wheel, but at first was much puzzled at finding that this trail lay on both sides of the road. Then he recollected that the rider must have left these distinct traces behind him both when on his way to the place where he had "held up" the coach and when hastening away on being repulsed by Moggin and himself. Therefore he concluded that, by following the double tracks, one on either side of the lonely road, he would not only discover whence the unknown man had come, but also whither he had disappeared. For a good mile he trudged on, never taking his eyes off the pattern impressed on the surface of the road. He had now reached a village, the only one lying between the house at which the ball had been and that where he lived, and from which he had just come.

Half-way along the main street running through this village a branch road starts off to the left. To his delight, Laurence was able to trace the cycle tracks round the corner of and into this branch road, and once again did he start on, strong on the scent of his father's attempted murderer (for the idea that the cycling highwayman had fired at him never entered his head).

On and on did Laurence walk, the mud and water squelching under his feet, until the road again broke off into two lanes.

"Hallo!" he cried half aloud, "the stranger must be something of a neighbour to us," for the tracks in the mud betrayed to him the fact that his quarry had taken the lane which is one and a long way round to the Manse and the village of Northden, in which it stands. As he drew nearer and nearer to his home Laurence's amazement and excitement (if such a term may be used under the circumstances) increased correspondingly. Would the midnight stranger prove to be one of his father's own simple villagers? he asked himself. He had not even caught a glimpse of the stranger's face, so could not answer.

He was now actually in the village of Northden, yet the marks, both coming and going, remained. Was he mistaken in any way? he wondered, but the idea of such a possibility had barely been dismissed from his mind as absurd when he suddenly stopped short. And why?

Because, without the slightest swerve or mark in the slush, both tracks stopped abruptly, and, however vigilantly he searched, he could not discover any further sign or clue to the manner of the disappearance of the mysterious bicyclist.

CHAPTER III

THE MYSTERY OF THE PADDED FOOTPRINTS

Now, Laurence knew quite well that no cyclist could dismount from his machine without alighting with all his weight upon the ground. Why, then, was there no print of the stranger's foot at the spot where the cycle marks stopped? The moon shone out so brightly now that he knew he must detect such an impression in the muddy surface of the road were one there.

But there was none. Stay! What was the meaning of that oblong but rounded patch of ground being drier than the remainder of the road? Laurence realised that here was another important discovery, for there could be little doubt that the moisture on the foot-shaped patch had been sucked by some spongy mass pressed heavily upon it. What more natural than that the evil-doer, in order to conceal his tracks, should travel with thick socks or several pairs of stockings in place of shoes, which, though of the lightest description, would leave a distinct print behind them?

Further search led to the discovery of two more of these dry (or more or less dry) patches in such a position that the young amateur detective perceived his man had, presumably carrying the bicycle, stepped across to the strip of common grass that skirted one side of the roadway. Once on this grass all traces of the mysterious cyclist vanished, and Laurence knew that, for the moment at any rate, he was baffled. The would-be assassin, whoever he was, must be a sharp man, Carrington decided. Had the rain continued, or the pursuit not been taken up until the following day, when the rising wind would have done its work, the dry patches in the mud would not have been found, and the man on the bicycle might well have taken to himself wings and flown, so suddenly and unaccountably did the tyre-marks break off. As it was, young Carrington knew that the stranger (if such he really was) had walked along on the grass. Therefore, he conjectured he might yet find further clues as to his hiding-place or destination in parts of the common-land where the grass was short or rubbed away.

He therefore continued his search, and had his efforts rewarded by the discovery of more dry patches, and, in places where the ground had been shadowed by trees, blurred, indistinct marks shaped like a man's foot; and, still on the track, he was surprised to find himself in close proximity to the two largest—in fact, the only two gentlemen's residences in the now sleeping village. The plot of