It was the sound of Demorest's feet on the gravel path, returning
from his fruitless search. He had seen nothing. It must have been Dona
Rosita's fancy.

"She was just saying she thought she had been mistaken," said Joan,
quietly. "Let us go in--it is rather chilly here, and I begin to feel
creepy too."

Nevertheless, as they entered the house again, and the light of the
hall lantern fell upon her face, Demorest thought he had never but once
before seen her look so nervously and animatedly beautiful.




CHAPTER III


The following day, when Mr. Ezekiel Corwin had delivered his letters of
introduction, and thoroughly canvassed the scant mercantile community of
San Buenaventura with considerable success, he deposited his carpet-bag
at the stage office in the posada, and found to his chagrin that he had
still two hours to wait before the coach arrived. After a vain attempt
to impart cheerful but disparaging criticism of the pueblo and its
people to Senor Mateo and his wife--whose external courtesy had been
visibly increased by a line from Demorest, but whose confidence towards
the stranger had not been extended in the same proportion--he gave it
up, and threw himself lazily on a wooden bench in the veranda, already
hacked with the initials of his countrymen, and drawing a jack-knife
from his pocket, he began to add to that emblazonry the trade-mark of