I am a heritage, because I 
 brln you years of tboupbt 
 and tbe lore of time ^-^ 
 I Impart yet I can Dot 5pea!<^ 
 I have traveled amorc^ tbe 
 peoples o tbe eartb 
 am a rover ~^ C' 
 I 5tr<^y jrorr? tbe 
 of tbe cm u;bo loves and 
 
 n9Looeo n?e u;bei9 I an? 
 or?e Sbould you/Lpd 
 me va^ra^t please send 
 rr?e bon9e-amoi9fi n?y 
 brothers -on tbe book-, 
 sbelves of
 
 THE VALLEY OF 
 THE MOON 
 
 BY 
 JACK LONDON 
 
 McKINLAY, STONE & MACKENZIE 
 NEW YORK
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1913, 
 tfr COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1911 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1913. Reprinted 
 October, twice, November, December, twice, 1913 : January, March. 
 August, November, 1914 ; July, 1915- March, 1916
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 BOOK I
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 "You hear me, Saxon? Come on along. "What if it is 
 the Bricklayers'? I'll have gentlemen friends there, and 
 soil you. The Al Vista band 11 be along, an' you know 
 it plays heavenly. An' you just love danein' " 
 
 Twenty feet away, a stout, elderly woman interrupted the 
 girl's persuasions. The elderly woman's back was turned, 
 and the back loose, bulging, and misshapen began a con- 
 vulsive heaving. 
 
 ' ' Gawd ! " she cried out. L ' Gawd ! " 
 
 She flung wild glances, like those of an entrapped animal, 
 up and down the big whitewashed room that panted with 
 heat and that was thickly humid with the steam that sizzled 
 from the damp cloth under the irons of the many ironers. 
 From the girls and women near her, all swinging irons 
 steadily but at high pace, came quick glances, and labor 
 efficiency suffered to the extent of a score of suspended or 
 inadequate movements. The elderly woman's cry had 
 caused a tremor of money-loss to pass among the piece- 
 work ironers of fancy starch. 
 
 She gripped herself and her iron with a visible effort, and 
 dabbed futilely at the frail, frilled garment on the board 
 under her hand. 
 
 "I thought she'd got 'em again didn't you?" the girl 
 said. 
 
 "It's a shame, a woman of her age, and . . . condi- 
 tion," Saxon answered, as she frilled a lace ruffle with a 
 hot fluting-iron. Her movements were delicate, safe, and 
 swift, and though her face was wan with fatigue and ex- 
 hausting heat, there was no slackening in her pace. 
 
 "An' her with seven, an' two of 'em in reform school,*' 
 3
 
 4 THE VALLEY <JF THE MOON 
 
 the girl at the next board sniffed sympathetic agreement. 
 "But you just got to come to Weasel Park to-morrow, 
 Saxon. The Bricklayers ' is always lively tugs-of-war, fat- 
 man races, real Irish jiggin', an' . . . an' everything. 
 An' the floor of the pavilion's swell." 
 
 But the elderly woman brought another interruption. 
 }She dropped her iron on the shirtwaist, clutched at the 
 board, fumbled it, caved in at the knees and hips, and like 
 a half-empty sack collapsed on the floor, her long shriek 
 rising in the pent room to the acrid smell of scorching 
 cloth. The women at the boards near to her scrambled, 
 first, to the hot iron to save the cloth, and then to her, while 
 the forewoman hurried belligerently down the aisle. The 
 women farther away continued unsteadily at their work, 
 losing movements to the extent of a minute's set-back to 
 the totality of the efficiency of the fancy-starch room. 
 
 "Enough to kill a dog," the girl muttered, thumping her 
 iron down on its rest with reckless determination. "Work- 
 in' girls' life ain't what it's cracked up. Me to quit 
 that's what I'm comin' to." 
 
 "Mary!" Saxon uttered the other's name with a re- 
 proach so profound that she was compelled to rest her own 
 iron for emphasis and so lose a dozen movements. 
 
 Mary flashed a half-frightened look across. 
 
 "I didn't mean it, Saxon," she whimpered. "Honest, I 
 didn't. I wouldn't never go that way. But I leave it to 
 you, if a day like this don't get on anybody's nerves. Lis- 
 ten to that!" 
 
 The stricken woman, on her back, drumming her heels 
 on the floor, was shrieking persistently and monotonously, 
 like a mechanical siren. Two women, clutching her under 
 the arms, were dragging her down the aisle. She drummed 
 and shrieked the length of it. The door opened, and a vast, 
 muffled roar of machinery burst in ; and in the roar of it 
 the drumming and the shrieking were drowned ere the 
 door swung shut. Remained of the episode only the scorch 
 of cloth drifting ominously through the air. 
 
 "It's sickening" said Mary.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 5 
 
 And thereafter, for a long time, the many irons rose and 
 fell, the pace of the room in no wise diminished ; while the 
 forewoman strode the aisles with a threatening eye for 
 incipient breakdown and hysteria. Occasionally an ironer 
 lost the stride for an instant, gasped or sighed, then caught 
 it up again with weary determination. The long summer 
 day waned, but not the heat, and under the raw flare of 
 electric light the work went on. 
 
 By nine o'clock the first women began to go home. The 
 mountain of fancy starch had been demolished all save 
 the few remnants, here and there, on the boards, where the 
 ironers still labored. 
 
 Saxon finished ahead of Mary, at whose board she paused 
 on the way out. 
 
 "Saturday night an' another week gone," Mary said 
 mournfully, her young cheeks pallid and hollowed, her black 
 eyes blue-shadowed and tired. "What d'you think you've 
 made, Saxon?" 
 
 "Twelve and a quarter," was the answer, just touched 
 with pride. "And I'd a-made more if it wasn't for that 
 fake bunch of starchers." 
 
 "My! I got to pass it to you," Mary congratulated. 
 "You're a sure fierce hustler just eat it up. Me I've 
 only ten an ' a half, an ' for a hard week. . . . See you on 
 the nine-forty. Sure now. We can just fool around until 
 the dancin' begins. A lot of my gentlemen friends '11 be 
 there in the afternoon." 
 
 Two blocks from the laundry, where an arc-light showed 
 a gang of toughs on the corner, Saxon quickened her pace. 
 Unconsciously her face set and hardened as she passed. 
 She did not catch the words of the muttered comment, but 
 the rough laughter it raised made her guess and warmed 
 her cheeks with resentful blood. Three blocks more, turn- 
 ing once to left and once to right, she walked on through 
 the night that was already growing cool. On either side 
 were workingmen's houses, of weathered wood, the ancient 
 paint grimed with the dust of years, conspicuous only for 
 cheapness and ugliness.
 
 6 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 Dark it was, but she made no mistake, the familiar sag 
 and screeching reproach of the front gate welcome under 
 her hand. She went along the narrow walk to the rear, 
 avoided the missing step without thinking about it, and 
 entered the kitchen, where a solitary gas-jet flickered. She 
 turned it up to the best of its flame. It was a small room, 
 not disorderly, because of lack of furnishings to disorder 
 it. The plaster, discolored by the steam of many wash- 
 days, was crisscrossed with cracks from the big earthquake 
 of the previous spring. The floor was ridged, wide-cracked, 
 and uneven, and in front of the stove it was worn through 
 and repaired with a five-gallon oil-can hammered flat and 
 double. A sink, a dirty roller-towel, several chairs, and a 
 wooden table completed the picture. 
 
 An apple-core crunched under her foot as she drew a 
 chair to the table. On the frayed oilcloth, a supper waited. 
 She attempted the cold beans, thick with grease, but gave 
 them up, and buttered a slice of bread. 
 
 The rickety house shook to a heavy, prideless tread, and 
 through the inner door came Sarah, middle-aged, lop- 
 breasted, hair-tousled, her face lined with care and fat 
 petulance. 
 
 "Huh, it's you," she grunted a greeting. "I just 
 couldn't keep things warm. Such a day! I near died of 
 the heat. An' little Henry cut his lip awful. The doctor 
 had to put four stitches in it. ' ' 
 
 Sarah came over and stood mountainously by the table. 
 
 "What's the matter with them beans?" she challenged. 
 
 "Nothing, only . . ." Saxon caught her breath and 
 avoided the threatened outburst. "Only I'm not hungry. 
 It 's been so hot all day. It was terrible in the laundry. ' ' 
 
 Recklessly she took a mouthful of the cold tea that had 
 been steeped so long that it was like acid in her mouth, 
 and recklessly, under the eye of her sister-in-law, she swal- 
 lowed it and the rest of the cupful. She wiped her mouth 
 on her handkerchief and got up. 
 
 "I guess I'll go to bed." 
 
 "Wonder you ain't out to a dance," Sarah sniffed.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON T 
 
 "Funny, ain't it, you come home so dead tired every night, 
 an' yet any night in the week you can get out an' dance 
 unearthly hours." 
 
 Saxon started to speak, suppressed herself with tightened 
 lips, then lost control and blazed out; "Wasn't you ever 
 young ? ' ' 
 
 Without waiting for reply, she turned to her bedroom, 
 which opened directly off the kitchen. It was a small room, 
 eight by twelve, and the earthquake had left its marks 
 upon the plaster. A bed and chair of cheap pine and a 
 very ancient chest of drawers constituted the furniture. 
 Saxon had known this chest of drawers all her life. The 
 vision of it was woven into her earliest recollections. She 
 knew it had crossed the plains with her people in a prairie 
 schooner. It was of solid mahogany. One end was cracked 
 and dented from the capsize of the wagon in Rock Canyon. 
 A bullet-hole, plugged, in the face of the top drawer, told 
 of the fight with the Indians at Little Meadow. Of these 
 happenings her mother had told her; also had she told that 
 the chest had come with the family originally from Eng- 
 land in a day even earlier than the day on which George 
 Washington was born. 
 
 Above the chest of drawers, on the wall, hung a small 
 looking-glass. Thrust under the molding were photo- 
 graphs of young men and women, and of picnic groups 
 wherein the young men, with hats rakishly on the backs 
 of their heads, encircled the girls with their arms. Farther 
 along on the wall were a colored calendar and numerous 
 colored advertisements and sketches torn out of magazines. 
 Most of these sketches were of horses. From the gas-fixture 
 hung a tangled bunch of well-scribbled dance programs. 
 
 Saxon started to take off her hat, but suddenly sat down 
 on the bed. She sobbed softly, with considered repression, 
 but the weak-latched door swung noiselessly open, and she 
 was startled by her sister-in-law's voice. 
 
 "Now what's the matter with you? If you didn't like 
 them beans " 
 
 4 'No, no," Saxon explained hurriedly. "I'm just tired,
 
 8 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 that's all, and my feet hurt. I wasn't hungry, Sarah. I'm 
 just beat out." 
 
 "If you took care of this house," came the retort, "an* 
 cooked an ' baked, an ' washed, an ' put up with what I put 
 up, you'd have something to be beat out about. You've got 
 a snap, you have. But just wait." Sarah broke off to 
 cackle gloatingly. "Just wait, that's all, an' you'll be fool 
 enough to get married some day, like me, an' then you'll 
 get yours an' it'll be brats, an' brats, an' brats, an' no 
 more dancin', an' silk stockin's, an' three pairs of shoes at 
 one time. You've got a cinch nobody to think of but 
 your own precious self an' a lot of young hoodlums makin' 
 eyes at you an' tellin' you how beautiful your eyes 
 are. Huh I Some fine day you'll tie up to one of 'em, 
 an' then, mebbe, on occasion, you'll wear black eyes for 
 a change." 
 
 ' * Don 't say that, Sarah, ' ' Saxon protested. ' ' My brother 
 never laid hands on you. You know that." 
 
 "No more he didn't. He never had the gumption. Just 
 the same, he's better stock than that tough crowd you run 
 with, if he can't make a livin' an' keep his wife in three 
 pairs of shoes. Just the same he's oodles better 'n your 
 bunch of hoodlums that no decent woman 'd wipe her one 
 pair of shoes on. How you've missed trouble this long is 
 beyond me. Mebbe the younger generation is wiser in such 
 things I don 't know. But I do know that a young woman 
 that has three pairs of shoes ain't thinkin' of anything but 
 her own enjoyment, an' she's goin' to get hers, I can tell 
 her that much. When I was a girl there wasn't such 
 doin's. My mother 'd taken the hide off me if I done the 
 things you do. An' she was right, just as everything in 
 the world is wrong now. Look at your brother, a-runnin* 
 around to socialist meetin's, an' chewin' hot air, an' dig- 
 gin' up extra strike dues to the union that means so much 
 bread out of the mouths of his children, instead of makin' 
 good with his bosses. Why, the dues he pays would keep 
 me in seventeen pairs of shoes if I was nannygoat enough 
 to want 'em. Some day, mark my words, he'll get hia
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 9 
 
 time, an' then what '11 we do? What '11 I do, with five 
 mouths to feed an' nothin' comin* in?" 
 
 She stopped, out of breath but seething with the tirade 
 yet to come. 
 
 "Oh, Sarah, please won't you shut the door?" Saxon 
 pleaded. 
 
 The door slammed violently, and Saxon, ere she fell to 
 crying again, could hear her sister-in-law lumbering about 
 the kitchen and talking loudly to herself.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 EACH bought her own ticket at the entrance to "Weasel 
 Park. And each, as she laid her half-dollar down, was 
 distinctly aware of how many pieces of fancy starch were 
 represented by the coin. It was too early for the crowd, 
 but bricklayers and their families, laden with huge lunch- 
 baskets and armfuls of babies, were already going in a 
 healthy, husky race of workmen, well-paid and robustly 
 fed. And with them, here and there, undisguised by their 
 decent American clothing, smaller in bulk and stature, 
 weazened not alone by age but by the pinch of lean years 
 and early hardship, were grandfathers and mothers who 
 had patently first seen the light of day on old Irish soil. 
 Their faces showed content and pride as they limped along 
 with this lusty progeny of theirs that had fed on better 
 food. 
 
 Not with these did Mary and Saxon belong. They knew 
 them not, had no acquaintances among them. It did not 
 matter whether the festival were Irish, German, or Slavon- 
 ian ; whether the picnic was the Bricklayers ', the Brewers ', 
 or the Butchers'. They, the girls, were of the dancing 
 crowd that swelled by a certain constant percentage the 
 gate receipts of all the picnics. 
 
 They strolled about among the booths where peanuts 
 were grinding and popcorn was roasting in preparation for 
 the day, and went on and inspected the dance floor of the 
 pavilion. Saxon, clinging to an imaginary partner, essayed 
 a few steps of the dip-waltz. Mary clapped her hands. 
 
 " My ! " she cried. ' ' You 're just swell ! An ' them stock- 
 in 's is peaches." 
 
 Saxon smiled with appreciation, pointed out her foot, 
 velvet-slippered with high Cuban heels, and slightly lifted 
 19
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 11 
 
 the tight black skirt, exposing a trim ankle and delicate 
 swell of calf, the white flesh gleaming through the thinnest 
 and flimsiest of fifty-cent black silk stockings. She was 
 slender, not tall, yet the due round lines of womanhood 
 were hers. On her white shirtwaist was a pleated jabot 
 of cheap lace, caught with a large novelty pin of imitation 
 coral. Over the shirtwaist was a natty jacket, elbow-sleeved, 
 and to the elbows she wore gloves of imitation suede. The 
 one eLsentially natural touch about her appearance waa 
 the few curls, strangers to curling-irons, that escaped from 
 tinder the little naughty hat of black velvet pulled low over 
 the eyes. 
 
 Mary's dark eyes flashed with joy at the sight, and with 
 a swift little run she caught the other girl in her arms 
 and kissed her in a breast-crushing embrace. She released 
 her, blushing at her own extravagance. 
 
 "You look good to me," she cried, in extenuation. "If 
 I was a man I couldn't keep my hands off you. I'd eat 
 you, I sure would." 
 
 They went out of the pavilion hand in hand, and on 
 through the sunshine they strolled, swinging hands gaily, 
 reacting exuberantly from the week of deadening toil. They 
 hung over the railing of the bear-pit, shivering at the huge 
 and lonely denizen, and passed quickly on to ten minutes 
 of laughter at the monkey cage. Crossing the grounds, 
 they looked down into the little face track on the bed of a 
 natural amphitheater where the early afternoon games were 
 to take place. After that they explored the woods, threaded 
 by countless paths, ever opening out in new surprises of 
 green-painted rustic tables and benches in leafy nooks, 
 many of which were already pre-empted by family parties. 
 On a grassy slope, tree-surrounded, they spread a news- 
 paper and sat down on the short grass already tawny-dry 
 under the California sun. Half were they minded to do 
 this because of the grateful indolence after six days of 
 insistent motion, half in conservation for the hours of danc- 
 ing to come. 
 
 "Bert Wanhope'll be sure to come," Mary chattered.
 
 12 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "An* he said he was going to bring Billy Roberts 'Big 
 Bill,' all the fellows call him. He's just a big boy, but he's 
 awfully tough. He's a prizefighter, an' all the girls run 
 after him. I'm afraid of him. He ain't quick in talkin'. 
 He's more like that big bear we saw. Brr-rf ! Brr-rf \ 
 bite your head off, just like that. He ain't really a prize- 
 fighter. He's a teamster belongs to the union. Drives 
 for Corberly and Morrison. But sometimes he fights in the 
 'clubs. Most of the fellows are scared of him. He's got a 
 bad temper, an' he'd just as soon hit a fellow as eat, just 
 like that. You won't like him, but he's a swell dancer. 
 He's heavy, you know, an' he just slides and glides around. 
 You wanta have a dance with 'm anyway. He's a good 
 spender, too. Never pinches. But my! he's got one 
 temper." 
 
 The talk wandered on, a monologue on Mary's part, that 
 centered always on Bert Wanhope. 
 
 "You and he are pretty thick," Saxon ventured. 
 
 "I'd marry 'm to-morrow," Mary flashed out impul- 
 sively. Then her face went bleakly forlorn, hard almost 
 in its helpless pathos. "Only, he never asks me. He's 
 . . ." Her pause was broken by sudden passion. "You 
 watch out for him, Saxon, if he ever comes foolin' around 
 you. He's no good. Just the same, I'd marry him to- 
 morrow. He'll never get me any other way." Her mouth 
 opened, but instead of speaking she drew a long sigh. "It's 
 a funny world, ain't it?" she added. "More like a scream. 
 And all the stars are worlds, too. I wonder where God 
 hides. Bert Wanhope says there ain't no God. But he's 
 just terrible. He says the most terrible things. I believe 
 in God. Don't you? What do you think about God, 
 Saxon?" 
 
 Saxon shrugged her shoulders and laughed. 
 
 "But if we do wrong we get ours, don't we?" Mary 
 persisted. "That's what they all say, except Bert. He 
 says he don't care what he does, he'll never get his, because 
 when he dies he's dead, an' when he's dead he'd like to 
 see any one put anything across on him that'd wake him
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 13 
 
 up. Ain't he terrible, though? But it's all so funny. 
 Sometimes I get scared when I think God's keepin' an eye 
 on me all the time. Do you think he knows what I 'm sayin ' 
 now? What do you think he looks like, anyway?" 
 
 "I don't know," Saxon answered. "He's just a funny 
 proposition." 
 
 "Oh!" the other gasped. 
 
 "He is, just the same, from what all people say of him," 
 Saxon went on stoutly. "My brother thinks he looks like 
 Abraham Lincoln. Sarah thinks he has whiskers." 
 
 "An' I never think of him with his hair parted," Mary 
 confessed, daring the thought and shivering with appre- 
 hension. "He just couldn't have his hair parted. That'd 
 be funny." 
 
 "You know that little, wrinkly Mexican that sells wire 
 puzzles?" Saxon queried. "Well, God somehow always 
 reminds me of him." 
 
 Mary laughed outright. 
 
 "Now that is funny. I never thought of him like that. 
 How do you make it out?" 
 
 "Well, just like the little Mexican, he seems to spend 
 his time peddling puzzles. He passes a puzzle out to every- 
 body, and they spend all their lives tryin' to work it out. 
 They all get stuck. I can't work mine out. I don't know 
 where to start. And look at the puzzle he passed Sarah. 
 And she's part of Tom's puzzle, and she only makes his 
 worse. And they all, an' everybody I know you, too are 
 part of my puzzle." 
 
 "Mebbe the puzzles is , right," Mary considered. "But 
 
 God don 't look like that yellow little Greater. That I won 't 
 fall for. God don 't look like anybody. Don't you remem- 
 ber on the wall at the Salvation Army it says 'God is a 
 spirit'?" 
 
 "That's another one of his puzzles, I guess, because no- 
 body knows what a spirit looks like." 
 
 "That's right, too." Mary shuddered with reminiscent 
 fear. "Whenever I try to think of God as a spirit, I can 
 see Hen Miller all wrapped up in a sheet an' runnin' us
 
 14 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 girls. We didn't know, an' it scared the life out of us. 
 Little Maggie Murphy fainted dead away, and Beatrice 
 Peralta fell an' scratched her face horrible. "When I think 
 of a spirit all I can see is a white sheet runnin' in the 
 dark. Just the same, God don't look like a Mexican, an' 
 he don't wear his hair parted." 
 
 A strain of music from the dancing pavilion brought 
 both girls scrambling to their feet. 
 
 ""We can get a couple of dances in before we eat," Mar/ 
 proposed. "An' then it'll be afternoon an' all the fel- 
 lows '11 be here. Most of them are pinchers that's why 
 they don't come early, so as to get out of taking the girls 
 to dinner. But Bert's free with his money, an' so is Billy. 
 If we can beat the other girls to it, they'll take us to the 
 restaurant. Come on, hurry, Saxon." 
 
 There were few couples on the floor when they arrived 
 at the pavilion, and the two girls essayed the first waltz 
 together. 
 
 "There's Bert now," Saxon whispered, as they came 
 around the second time. 
 
 "Don't take any notice of them," Mary whispered back. 
 "We'll just keep on goin'. They needn't think we're 
 chasin' after them." 
 
 But Saxon noted the heightened color in the other's 
 cheek, and felt her quicker breathing. 
 
 "Did you see that other one?" Mary asked, as she backed 
 Saxon in a long slide across the far end of the pavilion. 
 ' ' That was Billy Roberts. Bert said he 'd come. He '11 take 
 you to dinner, and Bert '11 take me. It 's goin ' to be a swell 
 day, you'll see. My! I only wish the music '11 hold out 
 till we can get back to the other end." 
 
 Down the floor they danced, on man-trapping and din- 
 ner-getting intent, two fresh young things that undeniably 
 danced well and that were delightfully surprised when the 
 music stranded them perilously near to their desire. 
 
 Bert and Mary addressed each other by their given 
 names, but to Saxon Bert was "Mr. Wanhope," though he 
 called her by her first name. The only introduction was of
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 15 
 
 Saxon and Billy Roberts. Mary carried it off with a flurry 
 of nervous carelessness. 
 
 "Mr. Roberts Miss Brown. She's my best friend. Her 
 first name's Saxon. Ain't it a scream of a name?" 
 
 "Sounds good to me," Billy retorted, hat off and hand 
 extended. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Brown." 
 
 As their hands clasped and she felt the teamster cal- 
 - louses on his palm, her quick eyes saw a score of things. 
 'About all that he saw was her eyes, and then it was with 
 a vague impression that they were blue. Not till later in 
 the day did he realize that they were gray. She, on the 
 contrary, saw his eyes as they really were deep blue, wide, 
 and handsome in a sullen-boyish way. She saw that they 
 were straight-looking, and she liked them, as she had liked 
 the glimpse she had caught of his hand, and as sue liked 
 the contact of his hand itself. Then, too, but not sharply, 
 she had perceived the short, square-set nose, the rosiness 
 of cheek, and the firm, short upper lip, ere delight centered 
 her flash of gaze on the well-modeled, large clean mouth 
 where red lips smiled clear of the white, enviable teeth. 
 A boy, a great big man-boy, was her thought; and, as 
 they smiled at each other and their hands slipped apart, 
 ehe was startled by a glimpse of his hair short and crisp 
 and sandy, hinting almost of palest gold save that it was 
 too flaxen to hint of gold at all. 
 
 So blond was he that she was reminded of stage-types 
 she had seen, such as Ole Olson and Yon Yonson; but 
 there resemblance ceased. It was a matter of color only, 
 for the eyes were dark-lashed and -browed, and were cloudy 
 with temperament rather than staring a child-gaze of won- 
 der, and the suit of smooth brown cloth had been made by 
 a tailor. Saxon appraised the suit on the instant, and her 
 secret judgment was not a cent less than fifty dollars. Fur- 
 ther, he had none of the awkwardness of the Scandinavian 
 immigrant. On the contrary, he was one of those rare 
 individuals that radiate muscular grace through the un- 
 graceful man-garments of civilization. Every movement 
 was supple, slow, and apparently considered. This sb*
 
 16 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 did not see nor analyze. She saw only a clothed man 
 with grace of carriage and movement. She felt, rather 
 than perceived, the calm and certitude of all the muscular 
 play of him, and she felt, too, the promise of easement and 
 rest that was especially grateful and craved-for by one who 
 had incessantly, for six days and at top-speed, ironed fancy 
 starch. As the touch of his hand had been good, so, to 
 her, this subtler feel of all of him, body and mind, was 
 good. 
 
