Publisher's Synopsis
When Forrest went through the French windows from his sleeping-porch, he crossed, first, acomfortable dressing room, window-divaned, many-lockered, with a generous fireplace, out ofwhich opened a bathroom; and, second, a long office room, wherein was all the paraphernalia ofbusiness--desks, dictaphones, filing cabinets, book cases, magazine files, and drawer-pigeonholesthat tiered to the low, beamed ceiling.Midway in the office room, he pressed a button and a series of book-freightened shelves swung on apivot, revealing a tiny spiral stairway of steel, which he descended with care that his spurs might notcatch, the bookshelves swinging into place behind him.At the foot of the stairway, a press on another button pivoted more shelves of books and gave himentrance into a long low room shelved with books from floor to ceiling. He went directly to a case, directly to a shelf, and unerringly laid his hand on the book he sought. A minute he ran the pages, found the passage he was after, nodded his head to himself in vindication, and replaced the book.A door gave way to a pergola of square concrete columns spanned with redwood logs and interlacedwith smaller trunks of redwood, all rough and crinkled velvet with the ruddy purple of the bark.It was evident, since he had to skirt several hundred feet of concrete walls of wandering house, thathe had not taken the short way out. Under wide-spreading ancient oaks, where the long hitchingrails, bark-chewed, and the hoof-beaten gravel showed the stamping place of many horses, he founda pale-golden, almost tan-golden, sorrel mare. Her well-groomed spring coat was alive and flamingin the morning sun that slanted straight under the edge of the roof of trees. She was herself alive andflaming. She was built like a stallion, and down her backbone ran a narrow dark strip of hair thatadvertised an ancestry of many range mustang
