"I see again," stated the girl.

"So you thought him a bit unbalanced? That _is_ amusing." That the hostess meant the adjective in good faith was proved by her quiet laughter.

Io regarded her speculatively and with suspicion. "He asked the same about me, I suppose." Such was her interpretation of the laugh.

"But he gave you credit for being only temporarily deranged."

"Either he or I ought to be up for examination by a medical board,"

stated the girl poutingly. "One of us must be crazy. The night that I stole his molasses pie--it was pretty awful pie, but I was starved--I stumbled over something in the darkness and fell into it with an awful clatter. What do you suppose it was?"

"I think I could guess," smiled the other.

"Not unless you knew. Personally I couldn't believe it. It felt like a boat, and it rocked like a boat, and there were the seats and the oars.

I could feel them. A steel boat! Miss Van Arsdale, it isn't reasonable."

"Why isn't it reasonable?'

"I looked on the map in his room and there isn't so much as a mud-puddle within miles and miles and miles. Is there?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then what does he want of a steel boat?"

"Ask him."

"It might stir him up. They get violent if you question their pet lunacies, don't they?"

"It's quite simple. Ban is just an incurable romanticist. He loves the water. And his repository of romance is the catalogue of Sears, Roebuck and Co. When the new issue came, with an entrancing illustration of a fully equipped steel boat, he simply couldn't stand it. He had to have one, to remind him that some day he would be going back to the coast lagoons.... Does that sound to you like a fool?"

"No; it sounds delicious," declared the girl with a ripple of mirth.

"What a wonderful person! I'm going over to see him to-morrow. May I?"

"My dear; I have no control over your actions."

"Have you made any other plans for me to-morrow morning?" inquired Miss Welland in a prim and social tone, belied by the dancing light in her eyes.

"I've told you that he was romantic," warned the other.

"What higher recommendation could there be? I shall sit in the boat with him and talk nautical language. Has he a yachting cap? Oh, do tell me that he has a yachting cap!"

Miss Van Arsdale, smiling, shook her head, but her eyes were troubled.

There was compunction in Io's next remark.

"I'm really going over to see about accommodations. Sooner or later I must face the music--meaning Carty. I'm fit enough now, thanks to you."

"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.

"This is a very queer desert," gasped Io. "It's bewitched. Or am I? Now, I'm going to walk once more around you, little owl, or mighty magician, whichever you are. And after I've completely turned your head, you'll fall at my feet. Or else..."

Again she walked around the feathered center of the circle. The head followed her, turning with a steady and uninterrupted motion, on its pivot. Io took a silver dime from her purse.

"Heaven save us from the powers of evil!" she said appreciatively.

"Aroint thee, witch!"

She threw the coin at the cactus.

"Chrr-rr-rrum!" burbled the owl, and flew away.

"I'm dizzy," said Io. "I wonder if the owl is an omen and whether the other inhabitants of this desert are like him; however much you turn their heads, they won't fall for you. Charms and counter-charms!... Be a good child, Io," she admonished herself. "Haven't you got yourself into enough trouble with your deviltries? I can't help it," she defended herself. "When I see a new and interesting specimen, I've just _got_ to investigate its nature and habits. It's an inherited scientific spirit, I suppose. And he is new, and awfully interesting--even if he is only a station-agent." Wherefrom it will be perceived that her thoughts had veered from the cactus owl, to another perplexing local phenomenon.

The glaring line of the railroad right-of-way rose before her feet, a discordant note of rigidity and order in the confused prodigality of desert growth. Io turned away from it, but followed its line until she reached the station. No sign of life greeted her. The door was locked, and the portable house unresponsive to her knocking. Presently, however, she heard the steady click of the telegraph instrument and, looking through the half-open office window, saw Banneker absorbed in his work.

"Good-morning," she called.

Without looking up he gave back her greeting in an absent echo.

"As you didn't come to see me, I've come to see you," was her next attempt.

Did he nod? Or had he made no motion at all?

"I've come to ask important questions about trains," she pursued, a little aggrieved by his indifference to her presence.

No reply from the intent worker.

"And 'tell sad stories of the death of kings,'" she quoted with a fairy chuckle. She thought that she saw a small contortion pass over his features, only to be banished at once. He had retired within the walls of that impassive and inscrutable reserve which minor railroad officials can at will erect between themselves and the lay public. Only the broken rhythms of the telegraph ticker relieved the silence and furnished the justification.