 As he took her program and skirmished and joked after 
 the way of young men, she realized the immediacy of de- 
 light she had taken in him. Never in her life had she been 
 so affected by any man. She wondered to herself: 7s this 
 the manf 
 
 He danced beautifully. The joy was hers that good 
 dancers take when they have found a good dancer for a 
 partner. The grace of those slow-moving, certain muscles 
 of his accorded perfectly with the rhythm of the music. 
 There was never doubt, never a betrayal of indecision. She 
 glanced at Bert, dancing "tough" with Mary, caroming 
 down the long floor with more than one collision with the 
 increasing couples. Graceful himself in his slender, tall, 
 lean-stomached way, Bert was accounted a good dancer; 
 yet Saxon did not remember ever having danced with him 
 with keen pleasure. Just a bit of a jerk spoiled his dancing 
 a jerk that did not occur, usually, but that always im- 
 pended. There was something spasmodic in his mind. He 
 was too quick, or he continually threatened to be too quick. 
 He always seemed just on the verge of overrunning thej 
 time. It was disquieting. He made for unrest. 
 
 "You're a dream of a dancer," Billy Roberts was say- 
 ing. "I've heard lots of the fellows talk about your danc- 
 ing." 
 
 "I love it," she answered. 
 
 But from the way she said it he sensed her reluctance 
 to speak, and danced on in silence, while she warmed with 
 the appreciation of a woman for gentle consideration. 
 Gentle consideration was a thing rarely encountered in the
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 17 
 
 life she lived. Is this the man? She remembered Mary's 
 "I'd marry him to-morrow," and caught herself speculat- 
 ing on marrying Billy Roberts by the next day if he asked 
 her. 
 
 With eyes that dreamily desired to close, she moved on 
 in the arms of this masterful, guiding pressure. A prize- 
 fighter! She experienced a thrill of wickedness as she 
 .thought of what Sarah would say could she see her now. 
 'Only he wasn 't a prizefighter, but a teamster. 
 
 Came an abrupt lengthening of step, the guiding pressure 
 grew more compelling, and she was caught up and carried 
 along, though her velvet-shod feet never left the floor. Then 
 came the sudden control down to the shorter step again, 
 and she felt herself being held slightly from him so that 
 he might look into her face and laugh with her in joy at 
 the exploit. At the end, as the band slowed in the last 
 bars, they, too, slowed, their dance fading with the music 
 in a lengthening glide that ceased with the last lingering 
 tone. 
 
 "We're sure cut out for each other when it comes to 
 dancin'," he said, as they made their way to rejoin the 
 other couple. 
 
 "It was a dream," she replied. 
 
 So low was her voice that he bent to hear, and saw the 
 flush in her cheeks that seemed communicated to her eyes, 
 which were softly warm and sensuous. He took the pro- 
 gram from her and gravely and gigantically wrote his 
 name across all the length of it. 
 
 "An' now it's no good," he dared. "Ain't no need 
 If or it." 
 
 He tore it across and tossed it aside. 
 
 "Me for you, Saxon, for the next," was Bert's greeting, 
 as they came up. "You take Mary for the next whirl, 
 Bill." 
 
 "Nothin' doin', Bo," was the retort. "Me an' Saxon's 
 framed up to last the day. ' ' 
 
 "Watch out for him, Saxon," Mary warned facetiously. 
 "He's liable to get a crush on you."
 
 18 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "I guess I know a good thing when I see it " Billy re- 
 sponded gallantly. 
 
 "And so do I," Saxon aided and abetted. 
 
 "I'd 'a' known you if I'd seen you in the dark," Billy 
 added. 
 
 Mary regarded them with mock alarm, and Bert said 
 good-naturedly : 
 
 "All I got to say is you ain't wastin' any time gettin' 
 together. Just the same, if you can spare a few minutes 
 from each other after a couple more whirls, Mary an* me'd 
 be complimented to have your presence at dinner." 
 
 "Just like that," chimed Mary. 
 
 "Quit your kiddin'," Billy laughed back, turning his 
 head to look into Saxon's eyes. "Don't listen to 'em. 
 They're grouched because they got to dance together. 
 Bert's a rotten dancer, and Mary ain't so much. Come on, 
 there she goes. See you after two more dances."
 
 CHAPTER in 
 
 THEY had dinner in the open-air, tree-walled dining- 
 room, and Saxon noted that it was Billy who paid the 
 reckoning for the four. They knew many of the young 
 men and women at the other tables, and greetings and fun 
 flew back and forth. Bert was very possessive with Mary, 
 almost roughly so, resting his hand on hers, catching and 
 holding it, and, once, forcibly slipping off her two rings 
 and refusing to return them for a long while. At times, 
 when he put his arm around her waist, Mary promptly 
 disengaged it ; and at other times, with elaborate oblivious- 
 ness that deceived no one, she allowed it to remain. 
 
 And Saxon, talking little but studying Billy Roberts very 
 intently, was satisfied that there would be an utter differ- 
 ence in the way he would do such things ... if ever he 
 would do them. Anyway, he'd never paw a girl as Bert 
 and lots of the other fellows did. She measured the breadth 
 of Billy's heavy shoulders. 
 
 ' ' Why do they call you ' Big ' Bill ? " she asked. ' * You 're 
 not so very tall. ' ' 
 
 "Nope," he agreed. "I'm only five feet eight an' three- 
 quarters. I guess it must be my weight." 
 
 "He fights at a hundred an' eighty," Bert interjected. 
 
 "Oh, cut it," Billy said quickly, a cloud-rift of dis- 
 pleasure showing in his eyes. "I ain't a fighter. I ain't 
 fought in six months. I've quit it. It don't pay." 
 
 "You got two hundred the night you put the Frisco 
 Slasher tc the bad," Bert urged proudly. 
 
 "Cut it. Cut it now. Say, Saxon, you ain't so big 
 
 yourself, are you? But you're built just right if anybody 
 should ask you. You're round an' slender at the 
 time. I bet I can guess your weight."
 
 20 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Everybody guesses over it," she warned, while inwardly 
 she was puzzled that she should at the same time be glad 
 and regretful that he did not fight any more. 
 
 "Not me," he was saying. "I'm a wooz at weight- 
 guessin'. Just you watch me." He regarded her criti- 
 cally, and it was patent that warm approval played its 
 little rivalry with the judgment of his gaze. "Wait a min- 
 nte." 
 
 He reached over to her and felt her arm at the biceps. 
 The pressure of the encircling fingers was firm and honest, 
 and Saxon thrilled to it. There was magic in this man- 
 boy. She would have known only irritation had Bert or 
 any other man felt her arm. But this man ! Is he the 
 man? she was questioning, when he voiced his conclusion. 
 
 "Your clothes don't weigh more'n seven pounds. And 
 seven from hum say one hundred an' twenty -three one 
 hundred an ' sixteen is your stripped weight. ' ' 
 
 But at the penultimate word, Mary cried out with sharp 
 reproof : 
 
 "Why, Billy Roberts, people don't talk about such 
 things." 
 
 He looked at her with slow-growing, uncomprehending 
 surprise. 
 
 "What things?" he demanded finally. 
 
 ' ' There you go again ! You ought to be ashamed of 
 yourself. Look! You've got Saxon blushing!" 
 
 "I am not," Saxon denied indignantly. 
 
 "An' if you keep on, Mary, you'll have me blushing," 
 Billy growled. "I guess I know what's right an' what 
 ain't. It ain't what a guy says, but what he thinks. An' 
 I'm thinkin' right, an' Saxon knows it. An' she an' I 
 ain't thinkin' what you're thinkin' at all." 
 
 "Oh! Oh!" Mary cried. "You're gettin' worse an' 
 worse. I never think such things." 
 
 "Whoa, Mary ! Back up !" Bert checked her peremptor- 
 ily. "You're in the wrong stall. Billy never makes mis- 
 takes like that." 
 
 ' ' But he needn 't be so raw, ' ' she persisted.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 21 
 
 "Come on, Mary, an' be good, an' cut that stuff," was 
 Billy's dismissal of her, as he turned to Saxon. "How 
 near did I come to it ? " 
 
 "One hundred and twenty-two," she answered, look- 
 ing deliberately at Mary. "One twenty two with my 
 clothes." 
 
 Billy burst into hearty laughter, in which Bert joined. 
 
 "'I don't care," Mary protested. "You're terrible, both 
 of you an' you, too, Saxon. I'd never a-thought it of 
 you. ' ' 
 
 "Listen to me, kid," Bert began soothingly, as his arm 
 slipped around her waist. 
 
 But in the false excitement she had worked herself into, 
 Mary rudely repulsed the arm, and then, fearing that she 
 had wounded her lover's feelings, she took advantage of 
 the teasing and banter to recover her good humor. His 
 arm was permitted to return, and with heads bent together, 
 they talked in whispers. 
 
 Billy discreetly began to make conversation with Saxon. 
 
 "Say, you know, your name is a funny one. I never 
 heard it tagged on anybody before. But it's all right." J 
 like it." 
 
 "My mother gave it to me. She was educated, and knew 
 
 all kinds of words. She was always reading books, almost 
 
 until she died. And she wrote lots and lots. I've got 
 
 some of her poetry published in a San Jose newspaper 
 
 long ago. The Saxons were a race of people she told me 
 
 all about them when I was a little girl. They were wild, 
 
 ! like Indians, only they were white. And they had blue 
 
 "eyes, and yellow hair, and they were awful fighters.'' 
 
 As she talked, Billy followed her solemnly, his eyes stead- 
 ily turned on hers. 
 
 "Never heard of them," he confessed. "Did they live 
 anywhere around here?" 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 "No. They lived in England. They were the first Eng- 
 lish, and you know the Americans came from the English. 
 "We're Saxons, you an' me, an' Mary, an' Bert, and all the
 
 22 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 Americans that are real Americans, you know, and not 
 Dagoes and Japs and such." 
 
 "My folks lived in America a iong time," Billy said 
 slowly, digesting the information she had given and relat- 
 ing himself to it. "Anyway, my mother's folks did. They 
 crossed to Maine hundreds of years ago. ' ' 
 
 "My father was State of Maine," she broke in, with a, 
 little gurgie of joy. "And my mother was born in Ohio/ 
 or where Ohio is now. She used to call it the Great West- 
 ern Reserve. What was your father?" 
 
 "Don't know." Billy shrugged his shoulders. "He 
 didn't know himself. Nobody ever knew, though he was 
 American, all right, all right." 
 
 "His name's regular old American," Saxon suggested. 
 "There's a big English general right now whose name is 
 Roberts. I've read it in the papers." 
 
 "But Roberts wasn't my father's name. He never knew 
 what his name was. Roberts was the name of a gold-miner 
 who adopted him. You see, it was this way. When they 
 was Indian-fightin ' up there with the Modoc Indians, a 
 lot of the miners an' settlers took a hand. Roberts was 
 captain of one outfit, and once, after a fight, they took a 
 lot of prisoners squaws, an' kids an' babies. An' one of 
 the kids was my father. They figured he was about five 
 years old. He didn't know nothin' but Indian." 
 
 Saxon clapped her hands, and her eyes sparkled: "He'd 
 been captured on an. Indian raid!" 
 
 ' * That 's the way they figured it, ' ' Billy nodded. ' ' They 
 recollected a wagon-train of Oregon settlers that'd been> 
 killed by the Modocs four years before. Roberts adopted 
 him, and that's why I don't know his real name. But you 
 can bank on it, he crossed the plains just the same." 
 
 "So did my father," Saxon said proudly. 
 
 "An' my mother, too," Billy added, pride touching his 
 own voice. "Anyway, she came pretty close to crossin' the 
 plains, because she was born in a wagon on the River Platte 
 on the way out." 
 
 "My mother, too," said Saxon. "She was eight years
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 23 
 
 old, an' she walked most of the way after the oxen began 
 to give out." 
 
 Billy thrust out his hand. 
 
 "Put her there, kid," he said. "We're just like old 
 friends, what with the same kind of folks behind us." 
 
 With shining eyes, Saxon extended her hand to his, and 
 gravely they shook. 
 
 ' ' Isn 't it wonderful ? " she murmured. ' ' We 're both old 
 American stock. And if you aren't a Saxon there never 
 was one your hair, your eyes, your skin, everything. And 
 you're a- fighter, too." 
 
 "I guess all our old folks was fighters when it comes to 
 that. It come natural to 'em, an' dog-gone it, they just 
 had to fight or they 'd never come through. ' ' 
 
 "What are you two talkin' about?" Mary broke in upon 
 them. 
 
 "They're thicker 'n mush in no time," Bert girded. 
 "You'd think they'd known each other a week already." 
 
 "Oh, we knew each other longer than that," Saxon re- 
 turned. "Before ever we were born our folks were walkin' 
 across the plains together." 
 
 "When your folks was waitin' for the railroad to be 
 built an' all the Indians killed off before they dasted to 
 start for California," was Billy's way of proclaiming the 
 new alliance. "We're the real goods, Saxon an' me, if 
 anybody should ride up on a buzz- wagon an' ask you." 
 
 ' ' Oh, I don 't know, ' ' Mary boasted with quiet petulance. 
 "My father stayed behind to fight in the Civil War. He 
 was a drummer-boy. That's why he didn't come to Cali- 
 fornia until afterward." 
 
 "And my father went back to fight in the Civil War," 
 Saxon said. 
 
 "And mine, too," said Billy. 
 
 They looked at each other gleefully. Again they had 
 found a new contact. 
 
 "Well, they're all dead, ain't they?" was Bert's satur- 
 nine comment. "There ain't no difference dyin' in battle 
 or in the poorhouse. The thing is they're deado. I wouldn't
 
 24 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 care a rap if my father M been hanged. It's all the same 
 in a thousand years. This braggin' about folks makes me 
 tired. Besides, my father couldn't a- fought. He wasn't 
 born till two years after the war. Just the same, two of 
 my uncles were killed at Gettysburg. Guess we done our 
 share. ' ' 
 
 "Just like that," Mary applauded. 
 
 Bert's arm went around her waist again. 
 
 "We're here, ain't we?" he said. "An' that's what 
 counts. The dead are dead, an' you can bet your sweet 
 life they just keep on stayin' dead." 
 
 Mary put her hand over his mouth and began to chide 
 him for his awfulness, whereupon he kissed the palm of 
 her hand and put his head closer to hers. 
 
 The merry clatter of dishes was increasing as the din- 
 ing-room filled up. Here and there voices were raised 
 in snatches of song. There were shrill squeals and 
 screams and bursts of heavier male laughter as the ever- 
 lasting skirmishing between the young men and girls played 
 on. Among some of the men the signs of drink were al- 
 ready manifest. At a near table girls were calling out to 
 Billy. And Saxon, the sense of temporary possession al- 
 ready strong on her, noted with jealous eyes that he was 
 a favorite and desired object to them. 
 
 "Ain't they awful?" Mary voiced her disapproval. 
 "They got a nerve. I know who they are. No respectable 
 girl 'd have a thing to do with them. Listen to that ! ' ' 
 
 "Oh, you Bill, you," one of them, a buxom young bru- 
 nette, was calling. "Hope you ain't forgotten me, Bill." 
 
 "Oh, you chicken," he called back gallantly. 
 
 Saxon flattered herself that he showed vexation, and she 
 conceived an immense dislike for the brunette. 
 
 "Goin' to dance?" the latter called. 
 
 "Mebbe," he answered, and turned abruptly to Saxon. 
 "Say, we old Americans oughta stick together, don't you 
 think? They ain't many of us left. The country's fillin' 
 up with all kinds of foreigners." 
 
 He talked on steadily, in a low, confidential voice, head
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 25 
 
 close to hers, as advertisement to the other girl that he 
 was occupied. 
 
 From the next table on the opposite side, a young man 
 had singled out Saxon. His dress was tough. His com- 
 panions, male and female, were tough. His face was in- 
 flamed, his eyes touched with wildness. 
 
 ' ' Hey, you ! " he called. ' ' You with the velvet slippers. 
 Me for you." 
 
 The girl beside him put her arm around his neck and 
 tried to hush him, and through the mufflement of her em- 
 brace they could hear him gurgling : 
 
 "I tell you she's some goods. Watch me go across an* 
 win her from them cheap skates." 
 
 "Butchertown hoodlums," Mary sniffed. 
 
 Saxon 's eyes encountered the eyes of the girl, who glared 
 hatred across at her. And in Billy's eyes she saw moody 
 anger smoldering. The eyes were more sullen, more hand- 
 some than ever, and clouds and veils and lights and shad- 
 ows shifted and deepened in the blue of them until they 
 gave her a sense of unfathomable depth. He had stopped 
 talking, and he made no effort, to talk. 
 
 "Don't start a rough house, Bill," Bert cautioned. 
 "They're from across the bay an' they don't know you, 
 that's all." 
 
 Bert stood up suddenly, stepped over to the other table, 
 Whispered briefly, and came back. Every face at the table 
 was turned on Billy. The offender arose brokenly, shook 
 off the detaining hand of his girl, and came over. He was 
 a large man, with a hard, malignant face and bitter eyes. 
 Also, he was a subdued man. 
 
 "You're Big Bill Roberts," he said thickly, clinging to 
 the table as he reeled. "I take my hat off to you. I apolo- 
 gize. I admire your taste in skirts, an' take it from me 
 that's a compliment; but I didn't know who you was. If 
 I'd knowed you was Bill Roberts there wouldn't been a 
 peep from my fly-trap. D'ye get me? I apologize. Will 
 you shake hands ? ' ' 
 
 Gruffly, Billy said, "It's all right forget it, sport;" and
 
 26 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 sullenly he shook hands and with a slow, massive move- 
 ment thrust the other back toward his own table. 
 
 Saxon was glowing. Here was a man, a protector, some- 
 thing to lean against, of whom even the Butchertown toughs 
 were afraid as soon as his name was mentioned.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AFTER dinner there were two dances in the pavilion, anc^ 
 then the band led the way to the race track for the games. 
 The dancers followed, and all through the grounds the 
 picnic parties left their tables to join in. Five thousand 
 packed the grassy slopes of ih? amphitheater and swarmed 
 inside the race track. Here, first of the events, the men 
 were lining up for a tug of war. The contest was between 
 the Oakland Bricklayers and the San Francisco Bricklay- 
 ers, and the picked braves, huge and heavy, were taking 
 their positions along the rope. They kicked heel-holds in 
 the soft earth, rubbed tneir hands with the soil from under- 
 foot, and laughed and joked with the crowd that surged 
 about them. 
 
 The judges and watchers struggled vainly to keep back 
 this crowd of relatives and friends. The Celtic blood was 
 up, and the Celtic faction spirit ran high. The air was 
 filled with cries of cheer, advice, warning, and threat. 
 Many elected to leave the side of their own team and go 
 to the side of the other team with the intention of circum- 
 venting foul play. There were as many women as men 
 among the jostling supporters. The dust from the tram- 
 pling, scuffling feet rose in the air, and Mar*- gasped and 
 coughed and begged Bert to take her away. But he, the 
 imp in him elated with the prospect of trouble, insisted on 
 urging in closer. Saxon clung to Billy, who slowly and 
 methodically elbowed and shouldered a way for her. 
 
 "No place for a girl," he grumbled, looking down at her 
 with a masked expression of absent-mindedness, while his 
 elbow powerfully crushed on the ribs of a big Irishman 
 who gave room. "Things '11 break loose when they start 
 pullin'. They's been too much drink, an' you know what 
 the Micks are for a rough house." 
 27.,
 
 28 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 Saxon was very much out of place among these large- 
 bodied men and women. She seemed very small and child- 
 like, delicate and fragile, a creature from another race. 
 Only Billy's skilled bulk and muscle saved her. He was 
 continually glancing from face to face of the women and 
 always returning to study her face, nor was she unaware 
 of the contrast he was making. 
 
 Some excitement occurred a score of feet away from 
 them, and to the sound of exclamations and blows a surge 
 ran through the crowd. A large man, wedged sidewise in 
 the jam, was shoved against Saxon, crushing her closely 
 against Billy, who reached across to the man's shoulder 
 with a massive thrust that was not so slow as usual. An 
 involuntary grunt came from the victim, who turned his 
 head, showing sun-reddened blond skin and unmistakable 
 angry Irish eyes. 
 
 "What's eatin' yeh?" he snarled. 
 
 "Get off your foot; you're standin' on it," was Billy's 
 contemptuous reply, emphasized by an increase of 
 thrust. 
 
 The Irishman grunted again and made a frantic struggle 
 to twist his body around, but the wedging bodies on either 
 side held him in a vise. 
 
 "Ill break yer ugly face for yeh in a minute," he an- 
 nounced in wrath-thick tones. 
 
 Then his own face underwent transformation. The snarl 
 left the lips, and the angry eyes grew genial. 
 
 "An' sure an' it's yerself," he said. "I didn't know it 
 was yeh a-shovin'. I seen yeh lick the Terrible Swede, if 
 yeh was robbed on the decision." 
 
 "No, you didn't, Bo," Billy answered pleasantly. "You 
 saw me take a good beatin' that night. The decision was 
 all right." 
 
 The Irishman was now beaming. He had endeavored to 
 pay a compliment with a lie, and the prompt repudiation 
 of the lie served only to increase his hero-worship. 
 
 "Sure, an' a bad beatin' it was," he acknowledged, "but 
 yeh showed the grit of a bunch of wildcats. Soon as I
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 29 
 
 can get me arm free I'm goin' to shake yeh by the hand 
 an' help yeh aise yer young lady." 
 
 Frustrated in the struggle to get the crowd back, the 
 referee fired his revolver in the air, and the tug-of-war was 
 on. Pandemonium broke loose. Saxon, protected by the 
 two big men, was near enough to the front to see much 
 that ensued. The men on the rope pulled and strained 
 till their faces were red with effort and their joints crackled. 
 The rope was new, and, as their hands slipped, their wives 
 and daughters sprang in, scooping up the earth in double 
 handfuls and pouring it on the rope and the hands of 
 their men to give them better grip. 
 
 A stout, middle-aged woman, carried beyond herself by 
 the passion of the contest, seized the rope and pulled be- 
 side her husband, encouraged him with loud cries. A 
 watcher from the opposing team dragged her screaming 
 away and was dropped like a steer by an ear-blow from a 
 partisan from the woman's team. He, in turn, went down, 
 and brawny women joined with their men in the battle. 
 Vainly the judges and watchers begged, pleaded, yelled, 
 and swung with their fists. Men, as well as women, were 
 springing in to the rope and pulling. No longer was it 
 team against team, but all Oakland against all San Fran- 
 cisco, festooned with a free-for-all fight. Hands overlaid 
 hands two and three deep in the struggle to grasp the rope. 
 And hands that found no holds, doubled into bunches of 
 knuckles that impacted on the jaws of the watchers who 
 strove to tear hand-holds from the rope. 
 
 Bert yelped with joy, while Mary clung to him, mad with 
 fear. Close to the rope the fighters were going down and 
 being trampled. The dust arose in clouds, while from be- 
 yond, all around, unable to get into the battle, could be 
 heard the shrill and impotent rage-screams and rage-yells 
 of women and men. 
 
 "Dirty work, dirty work," Billy muttered over and 
 over; and, though he saw much that occurred, assisted by 
 the friendly Irishman he was coolly and safely working 
 Saxon back out of the melee.
 
 30 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 At last the break came. The losing team, accompanied 
 by its host of volunteers, was dragged in a rush over the 
 ground and disappeared under the avalanche of battling 
 forms of the onlookers. 
 
 Leaving Saxon under the protection of the Irishman in 
 an outer eddy of calm, Billy plunged back into the mix-up. 
 Several minutes later he emerged with the missing couple 
 Bert bleeding from a blow on the ear, but hilarious, and 
 Mary rumpled and hysterical. 
 
 "This ain't sport," she kept repeating. "It's a shame, 
 a dirty shame." 
 
 "We got to get outa this," Billy said. "The fun's only 
 commenced." 
 
 "Aw, wait," Bert begged. "It's worth eight dollars. 
 It's cheap at any price. I ain't seen so many black eyes 
 and bloody noses in a month of Sundays. ' ' 
 
 "Well, go on back an' enjoy yourself," Billy com- 
 mended. "I'll take the girls up there on the side hill 
 where we can look on. But I won't give much for your 
 good looks if some of them Micks lands on you." 
 
 The trouble was over in an amazingly short time, for 
 from the judges' stand beside the track the announcer was 
 bellowing the start of the boys ' foot-race ; and Bert, disap- 
 pointed, joined Billy and the two girls on the hillside look- 
 ing down upon the track. 
 
 There were boys' races and girls' races, races of young 
 women and old women, of fat men and fat women, sack 
 races and three-legged races, and the contestants strove 
 around the small track through a Bedlam of cheering sup- 
 porters. The tug-of-war was already forgotten, and good 
 nature reigned again. 
 
 Five young men toed the mark, crouching with finger- 
 tips to the ground and waiting the starter's revolver-shot. 
 Three were in their stocking-feet, and the remaining two 
 wore spiked running-shoes. 
 
 ' 'Young men 's race, ' ' Bert read from the program. ' ' An ' 
 only one prize twenty-five dollars. See the red-head with 
 the spikes the one next to the outside. San Francisco's
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 31 
 
 set on him winning. He's their crack, an' there's a lot of 
 bets up." 
 
 "Who's goin' to win?" Mary deferred to Billy's su- 
 perior athletic knowledge. 
 
 "How can I tell?" he answered. "I never saw any of 
 s em before. But they all look good to me. May the best 
 one win, that's all." 
 
 The revolver was fired, and the five runners were off 
 and away. Three were outdistanced at the start. Red- 
 head led, with a black-haired young man at his shoulder, 
 and it was plain that the race lay between these two. Half- 
 way around, the black-haired one took the lead in a spurt 
 that was intended to last to the finish. Ten feet he gained, 
 nor could Red-head cut it down an inch. 
 
 ' ' The boy 's a streak, ' ' Billy commented. ' ' He ain 't try- 
 in' his hardest, an' Red-head's just bustin' himself." 
 
