| CHAPTER I | CHAPTER II | CHAPTER III | CHAPTER IV | CHAPTER V |
| CHAPTER VI | CHAPTER VII | CHAPTER VIII | CHAPTER IX | CHAPTER X |
| CHAPTER XI | CHAPTER XII | CHAPTER XIII |
Morning was breaking on the high road to San Jose. The long lines ofdusty, level track were beginning to extend their vanishing point inthe growing light; on either side the awakening fields of wheat andoats were stretching out and broadening to the sky. In the east andsouth the stars were receding before the coming day; in the west a fewstill glimmered, caught among the bosky hills of the canada delRaimundo, where night seemed to linger. Thither some obscure,low-flying birds were slowly winging; thither a gray coyote, overtakenby the morning, was awkwardly limping. And thither a tramping wayfarerturned, plowing through the dust of the highway still unslaked by thedewless night, to climb the fence and likewise seek the distant cover.
For some moments man and beast kept an equal pace and gait with astrange similarity of appearance and expression; the coyote bearingthat resemblance to his more civilized and harmless congener, the dog,which the tramp bore to the ordinary pedestrians, but both exhibitingthe same characteristics of lazy vagabondage and semi-lawlessness; thecoyote's slouching amble and uneasy stealthiness being repeated in thetramp's shuffling step and sidelong glances. Both were young, andphysically vigorous, but both displayed the same vacillating andawkward disinclination to direct effort. They continued thus half amile apart unconscious of each other, until the superior