dresses for me from your young woman.  Buy them for me at some shop.  They left me enough money for that.”  Low gently put aside the few pieces of gold she had drawn from her pocket, and briefly reminded her of the suspicion such a purchase by him would produce.  “That’s so,” she said, with a laugh. “Caramba! what a mule I’m becoming!  Ah! wait a moment.  I have it!  Buy me a common felt hat—­a man’s hat—­as if for yourself, as a change to that animal,” pointing to the fox-tailed cap he wore summer and winter, “and I’ll show you a trick.  I haven’t run a theatrical wardrobe for nothing.”  Nor had she, for the hat thus procured, a few days later, became, by the aid of a silk handkerchief and a bluejay’s feather, a fascinating “pork pie.”

Whatever cause of annoyance to Low still lingered in Teresa’s dress, it was soon forgotten in a palpable evidence of Teresa’s value as botanical assistant.  It appeared that during the afternoon she had not only duplicated his specimens, but had discovered one or two rare plants as yet unclassified in the flora of the Carquinez Woods.  He was delighted, and in turn, over the camp-fire, yielded up some details of his present life and some of his earlier recollections.

“You don’t remember anything of your father?” she asked.  “Did he ever try to seek you out?”

“No!  Why should he?” replied the imperturbable Low; “he was not a Cherokee.”

“No, he was a beast,” responded Teresa promptly.  “And your mother—­do you remember her?”

“No, I think she died.”

“You think she died?  Don’t you know?”

“No!”

“Then you’re another!” said Teresa.  Notwithstanding this frankness, they shook hands for the night; Teresa nestling like a rabbit in a hollow by the side of the camp-fire; Low with his feet towards it, Indian-wise, and his head and shoulders pillowed on his haversack, only half distinguishable in the darkness beyond.

With such trivial details three uneventful days slipped by.  Their retreat was undisturbed, nor could Low detect, by the least evidence to his acute perceptive faculties, that any intruding feet had since crossed the belt of shade.  The echoes of passing events at Indian Spring had recorded the escape of Teresa as occurring at a remote and purely imaginative distance, and her probable direction the county of Yolo.

“Can you remember,” he one day asked her, “what time it was when you cut the riata and got away?”

Teresa pressed her hands upon her eyes and temples.

“About three, I reckon.”

“And you were here at seven; you could have covered some ground in four hours?”

“Perhaps—­I don’t know,” she said, her voice taking up its old quality again.  “Don’t ask me—­I ran all the way.”

Her face was quite pale as she removed her hands from her eyes, and her breath came as quickly as if she had just finished that race for life.