s I say when you get there. What do you say to that?"

"I'll take all the chances. At least we understand each other. I work
for you now, and I break the power of both you and your infernal machine
when I am a citizen of the United States."

"Shake," said Colton.

And they shook.

XXVI

Isabel sat idly on the veranda of her old hotel as was her habit in the
evening hour. There had been no heavy rains as yet to freshen the hills
and swell the tides until the salt waters scalded the juices from the
marsh grass, turning it from green to bronze and red; and the barometer
was stationary. A cool wind came in from the sea with the flood, and
Isabel enjoyed the beauty that was hers all the more luxuriously in her
thick shawl of white wool. A great part of the valley north and south
was within the range of her vision, and it was suffused with gold under
a sky that looked like an inverted crucible pouring down its treasures
in the prodigal fashion of the land. Facing her house and on the
opposite side of the marsh, at its widest here, was a high wall of rock,
from which the valley curved backward on either side, tapering to the
great level in the north, but on the south halting abruptly before the
mass of mountains following the coast line and topped by the angular
shoulder of Tamalpais; coal black to-night against the intense gold of
the West.

She had not seen Gwynne for several days, and half expected that he
would come to-night. These were busy days, and she saw less of him than
formerly, although he snatched an hour for shooting whenever he could,
and occasionally rode over for supper; and they saw much of each other
during the weekly visit to the city. Their relations were easy and
sexless. He refused to talk of chickens, but they had many other
interests in common. She had by no means forgotten his outbreak in the
launch, and had scowled at her arms for quite a week as she brushed her
hair for bed, but that episode was now several weeks old, and she had
ceased to harbor resentment. But she was subtly out of conceit with
herself and life, resentful that she missed any one, after her long
triumph in freedom from human ties; also resentful of the respect and
interest with which Gwynne had inspired her, particularly since his
summary expulsion of her will from the battle ground where it was
becoming accustomed to easy triumphs. She had no love for him, and she
was as satisfied with the life she had chosen as eve