“You have a safe hiding place here in the mountains?” asked Rutlidge.

“Yes; a little hut, hidden in a deep gorge, over on the Cold Water.  I could live there a year if I had supplies.”

James Rutlidge considered.  “I’ve got it!” he said at last.  “Listen!  There must be some peak, at the Cold Water end of this range, from which you can see Fairlands as well as the Galena Valley.”

“Yes,” the other answered eagerly.

“And,” continued Rutlidge, “there is a good ‘auto’ road up the Galena Valley.  One could get, I should think, to a point within—­say nine hours of your camp.  Do you know anything about the heliograph?”

“Yes,” said the man, his face brightening.  “That is, I understand the general principle—­that it’s a method of signaling by mirror flashes.”

“Good!  This is my plan.  I will meet you to-morrow on the Laurel Creek trail, where it turns off from the creek toward San Gorgonio.  You know the spot?”

“Yes.”

“We will go around the head of Clear Creek, on the divide between this canyon and the Cold Water, to some peak in the Galenas from which we can see Fairlands; and where, with the field-glass, we can pick out some point at the upper end of Galena Valley, that we can both find later.”

“I understand.”

“When I get back to Fairlands, I will make a night trip in the ‘auto’ to that point, with supplies.  You will meet me there.  The day before I make the trip, I’ll signal you by mirror flashes that I am coming; and you will answer from the peak.  We’ll agree on the time of day and the signals to-morrow.  When you have kept close, long enough for your beard and hair to grow out well, everybody will have given you up for dead or gone.  Then I will take you down and give you a job in an orange grove.  There’s a little house there where you can live.  You won’t need to show yourself down-town and, in time, you will be forgotten.  I’ll bring you enough food to-morrow to last you until I can return to town and can get back on the first night trip.”

The man who left James Rutlidge a few minutes later, after trying brokenly to express his gratitude, was a creature very different from the poor, frightened hunted, starving, despairing, wretch that Rutlidge had halted an hour before.  What that man was to become, would depend almost wholly upon his benefactor.

When the man was gone, James Rutlidge again took up his field-glass.  The old home of Sibyl Andres was deserted.  While he had been talking with the convict, the girl and Myra Willard had started on their way back to Fairlands.

With a peculiar smile upon his heavy features, the man slipped the glass into its case, and, with a long, slow look over the scene, set out on his way to rejoin his friends.

Chapter XXVI

I Want You Just as You Are