they could not have selected a place or hour better suited to their
purpose. In all the world, apparently, he was the only soul awake. On
either side of him were high hedges of the Spanish bayonet, and back
of them acres of orange groves. The homes of the planters lay far from
the highway, and along the sides of the road there were no houses, no
lodge gates, not even a peon's thatched hut.

Roddy was approaching a sharp turn in the road, a turn to the left at
almost right angles. It was marked by an impenetrable hedge. Up to
now, although the hedges would have concealed a regiment, the white
road itself had stretched before him, straight and open. But now the
turn shut it from his sight. The guide had reached the corner. Instead
of taking it, he turned in his saddle and pulled his pony to a walk.

To Roddy the act seemed significant. It was apparent that they had
arrived at their rendezvous. Sharply, Roddy also brought his pony to
a walk, and with a heavy pull on the reins moved slowly forward.
The guide drew to the right and halted. To Roddy's excited imagination
this manoeuvre could have but one explanation. The man was
withdrawing himself from a possible line of fire. Shifting the reins
to his left hand, Roddy let the other fall upon his revolver. Holding
in the pony and bending forward, Roddy peered cautiously around the
corner.

What he saw was so astonishing, so unlike what he expected, so utterly
out of place, that, still leaning forward, still with his hand on his
revolver, he stared stupidly.

For half a mile the road lay empty, but directly in front of him,
blocking the way, was a restless, pirouetting pony, and seated upon
the pony, unmoved either by his gyrations or by the appearance of a
stranger in her path, was a young girl.

As Roddy had cautiously made his approach he had in his mind a picture
of skulking Venezuelans with pointed carbines; his ears were prepared
for a command to throw up his hands, for the slap of a bullet. He had
convinced himself that around the angle of the impenetrable hedge this
was the welcome that awaited him. And when he was confronted by a girl
who apparently was no more a daughter of Venezuela than she was a
masked highwayman, his first thought was that this must be some
innocent foreigner stumbling in upon the ambush. In alarm for her
safety his eyes searched the road beyond her, the hedges on either
side. If she remained for an instant longer he feared she might be the