“Wouldn’t an Eastern trip be safer?” suggested her hostess.

“An Eastern trip would be easier.  But I’ve made my break, and it’s in the rules, as I understand them, that I’ve got to see it through.  If he can get me now”—­she gave a little shrug—­“but he can’t.  I’ve come to my senses.”

Sunlight pale, dubious, filtering through the shaken cloud veils, ushered in the morning.  Meager of promise though it was, Io’s spirits brightened.  Declining the offer of a horse in favor of a pocket compass, she set out afoot, not taking the trail, but forging straight through the heavy forest for the line of desert.  Around her, brisk and busy flocks of pinon jays darted and twittered confidentially.  The warm spice of the pines was sweet in her nostrils.  Little stirrings and rustlings just beyond the reach of vision delightfully and provocatively suggested the interest which she was inspiring by her invasion among the lesser denizens of the place.  The sweetness and intimacy of an unknown life surrounded her.  She sang happily as she strode, lithe and strong and throbbing with unfulfilled energies and potencies, through the springtide of the woods.

But when she emerged upon the desert, she fell silent.  A spaciousness as of endless vistas enthralled and, a little, awed her.  On all sides were ranged the disordered ranks of the cacti, stricken into immobility in the very act of reconstituting their columns, so that they gave the effect of a discord checked on the verge of its resolution into form and harmony, yet with a weird and distorted beauty of its own.  From a little distance, there came a murmur of love-words.  Io moved softly forward, peering curiously, and from the arc of a wide curving ocatilla two wild doves sprang, leaving the branch all aquiver.  Bolder than his companions of the air, a cactus owl, perched upon the highest column of a great green candelabrum, viewed her with a steady detachment, “sleepless, with cold, commemorative eyes.”  The girl gave back look for look, into the big, hard, unwavering circles.

“You’re a funny little bird,” said she.  “Say something!”

Like his congener of the hortatory poem, the owl held his peace.

“Perhaps you’re a stuffed little bird,” said Io, “and this not a real desert at all, but a National Park or something, full of educational specimens.”

She walked past the occupant of the cactus, and his head, turning, followed her with the slow, methodical movement of a toy mechanism.

“You give me a crick in my neck,” protested the intruder plaintively.  “Now, I’ll step over behind you and you’ll have to move or stop watching me.”

She walked behind the watcher.  The eyes continued to hold her in direct range.

“Now,” said Io, “I know where the idea for that horrid advertisement that always follows you with its finger came from.  However, I’ll fix you.”

She fetched a deliberate circle.  The bird’s eyes followed her without cessation.  Yet his feet and body remained motionless.  Only the head had turned.  That had made a complete revolution.