town. I'll read the signs, and, if things look safe, we can get in,
collect your people, and get out again at once. They can go with us to
the yacht, and, if you like fireworks, we can view them from a safe
distance."

La Punta, as they passed, lay sleepy by her beach, her tattered palms
scarcely stirring their fronds in the breathless air. Later, Puerto
Frio went alongside, as quiet and untouched with any sense of
impending disturbance as the smaller town. Behind the scattered
outlying houses, the incline went up to the base of San Francisco,
basking in the sun. The hill was a huge, inert barrier between the
green and drab of the earth and the blue of the sky. Saxon drew a
long breath as he watched it in the early morning when they passed. It
was difficult to think of even an artificial volcano awakening from
such profound slumber and indolence.

"You'd better go below, and get ready for the ride. We go horseback.
Got any riding togs?" Rodman spoke rapidly, in crisp brevities. "No?
Well, I guess we can rig you out. Cartwright has all sorts of things
on board. Change into them quick. You won't need anything else. This
is to be a quick dash."

When the anchor dropped off Bellavista, Saxon stood in a fever of
haste on deck, garbed in riding-clothes that almost fitted him, though
they belonged to Cartwright or some of the guests who had formerly
been pleasuring on the yacht.

As their motor-boat was making its way shoreward over peacefully
glinting water, the painter ran his hand into his coat-pocket for a
handkerchief. He found that he had failed to provide himself. The
other pockets were equally empty, save for what money had been loose
in his trousers-pocket when he changed, and the old key he always
carried there. These things he had unconsciously transferred by mere
force of habit. Everything else he had left behind. He felt a mild
sense of annoyance. He had wanted, on meeting her, to hand Duska the
letter he had written on the night that their ships passed, but haste
was the watchword, and one could not turn back for such trifles as
pocket furnishings.

Rodman proved the best of guides. He knew a liveryman from whom
Argentine ponies could be obtained, and led the way at a brisk canter
out the smooth road toward the capital.

For a time, the men rode in silence between the _haciendas_, between
scarlet clustered vines, clinging with heavy fragrance to adobe walls,
and the fringed spears of palms along the cact