nd another comrade, and without delay we were
away through the starlight. To the north I could see the loom of Sonoma
Mountain, toward which we rode. We left the old town of Sonoma to the
right and rode up a canyon that lay between outlying buttresses of the
mountain. The wagon-road became a wood-road, the wood-road became a
cow-path, and the cow-path dwindled away and ceased among the upland
pastures. Straight over Sonoma Mountain we rode. It was the safest
route. There was no one to mark our passing.

Dawn caught us on the northern brow, and in the gray light we dropped
down through chaparral into redwood canyons deep and warm with the
breath of passing summer. It was old country to me that I knew and
loved, and soon I became the guide. The hiding-place was mine. I had
selected it. We let down the bars and crossed an upland meadow. Next, we
went over a low, oak-covered ridge and descended into a smaller meadow.
Again we climbed a ridge, this time riding under red-limbed madronos and
manzanitas of deeper red. The first rays of the sun streamed upon
our backs as we climbed. A flight of quail thrummed off through the
thickets. A big jackrabbit crossed our path, leaping swiftly and
silently like a deer. And then a deer, a many-pronged buck, the sun
flashing red-gold from neck and shoulders, cleared the crest of the
ridge before us and was gone.

We followed in his wake a space, then dropped down a zigzag trail that
he disdained into a group of noble redwoods that stood about a pool of
water murky with minerals from the mountain side. I knew every inch of
the way. Once a writer friend of mine had owned the ranch; but he, too,
had become a revolutionist, though more disastrously than I, for he was
already dead and gone, and none knew where nor how. He alone, in the
days he had lived, knew the secret of the hiding-place for which I was
bound. He had bought the ranch for beauty, and paid a round price for
it, much to the disgust of the local farmers. He used to tell with great
glee how they were wont to shake their heads mournfully at the price, to
accomplish ponderously a bit of mental arithmetic, and then to say, "But
you can't make six per cent on it."

But he was dead now, nor did the ranch descend to his children. Of all
men, it was now the property of Mr. Wickson, who owned the whole eastern
and northern slopes of Sonoma Mountain, running from the Spreckels
estate to the divide of Bennett Valley. Out of it he had made