laughed, with a prompt return of his former levity, "that's my trade. I
only advised. You have saved yourself like a plucky woman--shall I say
like Blue Grass? Good-by!" He mounted his horse, but, as if struck by an
after-thought, wheeled and drew up by her side again. "If I were you I
wouldn't see many strangers for a day or two, and listen to as
little news as a woman possibly can." He laughed again, waved her a
half-gallant, half-military salute, and was gone. The question she had
been trying to frame, regarding the probability of communication with
her husband, remained unasked. At least she had saved her pride before
him.

Addressing herself to the care of her narrow household, she mechanically
put away the few things she had brought with her, and began to readjust
the scant furniture. She was a little discomposed at first at the
absence of bolts, locks, and even window-fastenings until assured, by
Concha's evident inability to comprehend her concern, that they were
quite unknown at Los Cuervos. Her slight knowledge of Spanish was barely
sufficient to make her wants known, so that the relief of conversation
with her only companion was debarred her, and she was obliged to content
herself with the sapless, crackling smiles and withered genuflexions
that the old woman dropped like dead leaves in her path. It was staring
noon when, the house singing like an empty shell in the monotonous
wind, she felt she could stand the solitude no longer, and, crossing the
glaring patio and whistling corridor, made her way to the open gateway.

But the view without seemed to intensify her desolation. The broad
expanse of the shadowless plain reached apparently to the Coast Range,
trackless and unbroken save by one or two clusters of dwarfed oaks,
which at that distance were but mossy excrescences on the surface,
barely raised above the dead level. On the other side the marsh took