Alessandro to thinking, however. "Would Majella be
content to stay here three days now?" he asked. "There is grass enough
for the horses for that time. We should be very safe here; and I fear
very much we should not be safe on any road. I think, Majella, the
Senora will send men after Baba."

"Baba!" cried Ramona, aghast at the idea. "My own horse! She would not
dare to call it stealing a horse, to take my own Baba!" But even as
she spoke, her heart misgave her. The Senora would dare anything; would
misrepresent anything; only too well Ramona knew what the very mention
of the phrase "horse-stealing" meant all through the country. She looked
piteously at Alessandro. He read her thoughts.

"Yes, that is it, Majella," he said. "If she sent men after Baba, there
is no knowing what they might do. It would not do any good for you to
say he was yours. They would not believe you; and they might take me
too, if the Senora had told them to, and put me into Ventura jail."

"She's just wicked enough to do it!" cried Ramona. "Let us not stir out
of this spot, Alessandro,--not for a week! Couldn't we stay a week? By
that time she would have given over looking for us."

"I am afraid not a week. There is not feed for the horses; and I do not
know what we could eat. I have my gun, but there is not much, now, to
kill."

"But I have brought meat and bread, Alessandro," said Ramona, earnestly,
"and we could eat very little each day, and make it last!" She was like
a child, in her simplicity and eagerness. Every other thought was for
the time being driven out of her mind by the terror of being pursued.
Pursuit of her, she knew, would not be in the Senora's plan; but the
reclaiming of Baba and Capitan, that was another thing. The more Ramona
thought of it, the more it seemed to her a form of vengeance which would
be likely to commend itself to the Senora's mind. Felipe might possibly
prevent it. It was he who had given Baba to her. He would feel that
it would be shameful to recall or deny the gift. Only in Felipe lay
Ramona's hope.

If she had thought to tell Alessandro that in her farewell note
to Felipe she had said that she supposed they were going to Father
Salvierderra, it would have saved both her and Alessandro much
disquietude. Alessandro would have known that men pursuing them, on that
supposition, would have gone straight down the river road to the sea,
and struck northward along the coast. But it did not occur to Ramona to