iant
sheltering banana hid the road, they paused at a trail that crossed the
highway and wound on down toward the Panuco river, where tropical stuff
for Tampico was transferred from burros to dugout barges. Jacqueline
listened. There were no sounds of pursuit as yet, nor was there any one
in sight. Making up her mind, she changed to the path. Driscoll
followed, with a delight in this new leadership over him.

When they gained the river, she stopped again, and he did too.

"But you must go, on, on!" she protested. "They may not be deceived, no.
They may have you to overtake here." She held out her hand. "There, this
path, you follow it to Tampico. Good bye. Yes, yes, you have not one
minute!"

Driscoll took the little gauntleted hand readily enough. He saw that the
lines of her face were drawn, but her manner was inexorable.

"How do you like your dress?" he inquired.

Had she been on her feet, she would have stamped one of them.
"Monsieur," she cried, "here is no time to observe the replenishment of
a lady's wardrobe. Do you go? I insist. I wish you bon voyage to your
own country, monsieur."

"But it's so far away. I reckon I'd better rest a spell first. A month
or so, prob'bly."

She watched him clamber down and tie Demijohn to the low branch of a
live oak on the river's bank.

"There you are, getting stubborn again," she said. But the lines in her
face had vanished.

"Of course I mean to see you back to your friends," he explained.

"Merci bien. But you will not. You will have this river straight to
Tampico. I say yes!"

She turned her horse as she spoke, whereat he started to remount his
own.

"I think, sir----" she began haughtily.

"The road is free."

"Oh, why have you to be so, so quarrelsome?"

"The temptation, I reckon."

"You really will go back with me?"

"I might be going back along about the same time. It's a public trail."

"Then _I_ will stay, and you _must_! I will not permit you to
go back there now. I will see that you do wait here so long until Lopez
has the time to start to Mexico after you. Then you will be behind him.
Have the goodness to hold my bridle. I think I shall take me a rest a
little also."

Together they sat on a huge live-oak root and watched the sluggish
Panuco flow by.

"No hurry now," Driscoll observed comfortably. "Our scarlet upholstered
colonel won't get away for years yet."

Years, at least, were in his wishes, years in which to provoke her
quaintly