PIERRE, now my sketches and plans are finished, how am I going to pass the time?” It was some ten days after the affair at La Siesta, and Dick had spent the interval in close and absorbed work over his drawing board. Happy in his occupation, he had not felt the restraints of confinement.

But now that the task was completed, and the big cardboard cylinder containing the set of drawings rested on the ledge of the easel all ready to be sent away on its mission, a feeling of chafing restlessness had ensued.

“Good Lord, a fellow can’t read all day,” Dick went on, half in soliloquy, half addressing his companion.

“Monsieur is comfortable here?” asked the latter solicitously.

“I should say, old fellow. I was never in better quarters in all my life.”

“And zere is nothing more I could get for ze table?”

“For goodness sake, don’t talk like that, Pierre! In any ease I don’t worry about what I eat. But this is a regular Delmonico’s. Guadalupe is certainly a crackerjack cook. She is even better than Sing Ling. Wherever did she learn to turn out all these little delicacies? And just my favorite dishes, too.”

Pierre smiled enigmatically.

“Guadalupe very clever old squaw,” he remarked.

“I would like to know her better. But she keeps out of my sight all the time.”

“Guadalupe is very old. She has her fixed ideas.”

“I suppose that means she does not love the Americans.”

“No doubt. She prefer to be alone—alone with ze white wolf all ze time. And where the white wolf is, monsieur dare not go.”

“I understand that all right,” laughed Willoughby. “I strolled only once toward the log fire, and the brute showed me a set of teeth which I never wish to see again.”

“Ze white wolf guard ze cave well,” remarked Pierre, sententiously.

“Oh, I’m not thinking of trying to run away. You know I would never break my word. But what the dickens am I to do all day long?”

“What do you say? Suppose we go to ze riffle and wash out some gold.”

“Great Scott!” exclaimed Dick eagerly. “That’s not a bad suggestion. But Don Manuel won’t mind?”

“He will be very pleased—he has no use for ze gold.”

“And Guadalupe?”

“Long ago she would have killed you if you had gone zere. But not now. She very old, and all her people are dead.”

“And the white wolf? That confounded beast won’t interfere?”

“No, no. Ze white wolf stay near Guadalupe all ze time.”

“Then, by jove, it’s a bully idea,” cried Dick. “It gets me all right. We’ll turn miners, Pierre, and we’ll have a rare old sack of nuggets to divide when the time comes for me to go free. I’ll be better off in the end than if I were holding down my old job at the rancho,” he laughed gaily.

“I will find ze spades and ze pans to wash ze gravel. When shall we begin?”

“Well, wait now,” replied Dick, glancing reflectively at the roll of drawings. “I’ve got to send these plans away. I want you to get them at once into the hands of my friend, Lieutenant Chester Munson. He will know how to forward them to their proper destination.”

“May I suggest one zing?”

“Go ahead, Pierre. What’s in your mind?”

“I venture to make one little suggestion. Why not ask ze young lady to take ze plans to your friend?”

“Miss Merle Farnsworth?” asked Dick in surprise. “But how am I to do that?”

“I will promise to arrange a meeting—zat is, if you are not afraid of Mr. Thurston and his men.”

“Afraid!” shouted Dick. “You give me the chance to see Merle again, and old Ben Thurston and all his sleuths may go to blazes.”

“Zen I will arrange, and I zink it will please ze young lady very much to have ze honor of taking care of ze plans.”

“You mean it will be a mighty honor for the plans to be in her care, Pierre. But I know she will gladly do me this service. How and when can I see her?”

“Be ready tomorrow morning by ten o’clock. I will take you to a quiet place among ze old oak trees.”

“Pierre, you’re a regular brick,” cried Dick, as he slapped the old Frenchman on the shoulder in the exuberance of his delight.

The following morning they started out for the trysting place. Dick without demur submitted to the usual precautions. He was blindfolded before mounting his pony in the great central domed cavern and it was not until a couple of hours later, after a veritable switchback ride up and down and round about in a bewildering maze, that he was permitted to remove the bandage. Dismounting, he found himself in the heart of a great oak forest, in what precise locality he could not tell, for there was nothing in sight but endless vistas of tree trunks under their thick canopy of green leaves.

