Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/88

 between him and the bare hope, the gambling chance, of freedom.

There were many Americans in and around Monterey. Chance it that war had not begun, there was some sort of United States agent, consul, or what he might be, in the place; Henderson had seen his flag flying from a tall pole before his place. The road to freedom from this slavery which would have no end but of his own making, lay toward Monterey. A man might

"Why are you masquerading here? Who are you?"

Henderson started; his muscles jumped. It was a woman's voice, soft and low; the words were English without a taint of foreign accent. But there was nobody in sight as he turned quickly to encounter the speaker, nobody behind the thick trunk of the tree.

It was incredible that anybody could have come, spoken and vanished in a breath, neither the sound of the approach nor the retreat heard by him. But there was nobody under the tree. His eyes, accustomed to the gloom of the deep shadow, would have found the speaker if she were there.

"Who are you?" Henderson demanded in vexed surprise, doubt, even, that he had heard a voice at all. "Where the devil are you, any way?"

"Here," the voice answered, coming to him on a little laugh.

Above him it seemed, in the tree. He peered into the foliage of the oak and saw her there, sit-