She had barely had time to change for her ride
and to glance at her "war bag" when a discreet knock sounded at her
door. Going to the door she found that it was Julius Struve instead of
Norton.

"You are to come with me," said the hotel keeper softly. "He is
waiting with the horses."

They passed through the dark dining-room, into the pitch black kitchen
and out at the rear of the house. A moment Struve paused, listening.
Then, touching her sleeve, he hurried away into the night, going toward
the black line of cottonwoods, the girl keeping close to his heels.

At the dry arroyo Norton was waiting, holding two saddled horses.
Without a word he gave her his hand, saw her mounted, surrendered
Persis's jerking reins into her gauntletted grip and swung up to the
back of his own horse. In another moment, and still in silence,
Virginia and Norton were riding away from San Juan, keeping in the
shadows of the trees, headed toward the mountains in the north.

And now suddenly Virginia found that she was giving herself over
utterly, unexpectedly to a keen, pulsing joy of life. She had
surrendered into the sheriff's hands the little leather-case which
contained her emergency bottles and instruments; they had left San Juan
a couple of hundred yards behind, their horses were galloping; her
stirrup struck now and then against Norton's boot. John Engle had not
been unduly extravagant in praise of the mare Persis; Virginia sensed
rather than saw clearly the perfect, beautiful creature which carried
her, delighted in the swinging gallop, drew into her soul something of
the serene glory of a starlit night on the desert. The soft thud of
shod hoofs upon yielding soil was music to her, mingled as it came with
the creak of saddle leather, the jingle of bridle and spur-chains. She
wondered if there had ever been so perfect a night, if she had ever
mounted so finely bred a saddle animal.

Far ahead the San Juan mountains lifted their serrated ridge of ebony.
On all other sides the flat-lands stretched out seeming to have no end,
suggesting to the fancy that they were kin in vastitude to the clear
expanse of the sky. On all hands little wind-shaped ridges were like
crests of long waves in an ocean which had just now been stilled,
brooded over by the desert silence and the desert stars.

"I suppose," said Norton at last, "that it's up to me to explain."

"Then begin," said Virginia, "by telling me where we are going."

He swun