 Still ten feet in the lead, the black-haired one breasted 
 the tape in a hubbub of cheers. Yet yells of disapproval 
 could be distinguished. Bert hugged himself with joy. 
 
 "Mm- mm," he gloated. "Ain't Frisco sore? Watch 
 out for fireworks now. See! He's bein' challenged. The 
 judges ain't pay in' him the money. An' he's got a gang 
 behind him Oh! Oh! Oh! Ain't had so much fun since 
 my old woman broke her leg!" 
 
 "Why don't they pay him, Billy?" Saxon asked. "He 
 won." 
 
 "The Frisco bunch is challengin' him for a professional," 
 Billy elucidated. "That's what they're all beefin' about. 
 But it ain't right. They all ran for that money, so they're 
 all professional." 
 
 The crowd surged and argued and roared in front of 
 the judges' stand. The stand was a rickety, two-story af- 
 fair, the second story open at the front, and here the 
 judges could be seen debating as heatedly as the crowd 
 beneath them. 
 
 "There she starts!" Bert cried. "Oh, you rough-house!" 
 
 The black-haired racer, backed by a dozen supporters, 
 was climbing the outside stairs to the judges.
 
 32 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "The purse-holder's his friend," Billy said. "See, he's 
 paid him, an' some of the judges is willin' an' some are 
 beefin'. An' now that other gang's going up they're Red- 
 head's." He turned to Saxon with a reassuring smile. 
 "We're well out of it this time. There's goin' to be rough 
 stuff doAvn there in a minute." 
 
 "The judges are tryin' to make him give the money 
 back, ' ' Bert explained. ' ' An ' if he don 't the other gang '11 
 take it away from him. See! They're reachin' for it 
 now. ' ' 
 
 High above his head, the winner held the roll of paper 
 containing the twenty-five silver dollars. His gang, around 
 him, was shouldering back those who tried to seize the 
 money. No blows had been struck yet, but the struggle 
 increased until the frail structure shook and swayed. From 
 the crowd beneath the winner was variously addressed: 
 "Give it back, you dog!" "Hang on to it, Tim!" "You 
 won fair, Timmy!" "Give it back, you dirty robber!" 
 Abuse unprintable as well as friendly advice was hurled 
 at him. 
 
 The struggle grew more violent. Tim's supporters 
 strove to hold him off the floor so that his hand would still 
 be above the grasping hands that shot up. Once, for an 
 instant, his arm was jerked down. Again it went up. But 
 evidently the paper had broken, and with a last desperate 
 effort, before he went down, Tim flung the coin out in a 
 silvery shower upon the heads of the crowd beneath. Then 
 ensued a weary period of arguing and quarreling. 
 
 "I wish they'd finish, so as we could get back to the 
 dancin'," Mary complained. "This ain't no fun." 
 
 Slowly and painfully the judges' stand was cleared, and 
 an announcer, stepping to the front of the stand, spread 
 his arms appealing for silence. The angry clamor died 
 down. 
 
 "The judges have decided," he shouted, "that this day 
 of good fellowship an' brotherhood " 
 
 ' ' Hear ! Hear ! ' ' Many of the cooler headc applauded, 
 1 ' That 's the stuff ! " "No fightin ' ! " " Nc hsnl f eelin 's ! "
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 33 
 
 "An* therefore," the announcer became audible again, 
 J< the judges have decided to put up another purse of 
 twenty-five dollars an' run the race over again!" 
 
 "An' Tim?" bellowed scores of throats. "What about 
 Tim ? " ' ' He 's been robbed ! " "The judges is rotten ! ' * 
 
 Again the announcer stilled the tumult with his arm 
 appeal. 
 
 , "The judges have decided, for the sake of good feelin', 
 that Timothy McManus will also run. If he wins, the 
 money's his." 
 
 "Now wouldn't that jar you?" Billy grumbled disgust- 
 edly. ' ' If Tim 's eligible now, he was eligible the first time. 
 An' if he was eligible the first time, then the money was 
 his." 
 
 "Red-head '11 bust himself wide open this time," Bert 
 jubilated. 
 
 "An' so will Tim," Billy rejoined. "You can bet he 'a 
 mad clean through, and he '11 let out the links he was holdin ' 
 in last time." 
 
 Another quarter of an hour was spent in clearing the 
 track of the excited crowd, and this time only Tim and 
 Red-head toed the mark. The other three young men had 
 abandoned the contest. 
 
 The leap of Tim, at the report of the revolver, put him a 
 clean yard in the lead. 
 
 "I guess he's professional, all right, all right," Billy re- 
 marked. "An' just look at him go!" 
 
 Half-way around, Tim led by fifty feet, and, running 
 swiftly, maintaining the same lead, he came down the home- 
 stretch an easy winner. When directly beneath the group 
 on the hillside, the incredible and unthinkable happened. 
 Standing close to the inside edge of the track was a dapper 
 young man with a light switch cane. He was distinctly 
 out of place in such a gathering, for upon him was no ear- 
 mark of the working class. Afterward, Bert was of the 
 opinion that he looked like a swell dancing master, while 
 Billy called him "the dude." 
 
 So far as Timothy McManus was concerned, the dapper
 
 34 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 young man was destiny ; for as Tim passed him, the young 
 man, with utmost deliberation, thrust his cane between 
 Tim's flying legs. Tim sailed through the air in a head- 
 long pitch, struck spread-eagled on his face, and plowed 
 along in a cloud of dust. 
 
 There was an instant of vast and gasping silence. The 
 young man, too, seemed petrified by the ghastliness of hiu 
 deed. It took an appreciable interval of time for him, as 
 well as for the onlookers, to realize what he had done. 
 They recovered first, and from a thousand throats the wild 
 Irish yell went up. Eed-head won the race without a cheer. 
 The storm center had shifted to the young man with the 
 cane. After the yell, he had one moment of indecision; 
 then he turned and darted up the track. 
 
 ' ' Go it, sport ! ' ' Bert cheered, waving his hat in the air, 
 "You're the goods for me! Who'd a-thought it? Who'd 
 a- thought it? Say! wouldn't it, now? Just wouldn't 
 it?" 
 
 "Phew! He's a streak himself," Billy admired. "But 
 what did he do it for ? Pie 's no bricklayer. ' ' 
 
 Like a frightened rabbit, the mad roar at his heels, the 
 young man tore up the track to an open space on the hill- 
 side, up which he clawed and disappeared among the trees, 
 Behind him toiled a hundred vengeful runners. 
 
 "It's too bad he's missing the rest of it," Billy said. 
 "Look at 'em goin' to it." 
 
 Bert was beside himself. He leaped up and down and 
 cried continuously: 
 
 "Look at 'em! Look at 'em! Look at 'em!" 
 
 The Oakland faction was outraged. Twice had its favor* 
 ite runner been jobbed out of the race. This last was only 
 another vile trick of the Frisco faction. So Oakland doubled 
 its brawny fists and swung into San Francisco for blood. 
 And San Francisco, consciously innocent, was no less will- 
 ing to join issues. To be charged with such a crime was 
 no less monstrous than the crime itself. Besides, for too 
 many tedious hours had the Irish heroically suppressed 
 themselves. Five thousands of them exploded into joyous
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 35 
 
 battle. The women joined with them. The whole amphi- 
 theater was filled with the conflict. There were rallies, 
 retreats, charges, and counter-charges. Weaker groups 
 were forced fighting up the hillsides. Other groups, bested, 
 fled among the trees to carry on guerrilla warfare, emerg- 
 ing in sudden dashes to overwhelm isolated enemies. Half 
 a dozen special policemen, hired by the Weasel Park man- 
 agement, received an impartial trouncing from both sides. 
 
 " Nobody's the friend of a policeman," Bert chortled, 
 dabbing his handkerchief to his injured ear, which still 
 bled. 
 
 The bushes crackled behind him, and he sprang aside 
 to let the locked forms of two men go by, rolling over and 
 over down the hill, each striking when uppermost, and 
 followed by a screaming woman who rained blows on the 
 one who was patently not of her clan. 
 
 The judges, in the second story of the stand, valiantly 
 withstood a fierce assault until the frail structure toppled 
 to the ground in splinters. 
 
 " What's that woman doing?" Saxon asked, calling at- 
 tention to an elderly woman beneath them on the track, 
 who had sat down and was pulling from her foot an elas- 
 tic-sided shoe of generous dimensions. 
 
 "Goin' swimming," Bert chuckled, as the stocking fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 They watched, fascinated. The shoe was pulled on again 
 over the bare foot. Then the woman slipped a rock the 
 size of her fist into the stocking, and, brandishing this 
 ancient and horrible weapon, lumbered into the nearest 
 fray. 
 
 "Oh! Oh! Oh!" Bert screamed, with every blow she 
 struck. "Hey, old flannel-mouth! Watch out! You'll 
 get yours in a second. Oh ! Oh ! A peach ! Did you see 
 it? Hurray for the old lady! Look at her tearin' into 
 'em! Watch out old girl! . . . Ah-h-h." 
 
 His voice died away regretfully, as the one with the 
 stocking, whose hair had been clutched from behind by 
 another Amazon, was whirled about in a dizzy semicircle.
 
 36 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 Vainly Mary clung to his arm, shaking him back and 
 forth and remonstrating. 
 
 * ' Can 't you be sensible ? " she cried. ' ' It 's awful ! I tell 
 you it's awful!" 
 
 But Bert was irrepressible. 
 
 "Go it, old girl!" he encouraged. "You win! Me for 
 you every time! Now 's your chance! Swat! Oh! My! 
 A peach! A peach!" 
 
 "It's the biggest rough-house I ever saw," Billy con- 
 fided to Saxon. "It sure takes the Micks to mix it. But 
 what did that duue wanta do it for? That's what gets 
 me. He wasn't a bricklayer not even a workingman 
 just a regular sissy dude that didn't know a livin' soul in 
 the grounds. But if he wanted to raise a rough-house he 
 certainly done it. Look at 'em. They're fightin' every- 
 where. ' ' 
 
 He broke into sudden laughter, so hearty that the tears 
 came into his eyes. 
 
 "What is it?" Saxon asked, anxious not to miss any- 
 thing. 
 
 " It 's that dude, ' ' Billy explained between gusts. ' ' What 
 did he wanta do it for ? That 's what gets my goat. What 'd 
 he wanta do it for?" 
 
 There was more crashing in the brush, and two women 
 erupted upon the scene, one in flight, the other pursuing. 
 Almost ere they could realize it, the little group found 
 itself merged in the astounding conflict that covered, if not 
 the face of creation, at least all the visible landscape of 
 Weasel Park. 
 
 The fleeing woman stumbled in rounding the end 
 of a picnic bench, and would have been caught had 
 she not seized Mary 's arm to recover balance, and then 
 flung Mary full into the arms of the woman who 
 pursued. This woman, largely built, middle-aged, and 
 too irate to comprehend, clutched Mary's hair by one 
 hand and lifted the other to smack her. Before the 
 blow could fall, Billy had seized both the woman's 
 wrists.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 37 
 
 "Come on, old girl, cut it out," he said appeasingly. 
 "You're in wrong. She ain't done nothin'. " 
 
 Then the woman did a strange thing. Making no resist- 
 ance, but maintaining her hold on the girl's hair, she stood 
 still and calmly began to scream. The scream was hideously 
 compounded of fright and fear. Yet in her face was 
 neither fright nor fear. She regarded Billy coolly and 
 appraisingly, as if to see how he took it her scream 
 merely the cry to the clan for help. 
 
 "Aw, shut up, you battleax!" Bert vociferated, trying 
 to drag her off by the shoulders. 
 
 The result was that the four rocked back and forth, 
 while the woman calmly went on screaming. The scream 
 became touched with triumph as more crashing was heard 
 in the brush. 
 
 Saxon saw Billy's slow eyes glint suddenly to the hard- 
 ness of steel, and at the same time she saw him put pres- 
 sure on his wrist-holds. The woman released her grip OK 
 Mary and was shoved back and free. Then the first man 
 of the rescue was upon them. He did not pause to inquire 
 into the merits of the affair. It was sufficient that he saw 
 the woman reeling away from Billy and screaming with 
 pain that was largely feigned. 
 
 "It's all a mistake," Billy cried hurriedly. "We apolo- 
 gize, sport " 
 
 The Irishman swung ponderously. Billy ducked, cut- 
 ting his apology short, and as the sledge-like fist passed 
 over his head, he drove his left to the other's jaw. The 
 big Irishman toppled over sidewise and sprawled on the 
 edge of the slope. Half -scrambled back to his feet and out 
 of balance, he was caught by Bert's fist, and this time 
 went clawing down the slope that was slippery with short, 
 dry grass. 
 
 Bert was redoubtable. "That for you, old girl my com- 
 pliments," was his cry, as he shoved the woman over the 
 edge on to the treacherous slope. Three more men were 
 emerging from the brush. 
 
 In the meantime, Billy had put Saxon in behind the pro-
 
 38 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 tection of the picnic table. Mary, who was hysterical, had 
 evinced a desire to cling to him, and he had sent her 
 sliding across the top of the table to Saxon. 
 
 "Come on you flannel-mouths!" Bert yelled at the new- 
 comers, himself swept away by passion, his black eyes flash- 
 ing wildly, his dark face inflamed by the too-ready blood, 
 "Come on, you cheap skates! Talk about Gettysburg. 
 We'll show you all the Americans ain't dead yet!" 
 
 "Shut your trap we don't want a scrap with the girls 
 here, ' ' Billy growled harshly, holding his position in front 
 of the table. He turned to the three rescuers, who were 
 bewildered by the lack of anything visible to rescue. "Go 
 on, sports. We don't want a row. You're in wrong 
 They ain't nothin' doin' in the fight line. We don't wanta 
 fight d'ye get me?" 
 
 They still hesitated, and Billy might have succeeded in 
 avoiding trouble had not the % man who had gone down 
 the bank chosen that unfortunate moment to reappear, 
 crawling groggily on hands and knees and showing a bleed- 
 ing face. Again Bert reached him and sent him down- 
 slope, and the other three, with wild yells, sprang in on 
 Billy, who punched, shifted position, ducked and punched, 
 and shifted again ere he struck the third time. His blows 
 were clean and hard, scientifically delivered, with the weight 
 of his body behind. 
 
 Saxon, looking on, saw his eyes and learned more about 
 him. She was frightened, but clear-seeing, and she was 
 startled by the disappearance of all depth of light and 
 shadow in his eyes. They showed surface only a hard, 
 bright surface, almost glazed, devoid of all expression save 
 deadly seriousness. Bert 's eyes showed madness. The eyes 
 of the Irishmen were angry and serious, and yet not all 
 serious. There was a wayward gleam in them, as if they 
 enjoyed the fracas. But in Billy's eyes was no enjoyment, 
 It was as if he had certain work to do and had doggedly 
 .settled down to do it. 
 
 Scarcely more expression did she note in the face, though 
 there was nothing in common between it and the one she
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 39 
 
 had seen all day. The boyishness had vanished. This face 
 was mature in a terrifying, ageless way. There was no 
 anger in it. Nor was it even pitiless. It seemed to have 
 glazed as hard and passionlessly as his eyes. Something 
 came to her of her wonderful mother's tales of the ancient 
 Saxons, and he seemed to her one of those Saxons, and she 
 caught a glimpse, on the wall of her consciousness, of a 
 long, dark boat, with a prow like the beak of a bird of 
 prey, and of huge, half -naked men, wing-helmeted, and one 
 of their faces, it seemed to her, was his face. She did not 
 reason this. She felt it, and visioned it as by an unthink- 
 able clairvoyance, and gasped, for the flurry of war was 
 over. It had lasted only seconds. Bert was dancing on 
 the edge of the slippery slope and mocking the vanquished 
 who had slid impotently to the bottom. But Billy took 
 charge. 
 
 ' ' Come on, you girls, ' ' he commanded. ' ' Get onto your- 
 self, Bert. We got to get outa this. We can't fight an 
 army. ' ' 
 
 He led the retreat, holding Saxon's arm, and Bert, gig- 
 gling and jubilant, brought up the rear with an indignant 
 Mary who protested vainly in his unheeding ears. 
 
 For a hundred yards they ran and twisted through the 
 trees, and then, no signs of pursuit appearing, they slowed 
 down to a dignified saunter. Bert, the trouble-seeker, 
 pricked his ears to the muffled sound of blows and sobs, 
 and stepped aside to investigate. 
 
 "Oh! look what I've found!" he called. 
 
 They joined him on the edge of a dry ditch and looked 
 down. In the bottom were two men, strays from the fight, 
 grappled together and still fighting. They were weeping 
 out of sheer fatigue and helplessness, and the blows they 
 only occasionally struck were open-handed and ineffectual. 
 
 "Hey, you, sport throw sand in his eyes," Bert coun- 
 seled. "That's it, blind him an' he's your'n." 
 
 "Stop that!" Billy shouted at the man, who was fol- 
 lowing instructions. "Or I'll come down there an' beat 
 you up myself. It's all over d'ye get me? It's all over
 
 40 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 an' everybody's friends. Shake an' make up. The drinks 
 are on both of you. That's right here, gimme your hand 
 an' I'll pull you out." 
 
 They left them shaking hands and brushing each other's 
 clothes. 
 
 ' ' It soon will be over, ' ' Billy grinned to Saxon. ' ' I know 
 'em. Fight's fun with them. An' this big scrap's made 
 the day a howlin ' success. What did I tell you ? look over 
 at that table there." 
 
 A group of disheveled men and women, still breathing 
 heavily, were shaking hands all around. 
 
 "Come on, let's dance," Mary pleaded, urging them in 
 the direction of the pavilion. 
 
 All over the park the warring bricklayers were shaking 
 hands and making up, while the open-air bars were crowded 
 with the drinkers. 
 
 Saxon walked very ilose to Billy. She was proud of 
 him. He could fight, and he could avoid trouble. In all 
 that had occurred he had striven to avoid trouble. And, 
 also, consideration for her and Mary had been uppermost 
 in his mind. 
 
 "You are brave," she said to him. 
 
 "It's like takin' candy from a baby," he disclaimed 
 "They only rough-house. They don't know boxin'. 
 They're wide open, an' all you gotta do is hit 'em. It 
 ain't real fightin', you know." "With a troubled, boyish 
 look in his eyes, he stared at his bruised knuckles. "An' 
 I'll have to drive team to-morrow with 'em," he lamented. 
 "Which ain't fun, I'm tellin' you, when they stiffen up.'*
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 AT eight o'clock the Al Vista band played "Home, Sweet 
 Home," and, following the hurried rush through the twi- 
 light to the picnic train, the four managed to get double 
 seats facing each other. "When the aisles and platforms 
 were packed by the hilarious crowd, the train pulled out 
 for the short run from the suburbs into Oakland. All the 
 car was singing a score of songs at once, and Bert, his 
 head pillowed on Mary's breast with her arms around him, 
 started "On the Banks of the Wabash." And he sang the 
 song through, undeterred by the bedlam of two general 
 fights, one on the adjacent platform, the other at the oppo- 
 site end of the car, both of which were finally subdued by 
 special policemen to the screams of women and the crash 
 of glass. 
 
 Billy sang a lugubrious song of many stanzas about a 
 cowboy, the refrain of which was, "Bury me out on the 
 lone pr-rairie." 
 
 "That's one you never heard before; my father used 
 to sing it," he told Saxon, who was glad that it was 
 ended. 
 
 She had discovered the first flaw in him. He was tone- 
 deaf. Not once had he been on the key. 
 
 "I don't sing often," he added. 
 
 "You bet your sweet life he don't," Bert exclaimed. 
 "His friends 'd kill him if he did." 
 
 "They all make fun of my singin'," he complained to 
 Saxon. "Honest, now, do you find it as rotten as all 
 that?" 
 
 "It's . . . it's maybe flat a bit," she admitted reluc- 
 tantly. 
 
 "It don't sound flat to me," he protested. "It's a regu-
 
 42 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 lar josh on me. I'll bet Bert put you up to it. You sing 
 something now, Saxon. I bet you sing good. I can tell it 
 from lookin' at you." 
 
 She began "When the Harvest Days Are Over." Bert 
 and Mary joined in ; but when Billy attempted to add his 
 voice he was dissuaded by a shin-kick from Bert. Saxon 
 sang in a clear, true soprano, thin but sweet, and she was 
 aware that she was singing to Billy. 
 
 "Now that is singing what is," he proclaimed, when 
 she had finished. "Sing it again. Aw, go on. You do it 
 just right. It's great." 
 
 His hand slipped to hers and gathered it in, and as she 
 sang again she felt the tide of his strength flood warmingly 
 through her. 
 
 "Look at 'em holdin' hands," Bert jeered. "Just 
 a-holdin' hands like they was afraid. Look at Mary an' 
 me. Come on an' kick in, you cold-feets. Get together. 
 If you don't, it'll look suspicious. I got my suspicions 
 already. You're framin' somethin' up." 
 
 There was no mistaking his innuendo, and Saxon felt her 
 cheeks flaming. 
 
 "Get onto yourself, Bert," Billy reproved. 
 
 ' ' Shut up ! " Mary added the weight of her indignation, 
 "You're awfully raw, Bert "Wanhope, an' I won't have 
 anything more to do with you there ! ' ' 
 
 She withdrew her arms and shoved him away, only to 
 receive him forgivingly half a dozen seconds afterward. 
 
 "Come on, the four of us," Bert went on irrepressibly. 
 l"The night's young. Let's make a time of it Pabst'3 
 *Cafe first, and then some. "What you say, Bill? What 
 you say, Saxon? Mary's game." 
 
 Saxon waited and wondered, half sick with apprehen- 
 sion of this man beside her whom she had known so short 
 a time. 
 
 ' ' Nope, ' ' he said slowly. ' ' I gotta get up to a hard day 's 
 work to-morrow, and I guess the girls has got to, too." 
 
 Saxon forgave him his tone-deafness. Here was the kind 
 ol man she always had known existed. It was for some
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 43 
 
 such man that she had waited. She was twenty-two, and 
 her first marriage offer had come when she was sixteen. 
 The last had occurred only the month before, from the 
 foreman of the washing-room, and he had been good and 
 kind, but not young. But this one beside her he was 
 strong and kind and good, and young. She was too young 
 herself not to desire youth. There would have been rest 
 from fancy starch with the foreman, but there would have 
 been no warmth. But this man beside her. . . . She 
 caught herself on the verge involuntarily of pressing his 
 hand that held hers. 
 
 "No, Bert, don't tease; he's right," Mary was saying. 
 "We've got to get some sleep. It's fancy starch to-mor- 
 row, and all day on our feet." 
 
 It came to Saxon with a chill pang that she was surely 
 older than Billy. She stole glances at the smoothness of 
 his face, and the essential boyishness of him, so much 
 desired, shocked her. Of course he would marry some girl 
 years younger than himself, than herself. How old was 
 he? Could it be that he was too young for her? 
 As he seemed to grow inaccessible, she was drawn to- 
 ward him more compellingly. He was so strong, so 
 gentle. She lived over the events of the day. There 
 was no flaw there. He had considered her and Mary, 
 always. And he had torn the program up and danced only 
 with her. Surely he had liked her, or he would not have 
 done it. 
 
 She slightly moved her hand in his and felt the harsh 
 contact of his teamster callouses. The sensation was exqui- 
 site. He, too, moved his hand, to accommodate the shift 
 of hers, and she waited fearfully. She did not want him 
 to prove like other men, and she could have hated him had 
 he dared to take advantage of that slight movement of her 
 fingers and put his arm around her. He did not, and she 
 flamed toward him. There was fineness in him. He was 
 neither rattle-brained, like Bert, nor coarse like other men 
 she had encountered. For she had had experiences, not 
 nice, and she had been made to suffer by the lack of what
 
 44 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 was termed chivalry, though she, in turn, lacked that word 
 to describe what she divined and desired. 
 
 And he was a prizefighter. The thought of it almost 
 made her gasp. Yet he answered not at all to her concep- 
 tion of a prizefighter. But, then, he wasn't a prizefighter. 
 He had said he was not. She resolved to ask him about it 
 some time if . . . if he took her out again. Yet there 
 was little doubt of that, for when a man danced with one 
 girl a whole day he did not drop her immediately. Almost 
 she hoped that he was a prizefighter. There was a deli- 
 cious tickle of wickedness about it. Prizefighters were such 
 terrible and mysterious men. In so far as they were out of 
 the ordinary and were not mere common workingmen such 
 as carpenters and laundrymen, they represented romance. 
 Power also they represented. They did not work for 
 bosses, but spectacularly and magnificently, with their own 
 might, grappled with the great world and wrung splendid 
 living from its reluctant hands. Some of them even owned 
 automobiles and traveled with a retinue of trainers and 
 servants. Perhaps it had been only Billy's modesty that 
 made him say he had quit fighting. And yet, there were 
 the callouses on his hands. That showed he had quit.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THEY said good-bye at the gate. Billy betrayed awk- 
 wardness that was sweet to Saxon. He was not one of the 
 take-it-for-granted young men. There was a pause, while 
 she feigned desire to go into the house, yet waited in secret 
 eagerness for the words she wanted him to say. 
 
 ' ' When am I goin ' to see you again ? " he asked, holding 
 her hand in his. 
 
 She laughed consentingly. 
 
 ' ' I live 'way up in East Oakland, ' ' he explained. ' ' You 
 know there's where the stable is, an' most of our teaming 
 is done in that section, so I don't knock around down this 
 
 way much. But, say " His hand tightened on hers. 
 
 "We just gotta dance together some more. I'll tell you, 
 the Orindore Club has its dance Wednesday. If you 
 haven't a date have you?" 
 
