rds implied or whether she was merely
making fun of him, "I have put a charm and a spell over your life from
which you are never going to be free. Put as many miles as it pleases
you between you and Zoraida Castelmar; she will bring you back to her
side at a time no more distant than the end of this same month."

He gave her a contemptuous and angry silence for answer. In the street
he looked up at the stars and filled his lungs with an expanding sigh
of relief. This companion of Ruiz Rios who paid passionate claim to an
intense hatred of the man whom she allowed to escort her here and
there, impressed him as no natural woman at all but as something of
strange influences, a malign, powerful, implacable spirit incased in
the fair body of a slender girl. He told himself fervently that he was
glad to be beyond the reach of the black oblique eyes.

Two hours later he was in the saddle, riding knee to knee with Twisty
Barlow, headed for San Diego Bay and a man's adventure. "In which,
praise be," he muttered under his breath, "there is no room for women."
And yet, since strong emotions, like the restless sea, leave their high
water marks when they subside, the image of the girl Zoraida held its
place in his fancies, to return stubbornly when he banished it, even
her words and her laughter echoing in his memory.

"I have put a spell and a charm over your life," she had told him.

"Clap-trap of a charlatan," he growled under his breath. And when
Barlow asked what he had said he cried out eagerly:

"We can't get into your old tub and out to sea any too soon for me, old
mate."

Whereupon Barlow laughed contentedly.

CHAPTER III

OF THE NEW MOON, A TALE OF AZTEC TREASURE AND A MYSTERY

On board the schooner _New Moon_ standing crazily out to sea, with
first port of call a nameless, cliff-sheltered sand beach which in his
heart he christened from afar Port Adventure, Jim Kendric was richly
content. With huge satisfaction he looked upon the sparkling sea, the
little vessel which _scooned_ across it, his traveling mate, the big
negro and the half-wit Philippine cabin boy. If anything desirable
lacked Kendric could not put the name to it.

Few days had been lost getting under way. He had gone straight up to
Los Angeles where he had sold his oil shares. They brought him
twenty-three hundred dollars and he knocked them down merrily. Now
with every step forward his lively interest increased. He bought the