with Pancha, it seems, had
banished Loring's intention of confiding his suspicion and the whole
story, in fact, to Mr. Traynor. And so there was no friend to whom he
could turn. Five days after his arrival in San Francisco Loring found
himself facing charges of the gravest nature, for Traynor, being sent
for, told his story to the general in person, and Loring stood alone.

CHAPTER XV.

April had gone, and May and June was well-nigh half over. The old
semaphore of Telegraph Hill would have worn itself out signaling
sidewheel steamers had it still been in operation. The transcontinental
railway was stretching out up the valley of the Platte toward the center
of the continent, but Wells-Fargo, and the pony express charging a
dollar a letter, were the only transcontinental rapid transit of the
day. People still went to and from the distant East by way of Aspinwall
and Panama, and the big boats of the Pacific mail were crowded, going or
coming; and one bright June day two women in mourning were escorted
aboard the Sonora and shown to their little stateroom, one a decidedly
pretty girl, the other a sad-faced, careworn, delicate looking widow,
ten or twelve years apparently the senior. They sailed with only one
friend to see them off, an aide-de-camp of the commanding general, yet
not without much curiosity on part of the younger woman as to the
composition of the passenger list. Even before they were beyond the
rocky scarp of Alcatraz, for few things are impossible to a pretty
woman, she had been able to secure a copy and to say, with bated breath,
to the languid invalid: "At least he's not going on this ship. It might
be better if he were." For Miss Geraldine Allyn had not lost faith in
her power to charm.

And one reason why the "he" referred to was not going on this ship was
that the sisters Nevins and Allyn had "booked" their passage nearly two
weeks before, it being useless to remain longer on the Pacific coast in
hopes of finding the fugitive husband, for the consul at Guaymas was
authorized to report the death at Hermosillo, "through wounds and
exposure, of the gallant but unfortunate captain, whose mind must have
given way under his accumulation of troubles." A seal ring that Nevins
used to wear and some letters were all he had to leave, and these had
been duly forwarded to the address of his wife, whose pathetic
inquiries for further particulars elicited nothing more reliable than
that Nevins was dead an