“My God, horse, we’ve got to go some the rest of the way! If——”
He did not finish the sentence. They had reached the top of a hill and he put on the brake as they started down. At the foot of the hill stood an automobile—not Mendoza’s shabby little Ford—but a big car with two large headlights. It was turned across the road and not a soul was in sight. Scott took his foot off the brake and with a muttered curse let the buckboard rattle down the hill.
Polly’s first sensation, as she sank into the comfortable seat next the driver and buried her face in the collar of her coat, was one of intense relief. This was something that seemed like home. She felt herself being whirled up the streets of Conejo with the feeling of one who is escaping, the flight being for the time of more importance than the fashion in which one flies.
“I think you will be cold,” said a polite voice at her elbow. “Wait—I have a robe.” And a blanket which smelled of the stable rather than of the garage was wrapped carefully around her. “In a few moments we shall be out of this sand.”
For a while they rode in silence, then the girl said, apologetically:
“I am so sorry. I didn’t want you to go to all this trouble—but I couldn’t stay in that awful place when Bob is so near!”
“If you think Conejo is bad I wonder what you would think of some of our towns further south? They are ruins.”
“Ruins?”
“Ten years of revolution—they do not improve a country.”