: In Jeopardy by Sutphen Van Tassel - Inheritance and succession Fiction; Love stories; Maryland Fiction; Mystery fiction

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sixty minutes by the time I had alighted at the little flag station of Crown Ferry.

Not a very inviting place, this shabby way station set in a wilderness of jack-pine and hackberry trees. There was not a soul in sight, outside of the depressed looking individual who served as general utility man and who apparently resented the intrusion of a stranger upon his lonely domain. To my inquiry concerning the possibility of obtaining some sort of conveyance, he returned a monosyllabic "Nope," and he showed not the smallest inclination to give me any real assistance in finding my way to "Hildebrand Hundred"; he pointed out the general direction, with a lean, tobacco-stained finger, and let it go at that.

There was no house in sight, nothing but the two rutted tracks of a sandy country road leading off toward the west and bifurcating itself a couple of hundred yards away from the station--"deepo" in the vernacular. I understood, from the scant information vouchsafed me, that I was to take the left-hand fork, and after prevailing upon the agent, in consideration of two of my choice cigars, to take temporary charge of my kit-bag, I started off on my three-mile tramp.

Once through the belt of scrubby woodland, the appearance of the country began to change for the better, and the further I traveled from the coast line the more rolling and diversified it became. The sand gave place to loam, an improvement in which the highway shared, the fields were neatly fenced, and, with the added attractions of oak and hickory groves, the landscape began to appeal; this was good farming land and a pleasant place of rural residence.

I passed several farm houses, but since the day was unusually cool for the month of June and as I rather enjoyed the exercise of walking, I concluded not to bother about hiring a trap. A farmer whom I encountered, at a cross-roads where there was a little cluster of half a dozen houses, informed me that S. Saviour's Church was distant about a mile; but already it was half after two o'clock and I realized that I should not have time to present myself at the house before the funeral cort?ge started. The obvious procedure was for me to wait at the church until the party from "Hildebrand Hundred" had arrived; I could then introduce myself to Mr. Eldon and be assigned to my proper position among the mourners.

"Or if you like," continued my new acquaintance, "you can save more'n half way to the church by cuttin' across the Thaneford property. You go in by that stile yander," and he pointed a hundred yards down the road.

I felt a trifle doubtful about the propriety of taking a short cut across private grounds, and said as much. "You are quite sure that Mr. Thaneford doesn't object?" I asked.

"Of co'se he objects," declared my rural friend, who now informed me that his name was Greenough and that he was the newly elected sheriff of the county. "He objects powerful. But the Co'te has decided that it's a public right-of-way. And when the law gives a man his rights he's bound to maintain them."

"Why the right-of-way?" I asked.

"A relic of the established church of colonial days," I remarked. "Nowadays no one is obliged to attend S. Saviour's."

"No," admitted the Sheriff, "and I'm a Baptis' myself. But we keep our rights, for nobody knows when we may want to use 'em."

Since Mr. Thaneford was apparently unreconciled to the exercise of ancient ecclesiastical privilege, I was about to say that I, as a stranger, did not propose to become a party to the controversy; but a glance at my watch showed me that I would have to take the short cut if I hoped to reach the church by three o'clock.

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