roused
itself in the strange fellow's nature, a counter influence had also set
in. More and more Vanamee frequented the Mission garden after nightfall,
sometimes remaining there till the dawn began to whiten, lying prone on
the ground, his chin on his folded arms, his eyes searching the darkness
over the little valley of the Seed ranch, watching, watching. As the
days went by, he became more reticent than ever. Presley often came to
find him on the stock range, a lonely figure in the great wilderness
of bare, green hillsides, but Vanamee no longer took him into his
confidence. Father Sarria alone heard his strange stories.

Dyke drove on toward Bonneville, thinking over the whole matter. He
knew, as every one did in that part of the country, the legend of
Vanamee and Angele, the romance of the Mission garden, the mystery
of the Other, Vanamee's flight to the deserts of the southwest, his
periodic returns, his strange, reticent, solitary character, but, like
many another of the country people, he accounted for Vanamee by a short
and easy method. No doubt, the fellow's wits were turned. That was the
long and short of it.

The ex-engineer reached the Post Office in Bonneville towards eleven
o'clock, but he did not at once present his notice of the arrival of
his consignment at Ruggles's office. It entertained him to indulge in an
hour's lounging about the streets. It was seldom he got into town, and
when he did he permitted himself the luxury of enjoying his evident
popularity. He met friends everywhere, in the Post Office, in the drug
store, in the barber shop and around the court-house. With each one he
held a moment's conversation; almost invariably this ended in the same
way:

"Come on 'n have a drink."

"Well, I don't care if I do."

And the friends proceeded to the Yosemite bar, pledging each other with
punctilious ceremony. Dyke, however, was a strictly temperate man.
His life on the engine had trained him well. Alcohol he never touched,
drinking instead ginger ale, sarsaparilla-and-iron--soft drinks.

At the drug store, which also kept a stock of miscellaneous stationery,
his eye was caught by a "transparent slate," a child's toy, where upon
a little pane of frosted glass one could trace with considerable
elaboration outline figures of cows, ploughs, bunches of fruit and even
rural water mills that were printed on slips of paper underneath.

"Now, there's an idea, Jim," he observed to the boy behind the
s