THE SECRET OF SOBRIENTE'S WELL

LIBERTY JONES'S DISCOVERY




MR. JACK HAMLIN'S MEDIATION


At nightfall it began to rain. The wind arose too, and also began to
buffet a small, struggling, nondescript figure, creeping along the trail
over the rocky upland meadow towards Rylands's rancho. At times its
head was hidden in what appeared to be wings thrown upward from its
shoulders; at times its broad-brimmed hat was cocked jauntily on one
side, and again the brim was fixed over the face like a visor. At one
moment a drifting misshapen mass of drapery, at the next its vague
garments, beaten back hard against the figure, revealed outlines far too
delicate for that rude enwrapping. For it was Mrs. Rylands herself,
in her husband's hat and her "hired man's" old blue army overcoat,
returning from the post-office two miles away. The wind continued its
aggression until she reached the front door of her newly plastered
farmhouse, and then a heavier blast shook the pines above the
low-pitched, shingled roof, and sent a shower of arrowy drops after her
like a Parthian parting, as she entered. She threw aside the overcoat
and hat, and somewhat inconsistently entered the sitting-room, to walk
to the window and look back upon the path she had just traversed. The
wind and the rain swept down a slope, half meadow, half clearing,--a
mile away,--to a fringe of sycamores. A mile further lay the stage road,
where, three hours later, her husband would alight on his return from