e in Fort Alcatraz came across him.
Could she have already warned the municipal authorities and this man?
But he quickly remembered that any action from such a warning could
only have been taken by the United States Marshal, and not by a civic
official, and dismissed the idea.

Nevertheless, when the stage with its half-spent lamps still burning
dimly against the morning light swept round the curve and rolled heavily
up to the rude shanty which served as coach-office, he became watchful.
A single yawning individual in its doorway received a few letters and
parcels, but Clarence was evidently the ONLY waiting passenger. Any hope
that he might have entertained that his mysterious predecessor would
emerge from some seclusion at that moment was disappointed. As he
entered the coach he made a rapid survey of his fellow-travelers, but
satisfied himself that the stranger was not among them. They were
mainly small traders or farmers, a miner or two, and apparently
a Spanish-American of better degree and personality. Possibly the
circumstance that men of this class usually preferred to travel on
horseback and were rarely seen in public conveyances attracted his
attention, and their eyes met more than once in mutual curiosity.
Presently Clarence addressed a remark to the stranger in Spanish; he
replied fluently and courteously, but at the next stopping-place he
asked a question of the expressman in an unmistakable Missouri accent.
Clarence's curiosity was satisfied; he was evidently one of those early
American settlers who had been so long domiciled in Southern California
as to adopt the speech as well as the habiliments of the Spaniard.

The conversation fell upon the political news of the previous night, or
rather seemed to be lazily continued from some previous, more excited
discussion, in which one of the contestants--a red-bearded miner--had
subsided into an occasional growl of surly dissent. It struck Clarence
that the Missourian had been an amused auditor and even, judging from a
twinkle in his eye, a mischievous instigator of the controversy. He
was not surprised, therefore, when the man turned to him with a certain
courtesy and said,--

"And what, sir, is the political feeling in YOUR district?"

But Clarence was in no mood to be drawn out, and replied, almost curtly,
that as he had come only from San Francisco, they were probably as well
informed on that subject as himself. A quick and searching glance from
the stra