ging, horror-struck. Posse after posse was formed, sent out, and
returned, without so much as a clue. Upon no one could even the shadow
of suspicion be thrown. The Other had withdrawn into an impenetrable
mystery. There he remained. He never was found; he never was so much
as heard of. A legend arose about him, this prowler of the night, this
strange, fearful figure, with an unseen face, swooping in there from
out the darkness, come and gone in an instant, but leaving behind him a
track of terror and death and rage and undying grief. Within the year,
in giving birth to the child, Angele had died.

The little babe was taken by Angele's parents, and Angele was buried
in the Mission garden near to the aged, grey sun dial. Vanamee stood by
during the ceremony, but half conscious of what was going forward. At
the last moment he had stepped forward, looked long into the dead face
framed in its plaits of gold hair, the hair that made three-cornered
the round, white forehead; looked again at the closed eyes, with their
perplexing upward slant toward the temples, oriental, bizarre; at the
lips with their Egyptian fulness; at the sweet, slender neck; the long,
slim hands; then abruptly turned about. The last clods were filling the
grave at a time when he was already far away, his horse's head turned
toward the desert.

For two years no syllable was heard of him. It was believed that he had
killed himself. But Vanamee had no thought of that. For two years he
wandered through Arizona, living in the desert, in the wilderness, a
recluse, a nomad, an ascetic. But, doubtless, all his heart was in the
little coffin in the Mission garden. Once in so often he must come
back thither. One day he was seen again in the San Joaquin. The priest,
Father Sarria, returning from a visit to the sick at Bonneville, met him
on the Upper Road. Eighteen years had passed since Angele had died, but
the thread of Vanamee's life had been snapped. Nothing remained now
but the tangled ends. He had never forgotten. The long, dull ache, the
poignant grief had now become a part of him. Presley knew this to be so.

While Presley had been reflecting upon all this, Vanamee had continued
to speak. Presley, however, had not been wholly inattentive. While
his memory was busy reconstructing the details of the drama of the
shepherd's life, another part of his brain had been swiftly registering
picture after picture that Vanamee's monotonous flow of words struck
off, a