 "No," she said. 
 
 ' ' Then Wednesday. What time 11 1 come for you ? ' ' 
 
 And when they had arranged the details, and he had 
 agreed that she should dance some of the dances with the 
 other fellows, and said good night again, his hand closed 
 more tightly on hers and drew her toward him. She re? 
 sisted slightly, but honestly. It was the custom, but sh$ 
 felt she ought not for fear he might misunderstand. And 
 .yet she wanted to kiss him as she had never wanted to 
 kiss a man. When it came, her face upturned to his, she 
 realized that on his part it was an honest kiss. There 
 hinted nothing behind it. Rugged and kind as himself, 
 it was virginal almost, and betrayed no long practice in 
 the art of saying good-bye. All men were not brutes after 
 -all, was her thought. 
 
 41
 
 46 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Good night," she murmured; the gate screeched under 
 her hand; and she hurried along the narrow walk that 
 led around to the corner of the house. 
 
 "Wednesday," he called softly. 
 
 "Wednesday," she answered. 
 
 But in the shadow of the narrow alley between the two 
 houses she stood still and pleasured in the ring of his foot- 
 falls down the cement sidewalk. Not until they had quite 
 died away did she go on. She crept up the back stairs and 
 across the kitchen to her room, registering her thanks- 
 giving that Sarah was asleep. 
 
 She lighted the gas, and, as she removed the little velvet 
 hat, she felt her lips still tingling with the kiss. Yet it 
 had meant nothing. It was the way of the young men. 
 They all did it. But their good-night kisses had never 
 tingled, while this one tingled in her brain as well as on 
 her lips. What was it? What did it mean? With a 
 sudden impulse she looked at herself in the glass. The 
 eyes were happy and bright. The color that tinted her 
 cheeks so easily was in them and glowing. It was a pretty 
 reflection, and she smiled, partly in joy, partly in appre- 
 ciation, and the smile grew at sight of the even rows of 
 strong white teeth. Why shouldn't Billy like that face? 
 was her unvoiced query. Other men had liked it. Other 
 men did like it. Even the other girls admitted she was 
 a good-looker. Charley Long certainly liked it from the 
 way he made life miserable for her. 
 
 She glanced aside to the rim of the looking-glass where 
 his photograph was wedged, shuddered, and made a moue 
 of distaste. There was cruelty in those eyes, and brutish- 
 ness. He was a brute. For a year, now, he had bullied 
 her. Other fellows were afraid to go with her. He warned 
 them off. She had been forced into almost slavery to his 
 attentions. She remembered the young bookkeeper at the 
 laundry not a workingman, but a soft-handed, soft-voiced 
 gentleman whom Charley had beaten up at the corner 
 because he had been bold enough to come to take her to 
 the theater. And she had been helpless. For his own
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 4? 
 
 sake she had never dared accept another invitation to go 
 out with him. 
 
 And now, Wednesday night, she was going with Billy. 
 Billy! Her heart leaped. There would be trouble, but 
 Billy would save her from him. She'd like to see him try 
 and beat Billy up. 
 
 With a quick movement, she jerked the photograph from 
 its niche and threw it face down upon the chest of drawers. 
 It fell beside a small square case of dark and tarnished 
 leather. With a feeling as of profanation she again seized 
 the offending photograph and flung it across the room into 
 a corner. At the same time she picked up the leather 
 case. Springing it open, she gazed at the daguerreotype of 
 a worn little woman with steady gray eyes and a hopeful, 
 pathetic mouth. Opposite, on the velvet lining, done in 
 gold lettering, was, CARLTON FROM DAISY. She read it rev- 
 erently, for it represented the father she had never known, 
 and the mother she had so little known, though, she could 
 never forget that those wise sad eyes were gray. 
 
 Despite lack of conventional religion, Saxon's nature was 
 deeply religious. Her thoughts of God were vague and 
 nebulous, and there she was frankly puzzled. She could 
 not vision God. Here, in the daguerreotype, was the con* 
 crete; much she had grasped from it, and always therfl 
 seemed an infinite more to grasp. She did not go to church. 
 This was her high altar and holy of holies. She came to 
 it in trouble, in loneliness, for counsel, divination, and 
 comfort. In so far as she found herself different from the 
 girls of her acquaintance, she quested here to try to identify 
 her characteristics in the pictured face. Her mother had 
 been different from other women, too. This, forsooth, 
 meant to her what God meant to others. To this she strove 
 to be true, and not to hurt nor vex. And how little she 
 really knew of her mother, and of how much was conjec- 
 ture and surmise, she was unaware ; for it was through 
 many years she had erected this mother-myth. 
 
 Yet was it all myth ? She resented the doubt with quick 
 jealousy, and, opening the bottom drawer of the chest,
 
 48 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 drew forth a battered portfolio. Out rolled manuscripts, 
 faded and worn, and arose a faint far scent of sweet-kept 
 age. The writing was delicate and curled, with the quaint 
 fineness of half a century before. She read a stanza to 
 herself: 
 
 "Sweet as a wind-lute's airy strains 
 
 Your gentle muse has learned to sing, 
 And California's boundless plains 
 Prolong the soft notes echoing." 
 
 She wondered, for the thousandth time, what a wind- 
 lute was; yet much of beauty, much of beyondness, she 
 sensed of this dimly remembered beautiful mother of hers. 
 She communed a while, then unrolled a second manuscript. 
 "To C. B.," it read. To Carlton Brown, she knew, to her 
 father, a love-poem from her mother. Saxon pondered the 
 opening lines: 
 
 "I have stolen away from the crowd in the groves, 
 
 Where the nude statues stand, and the leaves point and shiwr 
 At ivy-crowned Bacchus, the Queen of the Loves, 
 Pandora and Psyche, struck voiceless forever." 
 
 This, too, was beyond her. But she breathed the beauty 
 of it. Bacchus, and Pandora and Psyche talismans to 
 conjure with ! But alas ! the necromancy was her mother's. 
 Strange, meaningless words that meant so much ! Her 
 marvelous mother had known their meaning. Saxon spelled 
 the three words aloud, letter by letter, for she did not dare 
 their pronunciation; and in her consciousness glimmered 
 august connotations, profound and unthinkable. Her 
 mind stumbled and halted on the star-bright and dazzling 
 boundaries of a world beyond her world in which her 
 mother had roamed at will. Again and again, solemnly,- 
 she went over the four lines. They were radiance and 
 light to the world, haunted with phantoms of pain and 
 unrest, in which she had her being. There, hidden among 
 those cryptic singing lines, was the clue. If she could only 
 grasp it, all would be made clear. Of this she was sub-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 49 
 
 limely confident. She would understand Sarah's sharp 
 tongue, her unhappy brother, the cruelty of Charley Long, 
 the justness of the bookkeeper's beating, the day-long, 
 month-long, year-long toil at the ironing-board. 
 
 She skipped a stanza that she knew was hopelessly *)e- 
 yond her, and tried again: 
 
 "The dusk of the greenhouse is luminous yet 
 With quivers of opal and tremors of gold; 
 For the sun is at rest, and the light from the wet, 
 Like delicate wine that is mellow and old, 
 
 "Flushes faintly the brow of a naiad that stands 
 
 In the spray of a fountain, whose seed-amethysts 
 Tremble lightly a moment on bosom and hands, 
 
 Then drip in their basin from bosom and wrists." 
 
 "It's beautiful, just beautiful," she sighed. And then, 
 appalled at the length of all the poem, at the volume "i 
 the mystery, she rolled the manuscript and put it away. 
 Again she dipped in the drawer, seeking the clue among 
 the cherished fragments of her mother's hidden soul. 
 
 This time it was a small package, wrapped in tissue paper 
 and tied with ribbon. She opened it carefully, with the 
 deep gravity and circumstance of a priest before an 
 altar. Appeared a little red-satin Spanish girdle, whale- 
 boned like a tiny corset, pointed, the pioneer finery of a 
 frontier woman who had crossed the plains. It was hand- 
 made after the California-Spanish model of forgotten days. 
 The very whalebone had been home-shaped of the raw ma- 
 terial from the whaleships traded for in hides and tallow. 
 . The black lace trimming her mother had made. The triple 
 edging of black velvet strips her mother's hands had sewn 
 the stitches. 
 
 Saxon dreamed over it in a maze of incoherent thought. 
 This was concrete. This she understood. This she wor- 
 shiped as man-created gods have been worshiped on less 
 tangible evidence of their sojourn on earth. 
 
 Twenty-two inches it measured around. She knew it out 
 of many verifications. She stood up and put it about he*
 
 50 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 waist. This was part of the ritual. It almost met. Ifl 
 places it did meet. "Without her dress it would meet every- 
 where as it had met on her mother. Closest of all, this 
 survival of old California- Ventura days brought Saxon in 
 touch. Hers was her mother's form. Physically, she was 
 like her mother. Her grit, her ability to turn off work 
 that was such an amazement to others, were her mother's. 
 Just so had her mother been an amazement to her genera- 
 tion her mother, the toy-like creature, the smallest and 
 the youngest of the strapping pioneer brood, who never- 
 theless had mothered the brood. Always it had been her 
 wisdom that was sought, even by the brothers and sisters 
 a dozen years her senior. Daisy, it was, who had put her 
 tiny foot down and commanded the removal from the fever 
 flatlands of Colusa to the healthy mountains of Ventura; 
 who had backed the savage old Indian-fighter of a father 
 into a corner and fought the entire family that Vila might 
 marry tho man of her choice; who had flown in the face 
 of the fa^nily and of community morality and demanded 
 the divo? ce of Laura from her criminally weak husband ; 
 and who on the other hand, had held the branches of the 
 family together when only misunderstanding and weak 
 humanmss threatened to drive them apart. 
 
 The Peacemaker and the warrior! All the old tales 
 troopeo before Saxon 's eyes. They were sharp with detail, 
 for she had visioned them many times, though their content 
 was of things she had never seen. So far as details were 
 concerned, they were her own creation, for she had never 
 seen an ox, a wild Indian, nor a prairie schooner. Yet, 
 palpitating and real, shimmering in the sun-flashed dust 
 iaf ten thousand hoofs, she saw pass, from East to West, 
 across a continent, the great hegira of the land-hungry 
 Anglo-Saxon. It was part and fiber of her. She had been 
 nursed on its traditions and its facts from the lips of 
 s&ose who had taken part. Clearly she saw the long wagon- 
 train, the lean, gaunt men who walked before, the youths 
 goading the lowing oxen that fell and were goaded to their 
 feet to fall again. And through it all, a flying shuttle,
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 51 
 
 weaving the golden dazzling thread of personality, moved 
 the form of her little, indomitable mother, eight years old, 
 and nine ere the great traverse was ended, a necromancer 
 and a law-giver, willing her way, and the way and the 
 willing always good and right. 
 
 Saxon saw Punch, the little, rough-coated Skye-terrier 
 with the honest eyes (who had plodded for weary months), 
 gone lame and abandoned; she saw Daisy, the chit of a 
 child, hide Punch in the wagon. She saw the savage old 
 worried father discover the added burden of the several 
 pounds to the dying oxen. She saw his wrath, as he held 
 Punch by the scruff of the neck. And she saw Daisy, 
 between the muzzle of the long-barreled rifle and the little 
 dog. And she saw Daisy thereafter, through days of 
 alkali and heat, walking, stumbling, in the dust of the 
 wagons, the little sick dog, like a baby, in her arms. 
 
 But most vivid of all, Saxon saw the fight at Little 
 Meadow and Daisy, dressed as for a gala day, in white, 
 a ribbon sash about her waist, ribbons and a round-comb 
 in her hair, in her hands small water-pails, step forth into 
 the sunshine on the flower-grown open ground from the 
 wagon circle, wheels interlocked, where the wounded 
 screamed their delirium and babbled of flowing fountains, 
 and go on, through the sunshine and the wonder-inhibition 
 of the bullet-dealing Indians, a hundred yards to the water- 
 hole and back again. 
 
 Saxon kissed the little, red satin Spanish girdle passion- 
 ately, and wrapped it up in haste, with dewy eyes, aban- 
 doning the mystery and godhead of mother and all the 
 strange enigma of living. 
 
 In bed, she projected against her closed eyelids the few 
 rich scenes of her mother that her child-memory retained. 
 It was her favorite way of wooing sleep. She had done it 
 all her life sunk into the death-blackness of sleep with 
 her mother limned to the last on her fading consciousness. 
 But this mother was not the Daisy of the plains r?or of 
 the daguerreotype. They had been before Saxon's time. 
 This that she saw nightly was an older mother, broken with
 
 52 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 insomnia and brave with sorrow, who crept, always crept, 
 a pale, frail creature, gentle and unfaltering, dying from 
 lack of sleep, living by will, and by will refraining from 
 going mad, who, nevertheless, could not will sleep, and 
 whom not even the whole tribe of doctors could make sleep. 
 Crept always she crept, about the house, from weary bed 
 to weary chair and back again through long days and 
 weeks of torment, never complaining, though her unfailing 
 smile was twisted with pain, and the wise gray eyes, still 
 wise and gray, were grown unutterably larger and pro- 
 foundly deep. 
 
 But on this night Saxon did not win to sleep quickly ; the 
 little creeping mother came and went ; and in the intervals 
 the face of Billy, with the cloud-drifted, sullen, handsome 
 eyes, burned against her eyelids. And once again, as sleep 
 welled up to smother her, she put to herself the question: 
 Is this the man?
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE work m the ironing-room slipped off, but the three 
 days until "Wednesday night were very long. She hummed 
 over the fancy starch that flew under the iron at an as- 
 tounding rate. 
 
 "I can't see how you do it," Mary admired. "You'll 
 make thirteen or fourteen this week at that rate." 
 
 Saxon laughed, and in the steam from the iron she saw 
 dancing golden letters that spelled Wednesday. 
 
 "What do you think of Billy?" Mary asked. 
 
 "I like him," was the frank answer. 
 
 "Well, don't let it go farther than that." 
 
 "I will if I want to," Saxon retorted gaily. 
 
 "Better not," came the warning. "You'll only make 
 trouble for yourself. He ain't marryin'. Many a girl's 
 found that out. They just throw themselves at his head, 
 toe." 
 
 "I'm not going to throw myself at him, or any other 
 man. ' ' 
 
 "Just thought I'd tell you," Mary concluded. "A word 
 to the wise." 
 
 Saxon had become grave. 
 
 "He's not . . . not . . ." she began, then looked 
 the significance of the question she could not complete. 
 
 "Oh, nothin' like that though there's nothin' to stop 
 him. He's straight, all right, all right. But he just won't 
 fall for anything in skirts. He dances, an' runs around, 
 an' hae a good time, an' beyond that nitsky. A lot of 
 'em 's got fooled on him. I bet you there 's a dozen girls in 
 love with him right now. An' he just goes on turnin' 'em 
 down. There was Lily Sanderson you know her. You 
 seen her at that Slavonic picnic last summer at Shellmound 
 53,
 
 54 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 that tall, nice-lookin' blonde that was with Butch Wil- 
 lows?" 
 
 "Yes, I remember her," Saxon said. "What about 
 her?" 
 
 "Well, she'd been runnin' with Butch Willows pretty 
 teady, an' just because she could dance, Billy dances a lot 
 with her. Butch ain't afraid of nothin'. He wades right 
 in for a showdown, an* nails Billy outside, before every- 
 body, an ' reads the riot act. An ' Billy listens in that slow, 
 sleepy way of his, an' Butch gets hotter an' hotter, an' 
 everybody expects a scrap. 
 
 "An' then Billy says to Butch, 'Are you done?' 'Yes,* 
 Butch says; 'I've said my say, an' what are you go in' to 
 do about it ? ' An ' Billy says an ' what d 'ye think he said, 
 with everybody lookin ' on an ' Butch with blood in his eye ? 
 Well, he said, 'I guess nothin', Butch.' Just like that. 
 Butch was that surprised you could knocked him over with 
 a feather. 'An' never dance with her no more?' he says. 
 'Not if you say I can't, Butch,' Billy says. Just like 
 that. 
 
 "Well, you know, any other man to take. water the way 
 he did from Butch why, everybody 'd despise him. But 
 not Billy. You see, he can afford to. He's got a rep as a 
 fighter, an' when he just stood back an' let Butch have his 
 way, everybody knew he wasn't scared, oi> backin' down, 
 or anything. He didn't care a rap foi Lily Sanderson, 
 that was all, an' anybody could see she was just crazy 
 after him." 
 
 The telling of this episode caused Saxon no little worry. 
 Hers was the average woman's pride, but in the matter of 
 man-conquering prowess she was not undmy conceited. 
 Billy had enjoyed her dancing, and she wondered if that 
 were all. If Charley Long bullied up to him would he 
 let her go as he had let Lily Sanderson go? He was not 
 a marrying man; nor could Saxon blind her eyes to the 
 fact that he was eminently marriageable. No wonder the 
 girls ran after him. And he was a man-subduei as well as 
 a woman-subduer. Men liked him. Bert Wanhope seemed
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 55 
 
 actually to love him. She remembered the Butchertown, 
 tough in the dining-room at Weasel Park who had come 
 over to the table to apologize, and the Irishman at the 
 tug-of-war who had abandoned all thought of fighting with 
 Mm the moment he learned his identity. 
 
 A very much spoiled young man was a thought that 
 flitted frequently through Saxon's mind; and each time 
 she condemned it as ungenerous. He was gentle in tnat 
 tantalizing slow way of his. Despite his strength, he did 
 not walk rough-shod over others. There was the affair with 
 Lily Sanderson. Saxon analyzed it again and again. He 
 had not cared for the girl, and he had immediately stepped 
 from between her and Butch. It was just the thing that 
 Bert, out of sheer wickedness and love of trouble, would 
 not have done. There would have been a fight, hard feel- 
 ings, Butch turned into an enemy, and nothing profited to 
 Lily. But Billy had done the right thing done it slowly 
 and imperturbably and with the least hurt to everybody. 
 All of which made him more desirable to Saxon and less 
 possible. 
 
 She bought another pair of silk stockings that she had 
 hesitated at for weeks, and on Tuesday night sewed and 
 drowsed wearily over a new shirtwaist and earned com- 
 plaint from Sarah concerning her extravagant use of gas. 
 
 Wednesday night, at the Orindore dance, was not all 
 undiluted pleasure. It was shameless the way the girls 
 made up to Billy, and, at times, Saxon found his easy con- 
 sideration for them almost irritating. Yet she was com- 
 pelled to acknowledge to herself that he hurt none of the 
 other fellows' feelings in the way the girls hurt hers. They 
 all but asked him outright to dance with them, and little 
 of their open pursuit of him escaped her eyes. She resolved 
 that she would not be guilty of throwing herself at him, 
 and withheld dance after dance, and yet was secretly and 
 thrillingly aware that she was pursuing the right tactics. 
 She deliberately demonstrated that she was desirable to 
 other men, as he involuntarily demonstrated his own de- 
 sirableness to the women.
 
 56 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 Her happiness came when he coolly overrode her objec- 
 tions and insisted on two dances more than she had allotted 
 him. And she was pleased, as well as angered, when she 
 chanced to overhear two of the strapping young cannery 
 
 girls. "The way that little sa wed-off is monopolizin' 
 
 him," said one. And the other: "You'd think she might 
 have the good taste to run after somebody of her own age. ' ' 
 s ' Cradle-snatcher, ' ' was the final sting that sent the angry 
 blood into Saxon's cheeks as the two girls moved away, 
 unaware that they had been overheard. 
 
 Billy saw her home, kissed her at the gate, and got her 
 onsent to go with him to the dance at Germania Hall on 
 Friday night. 
 
 "I wasn't thinkin' of goin'," he said. "But if you'll 
 say the word . . . Bert's goin' to be there." 
 
 Next day, at the ironing boards, Mary told her that she 
 And Bert were dated for Germania Hall. 
 
 ' ' Are you goin ' ? " Mary asked. 
 
 Saxon nodded. 
 
 "Billy Roberts?" 
 
 The nod was repeated, and Mary, with suspended iron, 
 gave her a long and curious look. 
 
 "Say, an' what if Charley Long butts in?" 
 
 Saxon shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 They ironed swiftly and silently for a quarter of an 
 hour. 
 
 "Well," Mary decided, "if he does butt in maybe he'll 
 get his. I'd like to see him get it the big stiff! It all 
 depends how Billy feels about you, I mean." 
 
 "I'm no Lily Sanderson," Saxon answered indignantly. 
 "I'll never give Billy Roberts a chance to turn me down." 
 
 "You will, if Charley Long butts in. Take it from me, 
 Saxon, he ain't no gentleman. Look what he done to Mr. 
 Moody. That was a awful beatin'. An' Mr. Moody only 
 a quiet little man that wouldn't harm a fly. Well, he 
 won't find Billy Roberts a sissy by a long shot." 
 
 That night, outside the laundry entrance, Saxon found 
 Charley Long waiting. As he stepped forward to greet
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 57 
 
 her and walk alongside, she felt the sickening palpitation 
 that he had so thoroughly taught her to know. The blood 
 ebbed from her face with the apprehension and fear his 
 appearance caused. She was afraid of the rough bulk of 
 the man ; of the heavy brown eyes, dominant and confi- 
 dent ; of the big blacksmith-hands and the thick strong 
 fingers with the hair-pads on the backs to every first joint. 
 He was unlovely to the eye, and he was unlovely to all her 
 finer sensibilities. It was not his strength itself, but the 
 quality of it and the misuse of it, that affronted her. The 
 beating he had given the gentle Mr. Moody had meant 
 half-hours of horror to her afterward. Always did the 
 memory of it come to her accompanied by a shudder. And 
 yet, without shock, she had seen Billy fight at Weasel Park 
 in the same primitive man-animal way. But it had been 
 different. She recognized, but could not analyze, the dif- 
 ference. She was aware only of the brutishness of this 
 man's hands and mind. 
 
 "You're lookin' white an' all beat to a frazzle," he was 
 saying. ' ' Why don 't you cut the work ? You got to some 
 time, anyway. You can't lose me, kid." 
 
 "I wish I could," she replied. 
 
 He laughed with harsh joviality. "Nothin' to it, Saxon. 
 You're just cut out to be Mrs. Long, an' you're sure goin' 
 to be." 
 
 "I wish I was as certain about all things as you are," 
 she said with mild sarcasm that missed. 
 
 "Take it from me," he went on, "there's just one thing 
 you can be certain of an' that is that I am certain." He 
 was pleased with the cleverness of his idea and laughed ap- 
 provingly. "When I go after anything I get it, an' if 
 anything gets in between it gets hurt. D'ye get that? It's 
 me for you, an' that's all there is to it, so you might as 
 well make up your mind and go to workin' in my home 
 instead of the laundry. Why, it's a snap. There wouldn't 
 be much to do. I make good money, an ' you wouldn 't want 
 for anything. You know, I just washed up from work an' 
 skinned over here to tell it to you once more, so you
 
 8 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 wouldn't forget. I ain't ate yet, an' that shows how much 
 I think of you." 
 
 "You'd better go and eat then," she advised, though 
 Bhe knew the futility of attempting to get rid of him. 
 
 She scarcely heard what he said. It had come upon her 
 suddenly that she was very tired and very small and very- 
 weak alongside this colossus of a man. Would he dog her 
 always? she asked despairingly, and seemed to glimpse a 
 vision of all her future life stretched out before her, with 
 always the form and face of the burly blacksmith pursuing 
 her. 
 
 "Come on, kid, an' kick in," he continued. "It'i. 
 the good old summer time, an' that's the time to get mar- 
 ried." 
 
 "But I'm not going to marry you," she protested. "I've 
 told you a thousand times already." 
 
 "Aw, forget it. You want to get them ideas out of your 
 think-box. Of course, you're goin' to marry me. It's a 
 pipe. An' 111 tell you another pipe. You an' me's goin' 
 acrost to Frisco Friday night. There's goin' to be big 
 doin's with the Horseshoers. " 
 
 "Only I'm not," she contradicted. 
 
 "Oh, yes, you are," he asserted with absolute assurance. 
 "We'll catch the last boat back, an' you'll have one fine 
 time. An' I'll put you next to some of the good dancers. 
 Oh, I ain''t a pincher, an' I know you like dancin'." 
 
 "But I tell you I can't," she reiterated. 
 
 He shot a glance of suspicion at her from under the 
 black thatch of brows that met above his nose and were a? 
 one brow. 
 
 ' ' Why can 't you ? ' ' 
 
 "A date," she said. 
 
 "Who's the bloke?" 
 
 "None of your business, Charley Long. I've got a date, 
 that's all." 
 
 "I'll make it my business. Remember that lah-de-dah 
 bookkeeper rummy ? Well, just keep on rememberin' him 
 an' what he got"
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 5 
 
 *'I wish you'd leave me alone," she pleaded resentfully. 
 M Can't you be kind just for once?" 
 
 The blacksmith laughed unpleasantly. 
 
 "If any rummy thinks he can butt in on you an' me, 
 he'll learn different, an' I'm the little boy that'll learn 
 >m. Friday night, en ? Where ? ' ' 
 
 "I won't tell you." 
 
 "Where?" he repeated. 
 
 Her lips were drawn in tight silence, and in her cheeks 
 were little angry spots of blood. 
 
 "Huh! as if I couldn't guess! Germania Hall. Well, 
 111 be there, an' I'll take you home afterward. D'ye get 
 that? An' you'd better tell the rummy to beat it unless 
 you want to see 'm get his face hurt." 
 
