_matador_; and, most prominent of all to her eyes, the brilliant,
gold-laced packets of the gentlemen-_picadors_, who, after the Mexican
fashion,--so she had been told,--deemed it in nowise beneath them to
enter the arena in person.

And so it happened that now, as the stage swung round a corner, and a
horseman suddenly appeared at a point where two roads converged, and
was evidently spurring his horse with the intent of coming up with the
stage, it was only natural that, even before he was near enough to be
identified, the _caballero_ should already have become a part of the
pageant of her mental picture.

Up to the moment of the stranger's appearance, nothing had happened to
break the monotony of her long return journey towards Cloudy Mountain
Camp. Far back in the distance now lay the Mission where the passengers
of the stage had been hospitably entertained the night before; still
further back the red-tiled roofs and whitewashed walls of the little
pueblo of San Jose,--a veritable bower of roses; and remotest of all,
the crosses of San Carlos and the great pines, oaks and cypresses, which
bordered her dream-memory of the white-beach crescent formed by the
waves of Monterey Bay.

The dawn of each day that swept her further from her week in wonderland
had ushered in the matchless spring weather of California,--the
brilliant sunshine, the fleecy clouds, the gentle wind with just a
tang in it from the distant mountains; and as the stage rolled slowly
northward through beautiful valleys, bright with yellow poppies and
silver-white lupines, every turn of the road varied her view of the
hills lying under an enchantment unlike that of any other land. Yet
strange and full of interest as every mile of the river country should