In the growing light she could distinguish the distant, low-lying marshes eaten by encroaching sloughs and insidious channels, and beyond them the faint gray waste of the Lower Bay.

A darker peninsula in the marsh she knew to be the extreme boundary of her future home: the Rancho de los Cuervos.

In another hour she began to descend to the plain, and once more to approach the main road, which now ran nearly parallel with her track.

She scanned it cautiously for any early traveler; it stretched north and south in apparent unending solitude.

She struck into it boldly, and urged her horse to the top of his speed, until she reached the cross road that led to the rancho.