 Saxon, hurt as a prideful woman can be hurt by cavalier 
 treatment, was tempted to cry out the name and prowess 
 of her new-found protector. And then came fear. This 
 was a big man, and Billy was only a boy. That was the 
 way he affected her. She remembered her first impression 
 of his hands and glanced quickly at the hands of the man 
 beside her. They seemed twice as large as Billy's, and the 
 mats of hair seemed to advertise a terrible strength. No, 
 Billy could not fight this big brute. He must not. And 
 then to Saxon came a wicked little hope that by the mys- 
 terious and unthinkable ability that prizefighters possessed, 
 Billy might be able to whip this bully and rid her of him. 
 With the next glance doubt came again, for her eye dwelt 
 on the blacksmith's broad shoulders, the cloth of the coat 
 muscle-wrinkled and the sleeves bulging above the biceps. 
 
 "If you lay a hand on anybody I'm going with 
 again " she began. 
 
 "Why, they'll get hurt, of course," Long grinned. 
 "And they'll deserve it, too. Any rummy that comes 
 between a fellow an ' his girl ought to get hurt. ' ' 
 
 "But I'm not your girl, and all your saying so doesn't 
 make it so." 
 
 "That's right, get mad," he approved. "I like you for 
 tiaat, too. You've got spunk an' fight. I like to see it.
 
 eo THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 It's what a man needs in his wife and not these fat cows 
 of women. They're the dead ones. Now you're a live one f 
 all wool, a yard long and a yard wide. ' ' 
 
 She stopped before the house and put her hand on the 
 gate. 
 
 ' ' Good-bye, ' ' she said. ' ' I 'm going in. ' ' 
 
 "Come on out afterward for a run to Idora Park," he 
 suggested. 
 
 "No, I'm not feeling good, and I'm going straight to 
 bed as soon as I eat supper." 
 
 "Huh!" he sneered. "Gettin' in shape for the fling 
 to-morrow night, eh?" 
 
 With an impatient movement she opened the gate and 
 stepped inside. 
 
 "I've given it to you straight," he went on. "If you 
 don't go with me to-morrow night somebody '11 get hurt." 
 
 "I hope it will be you," she cried vindictively. 
 
 He laughed as he threw his head back, stretched his big 
 chest, and half-lifted his heavy arms. The action reminded 
 her disgustingly of a great ape she had once seen in a 
 circus. 
 
 "Well, good-bye," he said. "See you to-morrow night 
 at Germania Hall." 
 
 "I haven't told you it was Germania Hall." 
 
 "And you haven't told me it wasn't. All the same, I'll 
 be there. And I'll take you home, too. Be sure an r keep 
 plenty of round dances open for me. That's right, Get 
 mad. It makes you look fine."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE music stopped at the end of the waltz, leaving Billy 
 and Saxon at the big entrance doorway of the ballroom. 
 Her hand rested lightly on his arm, and they were promen- 
 ading on to find seats, when Charley Long, evidently just 
 arrived, thrust his way in front of them. 
 
 "So you're the buttinsky, eh?" he demanded, his face 
 malignant with passion and menace. 
 
 "Who? me?" Billy queried gently. "Some mistake, 
 sport. I never butt in." 
 
 "You're goin' to get your head beaten off if you don't 
 make yourself scarce pretty lively." 
 
 "I wouldn't want that to happen for the world," Billy 
 drawled. "Come on, Saxon. This neighborhood's un- 
 healthy for us." 
 
 He started to go on with her, but Long thrust in front 
 again. 
 
 "You're too fresh to keep, young fellow," he snarled. 
 "You need saltin' down. D'ye get me?" 
 
 Billy scratched his head, on his face exaggerated puzzle- 
 ment. 
 
 "No, I don't get you," he said. "Now just what was 
 it you said?" 
 
 But the big blacksmith turned contemptuously away 
 from him to Saxon. 
 
 "Come here, you. Let's see your program." 
 
 "Do you want to dance with him?" Billy asked. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "Sorry, sport, nothin' doin'," Billy said, again making 
 to start on. 
 
 For the third time the blacksmith blocked the way. 
 61
 
 62 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Get off your foot," said Billy. "You're standin' OB 
 it." 
 
 Long all but sprang upon him, his hands clenched, one 
 arm just starting back for the punch while at the same 
 instant shoulders and chest were coming forward. But he 
 restrained himself at sight of Billy's unstartled body and 
 cold and cloudy eyes. He had made no move of mind or 
 muscle. It was as if he were unaware of the threatened 
 attack. All of which constituted a new thing in Long's 
 experience. 
 
 "Maybe you don't know who I am," he bullied. 
 
 "Yep, I do," Billy answered airily. "You're a record- 
 breaker at rough-housin '. " (Here Long's face showed 
 pleasure.) "You ought to have the Police Gazette dia- 
 mond belt for rough-housin' baby buggies. I guess there 
 ain't a one you're afraid to tackle." 
 
 " Leave 'm alone, Charley," advised one of the young 
 men who had crowded about them. "He's Bill Roberts,. 
 the fighter. You know'm. Big Bill." 
 
 "I don't care if he's Jim Jeffries. He can't butt in on 
 me this way." 
 
 Nevertheless it was noticeable, even to Saxon, that the 
 fire had gone out of his fierceness. Billy's name seemed 
 to have a quieting effect on obstreperous males. 
 
 "Do you know him?" Billy asked her. 
 
 She signified yes with her eyes, though it seemed she 
 must cry out a thousand things against this man who so 
 steadfastly persecuted her. Billy turned to the blacksmith. 
 
 ''Look here, sport, you don't want trouble with me. I've 
 got your number. Besides, what do we want to fight for? 
 Hasn't she got a say so in the matter?" 
 
 "No, she hasn't. This is my affair an' yourn." 
 
 Billy shook his head slowly. "No; you're in wrong. I 
 think she has a say in the matter." 
 
 "Well, say it then," Long snarled at Saxon. "Who 're 
 you goin* to go with? me or him? Let's get it settled." 
 
 For reply, Saxon reached her free hand over to the hand 
 that rested on Billyhs arm.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 63 
 
 "Nuff said," was Billy's remark. 
 
 Long glared at Saxon, then transferred the glare to her 
 protector. 
 
 "I've a good mind to mix it with you anyway," Long 
 gritted through his teeth. 
 
 Saxon was elated as they started to move away. Lily 
 Sanderson's fate had not been hers, and her wonderful 
 man-boy, without the threat of a blow, slow of speech and 
 imperturbable, had conquered the big blacksmith. 
 
 "He's forced himself upon me all the time," she whis- 
 pered to Billy. "He's tried to run me, and beaten up 
 every man that came near me. I never want to see him 
 again." 
 
 Billy halted immediately. Long, who was reluctantly 
 moving to get out of the way, also halted. 
 
 "She says she don't want anything more to do with 
 you," Billy said to him. "An' what she says goes. If I 
 get a whisper any time that you've been botherin' her 9 
 I'll attend to your case. D'ye get that?" 
 
 Long glowered and remained silent. 
 
 "D'ye get that?" Billy repeated, more imperatively. 
 
 A growl of assent came from the blacksmith. 
 
 "All right, then. See you remember it. An' now get 
 outa the way or I '11 walk over you. ' ' 
 
 Long slunk back, muttering inarticulate threats, and 
 Saxon moved on as in a dream. Charley Long had taken 
 water. He had been afraid of this smooth-skinned, blue- 
 eyed boy. She was quit of him something no other man 
 had dared attempt for her. And Billy had liked her better 
 than Lily Sanderson. 
 
 Twice Saxon tried to tell Billy the details of her ac- 
 quaintance with Long, but each time was put off. 
 
 "I don't care a rap about it," Billy said the second 
 time. "You're here, ain't you?" 
 
 But she insisted, and when, worked up and angry 
 by the recital, she had finished, he patted her hand sooth- 
 ingly. 
 
 "It's all right, Saxon," he said. "He's just a big stiff.
 
 t64 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 I took his measure as soon as I looked at him. He won't 
 bother you again. I know his kind. He's a dog. Rough- 
 house? He couldn't rough-house a milk wagon." 
 
 ' ' But how do you do it ? " she asked breathlessly. ' ' Why 
 are men so afraid of you? You're just wonderful." 
 
 He smiled in an embarrassed way and changed the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 "Say," he said, "I like your teeth. They're so white 
 an' regular, an' not big, an' not dinky little baby's teeth 
 ither. They 're ... they're just right, an' they fit 
 you. I never seen such fine teeth on a girl yet. D'ye 
 know, honest, they kind of make me hungry when I look 
 at 'em. They're good enough to eat." 
 
 At midnight, leaving the insatiable Bert and Mary still 
 dancing, Billy and Saxon started for home. It was on his 
 suggestion that they left early, and he felt called upon to 
 explain. 
 
 "It's one thing the fightin' game's taught me," he said. 
 "To take care of myself. A fellow can't work all day and 
 dance all night and keep in condition. It's the same way 
 with drinkin' an' not that I'm a little tin angel. I know 
 what it is. I've been soused to the guards an' all the rest 
 of it. I like my beer big schooners of it; but I don't 
 drink all I want of it. I've tried, but it don't pay. Take 
 that big stiff to-night that butted in on us. He ought to 
 had my number. He's a dog anyway, but besides he had 
 beer bloat. I sized that up the first rattle, an' that's the 
 difference about who takes the other fellow's number. Con- 
 dition, that's what it is." 
 
 "But he is so big," Saxon protested. "Why, his fists 
 are twice as big as yours. ' ' 
 
 "That don't mean anything. What counts is what's 
 behind the fists. He'd turn loose like a buckin' bronco, 
 If I couldn't drop him at the start, all I'd do is to keep 
 away, smother up, an' wait. An' all of a sudden he'd blow 
 up go all to pieces, you know, wind, heart, everything, 
 and then I'd have him where I wanted him. And the 
 point is he knows it, too."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 65 
 
 "You're the first prizefighter I ever knew," Saxon said, 
 after a pause. 
 
 "I'm not any more," he disclaimed hastily. "That's 
 one thing the fightin' game taught me to leave it alone. 
 It don't pay. A fellow trains as fine as silk till he's all 
 silk, his skin, everything, and he's fit to live for a hundred 
 years; an' then he climbs through the ropes for a hard 
 twenty rounds with some tough customer that's just as 
 good as he is, and in those twenty rounds he frazzles out 
 all his silk an ' blows in a year of his life. Yes, sometimes 
 he blows in five years of it, or cuts it in half, or uses up 
 all of it. I've watched 'em. I've seen fellows strong as 
 bulls fight a hard battle and die inside the year of con- 
 sumption, or kidney disease, or anything else. Now what's 
 the good of it? Money can't buy what they throw away. 
 That 's why I quit the game and went back to drivin ' team, 
 I got my silk, an' I'm goin' to keep it, that's all." 
 
 "It must make you feel proud to know you are the 
 master of other men," she said softly, aware herself of 
 pride in the strength and skill of him. 
 
 "It does," he admitted frankly. "I'm glad I went into 
 the game just as glad as I am that I pulled out of it. 
 . . . Yep, it's taught me a lot to keep my eyes open 
 an' my head cool. Oh, I've got a temper, a peach of a 
 temper. I get scared of myself sometimes. I used to be 
 always breakin' loose. But the fightin' taught me to keep 
 down the steam an' not do things I'd be sorry for after- 
 ward." 
 
 "Why, you're the sweetest, easiest tempered man ) 
 know," she interjected. 
 
 "Don't you believe it. Just watch me, and sometime 
 you'll see me break out that bad that I won't know what 
 I'm doin' myself. . Oh, I'm a holy terror when I get 
 started ! ' ' 
 
 This tacit promise of continued acquaintance gave Saxon 
 a little joy-thrill. 
 
 "Say," he said, as they neared her neighborhood, "what 
 are you doin' next Sunday?"
 
 66 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 { ' Nothing. No plans at all. ' ' 
 
 "Well, suppose you an' me go buggy-riding all day out 
 in the hills?" 
 
 She did not answer immediately, and for the moment 
 she was seeing the nightmare vision of her last buggy-ride ; 
 I of her fear and her leap from the buggy ; and of the long 
 miles and the stumbling through the darkness in thin- 
 soled shoes that bruised her feet on every rock. And then 
 J it came to her with a great swell of joy that this man 
 beside her was not such a man. 
 
 "I love horses," she said. "I almost love them better 
 than I do dancing, only I don 't know anything about them. 
 My father rode a great roan war-horse. He was a captain 
 of cavalry, you know. I never saw him, but somehow I 
 always can see him on that big horse, with a sash around 
 his waist and his sword at his side. My brother George 
 has the sword now, but Tom he 's the brother I live with 
 says it is mine because it wasn't his father's. You see. 
 they're only my half-brothers. I was the only child by 
 my mother's second marriage. That was her real mar- 
 riage her love-marriage, I mean." 
 
 Saxon ceased abruptly, embarrassed by her own gar- 
 rulity; and yet the impulse was strong to tell this young 
 man all about herself, and it seemed to her that these far 
 memories were a large part of her. 
 
 "Go on an' tell me about it," Billy urged. "I like to 
 hear about the old people of the old days. My people was 
 along in there, too, an' somehow I think it was a better 
 world to live in than now. Things was more sensible and 
 natural. I don't exactly say what I mean. But it's like 
 this: I don't understand life to-day. There's the labor 
 unions an' employers' associations, an' strikes, an' hard 
 times, an' huntin' for jobs, an' all the rest. Things wasn't 
 like that in the old days. Everybody farmed, an' shot 
 their meat, an' got enough to eat, an' took care of their 
 old folks. But now it's all a mix-up that I can't under- 
 stand. Mebbe I'm a fool, I don't know. But, anyway, go 
 ahead an' tell us about your mother."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 6? 
 
 '"Well, you see, when she was only a young woman she 
 and Captain Brown fell in love. He was a soldier then, 
 before the war. And he was ordered East for the war 
 when she was away nursing her sister Laura. And then 
 came the news that he was killed at Shiloh. And she mar- 
 ried a man who had loved her for years and years. He 
 was a boy in the same wagon-train coming across the 
 plains. She liked him, but she didn't love him. And 
 afterward came the news that my father wasn't killed after 
 all. So it made her very sad, but it did not spoil her life. 
 She was a good mother and a good wife and all that, but 
 she was always sad, and sweet, and gentle, and I think her 
 Voice was the most beautiful in the world." 
 
 "She was game, all right," Billy approved. 
 
 "And my father never married. He loved her all the 
 time. I've got a lovely poem home that she wrote to hinie 
 It's just wonderful, and it sings like music. Well, long > 
 long afterward her husband died, and then she and my 
 father made their love marriage. They didn't get married 
 until 1882, and she was pretty well along." 
 
 More she told him, as they stood by the gate, and Saxon 
 tried to think that the good-bye kiss was a trine longer 
 than just ordinary. 
 
 "How about nine o'clock?" he queried across the gate t 
 "Don't bother about lunch or anything. I'll fix all that 
 Mp. You just be ready at nin."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 SUNDAY morning Saxon was beforehand in getting ready, 
 ,and on her return to the kitchen from her second journey 
 ,'to peep through the front windows, Sarah began her cus- 
 tomary attack. 
 
 "It's a shame an' a disgrace the way some people can 
 afford silk stockings," she began. "Look at me, a-toilin' 
 and a-stewin' day an' night, and I never get silk stockings 
 nor shoes, three pairs of them all at one time. But 
 there's a just God in heaven, and there'll be some mighty 
 big surprises for some when the end comes and folks get 
 passed out what's comin' to them." 
 
 Tom, smoking his pipe and cuddling his youngest-born 
 on his knees, dropped an eyelid surreptitiously on his cheek 
 in token that Sarah was in a tantrum. Saxon devoted 
 herself to tying a ribbon in the hair of one of the little 
 girls. Sarah lumbered heavily about the kitchen, washing 
 and putting away the breakfast dishes. She straightened 
 her back from the sink with a groan and glared at Saxon 
 with fresh hostility. 
 
 "You ain't sayin' anything, eh? An' 'why don't you? 
 Because I guess you still got some natural shame in you 
 a-runnin' with a prizefighter. Oh, I've heard about your 
 goings-on with Bill Roberts. A nice specimen he is. But 
 just you wait till Charley Long gets his hands on him, 
 that's all." 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," Tom intervened. "Bill Roberts is 
 a pretty good boy from what I hear." 
 
 Saxon smiled with superior knowledge, and Sarah, catch- 
 ing her, was infuriated. 
 
 "Why don't you marry Charley Long? He's crazy for 
 you, and he ain't a drinkin' man." 
 
 "I guess he gets outside his share of beer," Saxon re- 
 Ported. 
 
 68
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 69 
 
 "That's right," her brother supplemented. "An* I 
 know for a fact that he keeps a keg in the house all the 
 time as well." 
 
 "Maybe you've been guzzling from it," Sarah snapped. 
 
 "Maybe I have," Tom said, wiping his mouth reminis- 
 cently with the back of his hand. 
 
 "Well, he can afford to keep a keg in the house if he 
 wants to," she returned to the attack, which now was 
 directed at her husband as well. "He pays his bills, and 
 he certainly makes good money better than most men, 
 anyway. ' ' 
 
 "An' he hasn't a wife an' children to watch out for," 
 Tom said. 
 
 "Nor everlafltin ' dues to unions that don't do him no 
 good." 
 
 "Oh, yes, he has," Tom urged genially. "Blamed Mttle 
 he'd work in that shop, or any other shop in Oakland, if 
 he didn't keep m good standing with the Blacksmiths. You 
 don't understand labor conditions, Sarah. The unions have 
 got to stick, if the men aren 't to starve to death. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, of course not," Sarah sniffed. "I don't under- 
 stand anything. I ain't got a mind. I'm a fool, an' you 
 tell me so right before the children." She turned savagely 
 on her eldest, \vho startled and shrank away. "Willy, your 
 mother is a fo'rl. Do you get that? Your father says she's 
 a fool says i1 right before her face and yourn. She's just 
 a plain fool. Next he'll be sayin' she's crazy an' puttin' 
 her away in the asylum. An' how will you like that, 
 Willie ? How will you like to see your mother in a strait- 
 jacket an' a padded cell, shut out from the light of the sun 
 an' beaten like a nigger before the war, Willie, beaten an' 
 clubbed like a regular black nigger? That's the kind of a 
 father you've got, Willie. Think of it, Willie, in a padded 
 cell, the mother that bore you, with the lunatics screechin' 
 an' screamin' all around, an' the quick-lime eatin' into the 
 dead bodies of them that's beaten to death by the cruel 
 wardens "
 
 70 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 She continued tirelessly, painting with pessimistic strokes 
 the growing black future her husband was meditating for 
 her, while the boy, fearful of some vague, incomprehensible 
 catastrophe, began to weep silently, with a pendulous, 
 trembling underlip. Saxon, for the moment, lost eontrol 
 of herself. 
 
 "Oh, for heaven's sake, can't we be together five min- 
 utes without quarreling?" she blazed. 
 
 Sarah broke off from asylum conjurations and turned 
 upon her sister-in-law. 
 
 "Who's quarreling? Can't I open my head without 
 bein' jumped on by the two of you?" 
 
 Saxon shrugged her shoulders despairingly, and Sarah 
 swung about on her husband. 
 
 "Seein' you love your sister so much better than your 
 wife, why did you want to marry me, that's borne your 
 children for you, an' slaved for you, an' toiled for you, 
 an' worked her fingernails off for you, with no thanks, 
 an' insultin' me before the children, an' sayin' I'm crazy 
 to their faces. An' what have you ever did for me? That's 
 what I want to know me, that's cooked for you, an' 
 washed your stinkin' clothes, and fixed your socks, an' sat 
 up nights with your brats when they was ailin'. Look at 
 that!" 
 
 She thrust out a shapeless, swollen foot, encased in a 
 monstrous, untended shoe, the dry, raw leather of which 
 showed white on the edges of bulging cracks. 
 
 ' ' Look at that ! That 's what I say. Look at that ! ' ' Her 
 voice was persistently rising and at the same time growing 
 .throaty. "The only shoes I got. Me. Your wife. Ain't 
 {you ashamed? Where are my three pairs? Look at that 
 stockin'." 
 
 Speech failed her, and she sat down suddenly on a chair 
 at the table, glaring unutterable malevolence and misery. 
 She arose with the abrupt stiffness of an automaton, poured 
 herself a cup of cold coffee, and in the same jerky way sat 
 down again. As if too hot for her lips, she filled her saucer 
 with the greasy-looking, nondescript fluid, and continued
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 71 
 
 her set glare, her breast rising and falling with staccato, 
 mechanical movement. 
 
 "Now, Sarah, be c'am, be c'am," Tom pleaded anxiously. 
 
 In response, slowly, with utmost deliberation, as if the 
 -destiny of empires rested on the certitude of her act, she 
 turned the saucer of coffee upside down on the table. She 
 lifted her right hand, slowly, hugely, and in the same slow, 
 huge way landed the open palm with a sounding slap on 
 Tom's astounded cheek. Immediately thereafter she raised 
 her voice in the shrill, hoarse, monotonous madness of hys- 
 teria, sat down 011 the floor, and .rocked back and forth in 
 the throes of an abysmal grief. 
 
 Willie 's silent weeping turned to noise, and the two little 
 girls, with the fresh ribbons in their hair, joined him. 
 Tom's face was drawn and white, though the smitten cheek 
 still blazed, and Saxon wanted to put her arms comfort- 
 ingly around him, yet dared not. He bent over his 
 wife. 
 
 "Sarah, j-mi ain't feelin' well. Let me put you to bed, 
 and I'll finish tidying up." 
 
 ' ' Don 't touch me ! don 't touch me ! ' ' she screamed, 
 jerking violently away from him. 
 
 "Take the children out in the yard, Tom, for a walk, 
 anything get them away, ' ' Saxon said. She was sick, and 
 white, and trembling. "Go, Tom, please, please. There's 
 your hat. I'll take care of her. I know just how." 
 
 Left to herself, Saxon worked with frantic haste, assum- 
 ing the calm she did not possess, but which she must im- 
 part to the screaming bedlamite upon the floor. The light 
 frame house leaked the noise hideously, and Saxon knew 
 that the houses on either side were hearing, and the street 
 itself and the houses across the street. Her fear was that 
 Billy should arrive in the midst of it. Further, she was 
 incensed, violated. Every fiber rebelled, almost in a nau- 
 sea; yet she maintained cool control and stroked Sarah's 
 forehead and hair with slow, soothing movements. Soon, 
 with one arm around her, she managed to win the first 
 diminution in the strident, atrocious, unceasing scream. A
 
 72 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 few minutes later, sobbing heavily, the elder woman lay 
 in bed, across her forehead and eyes a wet-pack of towel 
 for easement of the headache she and Saxon tacitly ac- 
 cepted as substitute for the brain-storm. 
 
 When a clatter of hoofs came down the street and 
 stopped, Saxon was able to slip to the front door and wave 
 her hand to Billy. In the kitchen she found Tom waiting 
 in sad anxiousness. 
 
 " It 's all right, ' ' she said. ' ' Billy Roberts has come, and 
 I've got to go. You go in and sit beside her for a while, 
 and maybe she'll go to sleep. But don't rush her. Let 
 her have her own way. If she'll let you take her hand, 
 why do it. Try it, anyway. But first of all, as an opener 
 and just as a matter of course, start wetting the towel 
 over her eyes." 
 
 He was a kindly, easy-going man ; but, after the way 
 of a large percentage of the Western stock, he was un- 
 demonstrative. He nodded, turned toward the door to 
 obey, and paused irresolutely. The look he gave back to 
 Saxon was almost dog-like in gratitude and all-brotherly in 
 love. She felt it, and in spirit leapt toward it. 
 
 "It's all right everything's all right," she cried hastily. 
 
 Tom shook his head 
 
 "No, it aiiT't. It's a shame, a blamed shame, that's what 
 it is." He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, I don't care for 
 myself. But it's for you. You got your life before you' 
 yet, little kid sister. You'll get old, and all that means, 
 fast enough. But it's a bad start for a day off. The thing 
 for you to do is to forget all this, and skin out with your 
 fellow, an' have a good time." In the open door, his hand 
 on the knob to close it after him, he halted a second time. 
 A spasm contracted his brow. "Hell ! Think of it ! Sarah 
 and I used to go buggy-riding once on a time. And I guess 
 she had her three pairs of shoes, too. Can you beat it?" 
 
 In her bedroom Saxon completed her dressing, for an 
 instant stepping upon a chair so as to glimpse critically 
 in the small wall-mirror the hang of her ready-made linen 
 skirt. This, and the jacket, she had altered to <U, and she
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 73 
 
 had double-stitched the seams to achieve the coveted tail- 
 ored effect. Still on the chair, all in the moment of quick 
 clear-seeing, she drew the skirt tightly back and raised it. 
 The sight was good to her, nor did she under-appraise the 
 lines of the slender ankle above the low tan tie ; nor did 
 she under-appraise the delicate yet mature swell of calf 
 outlined in the fresh brown of a new cotton stocking. Down 
 from the chair, she pinned on a firm sailor hat of white 
 straw with a brown ribbon around the crown that matched 
 her ribbon belt. She rubbed her cheeks quickly and fiercely 
 to bring back the color Sarah had driven out of them, and 
 delayed a moment longer to put on her tan lisle-thread 
 gloves. Once, in the fashion-page of a Sunday supplement, 
 she had read that no lady ever put on her gloves after she 
 left the door. 
 
 With a resolute self-grip, as she crossed the parlor and 
 passed the door to Sarah 's bedroom, through the thin wood 
 of which came elephantine meanings and low slubberings, 
 she steeled herself to keep the color in her cheeks and the 
 brightness in her eyes. And so well did she succeed that 
 Billy never dreamed that the radiant, live young thing, 
 tripping lightly down the steps to him, had just come from 
 a bout with soul-sickening hysteria and madness. 
 
