some of his earlier recollections.

"You don't remember anything of your father?" she asked. "Did he ever
try to seek you out?"

"No! Why should he?" replied the imperturbable Low; "he was not a
Cherokee."

"No, he was a beast," responded Teresa promptly. "And your mother--do
you remember her?"

"No, I think she died."

"You _think_ she died? Don't you know?"

"No!"

"Then you're another!" said Teresa. Notwithstanding this frankness,
they shook hands for the night; Teresa nestling like a rabbit in a
hollow by the side of the camp-fire; Low with his feet towards it,
Indian-wise, and his head and shoulders pillowed on his haversack, only
half distinguishable in the darkness beyond.

With such trivial details three uneventful days slipped by. Their
retreat was undisturbed, nor could Low detect, by the least evidence to
his acute perceptive faculties, that any intruding feet had since
crossed the belt of shade. The echoes of passing events at Indian
Spring had recorded the escape of Teresa as occurring at a remote and
purely imaginative distance, and her probable direction the county of
Yolo.

"Can you remember," he one day asked her, "what time it was when you
cut the _riata_ and got away?"

Teresa pressed her hands upon her eyes and temples.

"About three, I reckon."

"And you were here at seven; you could have covered some ground in four
hours?"

"Perhaps--I don't know," she said, her voice taking up its old quality
again. "Don't ask me--I ran all the way."

Her face was quite pale as she removed her hands from her eyes, and her
breath came as quickly as if she had just finished that race for life.

"Then you think I am safe here?" she added, after a pause.

"Perfectly--until they find you are _not_ in Yolo. Then they'll look
here. And _that's_ the time for you to go _there_." Teresa smiled
timidly.

"It will take them some time to search Yolo--unless," she added,
"you're tired of me here." The charming _non sequitur_ did not,
however, seem to strike the young man. "I've got time yet to find a few
more plants for you," she suggested.

"Oh, certainly!"

"And give you a few more lessons in cooking."

"Perhaps."

The conscientious and literal Low was beginning to doubt if she were
really practical. How otherwise could she trifle with such a situation?

It must be confessed that that day and the next she did trifle with it.
She gave herself up to a grave and delicious languor that seemed to
fl