Hour after hour she followed the faint glimmer of the dusty road, over the low, rolling hills, across the sloping upland, and down into the edge of the Fernandez plain, steadily leaving behind her the slowly measured miles. At last the east began to glow above the Fernandez mountains and against the golden sky shone the thin, silver-white crescent of the old moon. The blackness of night gradually faded into the gray light of dawn, the sky blushed rosy red, the plain spread itself out before her, flooded with golden red sunlight, and still Amada held to the pace she had kept up all night long. Before her she saw columns of blue smoke rising from the chimneys of Muletown, and she thought longingly of the well in the plaza. But early though it was, she feared to be seen and questioned, for she knew many people in Muletown. So she turned from the main road, leaving the town far to her right, and struck across the trackless plain for the highway running toward the Hermosa mountains. When she reached it the sun was well up in the sky and she sat down on a hillock of sand to rest and eat her breakfast. She was very tired and it seemed good to lie still on the warm sand under the warm sun, so she rested there for a long time, thinking at first of the little gray adobe house far back in the foothills and wondering what the two old people would think and what they would do when they should find their one child gone and no trace left to tell them whither or why she had fled. These thoughts would bring the tears to her eyes, then she would open the letter and read it slowly over and over, and kiss the words of love, and, with soft little laughs and cooings, picture to herself her journey's end. At last she saw a cloud of dust coming toward her from the direction of Muletown and, reminded of the possibility of being seen and questioned by some one she knew, she got up and hurried on her way. She knew her father and mother would not at once be alarmed over her departure. They would think she had risen early and gone up into the foothills to gather sweet herbs. Even after they should find that she was gone she knew that, in the leisurely fashion of the land and people of _manana_, it might be two or three days before they would hitch the horses to the wagon and drive to Muletown to ask if any one there had seen her. But she did not wish to be discovered in her flight by any one whom she knew, and so she hurried on, drawing her mantilla across her face until only her two great black eyes peeped from its folds.