All the way across the ocean and the land, and especially on the blazing trail over the alkali plain from Defiance, he had pictured to himself the woman he hoped to find at the end of his journey. He had imagined his interview with her, her emotions of surprise and delight, when he accounted for the fortune he was bringing her. At first she had been but a name, then an idea, and this idea had gradually assumed, in his imagination, the vivid sense of personality. But somehow, in all his speculation, he had never contemplated this! She lived, but she had just flitted forth—whither? Suddenly it came over him that there was no clear next step. For the first time since he had obeyed Krutzmacht’s will and taken the train westward for San Francisco, his spirit was dampened, and in the gray evening a weight of depression fell upon him. For the moment he had no will, no plan. That which had held all his acts together and made them reasonable to himself had vanished. Yet the girl had left behind her an impression—a sense of being some one, a person—which he had never had completely before. Somewhere in the universe there really was a young creature with the strange name of Melody White, to whom belonged sundry important properties now in his possession. It was clearly his business to find her if he could! . . . The old miner came stamping over the loose boards of the veranda. “The place will sure drop to pieces, like all the rest,” he observed, “if something ain’t done to it mighty quick.” “Where do you suppose she went?” the young man asked abruptly. “The girl? Goodness only knows. P’r’aps she went to her mother’s folks, or p’r’aps out to the coast after him—who can tell? ’Twould be like hunting for a young rabbit out there!” He nodded toward the gray plain. By the time that Brainard reached the Waldorf, the landlady had roused herself, and she undertook to provide the traveler with food and room. After disposing of John Chinaman’s fried steak and liver-colored pie, he went forth again into Monument, seeking further information about the former occupants of the mansion beyond the town. But nothing was known of the two women except the vague rumor that the mother had come originally from “Louisiany way.” She had held herself apart from the little community, and most of the present inhabitants of the place, it seemed, were derelicts who had gathered there after the closing of the mine. All the vital population had taken the trail back to the railroad shortly after Krutzmacht’s disappearance from the scene. “Faith, I knew the gurl,” admitted Kate, of the Waldorf. “A queer wan she was, too, ridin’ around by night and singin’ loud up there in the big, lonely house. When you heard her singin’ in the dark, it would frighten the heart in you!”