pointment of
naturalist to a Government Surveying Expedition. She had even jocularly
proposed to dress herself in man's attire and "enlist" as his
assistant.

"But you will be safe with your friends, I hope, by that time,"
responded Low.

"Safe with my friends," she repeated in a lower voice. "Safe with my
friends--yes!" An awkward silence followed; Teresa broke it gayly: "But
your girl, your sweetheart, my benefactor--will _she_ let you go?"

"I haven't told her yet," said Low, gravely, "but I don't see why she
should object."

"Object, indeed!" interrupted Teresa in a high voice and a sudden and
utterly gratuitous indignation; "how should she? I'd like to see her do
it!"

She accompanied him some distance to the intersection of the trail,
where they parted in good spirits. On the dusty plain without a gale
was blowing that rocked the high tree-tops above her, but, tempered and
subdued, entered the low aisles with a fluttering breath of morning and
a sound like the cooing of doves. Never had the wood before shown so
sweet a sense of security from the turmoil and tempest of the world
beyond; never before had an intrusion from the outer life--even in the
shape of a letter--seemed so wicked a desecration. Tempted by the
solicitation of air and shade, she lingered, with Low's herbarium slung
on her shoulder.

A strange sensation, like a shiver, suddenly passed across her nerves,
and left them in a state of rigid tension. With every sense morbidly
acute, with every faculty strained to its utmost, the subtle instincts
of Low's woodcraft transformed and possessed her. She knew it now! A
new element was in the wood--a strange being--another life--another man
approaching! She did not even raise her head to look about her, but
darted with the precision and fleetness of an arrow in the direction of
her tree. But her feet were arrested, her limbs paralyzed, her very
existence suspended, by the sound of a voice:

"Teresa!"

It was a voice that had rung in her ears for the last two years in all
phases of intensity, passion, tenderness, and anger; a voice upon whose
modulations, rude and unmusical though they were, her heart and soul
had hung in transport or anguish. But it was a chime that had rung its
last peal to her senses as she entered the Carquinez Woods, and for the
last week had been as dead to her as a voice from the grave. It was the
voice of her lover--Dick Curson!

CHAPTER V.

The wind was blowing toward