The Valley of the Moon

ds. This queer dwelling was all in one room, built almost entirely of white marble. Hafler cooked, as over a campfire, in the huge marble fireplace, which he used in all ways as a kitchen

wanted to go along that morning, but Hafler scornfully rejected her, telling her that her legs were too short. That night, when the men returned, Billy was played out to exhaustion. H

ithout trails. An' such a pace. He was dead right about your short legs, Saxon. You w

told them to stay the whole winter if they wanted. Billy elected to loaf around and rest up that day. He

me, an' a heavier. An' weight's against walkin', too. But not with him. He's done eighty miles inside twenty-four hours,

game. And down here you're a top-notcher at your own game.

the same it goes against the grain to be walk

metimes for a week or two at a time, and which lingered for months. Then, too, there was no access to market. It was many miles to where the nearest wagon road began, at Post's, and from there on, past Point Sur to Carmel, it was a weary and perilous way. Billy, with his tea

a willing ear to Saxon's argument in favor of a farm-home like the one they had seen in the moving pictures in Oakland. Yes,

llen in love with them. And we can get along without fog. And there must

which he managed to kill on occasions when they stood still. With the rifle he got nothing, although he fired at half a dozen different deer, and, once, at a huge cat-creature with a long tail which he was certain was a mountain lion. Despite the way he grumbled at himself, Sa

picnics for amusement!" he would burst out. "I can't see what was eatin' me that I eve

nd was continually recalling old hunting ta

he exulted. "I'm broke in. An' some day, if I meet up with tha

ay everybody's game and beat them

hat way. But some day, just the same, if I ever see 'm again, I'll invite 'm to put

ction of the government land. They passed a rancher's wagon overturned, a second wagon with a broken axle,

nter," Billy said. "It's horse-killin' an' man-killin', an' I c

the huge delight of his crowd. He planted at all seasons, and it was accepted by the community that what did not rot in the ground was evenly divided between the gophers and trespassing cows. A plow was borrowed, a team of horses hired, and Billy took hold. Also he built a fence around the patch, and

how to use an axe," he snee

the while delivering an exposi

old of the axe. "I'll have to chop a cord of

ered the axe

that's all," he threatened. "My wood-pile is

the surf. When Hazard finished his morning's writing, he would whoop through the pines to Billy, who dropped whatever work he was doing. After the swim, they would take a fresh shower at Hazard's house, rub each other down in training camp style, and be ready for the noon meal. In the afternoon Hazard returned to his desk, and Billy to his outdoor work, although, still later, they often me

revelation to Billy. This part of the country was too settled for large game, but Billy kept Saxon supplied with squirrels and quail, cottontails and jackrabbits, snipe and wild ducks. And they learned to eat roasted mallard and canvasback in the Calif

nst the time of his next retirement. The pale and youthful father of a family, with the face of Shelley, who wrote vaudeville turns for a living and blank verse tragedies and sonnet cycles for the despair of managers and publishers, hid himself in a concrete cell with three-foot walls, so piped, that, by turning a lever, the whole structure spouted w

tituted the aristocracy of art and letters, and was sneered at as bourgeois. In return, it looked askance at the crowd with its rampant bohemiani

ected to be, and in truth found themselves to be, as much at home as anybody. Here, when wordy discussions on all subjects under the sun were not being waged, Billy played at

had been in Carmel a wee

gs. What's the matter with writin' Tom to express 'm dow

an was still her lover. And there were in his eyes all the old lights

or I'm no judge," he told her. And again: "Oh, I love you to death a

o, it rented out carriages and mountain wagons that seated nine persons. With carriages and wagons a driver was furnished. The stable often found itself short a driver, and Billy was quickly called upon. He

enough for them. I'm the driver-something half way between a hired man and a chauffeur. Huh! When they eat they give me my lunch off to one side, or afterward. No family party like with Hall an' HIS kind. An' that crowd to-day, why, they just naturally didn't have no lunch for me at all. After this,

riving animals, his foot on the powerful brake, and swung around curves and along dizzy cliff-rims to a frightened chorus of women pass

sixty dollars an' work regular, he'd jump for me. He's hinted as much.-And, say! Are you onta the fact that yours truly has learnt a new trade. Well he has. He could take a job stage-drivin' anywheres. They driv

much good time wasted that might be employed at a game of Pedro, or going swimming, or wrestling in the sand. Saxon, on the contrary, deli

ohn, a young magazine writer, was an anarchic disciple of Nietzsche. Masson, a painter, held to a doctrine of eternal recurrence that was petrifying. And Hall, usually so merry, could outfoot them all when he once got started on

been following dimly and who only comprehended th

ox, you monstrosity of over-weening and perennial hea

pay my rent or buy grub, an' slugged scabs, an' ben slugged, and ben thrown into jail for makin' a fool of myself. If I get you, I'd be a whole lot better to be a swell

ffort-a compromise of Nirvana and life. Least irritation, least effort, the

all the good thing

," came th

thing. He felt as if his arms ached from inability to compass it al

Jim Hazard an' I get it when we swim out through the surf an' laugh in the teeth of the biggest breakers that ever pounded the beach, an' w

o express ideas that were nebulous at best a

ed lamely, feeling that he had failed to make h

lesh. Afterward come rheumatism and diabetes. The win

rpolated the wild

of coffee Mrs. Hall makes to...." He hesitated at what he was about to say, then took it at a plunge. "To a woman you can love an' that loves you.

lapping went up from the girls, and

ak like a rusty wheelbarrow?" Hall pursued. "Suppose, ju

nsidered

back his shoulders unconsciously as he ran a hand over his biceps and swelled it. Then he took another l

applauded, and

lushing! What have yo

pier," she stammered, "and

ght by strumming on th

mischievous way His

est," Hall gr

destly. "You've read so much I guess yo

aking it all back!" the

age, reassured them with

ndigestion. An' as for Saxon, why, one kiss of her l