rs ago in the big flood. Did it in
a bark canoe on a hundred-dollar bet. The Arroyo takes you out to the
Little Bowleg and that empties into the Rio Solano, and there you are!
I've got his map."

"Map?" cried Miss Van Arsdale. "What use is a map when you can't see
your hand before your face?"

"Give this wind a chance," answered Banneker. "Within two hours the
clouds will have broken and we'll have moonlight to go by.... The
Angelica Herald man is over at the hotel now," he added.

"May I take a suitcase?" asked Io.

"Of course. I'll strap it to your pony if you'll get it ready. Miss
Camilla, what shall we do with the pony? Hitch him under the bridge?"

"If you're determined to take her, I'll ride over with you and bring him
back. Io, think! Is it worth the risk? Let the reporter come. I can keep
him away from you."

A brooding expression was in the girl's deep eyes as she turned them,
not to the speaker, but to Banneker. "No," she said. "I've got to get
away sooner or later. I'd rather go this way. It's more--it's more of a
pattern with all the rest; better than stupidly waving good-bye from the
rear of a train."

"But the danger."

"_Che sara, sara_," returned Io lightly. "I'll trust him to take care of
me."

While Ban went out to prepare the horses with the aid of Pedro, strictly
enjoined to secrecy, the two women got Io's few things together.

"I can't thank you," said the girl, looking up as she snapped the lock
of her case. "It simply isn't a case for thanking. You've done too much
for me."

The older woman disregarded it. "How much are you hurting Ban?" she
said, with musing eyes fixed on the dim and pure outline of the girlish
face.

"I? Hurt him?"

"Of course he won't realize it until you've gone. Then I'm afraid to
think what is coming to him."

"And I'm afraid to think what is coming to me," replied the girl, very
low.

"Ah, you!" retorted her hostess, dismissing that consideration with
contemptuous lightness. "You have plenty of compensations, plenty of
resources."

"Hasn't he?"

"Perhaps. Up to now. What will he do when he wakes up to an empty
world?"

"Write, won't he? And then the world won't be empty."

"He'll think it so. That is why I'm sorry for him."

"Won't you be sorry a little for me?" pleaded the girl. "Anyway, for the
part of me that I'm leaving here? Perhaps it's the very best of me."

Miss Van Arsdale shook her head. "Oh, no! A pleasantly vivid dream of
changed a