"Oh! Oh! Please don't!" Gwendolyn's cry was as shrill. "I don't want him to get me!"

"_Call_ the Policeman then," retorted the Man-Who-Makes-Faces. And to Gwendolyn, soothingly, "Hush! Hush, child!"

Jane danced away--sidewise, as if to keep watch as she went. "Help!

Help!" she shouted. "Police! Police!! _Poli-i-i-ice!!!_"

Gwendolyn was terribly frightened. But she could not run. One wrist was still in the grasp of the little old gentleman. With wildly throbbing heart she watched the road.

"Is he coming?" called the little old gentleman. He, too, was looking up the curving road.

A whistle sounded. It was long-drawn, piercing.

And now Gwendolyn heard movements all about her in the forest--the soft _pad, pad_ of running paws, the _hushing_ sound of wings--as if small live things were fleeing before the sharp call.

Jane hastened back, galloping a polka. "Turn a stone! Turn a stone!" she cried, rumbling her eyes.

Gwendolyn clung to the little old gentleman. "Oh, don't let her!" she plead. "What if--"

"We _must_."

"Will a pebble-size do?" yelled Jane, excitedly.

"Yes! Yes!" answered the Man-Who-Makes-Faces. "You've seen stones in rings, haven't you? Aren't _they_ pebble-size?"

The nurse stooped, picked up a small stone, and sent it spinning from the end of a thumb.

Faint with fear, Gwendolyn thrust a trembling hand into the patch-pocket and took hold of the lip-case. Then leaning against the little old gentleman, her yellow head half-concealed by the dusty flap of his torn coat, she waited.

CHAPTER X

What she first saw was a face!--straight ahead, at the top of a steep rise, where the wide road narrowed to a point. The face was a man's, and upon it the footlights beat so strongly that each feature was startlingly vivid. But it was not the fact that she saw _only_ a face that set her knees to trembling weakly--nor the fact that the face was fearfully distorted; but because it was _upside down!_

She stared, feeling herself grow cold, her flesh creep. "Oh, I want to go home!" she gasped.

The face began to move nearer, slowly, inch by inch. And there sounded a hoarse outcry: "_Hoo! hoo! Hoo! hoo!_"

It was the little old gentleman who reassured her somewhat--by his even voice. "Ah!" said he with something of pride, yet as if to himself. "He realizes that the black eye is a beauty. And I shouldn't wonder if he isn't coming to match it!"

But what temporary confidence she gained, fled when Jane, tettering from side to side, began to threaten in a most terrifying way. "_Now_, young Miss!" she cried. "_Now_, you're goin' to be sorry you didn't mind Jane!

Oh, _I_ told you he'd git you some fine day!"

The Man-Who-Makes-Faces retorted--what, Gwendolyn did not hear. She was sick with apprehension. "I guess I won't find my father and moth-er now," she whispered miserably.

Then, all at once, she could see _more_ than a face! Silhouetted against the lighted sky was a figure--broad shouldered and belted, with swinging cudgel, and visored cap. It was like those dreaded figures that patroled the Drive--yet how different! For as the Policeman came on, his wild face peered between his coat-tails!--peered between his coat-tails for the reason that he was _upside down_, and walking _on his hands!_

"_Hoo! hoo!_ Hoo! hoo!" he clamored again. His coat flopped about his ears. His natural merino socks showed where his trousers fell away from his shoes. His club bumped the side of his head at every stride of his long blue-clad arms.

His identification was complete. For precisely as Thomas had declared, he was _heels over head_.

"My!" breathed Gwendolyn, so astonished that she almost forgot to be anxious for her own safety. (What a marvelous Land was this--where everything was really as it ought to be!)

The Man-Who-Makes-Faces addressed her, smiling down. "You won't mind if we don't start for a minute or two, will you?" he inquired. "This Officer will probably want to discuss the prices of eyes. You see, I gave him his black one. If he wants another, though, I shall be obliged to ask the Piper to collect."

"Aren't--aren't you afraid of him?" stammered Gwendolyn, in a whisper.

"_Afraid?_" he echoed, surprised. "Why, no! Are _you?_"

Somehow, she felt ashamed. "N-n-not very," she faltered.

No sooner did she partly deny her fear than she experienced a most delicious feeling of security! And this feeling grew as she watched the nearing Policeman. For she saw that he was in a mournful state.

It was worry and grief that distorted his face. The dark eyes above the visor (both the black eye and the other one) were streaming with tears, tears which, naturally enough, ran from the four corners of his eyes, down across his forehead, and on into his hair. And it was evident that he had been weeping for a long time, for his cap was full!

And now she realized that the hoarse cries which had filled her with terror were the saddest of complaints!--were not "Hoo! hoo!" but "_Boo!_ hoo!"

"Poor man!" sympathized the little old gentleman, wagging his beard.

Jane, however, with characteristic lack of compassion, hopped about, _tee-heeing_ loudly--and straightening out any number of wrinkles. "Oh, ain't he a sight!" she chortled. She had entirely given over her threatening.

Gwendolyn now felt secure enough. But she did not feel like laughing.

She was sober to the point of pitying. For though he looked ridiculous, he was so absolutely helpless, so utterly unhappy.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" he exclaimed as he came on--hand over hand, legs held together, and swaying from side to side rhythmically, like the pendulum of the metronome. "What shall I do! What shall I do!"

"Need any sharpening?" called out the Man-Who-Makes-Faces, brandishing the curved knife. "Is there something wrong?"

"Wrong!" echoed the Policeman dolefully. "I should say so! Oh, _dear!_ Oh, dear!" And still weeping copiously, so that his forehead glistened with his tears, he plodded across the border of the Face-Shop.

It was then that Gwendolyn recalled under what circumstances she had seen him last. Only two or three days before, when bound homeward in the limousine, she had spied him loitering beside the walled walk. "What makes his club shine so?" she had asked Jane, whispering. "Eh?"

whispered Jane in return; "what else than _blood?_" The wind was blowing as the automobile swept past him: The breeze lifted the tail of his belted coat. And for one terrifying instant Gwendolyn caught a glimpse of steel!

"And if he don't mean harm to anybody," Jane had added when Gwendolyn turned scared eyes to her, "why does he carry a _pistol?_"

But there was no need to fear a weapon now. The falling away of his coat-tails had uncovered his trouser-pockets. And as he halted, Gwendolyn saw that his revolver was gone, his pistol-pocket empty.

She took a timid step toward him. "How do you do, Mr. Officer," she said. "Can't you let your feet come down? Then you'd be on your back, and you could get up the right way."

Up came his face between his coat-tails. He stared at her with his new black eye--with the other one, too. (She noted that it was blue.) "But I _am_ up the right way," he answered, "Oh, no! It isn't that! It isn't that!" His hands were encased in white cotton gloves. He rocked himself from one to the other.

"No, it _isn't_ that," agreed the little old gentleman; "but I firmly believe that, you'd feel better if you'd order another eye."

"Another eye!" said the Policeman, bitterly. "Would another eye help me to find him?"

"Oh, I see." The Man-Who-Makes-Faces spoke with some concern. "Then he's flown?"