ts companioned him, savage and sinister shapes whirling
about the figure of a woman. On, on, sleeping at ranchos or missions,
meeting hospitality everywhere, avoiding Los Angeles, keeping close to
the ponderous ocean, he left civilization behind him at last, and
with an Indian guide entered upon that desert of mountain-tops, Baja
California.

Rapid travelling was not possible here. There were no valleys worthy the
name. The sharp peaks, multiplying mile after mile, were like teeth of
gigantic rakes, black and bare. A wilderness of mountain-tops, desolate
as eternity, arid, parched, baked by the awful heat, the silence never
broken by the cry of a bird, a hut rarely breaking the barren monotony,
only an infrequent spring to save from death. It was almost impossible
to get food or fresh horses. Many a night De la Vega and his stoical
guide slept beneath a cactus, or in the mocking bed of a creek. The
mustangs he managed to lasso were almost unridable, and would have
bucked to death any but a Californian. Sometimes he lived on cactus
fruit and the dried meat he had brought with him; occasionally he shot
a rabbit. Again he had but the flesh of the rattlesnake roasted over
coals. But honey-dew was on the leaves.

He avoided the beaten trail, and cut his way through naked bushes spiked
with thorns, and through groves of cacti miles in length. When the thick
fog rolled up from the ocean he had to sit inactive on the rocks, or
lose his way. A furious storm dashed him against a boulder, breaking his
mustang's leg; then a torrent, rising like a tidal wave, thundered down
the gulch, and catching him on its crest, flung him upon a tree of
thorns. When dawn came he found his guide dead. He cursed his luck, and
went on.

Lassoing another mustang, he pushed on, having a general idea of the
direction he should take. It was a week before he reached Loreto, a week
of loneliness, hunger, thirst, and torrid monotony. A week, too, of
thought and bitterness of spirit. In spite of his love, which never
cooled, and his courage, which never quailed, Nature, in her guise of
foul and crooked hag, mocked at earthly happiness, at human hope, at
youth and passion.

If he had not spent his life in the saddle, he would have been worn out
when he finally reached Loreto, late one night. As it was, he slept in a
hut until the following afternoon. Then he took a long swim in the bay,
and, later, sauntered through the town.

The forlorn little city w