 To her, in the bright sun, Billy's blondness was start- 
 ling. His cheeks, smooth as a girl's, were touched with 
 color. The blue eyes seemed more cloudily blue than usual, 
 and the crisp, sandy hair hinted more than ever of the 
 pale straw-gold that was not there. Never had she seen 
 him quite so royally young. As he smiled to greet her, 
 with a slow white flash of teeth from between red lips, she 
 caught again the promise of easement and rest. Fresh from 
 the shattering chaos of her sister-in-law's mind, Billy's 
 tremendous calm was especially satisfying, and Saxon men- 
 tally laughed to scorn the terrible temper he had charged 
 to himself. 
 
 She had been buggy-riding before, but always behind 
 one horse, jaded, and livery, in a top-buggy, heavy and 
 dingy, such as livery stables rent because of sturdy un-
 
 74 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 breakableness. But here stood two horses, head-tossing and 
 restless, shouting in every high-light glint of their satin, 
 golden-sorrel coats that they had never been rented out in 
 all their glorious young lives. Between them was -a pole 
 inconceivably slender, on them were harnesses preposter- 
 ously string-like and fragile. And Billy belonged here, by 
 elemental right, a part of them and of it, a master-part 
 and a component, along with the spidery-delicate, narrow- 
 boxed, wide- and yellow-wheeled, rubbed-tired rig, efficient 
 and capable, as different as he was different from the other 
 men who had taken her out behind stolid, lumbering horses. 
 He held the reins in one hand, yet, with low, steady voice, 
 confident and assuring, held the nervous young animals 
 more by the will and the spirit of him. 
 
 It was no time for lingering. With the quick glance 
 and fore-knowledge of a woman, Saxon saw, not merely 
 the curious children clustering about, but the peering of 
 adult faces from open doors and windows, and past win- 
 dow-shades lifted up or held aside. With his free hand, 
 Billy drew back the linen robe and helped her to a place 
 beside him. The high-backed, luxuriously upholstered seat 
 of brown leather gave her a sense of great comfort ; yet 
 even greater, it seemed to her, was the nearness and com- 
 fort of the man himself and of his body. 
 
 "How d'ye like 'em?" he asked, changing the reins to 
 \>oth hands and chirruping the horses, which went out with 
 a, jerk in an immediacy of action that was new to her. 
 "They're the boss's, you know. Couldn't rent animals like 
 'them. He lets me take them out for exercise sometimes. 
 'If they ain't exercised regular they're a handful. 
 
 Look at King, there, prancin'. Some style, eh? Some 
 
 style! The other one's the real goods, though. Prince is 
 
 his name. Got to have some bit on him to hold 'm. Ah ', 
 
 Would you? Did you see'm, Saxon? Some horse! 
 
 Some horse ! ' ' 
 
 From behind came the admiring cheer of the neighbor- 
 hood children, and Saxon, with a sigh of content^ knew 
 that the har>py day had at last begun.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ''I DON'T know horses," Saxon said. "I 're never been 
 on one's back, and the only ones I've tried to drive were 
 single, and lame, or almost falling down, or something. 
 But I'm not afraid of horses. I just love them. I waa 
 born loving them, I guess." 
 
 Billy threw an admiring, appreciative glance at her. 
 
 "That's the stuff. That's what I like in a woman- 
 grit. Some of the girls I've had out well, take it from 
 me, they made me sick. Oh, I'm hep to 'em. Nervous, an' 
 trembly, an' screechy, an' wabbly. I reckon they come 
 out on my account an' not for the ponies. But me for the 
 brave kid that likes the ponies. You're the real goods, 
 Saxon, honest to God you are. Why, I can talk like a 
 streak with you. The rest of 'em make me sick. I'm like 
 a clam. They don't know nothin', an' they're that scared 
 all the time well, I guess you get me." 
 
 "You have to be born to love horses, maybe," she an- 
 swered. "Maybe it's because I always think of my father 
 on his roan war-horse that makes me love horses. But, 
 anyway, I do. When I was a little girl I was drawing 
 horses all the time. My mother always encouraged me. 
 I've a scrapbook mostly filled with horses I drew when I 
 was little. Do you know, Billy, sometimes I dream I 
 actually own a horse, all my own. And lots of times I 
 dream I'm on a horse's back, or driving him." 
 
 "I'll let you drive 'em, after a while, when they've 
 
 worked their edge off. They're pullin' now. There, 
 
 put your hands in front of mine take hold tight. Feel 
 that? Sure you feel it. An' you ain't feelin' it all by a 
 long shot. I don't dast slack, you bein' such a light- 
 weight." 
 
 Her eyes sparkled as she felt the apportioned pull of 
 -75
 
 76 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 the mouths of the beautiful, live things ; and he, looking 
 at her, sparkled with her in her delight. 
 
 "What's the good of a woman if she can't keep up with 
 a man?" he broke out enthusiastically. 
 
 "People that like the same things always get along best 
 together," she answered, with a triteness that concealed 
 the joy that was hers at being so spontaneously in touchf 
 with him. 
 
 "Why, Saxon, I've fought battles, good ones, frazzlin' 
 my silk away to beat the band before whisky-soaked, 
 smokin' audiences of rotten fight-fans, that just made me 
 sick clean through. An' them, that couldn't take just one 
 stiff jolt or hook to jaw or stomach, a-cheerin' me an' 
 yellin' for blood. Blood, mind you! An' them without 
 the blood of a shrimp in their bodies. Why, honest, now, 
 I'd sooner fight before an audience of one you, for in- 
 stance, or anybody I liked. It'd do me proud. But them 
 sickenin', sap-headed stiffs, with the grit of rabbits and 
 the silk of mangy ki-yi's, a-cheerin' me me! Can you 
 blame me- for quittin ' the dirty game ? Why, I 'd sooner 
 fight before broke-down old plugs of work-horses that's 
 candidates for chicken-meat, than before them rotten 
 bunches of stiffs with nothin ' thicker 'n water in their veins, 
 an' Contra Costa water at that when the rains is heavy on 
 the hills." 
 
 "I . . . I didn't know prizefighting was like that," 
 she faltered, as she released her hold on the lines and sank 
 back again beside him. 
 
 "It ain't the fightin', it's the fight-crowds," he defended 
 with instant jealousy. "Of course, fightin' hurts a young 
 fellow because it frazzles the silk outa him an' all that. 
 But it's the low-lifers in the audience that gets me. Why 
 the good things they say to me, the praise an' that, is in- 
 sulting. Do you get me? It makes me cheap. Think of 
 it! booze-guzzlin' stiffs that'd be afraid to mix it with a 
 sick cat, not fit to hold the coat of any decent man, think 
 of them a-standin' up on their hind legs an' yellin' an' 
 cheerin' me me! "
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 77 
 
 "Ha! ha! What d'ye think of that? Ain't he a 
 rogue?" 
 
 A big bulldog, sliding obliquely and silently across the 
 street, unconcerned with the team he was avoiding, had 
 passed so close that Prince, baring his teeth like a stallion, 
 plunged his head down against reins and check in an effort 
 to seize the dog. 
 
 "Now he's some fighter, that Prince. An* he's natural. 
 He didn't make that reach just for some low-lifer to yell'm 
 on. He just done it outa pure cussedness and himself. 
 That's clean. That's right. Because it's natural. But 
 them fight-fans! Honest to God, Saxon. . . ." 
 
 And Saxon, glimpsing him sidewise, as he watched the 
 horses and their way on the Sunday morning streets, check- 
 ing them back suddenly and swerving to avoid two boys 
 coasting across street on a toy wagon, saw in him deeps 
 and intensities, all the magic connotations of temperament, 
 the glimmer and hint of rages profound, bleaknesses as 
 cold and far as the stars, savagery as keen as a wolf's and 
 clean as a stallion's, wrath as implacable as a destroying 
 angel's, and youth that was fire and life beyond time and 
 place. She was awed and fascinated, with the hunger of 
 woman bridging the vastness to him, daring to love him 
 with arms and breast that ached to him, murmuring to 
 herself and through all the halls of her soul, "You dear, 
 you dear." 
 
 "Honest to God, Saxon," he took upthe broken thread, 
 "they's times when I've hated them, when I wanted to 
 Jump over the ropes and wade into them, knock-down and 
 dragout, an' show'm what fightin' was. Take that night 
 with Billy Murphy. Billy Murphy! if you only knew 
 him. My friend. As clean an ' game a boy as ever jumped 
 inside the ropes to take the decision. Him! We went to 
 the Durant School together. We grew up chums. His 
 fight was my fight. My trouble was his trouble. We both 
 took to the fightin' game. They matched us. Not the first 
 time. Twice we'd fought draws. Once the decision was 
 his; once it was mine. The fifth fight of two lovin' men
 
 78 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 that just loved each other. He's three years older 'n me. 
 He's a wife and two or three kids, an' I know them, too. 
 And he's my friend. Get it? 
 
 "I'm ten pounds heavier but with heavyweights that's 
 all right. He can't time an' distance as good as me, an 
 I can keep set better, too. But he's cleverer an' quicker. 
 I never was quick like him. "We both can take punish- 
 ment, an' we're both two-handed, a wallop in all our fists. 
 I know the kick of his, an' he knows my kick, an' we're 
 both real respectful. And we're even-matched. Two 
 draws, and a decision to each. Honest, I ain't any kind 
 of a hunch who's goin' to win, we're that even. 
 
 "Now, the fight. You ain't squeamish, are you?" 
 
 "No, no," she cried. "I'd just love to hear you are 
 so wonderful." 
 
 He took the praise with a clear, unwavering look, and 
 without hint of acknowledgment. 
 
 "We go along six rounds seven rounds eight 
 rounds; an' honors even. I've been timin' his rushes an' 
 straight-lef tin ' him, an' meetin' his duck with a wicked 
 little right upper-cut, an' he's shaken me en the jaw an' 
 walloped my ears till my head's all singin' an' buzzin'. 
 An' everything lovely with both of us, with a noise like 
 a draw decision in sight. Twenty rounds is the distance, 
 you know. 
 
 "An' then his bad luck comes. We're just mixin' inte 
 a clinch that ain't arrived yet, when he shoots a short hook 
 to my head his left, an' a real hay-maker if it reaches 
 my jaw. I make a forward duck, not quick enough, an' he 
 lands bingo on the side of my head. Honest to God, Saxon 
 it's that heavy I see some stars. But it don't hurt an ; 
 ain't serious, that high up where the bone's thick. An 1 
 right there he finishes himself, for his bad thumb, which 
 I've known since he first got it as a kid fightin' in the 
 sandlot at Watts Tract he smashes that thumb right there, 
 on my hard head, back into the socket with an out-twist, 
 an' all the old cords that'd never got strong gets theirs 
 again. I didn 't mean it. A dirty trick, fair in the game,
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 79 
 
 though, to make a guy smash his hand on your head. But 
 not between friends. I couldn't a-done that to Bill Murphy 
 for a million dollars. It was a accident, just because I 
 was slow, because I was born slow. 
 
 "The hurt of it! Honest, Saxon, you don't know what 
 hurt is till you've got a old hurt like that hurt again. 
 What can Billy Murphy, do but slow down? He's got to. 
 He ain't fightin' two-handed any more. He knows it; I 
 know it ; the referee knows it ; but nobody else. He goes 
 on a-moving that left of his like it's all right. But it ain't. 
 It's hurtin' him like a knife dug into him. He don't dast 
 strike a real blow with that left of his. But it hurts, any- 
 way. Just to move it or not move it hurts, an' every little 
 dab-feint that I'm too wise to guard, knowin' there's no 
 weight behind, why them little dab-touches on that poor 
 thumb goes right to the heart of him, an ' hurts worse than 
 a thousand boils or a thousand knockouts just hurts all 
 over again, an' worse, each time an' touch. 
 
 "Now suppose he an' me was boxin' for fun, out in the 
 back yard, an' he hurts his thumb that way, why we'd 
 have the gloves off in a jiffy an' I'd be putting cold com- 
 presses on that poor thumb of his an' bandagin' it that 
 tight to keep the inflammation down. But no. This is a 
 fight for fight-fans that's paid their admission for blood, 
 an' blood they're goin' to get. They ain't men. They're 
 wolves. 
 
 "He has to go easy, now, an' I ain't a-forcin' him none. 
 -I'm all shot to pieces. I don't know what to do. So I 
 slow down, an' the fans get hep to it. 'Why don't you 
 fight?' they begin to yell; 'Fake! Fake!' 'Why don't 
 you kiss'm?' 'Lovin' cup for yours, Bill Koberts!' an' 
 that sort of bunk. 
 
 " 'Fight!' says the referee to me, low an' savage. 
 'Fight, or I'll disqualify you you, Bill, I mean you.' An* 
 this to me, with a touch on the shoulder so they's no mis- 
 takin'. 
 
 "It ain't pretty. It ain't right. D'ye know what we 
 was fightin' for? A hundred bucks. Think of it! An*
 
 80 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 the game is we got to do our best to put our man down 
 for the count because of the fans has bet on us. Swe^' 
 ain't it? Well, that's my last fight. It finishes me deado. 
 Never again for yours truly. 
 
 " 'Quit,' I says to Billy Murphy in a clinch; 'for the 
 love of God, Bill, quit.' An' he says back, in a whisper, 
 'I can't, Bill you know that.' 
 
 "An' then the referee drags us apart, an' a lot of th* 
 fans begins to hoot an' boo. 
 
 " 'Now kick in, damn you, Bill Roberts, an' finish 'm,' 
 the referee says to me, an' I tell'm to go to hell as Bill 
 an' me flop into the next clinch, not hittin', an' Bill 
 touches his thumb again, an' I see the pain shoot across 
 his face. Game? That good boy's the limit. An' to look 
 into the eyes of a brave man that's sick with pain, an' 
 love'm, an' see love in them eyes of his, an' then have to 
 go on givin' 'm pain call that sport? I can't see it. But 
 the crowd's got its money on us. "We don't count. We've 
 sold ourselves for a hundred bucks, an' we gotta deliver 
 the goods. 
 
 "Let me tell you, Saxon, honest to God, that was 
 one of the times I wanted to go through the ropes an ' drop 
 them fans a-yellin' for blood an' show 'em what blood 
 is. 
 
 " 'For God's sake finish me, Bill,' Bill says to me in 
 that clinch; 'put her over an' I'll fall for it, but I can't 
 lay down.' 
 
 "D'ye want to know? I cry there, right in the ring, 
 in that clinch. The weeps for me. 'I can't do it, Bill,' I 
 whisper back, hangin' onto'm like a brother an' the referee 
 ragin ' an draggin ' at us to get us apart, an ' all the wolves 
 in the house snarlin'. 
 
 ' 'You got 'm!' the audience is yellin'. 'Go in an' 
 finish 'm ! ' ' The hay for him, Bill ; put her across to the 
 jaw an' see 'm fall!' 
 
 ' 'You got to, Bill, or you're a dog,' Bill says, lookin' 
 love at me in his eyes as the referee's grip untangles us 
 clear.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 81 
 
 "An' them wolves of fans yellin': 'Fake! Fake! 
 Fake ! ' like that, an ' keepin ' it up. 
 
 "Well, I done it. They's only that way out. I done it. 
 By God, I done it. I had to. I feint for 'm, draw his 
 left, duck to the right past it, takin ' it across my shoulder, 
 an' come up with my right to his jaw. An' he knows the 
 trick. He's hep. He's beaten me to it an' blocked it with 
 ftiis shoulder a thousan' times. But this time he don't, 
 fae keeps himself wide open on purpose. Blim! It lands. 
 He's dead in the air, an' he goes down sideways, strikin' 
 his face first on the rosin-canvas an' then layin' dead, his 
 head twisted under 'm till you'd a-thought his neck was 
 broke. Me I did that for a hundred bucks an' a bunch 
 of stiffs I'd be ashamed to wipe my feet on. An' then I 
 pick Bill up in my arms an' carry 'm to his corner, an' 
 help bring 'm around. Well, they ain't no kick comin'. 
 They pay their money an ' they get their blood, an ' a knock- 
 out. An' a better man than them, that I love, layin' there 
 dead to the world with a skinned face on the mat." 
 
 For a moment he was still, gazing straight before him 
 at the horses, his face hard and angry. He sighed, looked 
 at Saxon, and smiled. 
 
 "An' I quit the game right there. An' Billy Murphy's 
 laughed at me for it. He still follows it. A side-line, you 
 know, because he works at a good trade. But once in a 
 while, when the house needs paintin', or the doctor bills 
 are up, or his oldest kid wants a bicycle, he jumps out an' 
 makes fifty or a hundred bucks before some of the clubs. I 
 osrant you to meet him when it comes handy. He's some 
 jboy I'm tellin' you. But it did make me sick that night." 
 
 Again the harshness and anger were in his face, and 
 Saxon amazed herself by doing unconsciously what women 
 higher in the social scale have done with deliberate sincer- 
 ity. Her hand went out impulsively to his holding the 
 lines, resting on top of it for a moment with quick, firm 
 pressure. Her reward was a smile from lips and eyes, as 
 his face turned toward her. 
 
 "Gee!" he exclaimed. "I never talk a streak like this
 
 82 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 to anybody. I just hold my hush an' keep my thinks to 
 myself. But, somehow, I guess it's funny, I kind of have 
 a feelin' I want to make good with you. An' that's why 
 I'm tellin' you my thinks. Anybody can dance." 
 
 The way led uptown, past the City Hall and the Four- 
 teenth Street skyscrapers, and out Broadway to Mountain 
 View. Turning to the right at the cemetery, they climbed 
 the Piedmont Heights to Blair Park and plunged into the 
 green coolness of Jack Hayes Canyon. Saxon could not 
 suppress her surprise and joy at the quickness with whick 
 they covered the ground. 
 
 "They are beautiful," she said. "I never dreamed I'd 
 ever ride behind horses like them. I'm afraid I'll wake 
 up now and find it's a dream. You know, I dream horses 
 all the time. I'd give anything to own one some time." 
 
 "It's funny, ain't it?" Billy answered. "I like horses 
 that way. The boss says I'm a wooz at horses. An' I 
 know he's a dub. He don't know the first thing. An' yet 
 he owns two hundred big heavy draughts besides this light 
 drivin' pair, an' I don't own one." 
 
 "Yet God makes the horses," Saxon said. 
 
 "It's a sure thing the boss don't. Then how does he 
 have so many? two hundred of 'em, I'm tellin' you. He 
 thinks he likes horses. Honest to God, Saxon, he don't 
 like all his horses as much as I like the last hair on the last 
 tail of the scrubbiest of the bunch. Yet they're his. 
 Wouldn't it jar you?" 
 
 "Wouldn't it?" Saxon laughed appreciatively. "I just 
 love fancy shirtwaists, an' I spend my life ironing some 
 of the beautifulest I've ever seen. It's funny, an' it isn't 
 fair." 
 
 Billy gritted his teeth in another of his rages. 
 
 An ' the way some of them women gets their shirtwaists. 
 It makes me sick, thinkin' of you ironin' 'em. You know 
 what I mean, Saxon. They ain't no use wastin* words 
 over it. You know. I know. Everybody knows. An ' it 's 
 a hell of a world if men an' women sometimes can't talk 
 to each other about such things. ' ' His manp^ was almost
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 83 
 
 apologetic, yet it was defiantly and assertively right. "I 
 never talk this way to other girls. They 'd think I 'm work- 
 in' up to designs on 'em. They make me sick the way 
 they're always lookin' for them designs. But you're dif- 
 ferent. I can talk to you that way. I know I 've got to. 
 It's the square thing. You're like Billy Murphy, or any 
 other man a man can talk to." 
 
 She sighed with a great happiness, and looked at him 
 yrith unconscious, love-shining eyes. 
 
 "It's the same way with me," she said. "The fellows 
 I've run with I've never dared let talk about such things, 
 because I knew they'd take advantage of it. Why, all the 
 time, with them, I've a feeling that we're cheating and 
 lying to each other, playing a game like at a masquerade 
 ball." She paused for a moment, hesitant and debating, 
 then went on in a queer low voice. "I haven't been, asleep. 
 I've seen . . . and heard. I've had my chances, when 
 I was that tired of the laundry I'd have done almost any- 
 thing. I could have got those fancy shirtwaists ... an ' 
 all the rest . . . and maybe a horse to ride. There was 
 a bank cashier . . . married, too, if you please. He 
 talked to me straight out. I didn't count, you know. I 
 wasn't a girl, with a girl's feelings, or anything. I was 
 nobody. It was just like a business talk. I learned about 
 men from him. He told me what he'd do. He . . ." 
 
 Her voice died away in sadness, and in the silence she 
 ould hear Billy grit his teeth. 
 
 "You can't tell me," he cried. "I know. It's a dirty 
 world an unfair, lousy world. I can't make it out. 
 
 rf'They's no squareness in it. Women, with the best 
 
 that's in 'em, bought an' sold like horses. I don't under- 
 stand women that way. I don't understand men that way. 
 I can't see how a man gets anything but cheated when he 
 buys such things. It's funny, ain't it? Take my boss an' 
 his horses. He owns women, too. He might a-owned you, 
 just because he's got the price. An', Saxon, you was made 
 for fancy shirtwaists an' all that, but. honest to God, I
 
 84 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 can't see you payin' for them that way. It'd be a crime 
 
 He broke off abruptly and reined in the horses. Around 
 a sharp turn, speeding down the grade upon them, had 
 appeared an automobile. "With slamming of brakes it was 
 brought to a stop, while the faces of the occupants took 
 new lease of interest of life and stared at the young man 
 and woman in the light rig that barred the way. Billy ( 
 held up his hand. 
 
 "Take the outside, sport," he said to the chauffeur. 
 
 "Nothin' doin', kiddo," came the answer, as the chauf- 
 feur measured with hard, wise eyes the crumbling edge of 
 the road and the downfall of the outside bank. 
 
 "Then we camp," Billy announced cheerfully. "I know 
 the rules of the road. These animals ain't automobile 
 broke altogether, an' if you think I'm goin' to have 'em 
 shy off the grade you got another guess comin '. ' ' 
 
 A confusion of injured protestation arose from those 
 that sat in the car. 
 
 "You needn't be a road-hog because you're a Rube," 
 said the chauffeur. "We ain't a-goin' to hurt your horses. 
 Pull out so we can pass. If you don 't . . . " 
 
 "That'll do you, sport," was Billy's retort. "You can't 
 talk that way to yours truly. I got your number an ' your 
 tag, my son. You're standin' on your foot. Back up the 
 grade an' get off of it. Stop on the outside at the first 
 passin '-place an' we'll pass you. You've got the juice. 
 Throw on the reverse." 
 
 After a nervous consultation, the chauffeur obeyed, and 
 the car backed up the hill and out of sight around the turn. 
 
 "Them cheap skates," Billy sneered to Saxon, "with a 
 couple of gallons of gasoline an' the price of a machine 
 a-thinkin' they own the roads your folks an' my folks 
 made." 
 
 "Takin' all night about it?" came the chauffeur's voice 
 from around the bend. "Get a move on. You can pass." 
 
 "Get off your foot," Billy retorted contemptuously. 
 
 "I'm a-comin' when I'm ready to come, an' if you ain't
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 85 
 
 given room enough I'll go clean over you an' your load 
 of chicken meat." 
 
 He slightly slacked the reins on the restless, head-tossing 
 animals, and without need of chirrup they took the weight 
 of the light vehicle and passed up the hill and apprehen- 
 sively on the inside of the purring machine. 
 
 "Where was we?" Billy queried, as the clear road 
 showed in front. "Yep, take my boss. Why should he 
 own two hundred horses, an' women, an' the rest, an' you 
 an' me own nothin'?" 
 
 "You own your silk, Billy," she said softly. 
 
 "An' you yours. Yet we sell it to 'em like it was cloth 
 across the counter at so much a yard. I guess you're hep 
 to what a few more years in the laundry '11 do to you. Take 
 me. I'm sellin' my silk slow every day I work. See that 
 little finger?" He shifted the reins to one hand for a 
 moment and held up the free hand for inspection. "I 
 can't straighten it like the others, an' it's growin'. I never 
 put it out fightin'. The teamin's done it. That's silk 
 gone across the counter, that's all. Ever see a old four- 
 horse teamster's hands? They look like claws they're that 
 crippled an' twisted." 
 
 ''Things weren't like that in the old days when our folks 
 crossed the plains," she answered. "They might a-got 
 their fingers twisted, but they owned the best goin' in the 
 way of horses and such." 
 
 ' ' Sure. They worked for themselves. They twisted their 
 .fingers for themselves. But I'm twistin' my fingers for 
 my boss. Why, d'ye know, Saxon, his hands is soft as a 
 woman's that's never done any work. Yet he owns the 
 'horses an' the stables, an' never does a tap of work, an' 
 I manage to scratch my meal-ticket an' my clothes. It's 
 got my goat the way things is run. An' who runs 'em 
 that way? That's what I want to know. Times has 
 changed. Who changed 'em?" 
 
 "God didn't." 
 
 "You bet your life he didn't. An' that's another thing 
 that gets me. Who's God anyway? If he's runnin' things
 
 B6 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 an' what good is he if he ain't? then why does he let 
 my boss, an* men like that cashier you mentioned, why 
 does he let them own the horses, an' buy the women, the 
 nice little girls that oughta be lovin' their own husbands 
 an' havin' children they're not ashamed of, an' just bein 
 happy accordin' to their naturt!"
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 '. THE horses, resting frequently and lathered by the work, 
 had climbed the steep grade of the old road to Moraga 
 Valley, and on the divide of the Contra Costa hills the way 
 descended sharply through the green and sunny stillness 
 of Redwood Canyon. 
 
