ude
had made known to her. With misplaced kindness she tempted it with
bread-crumbs, with no other effect than to stiffen it into stony
astonishment. She wondered if she should become like the prisoners
she had read of in books, who poured out their solitary affections on
noisome creatures, and she regretted even the mustang, which with the
buggy had disappeared under the charge of some unknown retainer on her
arrival. Was she not a prisoner? The shutterless windows, yawning doors,
and open gate refuted her suggestion, but the encompassing solitude and
trackless waste still held her captive. Poindexter had told her it was
four miles to the shanty; she might walk there. Why had she given her
word that she would remain at the rancho until he returned?

The long day crept monotonously away, and she welcomed the night
which shut out the dreary prospect. But it brought no cessation of
the harassing wind without, nor surcease of the nervous irritation its
perpetual and even activity wrought upon her. It haunted her pillow even
in her exhausted sleep, and seemed to impatiently beckon her to rise and
follow it. It brought her feverish dreams of her husband, footsore and
weary, staggering forward under its pitiless lash and clamorous outcry;
she would have gone to his assistance, but when she reached his side and
held out her arms to him it hurried her past with merciless power, and,
bearing her away, left him hopelessly behind. It was broad day when she
awoke. The usual night showers of the waning rainy season had left no
trace in sky or meadow; the fervid morning sun had already dried the
patio; only the restless, harrying wind remained.

Mrs. Tucker arose with a resolve. She had learned from Concha on the
previous evening that a part of the shanty was used as a tienda or shop
for the laborers and rancheros. Under the necessity of purchasing some
articles, she would go there and for a moment mingle with those people,
who would not recognize her. Even if they did, her instinct told her it
would be less to be feared than the hopeless uncertainty of another day.
As she left the house the wind seemed to seize her as in her dream, and
hurry her along with it, until in a few moments the walls of the low
casa sank into the earth again and she was alone, but for the breeze on
the solitary plain. The level distance glittered in the sharp light, a
few crows with slant wings dipped and ran down the wind before her,
and a passing gleam o