nt her head and dipped
into the bushes. She came out on the other side near a low fence, that
separated the park from a narrow lane which communicated with the high
road beyond. As she neared the fence, a slinking figure limped along
the lane before her. It was the tramp of the early morning.

They raised their heads at the same moment and their eyes met. The
tramp, in that clearer light, showed a spare, but bent figure, roughly
clad in a miner's shirt and canvas trousers, splashed and streaked with
soil, and half hidden in a ragged blue cast-off army overcoat lazily
hanging from one shoulder. His thin sun-burnt face was not without a
certain sullen, suspicious intelligence, and a look of half-sneering
defiance. He stopped, as a startled, surly animal might have stopped
at some unusual object, but did not exhibit any other discomposure.
Maruja stopped at the same moment on her side of the fence.

The tramp looked at her deliberately, and then slowly lowered his eyes.
"I'm looking for the San Jose road, hereabouts. Ye don't happen to
know it?" he said, addressing himself to the top of the fence.

It had been said that it was not Maruja's way to encounter man, woman,
or child, old or young, without an attempt at subjugation. Strong in
her power and salient with fascination, she leaned gently over the
fence, and with the fan raised to her delicate ear, made him repeat his
question under the soft fire of her fringed eyes. He did so, but
incompletely, and with querulous laziness.

"Lookin'--for--San Jose road--here'bouts."

"The road to San Jose," said Maruja, with gentle slowness, as if not
unwilling to protract the conversation, "is about two miles from here.
It is the high road to the left fronting the plain. There is another
way, if--"

"Don't want it! Mornin'."

He dropped his head suddenly forward, and limped away in the sunlight.

CHAPTER III

Breakfast, usually a movable feast at La Mision Perdida, had been
prolonged until past midday; the last of the dance guests had flown,
and the home party--with the exception of Captain Carroll, who had
returned to duty at his distant post--were dispersing; some as riding
cavalcades to neighboring points of interest; some to visit certain
notable mansions which the wealth of a rapid civilization had erected
in that fertile valley. One of these in particular, the work of a
breathless millionaire, was famous for the spontaneity of its growth
and the reckless