Pierre touched him on the shoulder, and he followed the direction of the Frenchman’s eyes. There, advancing through the sylvan twilight, was Merle Farnsworth, her hands eagerly extended, her face lighted with joy. Following at a little distance came Tia Teresa.

Dick, hastening to meet Merle, took both her hands into his, and gazed deep into her eyes.

“Oh, it’s great to meet you again,” he exclaimed. “And this is my first chance to thank you for having saved me the other night. My word, but you were quick to think and to act. You cannot know how I admired your courage and coolness.”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” protested Merle, in sweet blushing confusion. “You make far too much of the little I did.”

“You saved my life,” said Dick, determinedly. “You can call that a little thing if you choose.”

“No, no,” she replied, earnestly. “If I really did that, then it was truly a big thing.”

“For me.”

“And for all of us,” she added, with face half-averted.

“And you, too?” pressed Dick.

“Yes, for me, too,” answered Merle, turning round and frankly meeting his gaze. “I should never have been happy again had any harm come to you there—that night—in my very home—without a proper effort to get you away to a place of safety.”

“God bless you, Merle, dear,” exclaimed Dick, as again he pressed her hands. He had been carried away by his fervent emotions, but she did not resent the familiar and endearing manner of his address.

He would have taken her in his arms there and then, but Merle drew back and gave a little glance aside. Then Dick remembered Tia Teresa. To his astonishment he found her chatting with Pierre Luzon as if they were old friends.

Dick left Merle for the moment to greet the duenna.

“And I have to thank you, too, for helping me,” he said. Then he added with a laugh: “When am I to be privileged to wear that mantilla again?”

“You are not to be allowed to endanger yourself again,” replied Tia Teresa. “And I warn you now. We remain here only half an hour—these are our orders.”

“Whose orders?”

“Never mind. Just one half hour, that is all.”

“Then I’ll make the best of my time,” exclaimed Dick, turning toward Merle. “I see you won’t be lonely with my gallant friend, Pierre Luzon,” he added with a smile.

“Oh, I knew Pierre when he was just as handsome a young fellow as yourself,” retorted Tia Teresa. “But we’ll excuse you, and Pierre will keep the time.”

Dick led Merle down a glade of the forest, but before doing so he had unstrapped the roll of drawings from the horn of his saddle.

“What are you carrying so very carefully?” asked Merle.

“My plans for the ideal city. I told you I was going to have a try in that competition.”

“I hope you’ll have good luck.”

“Well, I want you to help me. Will you take this package, please, to Chester Munson and ask him to send it to the proper address?”

“With the greatest of pleasure, Mr. Willoughby,”—and she put forth her hands for the roll.

“No—we’ll lay it down here for the present. This log will serve as a seat. See, this twisted, limb makes quite a comfortable nook for you.” He had halted at a fallen tree, had dropped the drawing on the turf, and was now dusting away the twigs and leaves from the seat he had chosen.

“Cannot I look at the drawings?” she asked, after settling herself cosily.

“Before handing them to Munson, if you like. But there are other things to talk about now.” As he spoke he tossed his hat on the ground at her feet.

“Are you growing impatient over your confinement?” she asked.

“Impatient—it is hardly the word. I long to be out in the world again. I could never have endured the long seclusion but for my work over these drawings and my thoughts of you.”

“Why me?”

“I have felt that I am doing the best for your sake as well as my own. I would not have had you subjected to the vulgar gaze of a crowded court room—not for worlds. The very thought that I have saved you from that has made me contented with my enforced idleness.”

“Not idleness,” she said, tapping the roll of drawings with the toe of her shoe.

“Well, no, not idleness exactly.”

“And I do hope you’ll win the prize,” she added, looking up into his eyes.

“So do I. But perhaps you don’t know what I count to be the real prize.”