ther she slipped
stealthily out and hid in the _jacal_ beside the burro for a chance to
read the letter. When she returned she showed so plainly that his
compliments and sweet speeches were distasteful to her that he sulkily
left the house and galloped home again. Then her mother reproved her,
telling her that she must not discourage the young man, because he was
plainly in earnest in his attentions and would make the best and
richest husband of all the young _caballeros_ who came to the house,
and that when next she saw him she must make amends for her unkind
treatment. Amada listened with terror and rebellion in her heart; and
in her brain there sprang into life the purpose which she set out to
execute as soon as her father and mother were asleep.

In her pocket she had four dollars which she had saved from the sale
of eggs and goat's-milk cheeses at Muletown, and which she had been
carefully keeping for the purpose of buying a new mantilla with a
deep, deep silk fringe the next time they should go to Las Plumas to
celebrate the fiesta of its patron saint. And under one arm she
carried some _enchiladas_ and _tamales_, left from that night's
supper.

She trudged on through the darkness and silence of the night, and,
although she walked briskly, the frosty air now and again sent a
shiver of cold through her body and made her draw her mantilla more
closely across her chest. The staccato yelping of coyotes down in the
plain was answered by short, sharp barks from the hills, and all night
long the beasts kept up a running exchange of howls from one to the
other side of the road. Sometimes Amada heard the stealthy rustle of
the herbage as they neared the highway, or saw the gleaming of their
eyes in the darkness. But she knew their cowardly nature too well to
be afraid, and when they came too near, a pebble from her hand sent
them scurrying away.

Hour after hour she followed the faint glimmer of the dusty road, over
the low, rolling hills, across the sloping upland, and down into the
edge of the Fernandez plain, steadily leaving behind her the slowly
measured miles. At last the east began to glow above the Fernandez
mountains and against the golden sky shone the thin, silver-white
crescent of the old moon. The blackness of night gradually faded into
the gray light of dawn, the sky blushed rosy red, the plain spread
itself out before her, flooded with golden red sunlight, and still
Amada held to the pace she had kept up