within the town limits,
doesn't it?"

"Almost as bad. But now we'll change places, if you please. I've been
to Marion several times with my father and once since--since he went
away, with Samson. There! They're taking Scruff out of the car and you
must ride him. I know the way. It's only a mile, about, to the hotel. Of
course, there's a lodging-house nearer, right by this station, indeed,
but the hotel's much nicer. You'll get a better bed there, and we'd
best go on."

"I'd rather sleep on the ground than walk a mile."

"You shall do neither. Didn't you hear me say we've changed places
now? I'm so near home I am at home and I'm--the captain. Obey orders,
sir, and mount Scruff's back."

He was too weary to protest and too ill. Subject to acute neuralgia, he
was, like plenty of people, rather less courageous when he was in pain
than at other times. Besides, now there was something of that decision
in Jessica's tone which sick people find restful, and he quietly threw
one leg across Scruff's back and let the girl do as she pleased.

This was to start forward over the unpaved, unlighted street at a swift
unbroken run, which Scruff had some work to equal; but the speed brought
them promptly to a wooden "tavern," from one window of which there
gleamed a solitary oil lamp.

"Horrors! Antonio described a ranch called Desolation, or something like
that, and I reckon we've arrived," lamented the reporter, jolted into
fresh distress by the burro's trot.

Jessica laughed.

"Wait. Be patient, dear man. Within five minutes you'll be sleeping
on a clean, sweet bed, and when you wake up in the morning it will be to
a fine breakfast, a perfect day, and--Sobrante!"

Then she tapped on the window and called:

"Hello, there! Sobrante folks! Open the door, quick!"

A head was thrust out of another window, further along the narrow porch,
and a sleepy voice asked:

"What's that you say? Who wants----"

"I do! Jessica Trent, from Sobrante. But last, right from Los Angeles
city. Please be quick!"

In less time than seemed possible, for such a drowsy person to reach
it, the door was flung wide and there rushed out upon the porch a man
and a woman, who both seized Jessica at one time and in their effort
to embrace her succeeded in hugging each other. Whereupon the landlady
flung her stalwart husband aside and caught the little girl in her arms,
to carry her within.

"Oh! but this is the darling home again! And is it good news