 "Say, ain't it swell?" Billy queried, with a wave of his 
 hand indicating the circled tree-groups, the trickle of un- 
 seen water, and the summer hum of bees. 
 
 * ' I love it, ' ' Saxon affirmed. ' ' It makes me want to live 
 in the country, and I never have," 
 
 "Me, too, Saxon. I've never lived in the country in my 
 life an' all my folks was country folks." 
 
 "No cities then. Everybody lived in the country. " 
 
 "I guess you're right," he nodded. "They just had to 
 live in the country." 
 
 There was no brake on the light carriage, and Billy be- 
 came absorbed in managing his team down the steep, wind- 
 ing road. Saxon leaned back, eyes closed, with a feeling 
 of ineffable rest. Time and again he shot glances at her 
 closed eyes. 
 
 "What's the matter?" he asked finally, in mild alarm. 
 "You ain't sick?" 
 
 "It's so beautiful I'm afraid to look," she answered. 
 "It's so brave it hurts." 
 
 "Bravef now that's funny." 
 
 "Isn't it? But it just makes me feel that way. It's 
 brave. Now the houses and streets and things in the city 
 aren't brave. But this is. I don't know why. It just is." 
 
 "By golly, I think you're right," he exclaimed. "It 
 strikes me that way, now you speak of it. They ain't no 
 games or tricks here, no cheatin' an' no lyin'. Them trees 
 7
 
 88 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 just stand up natural an' strong an' clean like young boys 
 their first time in the ring before they've learned its rot- 
 tenness an' how to double-cross an' lay down to the bettin' 
 odds an' the fight-fans. Yep; it is brave. Say, Saxon, 
 you see things, don 't you ? ' ' His pause was almost wistful, 
 and he looked at her and studied her with a caressing soft- 
 ness that ran through her in resurgent thrills. "D'ye 
 know, I'd just like you to see me fight some time a real 
 fight, with something doin' every moment. I'd be proud 
 to death to do it for you. An ' I 'd sure fight some with you 
 lookin' on an' understandin '. That'd be a fight what is, 
 take it from me. An' that's funny, too. I never wanted 
 to fight before a woman in my life. They squeal and 
 screech an' don't understand. But you'd understand. It's 
 dead open an' shut you would." 
 
 A little later, swinging along the flat of the valley, 
 through the little clearings of the farmers and the ripe 
 grain-stretches golden in the sunshine, Billy turned to 
 Saxon again. 
 
 ' ' Say, you 've ben in love with fellows, lots of times. Tell 
 me about it. What's it like?" 
 
 She shook her head slowly. 
 
 "I only thought I was in love and not many times, 
 either " 
 
 "Many times!" he cried. 
 
 "Not really ever," she assured him, secretly exultant at 
 his unconscious jealousy. "I never was really in love. If 
 I had been I'd be married now. You see, I couldn't see 
 anything else to it but to marry a man if I loved him." \ 
 
 "But suppose he didn't love you?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," she smiled, half with facetiousness 
 and half with certainty and pride. ' ' I think I could make 
 him love me." 
 
 "I guess you sure could," Billy proclaimed enthusias- 
 tically. 
 
 "The trouble is," she went on, "the men that loved me 
 I never cared for that way. Oh, look!" 
 
 A cottontail rabbit had scuttled across the road, and a
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 89 
 
 tiny dust cloud lingered like smoke, marking the way of 
 his flight. At the next turn a dozen quail exploded into 
 the air from under the noses of the horses. Billy and 
 Saxon exclaimed in mutual deljght. 
 
 "Gee," he muttered, "I almost wisht I'd ben born a 
 farmer. Folks wasn't made to live in cities." 
 
 "Not our kind, at least," she agreed. Followed a pause 
 and a long sigh. "It's all so beautiful. It would be a 
 dream just to live all your life in it. I'd like to be an 
 Indian squaw sometimes." 
 
 Several times Billy checked himself on the verge of 
 speech. 
 
 "About those fellows you thought you was in love 
 with," he said finally. "You ain't told me, yet." 
 
 ' ' You want to know ? ' ' she asked. ' ' They didn 't amount 
 to anything." 
 
 ' ' Of course I want to know. Go ahead. Fire away. ' ' 
 
 "Well, first there was Al Stanley " 
 
 "What did he do for a livin'?" Billy demanded, almost 
 as with authority. 
 
 "He was a gambler." 
 
 Billy's face abruptly stiffened, and she could see his 
 eyes cloudy with doubt in the quick glance he flung at her. 
 
 ' ' Oh, it was all right, ' ' she laughed. ' ' I was only eight 
 years old. You see, I'm beginning at the beginning. It 
 was after my mother died and when I was adopted by 
 Cady. He kept a hotel and saloon. It was down in Los 
 Angeles. Just a small hotel. Workingmen, just common 
 laborers, mostly, and some railroad men, stopped at it, and 
 I guess Al Stanley got his share of their wages. He was 
 so handsome and so quiet and soft-spoken. And he had 
 the nicest eyes and the softest, cleanest hands. I can see 
 them now. He played with me sometimes, in the after- 
 noon, and gave me candy and little presents. He used if 
 sleep most of the day. I didn't know why, then. I thought 
 he was a fairy prince in disguise. And then he got killed, 
 right in the bar-room, but first he killed the man that 
 killed him. So that was the end of that love affair.
 
 90 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Next was after the asylum, when I was thirteen and 
 living with my brother I've lived with him ever since. 
 He was a boy that drove a bakery wagon. Almost every 
 morning, on the way to school, I used to pass him. He 
 would come driving down Wood Street and turn in on 
 Twelfth. Maybe it was because he drove a horse that at- 
 tracted me. Anyway, I must have loved him for a couple 
 of months. Then he lost his job, or something, for another 
 boy drove the wagon. And we 'd never even spoken to each 
 other. 
 
 "Then there was a bookkeeper when I was sixteen. I 
 seem to run to bookkeepers. It was a bookkeeper at the 
 laundry that Charley Long beat up. This other one was 
 when I was working in Hickmeyer's Cannery. He had 
 soft hands, too. But I quickly got all I wanted of him. 
 He was . . . well, anyway, he had ideas like your boss. 
 And I never really did love him, truly and honest, Billy. 
 I felt from the first that he wasn't just right. And when 
 I was working in the paper-box factory I thought I loved 
 a clerk in Kahn's Emporium you know, on Eleventh and 
 Washington. He was all right. That was the trouble with 
 him. He was too much all right. He didn't have any life 
 in him, any go. He wanted to marry me, though. But 
 somehow I couldn't see it. That shows I didn't love him. 
 He was narrow-chested and skinny, and his hands were 
 always cold and fishy. But my! he could dress just like 
 he came out of a bandbox. He said he was going to drown 
 himself, and all kinds of things, but I broke with him just 
 the same. 
 
 "And after that . . . well, there isn't any after that. 
 I must have got particular, I guess, but I didn't see any- 
 body I could love. It seemed more like a game with the 
 men I met, or a fight. And we never fought fair on either 
 side. Seemed as if we always had cards up our sleeves. 
 We weren't honest or outspoken, but instead it seemed as 
 if we were trying to take advantage of each other. Charley 
 Long was honest, though. And so was that bank cashier. 
 And even they made me have the fight feeling harder than
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 91 
 
 ever. All of them always made me feel I had to take care 
 of myself. They wouldn't. That was sure." 
 
 She stopped and looked with interest at the clean pro- 
 file of his face as he watched and guided the horses. He 
 looked at her inquiringly, and her eyes laughed lazily into 
 his as she stretched her arms. 
 
 ' ' That 's all, ' ' she concluded. " I Ve told you everything, 
 which I've never done before to any one. And it's your 
 turn now." 
 
 "Not much of a turn, Saxon. I've never cared for 
 girls that is, not enough to want to marry 'em. I always 
 liked men better fellows like Billy Murphy. Beside*, I 
 guess I was too interested in trainin' an' fightin' to bother 
 with women much. Why, Saxon, honest, while I ain't ben 
 altogether good you understand what I mean just the 
 same I ain't never talked love to a girl in my life. They 
 was no call to." 
 
 "The girls have loved you just the same," she teased, 
 while in her heart was a curious elation at his virginal 
 confession. 
 
 He devoted himself to the horses. 
 
 "Lots of them, "-she urged. 
 
 Still he did not reply. 
 
 "Now, haven't they?" 
 
 "Well, it wasn't my fault," he said slowly. "If they 
 wanted to look sideways at me it was up to them. And it 
 was up to me to sidestep if I wanted to, wasn 't it ? You 've 
 no idea, Saxon, how a prizefighter is run after. Why, 
 sometimes it's seemed to me that girls an' women ain't got 
 an ounce of natural shame in their make-up. Oh, I was 
 never afraid of them, believe muh, but I didn't hanker 
 after 'em. A man's a fool that'd let them kind get his 
 goat." 
 
 "Maybe you haven't got love in you," she challenged. 
 
 "Maybe I haven't," was his discouraging reply. "Any- 
 way, I don't see myself lovin' a girl that runs after me. 
 It 's all right for Charley-boys, but a. man that is a man 
 don't like bein' chased by women."
 
 92 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "My mother always said that love was the greatest thing 
 in the world," Saxon argued. "She wrote poems about 
 it, too. Some of them were published in the San Jose 
 Mercury." 
 
 "What do you think about it?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," she baffled, meeting his eyes with 
 another lazy smile. "All I know is it's pretty good to be 
 ! alive a day like this." 
 
 " On a trip like this you bet it is, ' ' he added promptly. 
 
 At one o'clock Billy turned off the road and drove into 
 an open space among the trees. 
 
 "Here's where we eat," he announced. "I thought it'd 
 be better to have a lunch by ourselves than stop at one r* 
 these roadside dinner counters. An' now, just to make 
 everything safe an' comfortable, I'm goin' to unharness 
 the horses. We got lots of time. You can get the lunch 
 basket out an' spread it on the lap-robe." 
 
 As Saxon unpacked the basket she was appalled at his 
 extravagance. She spread an amazing array of ham and 
 chicken sandwiches, crab salad, hard-boiled eggs, pickled 
 pigs' feet, ripe olives and dill pickles, Swiss cheese, salted 
 almonds, oranges and bananas, and several pint bottles of 
 beer. It was the quantity as well as the variety that both- 
 ered her. It had the appearance of a reckless attempt to 
 buy out a whole delicatessen shop. 
 
 "You oughtn't to blow yourself that way/' she reproved 
 him as he sat down beside her. "Why it's enough for half 
 ^ dozen bricklayers." 
 
 "It's all right, isn't it?" 
 
 ' Yes, ' ' she acknowledged. ' ' But that 's the trouble. It 'a 
 too much so. ' ' 
 
 "Then it's all right," he concluded. "I always believe 
 in havin' plenty. Have some beer to wash the dust away 
 before we begin? Watch out for the glasses, I gotta re- 
 turn them." 
 
 Later, the meal finished, he lay on his back, smoking a 
 cigarette, and questioned her about her earlier history
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 93 
 
 She had been telling him of her life in her brother's house, 
 where she paid four dollars and a half a week board. At 
 fifteen she had graduated from grammar school and gone 
 to work in the jute mills for four dollars a week, three of 
 which she had paid to Sarah. 
 
 "How about that saloonkeeper?" Billy asked, "How 
 come it he adopted you?" 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. ' ' I don 't know, except that 
 all my relatives were hard up. It seemed they just 
 couldn't get on. They managed to scratch a lean living 
 for themselves, and that was all. Cady he was the saloon- 
 keeper had been a soldier in my father's company, and 
 he always swore by Captain Kit, which was their nickname 
 for him. My father had kept the surgeons from amputat- 
 ing his leg in the war, and he never forgot it. He was 
 making money in the hotel and saloon, and I found out 
 afterward he helped out a lot to pay the doctors and to 
 bury my mother alongside of father. I was to go to Uncle 
 Will that was my mother's wish; but there had been 
 fighting up in the Ventura Mountains where his ranch was, 
 and men had been killed. It was about fences and cattle- 
 men or something, and anyway he was in jail a long time, 
 and when he got his freedom the lawyers had got his 
 ranch. He was an old man, then, and broken, and his 
 wife took sick, and he got a job as night watchman for 
 forty dollars a month. So he couldn't do anything for 
 me, and Cady adopted me. 
 
 "Cady was a good man, if he did run a saloon. His 
 wife was a big, handsome-looking woman. I don't think 
 she was all right . . . and I've heard so since. But 
 she was good to me. I don 't care what they say about her, 
 or what she was. She was awful good to me. After he 
 died, she went altogether bad, and so I went into the 
 orphan asylum. It wasn't any too good there, and I had 
 three years of it. And then Tom had married and settled 
 down to steady work, and he took me out to live with him. 
 And well, I've been working pretty steady ever since." 
 
 She gazed sadly away across the fields until her eyes
 
 94 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 came to rest on a fence bright-splashed with poppies at its 
 base. Billy, who from his supine position had been looking 
 up at her, studying and pleasuring in the pointed oval of 
 her woman's face, reached his hand out slowly as he mur- 
 mured : 
 
 "You poor little kid." 
 
 His hand closed sympathetically on her bare forearm, 
 and as she looked down to greet his eyes she saw in them 
 surprise and delight. 
 
 "Say, ain't your skin cool though," he said. "Now me, 
 I'm always warm. Feel my hand." 
 
 It was warmly moist, and she noted microscopic beads 
 of sweat on his forehead and clean-shaven upper lip. 
 
 "My, but you are sweaty." 
 
 She bent to him and with her handkerchief dabbed his 
 lip and forehead dry, then dried his palms. 
 
 "I breathe through my skin, I guess," he explained. 
 "The wise guys in the trainin' camps and gyms say it's 
 a good sign for health. But somehow I'm sweatin' more 
 than usual now. Funny, ain 't it f " 
 
 She had been forced to unclasp his hand from her arm 
 in order to dry it, and when she finished, it returned to its 
 old position. 
 
 "But, say, ain't your skin cool," he repeated with re- 
 newed wonder. "Soft as velvet, too, an' smooth as silk. 
 It feels great." 
 
 Gently explorative, he slid his hand from wrist to elbow 
 and came to rest half way back. Tired and languid from 
 the morning in the sun, she found herself thrilling to his 
 touch and half -dreamily deciding that here was a man she 
 could love, hands and all. 
 
 "Now I've taken the cool all out of that spot." He did 
 not look up to her, and she could see the roguish smile 
 that curled on his lips. "So I guess I'll try another." 
 
 He shifted his hand along her arm with soft sensuous- 
 ness, and she, looking down at his lips, remembered the 
 long tingling they had given hers the first time they had 
 met.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 95 
 
 "Go on and talk," he urged, after a delicious five min- 
 utes of silence. "I like to watch your lips talking. It's 
 funny, but every move they make looks like a tickly kiss.'* 
 
 Greatly she wanted to stay where she was. Instead, she 
 said: 
 
 "If I talk, you won't like what I say." 
 
 "Go on," he insisted. "You can't say anything I won't 
 like." 
 
 "Well, there's some poppies over there by the fence I 
 want to pick. And then it's time for us to be going." 
 
 "I lose," he laughed. "But you made twenty-five tickle 
 kisses just the same. I counted 'em. I'll tell you what: 
 you sing '"When the Harvest Days Are Over,' and let me 
 have your other cool arm while you're doin' it, and then 
 we'll go." 
 
 She sang looking down into his eyes, which were cen- 
 tered, not on hers, but on her lips. When she finished, she 
 slipped his hands from her arms and got up. He was. 
 about to start for the horses, when she held her jacket out 
 to him. Despite the independence natural to a girl who 
 earned her own living, she had an innate love of the little 
 services and finenesses; and, also, she remembered from 
 her childhood the talk by the pioneer women of the cour- 
 tesy and attendance of the caballeros of the Spanish-Cal- 
 ifornia days. 
 
 Sunset greeted them when, after a wide circle to the 
 east and south, they cleared the divide of the Contra Costa 
 hills and began dropping down the long grade that led. 
 past Redwood Peak to L'ruitvale. Beneath them stretched 
 the flatlands to the bay, checkerboarded into fields and 
 broken by the towns of Elmhurst, San Leandro, and Hay- 
 wards. The smoke of Oakland filled the western sky with 
 haze and murk, while beyond, across the bay, they could 
 see the first winking lights of San Francisco. 
 
 Darkness was on them, and Billy had become curiously 
 silent. For half an hour he had given no recognition of 
 her existence save once, when the chill evening wind caused 
 him to tuck the robe tightly about her and himself. Habf
 
 96 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 a dozen times Saxon found herself on the verge of the re- 
 mark, ' ' What 's on your mind ? ' ' but each time let it remain 
 onuttered. She sat very close to him. The warmth of 
 their bodies intermingled, and she was aware of a great 
 restfulness and content. 
 
 "Say, Saxon," he began abruptly. "It's no use my 
 holdin' it in any longer. It's ben in my mouth all day, 
 ever since lunch. What's the matter with you an' m 
 gettin' married?" 
 
 She knew, very quietly and very gladly, that he meant 
 it. Instinctively she was impelled to hold off, to make him 
 woo her, to make herself more desirably valuable ere she 
 yielded. Further, her woman's sensitiveness and pride 
 were offended. She had never dreamed of so forthright 
 and bald a proposal from the man to whom she would give 
 herself. The simplicity and directness of Billy's proposal 
 constituted almost a hurt. On the other hand she wanted 
 him so much how much she had not realized until now, 
 when he had so unexpectedly made himself accessible. 
 
 "Well, you gotta say something, Saxon. Hand it to me, 
 good or bad; but anyway hand it to me. An' just take 
 into consideration that I love you. Why, I love you like 
 the very devil, Saxon. I must, because I'm askin' you to 
 marry me, an' I never asked any girl that before." 
 
 Another silence fell, and Saxon found herself dwelling 
 on the warmth, tingling now, under the lap-robe. When 
 she realized whither her thoughts led, she blushed guiltily 
 in the darkness. 
 
 "How old are you, Billy?" she questioned, with a sud- 
 denness and irrelevance as disconcerting as his first words 
 had been. 
 
 "Twenty-two," he answered. 
 
 "I am twenty- f our. " 
 
 "As if I didn't know. When you left the orphan asy- 
 lum and how old you were, how long you worked in the 
 jute mills, the cannery, the paper-box factory, the laundry 
 maybe you think I can't do addition. I knew how old 
 you was. even to your birthday."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 9* 
 
 "That doesn't change the fact that I'm two years older.** 
 
 "What of it? If it, counted for anything, I wouldn't 
 be lovin' you, would I? Your mother was dead right. 
 Love's the big stuff. It's what counts. Don't you see? I 
 just love you, an' I gotta have you. It's natural, I guess; 
 and I've always found with horses, dogs, and other folks, 
 that what's natural is right. There's no gettin' away 
 from it, Saxon; I gotta have you, an' I'm just hopin' hard 
 you gotta have me. Maybe my hands ain't soft like book- 
 keepers' an' clerks, but they can work for you, an' fight 
 like Sam Hill for you, and, Saxon, they can love you." 
 
 The old sex antagonism which she had always experi- 
 enced with men seemed to have vanished. She had no 
 sense of being on the defensive. This was no game. It 
 was what she had been looking for and dreaming about. 
 Before Billy she was defenseless, and there was an all- 
 satisfaction in the knowledge. She could deny him noth- 
 ing. Not even if he proved to be like the others. And out 
 of the greatness of the 'thought rose a greater thought 
 he would not so prove himself. 
 
 She did not speak. Instead, in a glow of spirit and 
 flesh, she reached out 'to his left hand and gently tried to 
 remove it from the rein. He did not understand ; but 
 when she persisted he shifted the rein to his right and let 
 her have her will with the other hand. Her head bent over 
 it, and she kissed the teamster callouses. 
 
 For the moment he was stunned. 
 
 "You mean it?" he stammered. 
 
 For reply, she kissed the hand again and murmured: 
 
 "I love your hands, Billy. To me they are the most 
 beautiful hands in the world, and it would take hours of 
 talking to tell you all they mean to me." 
 
 "Whoa!" he called to the horses. 
 
 He pulled them in to a standstill, soothed them with his 
 voice, and made the reins fast around the whip. Then he 
 turned to her with arms around her and lips to lips. 
 
 "Oh, Billy, I'll make you a good wife," she sobbed 
 when the kiss was broken.
 
 98 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 He kissed her wet eyes and found her lips again. 
 
 "Now you know what I was thinkin' and why I was 
 sweatin' when we was eatin' lunch. Just seemed I couldn't 
 hold in much longer from tellin' you. Why, you know, 
 you looked good to me from the first moment I spotted 
 you." 
 
 "And I think I loved you from that first day, too, Billy, 
 And I was so proud of you all that day, you were so kind 
 and gentle, and so strong, and the way the men all re- 
 spected you and the girls all wanted you, and the way you 
 fought those three Irishmen when I was behind the picnic 
 table. I couldn't love or marry a man I wasn't proud of, 
 and I'm so proud of you, so proud." 
 
 "Not half as much as I am right now of myself," he 
 answered, "for having won you. It's too good to be true. 
 Maybe the alarm clock '11 go off and wake me up in a 
 couple of minutes. Well, anyway, if it does, I'm goin' to 
 make the best of them two minutes first. Watch, out I 
 don't eat you, I'm that hungry for you." 
 
 He smothered her in an embrace, holding her so tightly 
 to him that it almost hurt. After what was to her an 
 age-long period of bliss, his arms relaxed and he seemed 
 to make an effort to draw himself together. 
 
 "An' the clock ain't gone off yet," he whispered against 
 her cheek. "And it's a dark night, an' there's Fruitvale 
 right ahead, an' if there ain't King and Prince standin' 
 still in the middle of the road. I never thought the time'd 
 come when I wouldn't want to take the ribbons on a fine 
 pair of horses. But this is that time. I just can 't let gc 
 of you, and I 've gotta some time to-night. It hurts worse ' 
 poison, but here goes." 
 
 He restored her to herself, tucked the disarranged robe 
 about her, and chirruped to the impatient team. 
 
 Half an hour later he called "Whoa!" 
 
 "I know I'm awake now, but I don't know but maybe 
 I dreamed all the rest, and I just want to make sure." 
 
 And again he made the reins fast and took her in his 
 arms.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE days flew by for Saxon. She worked on steadily at 
 the laundry, even doing more overtime than usual, and all 
 her free waking hours were devoted to preparations for 
 the great change and to Billy. He had proved himself 
 God's own impetuous lover by insisting on getting married 
 the next day after the proposal, and then by resolutely 
 refusing to compromise on more than a week's delay. 
 
 "Why wait?" he demanded. "We're not gettin' any 
 younger so far as I can notice, an' think of all we lose 
 every day we wait. ' ' 
 
 In the end, he gave in to a month, which was well, for 
 in two weeks he was transferred, with half a dozen other 
 drivers, to work from the big stables of Corberly and 
 Morrison in West Oakland. House-hunting in the other 
 end of town ceased, and on Pine Street, between Fifth 
 and Fourth, and in immediate proximity to the great 
 Southern Pacific railroad yards, Billy and Saxon rented 
 a neat cottage of four small rooms for ten dollars a month. 
 
 "Dog-cheap is what I call it, when I think of the small 
 rooms I've ben soaked for," was Billy's judgment. "Look 
 at the one I got now, not as big as the smallest here, an.' 
 me payin' six dollars a month for it." 
 
 "But it's furnished," Saxon reminded him. "You see, 
 that makes a difference." 
 
 But Billy didn 't see. 
 
 "I ain't much of a scholar, Saxon, but I know simple 
 arithmetic; I've soaked my watch when I was hard up, 
 and I can calculate interest. How much do you figure it 
 will cost to furnish the house, carpets on the floor, linoleum 
 on the kitchen, and all?" 
 
 "We "<ian do it nicely for tbre hundred dollars," she 
 
 m
 
 100 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 answered. "I've been thinking it over and I'm sure we 
 can do it for that." 
 
 ' ' Three hundred, ' ' he muttered, wrinkling his brows with 
 concentration. "Three hundred, say at six per cent. 
 that'd be six cents on the dollar, sixty cents on ten dollars, 
 six dollars on the hundred, on three hundred eighteen 
 dollars. Say I'm a bear at multiplyin' by ten. Now 
 divide eighteen by twelve, that'd be a dollar an' a half a 
 month interest." He stopped, satisfied that he had proved 
 his contention. Then his face quickened with a fresh" 
 thought. "Hold on! That ain't all. That'd be the in- 
 terest on the furniture for four rooms. Divide by four. 
 What's a dollar an' a half divided by four?" 
 
 "Four into fifteen, three times and three to carry,'* 
 Saxon recited glibly. "Four into thirty is seven, twenty- 
 eight, two to carry; and two-fourths is one-half. There 
 you are." 
 
 "Gee! You're the real bear at figures." He hesitated. 
 "I didn't follow you. How much did you say it was?" 
 
 " Thirty -seven and a half cents." 
 
 "Ah, ha! Now we'll see how much I've ben gouged for 
 my one room. Ten dollars a month for four rooms is two 
 an' a half for one. Add thirty-seven an' a half cents in- 
 terest on furniture, an' that makes two dollars an' eighty- 
 seven an' a half cents. Subtract from six dollars . . ." 
 
 "Three dollars and twelve and a half cents," she sup- 
 plied quickly. 
 
 "There we are! Three dollars an' twelve an' a half 
 jcents I'm jiggered out of on the room I'm rentin'. Say! 
 tJein' married is like savin' money, ain't it?" 
 
