in her exhausted sleep, and seemed to impatiently beckon her to rise and
follow it. It brought her feverish dreams of her husband, footsore and
weary, staggering forward under its pitiless lash and clamorous outcry;
she would have gone to his assistance, but when she reached his side and
held out her arms to him it hurried her past with merciless power, and,
bearing her away, left him hopelessly behind. It was broad day when she
awoke. The usual night showers of the waning rainy season had left no
trace in sky or meadow; the fervid morning sun had already dried the
patio; only the restless, harrying wind remained.

Mrs. Tucker arose with a resolve. She had learned from Concha on the
previous evening that a part of the shanty was used as a tienda or shop
for the laborers and rancheros. Under the necessity of purchasing some
articles, she would go there and for a moment mingle with those people,
who would not recognize her. Even if they did, her instinct told her it
would be less to be feared than the hopeless uncertainty of another day.
As she left the house the wind seemed to seize her as in her dream, and
hurry her along with it, until in a few moments the walls of the low
casa sank into the earth again and she was alone, but for the breeze on
the solitary plain. The level distance glittered in the sharp light, a
few crows with slant wings dipped and ran down the wind before her,
and a passing gleam on the marsh was explained by the far-off cry of a
curlew.

She had walked for an hour, upheld by the stimulus of light and morning
air, when the cluster of scrub oaks, which was her destination, opened
enough to show two rambling sheds, before one of which was a wooden
platform containing a few barrels and bones. As she approached nearer,
she could see that one or two horses were tethered under the trees, that
their riders were lounging by a horse-trough, and that over an open door