 "But furniture wears out, Billy." 
 
 "By golly, I never thought of that. It ought to be fig- 
 ured, too. Anyway, we've got a snap here, and next Sat- 
 urday afternoon you've gotta get off from the laundry so 
 as we can go an' buy our furniture. I saw Salinger's last 
 night. I give'm fifty down, and the rest installment plan, 
 ten dollars a month. In twenty-five months the furniture's 
 onrn. An' remember, Saxon, you wants buy everything
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 101 
 
 you want, no matter how much it costs. No scrimpin' on 
 what's for you an' me. Get me?" 
 
 She nodded, with no betrayal on her face of the myriad 
 secret economies that filled her mind. A hint of moisture 
 glistened in her eyes. 
 
 "You're so good to me, Billy," she murmured, as she 
 came to him and was met inside his arms. 
 
 "So you've gone an' done it," Mary commented, one 
 morning in the laundry. They had not been at work ten 
 minutes ere her eye had glimpsed the topaz ring on the 
 third finger of Saxon's left hand. "Who's the lucky one? 
 Charley Long or Billy Roberts?" 
 
 "Billy," was the answer. 
 
 ' ' Huh ! Takin ' a young boy to raise, eh ? " 
 
 Saxon showed that the stab had gone home, and Mary 
 was all contrition. 
 
 "Can't you take a josh? I'm glad to death at the news. 
 Billy's a awful good man, and I'm glad to see you get 
 him. There ain't many like him knockin' 'round, an' they 
 ain't to be had for the askin'. An' you're both lucky. 
 You was just made for each other, an' you'll make him a 
 better wife than any girl I know. "When is it to be ? " 
 
 Going home from the laundry a few days later, Saxon 
 encountered Charley Long. He blocked the sidewalk, and 
 compelled speech with her. 
 
 "So you're runnin' -with a prizefighter," he sneered. 
 "A blind man can see your finish." 
 
 For the first time she was unafraid of this big-bodied, 
 black-browed man with the hairy -matted hands and fingers. 
 She held up her left hand. 
 
 "See that? It's something, with all your strength, that 
 you could never put on my finger. Billy Roberts put it 
 on inside a week. He got your number, Charley Long, 
 and at the same time he got me." 
 
 "Skiddoo for you," Long retorted. "Twenty-three's 
 your number." 
 
 "He's not like you," Saxon went on. "He's a man r 
 every bit of him, a fine, clean man."
 
 102 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 Long laughed hoarsely. 
 
 "He's got your goat all right." 
 
 "And yours," she flashed back. 
 
 "I could tell you things about him. Saxon, straight, he 
 ain't no good. If I was to tell you " 
 
 "You'd better get out of my way," she interrupted, 
 '"or I'll tell him, and you know what you'll get, you great 
 big bully." 
 
 Long shuffled uneasily, then reluctantly stepped aside. 
 
 "You're a caution," he said, half admiringly. 
 
 "So's Billy Roberts," she laughed, and continued on 
 her way. After half a dozen steps she stopped. "Say," 
 she called. 
 
 The big blacksmith turned toward her with eagernesa 
 
 "About a block back," she said, "I saw a man with hip 
 disease. You might go and beat him up." 
 
 Of one extravagance Saxon was guilty in the course of 
 the brief engagement period. A full day 's wages she spent 
 in the purchase of half a dozen cabinet photographs of 
 herself. Billy had insisted that life was unendurable 
 could he not look upon her semblance the last thing when 
 he went to bed at night and the first thing when he got 
 up in the morning. In return, his photographs, one con- 
 ventional and one in the stripped fighting costume of the 
 ring, ornamented her looking glass. It was while gazing 
 at the latter that she was reminded of her wonderful 
 mother's tales of the ancient Saxons and sea-foragers of 
 the English coasts. From the chest of drawers that had 
 crossed the plains she drew forth another of her several 
 precious heirlooms a scrap-book of her mother's in which 
 was pasted much of the fugitive newspaper verse of 
 pioneer California days. Also, there were copies of paint- 
 ings and old wood engravings from the magazines of a 
 generation and more before. 
 
 Saxon ran the pages with familiar fingers and stopped 
 at the picture she was seeking. Between bold headlands 
 of rock and under a gray cloud-blown sky, a dozen boats, 
 long and lean and dark, beaked like monstrous birds, were
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 103 
 
 landing on a foam- whitened beach of sand. The men in 
 the boats, half naked, huge-muscled and fair-haired, wore 
 winged helmets. In their hands were swords and spears, 
 and they were leaping, waist-deep, into the sea-wash and 
 wading ashore. Opposed to them, contesting the landing, 
 were skin-clad savages, unlike Indians, however, who clus- 
 tered on the beach or waded into the water to their knees. 
 The first blows were being struck, and here and there the 
 bodies of the dead and wounded rolled in the surf. One 
 fair-haired invader lay across the gunwale of a boat, the 
 manner of his death, told by the arrow that transfixed his 
 breast. In the air, leaping past him into the water, sword 
 in hand, was Billy. There was no mistaking it. The strik- 
 ing blondness, the face, the eyes, the mouth were the same. 
 The very expression on the face was what had been on 
 Billy's the day of the picnic when he faced the three wild 
 Irishmen. 
 
 Somewhere out of the ruck of those warring races had 
 emerged Billy's ancestors, and hers, was her afterthought, 
 as she closed the book and put it back in the drawer. And 
 some of those ancestors had made this ancient and bat- 
 tered chest of drawers which had crossed the salt ocean 
 and the plains and been pierced by a bullet in the fight 
 with the Indians at Little Meadow. Almost, it seemed, she 
 could visualize the women who had kept their pretties and 
 their family homespun in its drawers the women of those 
 wandering generations who were grandmothers and greater 
 great grandmothers of her own mother. "Well, she sighed,, 
 it was a good stock to be born of, a hard-working, hard-| 
 fighting stock. She fell to wondering what her life would 
 have been like had she been born a Chinese woman, or an 
 Italian woman like those she saw, head-shawled or bare- 
 headed, squat, ungainly and swarthy, who carried great 
 loads of driftwood on their heads up from the beach. Then 
 she laughed at her foolishness, remembered Billy and the 
 four-roomed cottage on Pine Street, and went to bed with 
 her mind filled for the hundredth time with the details o 
 the furniture.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 J< OuB cattle were all played out," Saxon was saying s 
 "and winter was so near that we couldn't dare try to 
 cross the Great American Desert, so our train stopped in 
 Salt Lake City that winter. The Mormons hadn't got bad 
 yet, and they were good to us." 
 
 "You talk as though you were there," Bert commented. 
 
 "My mother was," Saxon answered proudly. "She was 
 nine years old that winter." 
 
 They were seated around the table in the kitchen of the 
 little Pine Street cottage, making a cold lunch of sand- 
 wiches, tamales, and bottled beer. It being Sunday, the 
 four were free from work, and they had come early, to 
 work harder than on any week day, washing walls and 
 windows, scrubbing floors, laying carpets and linoleum, 
 hanging curtains, setting up the stove, putting the kitchen 
 utensils and dishes away, and placing the furniture. 
 
 "Go on with the story, Saxon," Mary begged. "I'm 
 just dyin' to hear. And Bert, you just shut up and 
 listen. ' ' 
 
 "Well, that winter was when Del Hancock showed up. 
 He was Kentucky born, but he'd been in the West for 
 years. He was a scout, like Kit Carson, and he knew him 
 well. Many's a time Kit Carson and he slept under the 
 same blankets. They were together to California and 
 Oregon with General Fremont. Well, Del Hancock was 
 passing on his way through Salt Lake, going I don't know 
 where to raise a company of Rocky Mountain trappers to 
 go after beaver some new place he knew about. He was a 
 handsome man. He wore his hair long like in pictures, 
 and had a silk sash around his waist he'd learned to wear 
 in California from the Spanish, and two revolvers in his 
 belt. Any woman 'd fall in love with him first sight. Well, 
 104
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 105 
 
 he saw Sadie, who was my mother's oldest sister, and I 
 guess she looked good to him, for he stopped right there 
 in Salt Lake and didn't go a step. He was a great Indian 
 fighter, too, and I heard my Aunt Villa say, when I was 
 a little girl, that he had the blackest, brightest eyes, and 
 that the way he looked was like an eagle. He'd fought 
 duels, too, the way they did in those days, and he wasn't 
 afraid of anything. 
 
 ' ' Sadie was a beauty, and she flirted with him and drove 
 him crazy. Maybe she wasn't sure of her own mind, I 
 don't know. But I do know that she didn't give in as 
 easy as I did to Billy. Finally, he couldn't stand it any 
 more. He rode up that night on horseback, wild as could 
 be. 'Sadie,' he said, 'if you don't promise to marry me 
 to-morrow, I'll shoot myself to-night right back of the 
 corral.' And he'd have done it, too, and Sadie knew it, 
 and said she would. Didn't they make love fast in those 
 days ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," Mary sniffed. "A week after you 
 first laid eyes on Billy you was engaged. Did Billy say 
 he was going to shoot himself back of the laundry if you 
 turned him down?" 
 
 "I didn't give him a chance," Saxon confessed. "Any- 
 way Del Hancock and Aunt Sadie got married next day. 
 And they were very happy afterward, only she died. And 
 after that he was killed, with General Ouster and all the 
 rest, by the Indians. He was an old man by then, but I 
 guess he got his share of Indians before they got him. Men 
 like him always died fighting, and they took their dead 
 with them. I used to know Al Stanley when I was a little 
 girl. He was a gambler, but he was game. A railroad 
 man shot him in the back when he was sitting at a table. 
 That shot killed him, too. He died in about two seconds. 
 Brit before he died he'd pulled his gun and put three 
 bullets into the man that killed him." 
 
 "I don't like fightin'," Mary protested. "It makes me 
 nervous. Bert gives me the willies the way he's always 
 lookin' for trouble. There ain't no sense in it."
 
 106 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "And I wouldn't give a snap of my fingers for a man 
 without fighting spirit," Saxon answered. ''Why, we 
 wouldn't be here to-day if it wasn't for the fighting spirit 
 of our people before us." 
 
 "You've got the real goods of a fighter in Billy," Bert 
 assured her; "a yard long and a yard wide and genuine 
 A Number One, long-fleeced wool. Billy's a Mohegan with 
 a scalp-lock, that's what he is. And when he gets his mad 
 up it's a case of get out from under or something will fall 
 on you hard." 
 
 "Just like that," Mary added. 
 
 Billy, who had taken no part in the conversation, got 
 up, glanced into the bedroom off the kitchen, went into 
 the parlor and the bedroom off the parlor, then returned 
 and stood gazing with puzzled brows into the kitchen bed- 
 room. 
 
 "What's eatin* you, old man," Bert queried. "You 
 look as though you'd lost something or was markin' a 
 three-way ticket. What you got on your chest ? Cough it 
 up." 
 
 "Why, I'm just thinkin' where in Sam Hill's the bed 
 an' stuff for the back bedroom." 
 
 "There isn't any," Saxon explained. "We didn't or- 
 der any." 
 
 "Then I'll see about it to-morrow." 
 
 "What d'ye want another bed for?" asked Bert. 
 "Ain't one bed enough for the two of you?" 
 
 "You shut up, Bert!" Mary cried. "Don't get 
 raw." 
 
 "Whoa, Mary!" Bert grinned. "Back up. You're in 
 the wrong stall as usual." 
 
 "We don't need that room," Saxon was saying to Billy. 
 "And so I didn't plan any furniture. That money went 
 to buy better carpets and a better stove." 
 
 Billy came over to her, lifted her from the chair, and 
 seated himself with her on his knees. 
 
 "That's right, little girl. I'm glad you did. The best 
 for us every time. And to-morrow night I want you to
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 107 
 
 run up with me to Salinger's an' pick out a good bedroom 
 set an' carpet for that room. And it must be good. Noth- 
 in' snide." 
 
 "It will cost fifty dollars," she objected. 
 
 "That's right," he nodded. "Make it cost fifty dollars 
 and not a cent less. We're goin' to have the best. And 
 what 's the good of an empty room ? It 'd make the house 
 'look cheap. Why, I go around now, seein' this little nest 
 just as it grows an' softens, day by day, from the day we 
 paid the cash money down an' nailed the keys. Why, al- 
 most every moment I'm drivin' the horses, all day long, I 
 just keep on seein' this nest. And when we're married, 
 I'll go on seein' it. And I want to see it complete. If 
 that room'd be bare-floored an' empty, I'd see nothin' but 
 it and its bare floor all day long. I'd be cheated. The 
 house 'd be a lie. Look at them curtains you put up in it, 
 Saxon. That's to make believe to the neighbors that it's 
 furnished. Saxon, them curtains are lyin' about that 
 room, makin' a noise for every one to hear that that room's 
 furnished. Nitsky for us. I'm goin' to see that them cur- 
 tains tell the truth." 
 
 "You might rent it," Bert suggested. "You're close 
 to the railroad yards, and it's only two blocks to a res- 
 taurant." 
 
 "Not on your life. I ain't marryin' Saxon to take in 
 lodgers. If I can't take care of her, d'ye know what I'll 
 do? Go down to Long Wharf, say 'Here goes nothin',' 
 an' jump into the bay with a stone tied to my neck. Ain't 
 'I right, Saxon?" 
 
 It was contrary to her prudent judgment, but it fanned 
 her pride. She threw her arms around her lover's neck, 
 and said, ere she kissed him: 
 
 "You're the boss, Billy. What you say goes, and always 
 will go." 
 
 "Listen to that!" Bert gibed to Mary. "That's the 
 stuff. Saxon's onto her job." 
 
 "I guess we'll talk things over together first before ever 
 I do anything," Billy was saying to Saxon.
 
 108 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Listen to that," Mary triumphed. "You bet the man 
 that marries me '11 have to talk things over first." 
 
 ' ' Billy 's only givin ' her hot air, ' ' Bert plagued. ' ' They 
 all do it before they're married." 
 
 Mary sniffed contemptuously. 
 
 "I'll bet Saxon leads him around by the nose. And I'm 
 goin' to say, loud an' strong, that I'll lead the man around 
 by the nose that marries me. ' ' 
 
 "Not if you love him," Saxon interposed. 
 
 "All the more reason," Mary pursued. 
 
 Bert assumed an expression and attitude of mournful 
 dejection. 
 
 "Now you see why me an' Mary don't get married," 
 he said. "I'm some big Indian myself, an' I'll be ever- 
 lastingly jiggerooed if I put up for a wigwam I can't be 
 boss of." 
 
 "And I'm no squaw," Mary retaliated, "an' I wouldn't 
 marry a big buck Indian if all the rest of the men in the 
 world was dead." 
 
 "Well this big buck Indian ain't asked you yet." 
 
 "He knows what he'd get if he did." 
 
 "And after that maybe he'll think twice before he does 
 ask you." 
 
 Saxon, intent on diverting the conversation into pleas- 
 anter channels, clapped her hands as if with sudden recol- 
 lection. 
 
 ' ' Oh ! I forgot ! I want to show you something. ' ' From 
 her purse she drew a slender ring of plain gold and passed 
 it around. "My mother's wedding ring. I've worn it 
 l around my neck always, like a locket. I cried for it so in 
 the orphan asylum that the matron gave it back for me 
 to wear. And now, just to think, after next Tuesday I'll 
 be wearing it on my finger. Look, Billy, see the engraving 
 on the inside." 
 
 "C to D, 1879," he read. 
 
 "Carlton to Daisy Carlton was my father's first name. 
 And now, Billy, you've got to get it engraved for you and 
 me."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 109 
 
 Mary was all eagerness and delight. 
 
 ''Oh, it's fine," she cried. "W to S, 1907." 
 
 Billy considered a moment. 
 
 "No, that wouldn't be right, because I'm not giving it 
 to Saxon." 
 
 "I'll tell you what," Saxon said. "W and S." 
 
 "Nope." Billy shook his head. "S and W, because 
 you come first with me." 
 
 " If I come first with you, you come first with us. Billy, 
 dear, I insist on W and S." 
 
 "You see," Mary said to Bert. "Having her owvi way 
 and leading him by the nose already." 
 
 Saxon acknowledged the sting. 
 
 "Anyway you want, Billy," she surrendered. 
 
 His arms tightened about her. 
 
 "We'll talk it over first, I guess."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SARAH was < onservative. Worse, she had crystallized at 
 the end of her love-time with the coining of her first child. 
 After that she was as set in her ways as plaster in a mold. 
 Her mold was the prejudices and notions of her girlhood 
 and the house she lived in. So habitual was she that any 
 change in the customary round assumed the proportions 
 of a revolution. Tom had gone through many of these 
 revolutions, three of them when he moved house. Then 
 his stamina broke, and he never moved house again. 
 
 So it was that Saxon had held back the announcement 
 of her approaching marriage until it was unavoidable. 
 She expected a scene, and she got it. 
 
 "A prizefighter, a hoodlum, a plug-ugly," Sarah 
 sneered, after she had exhausted herself of all calamitous 
 forecasts of her own future and the future of her children 
 in the absence of Saxon's weekly four dollars and a half. 
 "I don't know what your mother 'd thought if she lived 
 to see the day when you took up with a tough like Bill 
 Roberts. Bill ! Why, your mother was too refined to asso- 
 ciate with a man that was called Bill. And all I can say 
 is you can say good-bye to silk stockings and your three 
 pair of shoes. It won't be long before you'll think your- 
 self lucky to go sloppin' around in Congress gaiters and 
 cotton stockin's two pair for a quarter." 
 
 "Oh, I'm not afraid of Billy not being able to keep me 
 in all kinds of shoes," Saxon retorted with a proud toss 
 of her head. 
 
 "You don't know what you're talkin' about." Sarah 
 paused to laugh in mirthless discordance. "Watch for 
 the babies to come. They come faster than wages raise 
 these days." 
 
 110
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 111 
 
 "But we're not going to have any babies . . . that Is, 
 at first. Not until after the furniture is all paid for any- 
 way." 
 
 "Wise in your generation, eh? In my days girls were 
 more modest than to know anything about disgraceful sub- 
 jects." 
 
 "As babies?" Saxon queried, with a touch of gentle 
 malice. 
 
 "Yes, as babies." 
 
 "The first I knew that babies were disgraceful. Why, 
 Sarah, you, with your five, how disgraceful you have been. 
 Billy and I have decided not to be half as disgraceful. 
 We're only going to have two a boy and a girl." 
 
 Tom chuckled, but held the peace by hiding his face in 
 his coffee cup. Sarah, though checked by this flank attack, 
 was herself an old hand in the art. So temporary was the 
 setback that she scarcely paused ere hurling her assault 
 from a new angle. 
 
 "An' marryin' so quick, all of a sudden, eh? If that 
 ain't suspicious, nothin' is. I don't know what young 
 women's comin' to. They ain't decent, I tell you. They 
 ain't decent. That's what comes of Sunday dancin' an' 
 all the rest. Young women nowadays are like a lot of 
 animals. Such fast an' looseness I never saw . . ." 
 
 Saxon was white with anger, but while Sarah wandered 
 on in her diatribe, Tom managed to wink privily and pro- 
 digiously at his sister and to implore her to help in keep- 
 ing the peace. 
 
 "It's all right, kid sister," he comforted Saxon when 
 they were alone. "There's no use talkin' to Sarah. Bill 
 Roberts is a good boy. I know a lot about him. It does 
 you proud to get him for a husband. You're bound to be 
 happy with him . . ." His voice sank, and his face 
 seemed suddenly to be very old and tired as he went on 
 anxiously. "Take warning from Sarah. Don't nag. 
 Whatever you do, don^t nag. Don't give him a perpetual- 
 motion line of chin. Kind of let him talk once in a while. 
 Men have some horse sense, though Sarah don't know it.
 
 112 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 Why, Sarah actually loves me, though she don't make a 
 noise like it. The thing for you is to love your husband, 
 and, by thunder, to make a noise of lovin' him, too. And 
 then you can kid him into doing 'most anything you want. 
 Let him have his way once in a while, and he'll let you 
 have yourn. But you just, go on lovin' him, and leanin * 
 on his judgment he's no fool and you'll be all hunky- 
 dory. I'm scared from go in' wrong, what of Sarah. But 
 I'd sooner be loved into not going wrong." 
 
 "Oh, I'll do it, Tom," Saxon nodded, smiling through 
 the tears his sympathy had brought into her eyes. "And 
 on top of it I'm going to do something else. I'm going to 
 make Billy love me and just keep on loving me. And then 
 I won't have to kid him into doing some of the things I 
 want. He '11 do them because he loves me, you see. ' ' 
 
 "You got the right idea, Saxon. Stick with it, an' you'll 
 win out." 
 
 Later, when she had put on her hat to start for the laun- 
 dry, she found Tom waiting for her at the corner. 
 
 "An', Saxon," he said, hastily and haltingly, "you won't 
 take anything I've said , . . you. know . . . about 
 Sarah . . . as bein ' in any way disloyal to her ? She's 
 a good woman, an' faithful. An' her life ain't so easy by 
 a long shot. I'd bite out my tongue before I'd say any- 
 thing against her. I guess all folks have their troubles. 
 It's heil to be poor, ain't it?" 
 
 "You've been awful good to me, Tom. I can never for- 
 get it. And I know Sarah means right. She does do her 
 best." 
 
 "I won't be able to give you a wedding present," her 
 brother ventured apologetically. "Sarah won't hear of it. 
 Says we didn't get none from my folks when we got mar- 
 ried. But I got something for you just the same. A sur- 
 prise. You'd never guess it." 
 
 Saxon waited. 
 
 ""When you told me you was goin' to get married, I jus?, 
 happened to think of it, an' I wrote to brother George, 
 askin' him for it for you. An' by thunder he sent it by
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 1W 
 
 express. I didn't tell you because I didn't know but may- 
 be he'd sold it. He did sell the silver spurs. He needed 
 the money, I guess. But the other, I had it sent to the 
 shop so as not to bother Sarah, an' I sneaked it in last 
 aight an' hid it in the woodshed." 
 
 "Oh, it is something of my father's! What is it? Oh, 
 jwhat is it?" 
 
 "His army sword." 
 
 "The one he wore on his roan war horse! Oh, Tom, you 
 couldn't give me a better present. Let's go back now. I 
 'want to see it. We can slip in the back way. Sarah's 
 washing in the kitchen, and she won't begin hanging out 
 for an hour. ' ' 
 
 "I spoke to Sarah about lettin' you take the old chest 
 of drawers that was your mother's," Tom whispered, as 
 they stole along the narrow alley between the houses. 
 "Only she got on her high horse. Said that Daisy was as 
 much my mother as yourn, even if we did have different 
 fathers, and that the chest had always belonged in Daisy's 
 family and not Captain Kit's, an' that it was mine, an' 
 what was mine she had some say-so about." 
 
 "It's all right," Saxon reassured him. "She sold it to 
 me last night. She was waiting up for me when I got 
 home with fire in her eye." 
 
 "Yep, she was on the warpath all day after I men- 
 tioned it. How much did you give her for it?" 
 
 "Six dollars." 
 
 "Robbery it ain't worth it," Tom groaned. "It's all 
 {cracked at one end and as old as the hills." 
 
 " I 'd have given ten dollars for it. I 'd have given 'most 
 anything for it, Tom. It was mother's, you know. I re- 
 member it in her room when she was still alive." 
 
 In the woodshed Tom resurrected the hidden treasure 
 and took off the wrapping paper. Appeared a rusty, steel- 
 scabbarded saber of the heavy type carried by cavalry offi- 
 cers in Civil War days. It was attached to a moth-eaten 
 sash of thick-woven crimson silk from which hung heavy 
 silk tassels. Saxon almost seized it from her brother in
 
 114 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 her eagerness. She drew forth the blade and pressed her 
 lips to the steel. 
 
 It was her last day at the laundry. She was to quit 
 work that evening for good. And the next afternoon, at 
 five, she and Billy were to go before a justice of the peace 
 and be married. Bert and Mary were to be the witnesses, 
 and after that the four were to go to a private room ic 
 Barnum's Restaurant for the wedding supper. That over, 
 Bert and Mary would proceed to a dance at Myrtle Hall, 
 while Billy and Saxon would take the Eighth Street car 
 to Seventh and Pine. Honeymoons are infrequent in the 
 working class. The next morning Billy must be at the 
 stable at his regular hour to drive his team out. 
 
 All the women in the fancy starch room knew it was 
 Saxon's last day. Many exulted for her, and not a few 
 were envious of her, in that she had won a husband and 
 to freedom from the suffocating slavery of the ironing 
 board. Much of bantering she endured ; such was the fate 
 of every girl who married out of the fancy starch room. 
 But Saxon was too happy to be hurt by the teasing, a 
 great deal of which was gross, but all of which was good- 
 natured. 
 
 In the steam that arose from under her iron, and on the 
 surfaces of the dainty lawns and muslins that new under 
 her hands, she kept visioning herself in the Pine Street 
 cottage; and steadily she hummed under her breath he: 
 paraphrase of the latest popular song: 
 
 "And when I work, and when I work, 
 I'll always work for Billy." 
 
 By three in the afternoon the strain of the piece-workers 
 in the humid, heated room grew tense. Elderly women 
 gasped and sighed ; the color went out of the cheeks of the 
 young women, their faces became drawn and dark circles 
 formed under their eyes ; but all held on with weary, un- 
 abated speed. The tireless, vigilant forewoman kept a
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 115 
 
 sharp lookout for incipient hysteria, and once led a nar- 
 row-chested, stoop-shouldered young thing out of the place 
 in time to prevent a collapse. 
 
 Saxon was startled by the wildest scream of terror she 
 had ever heard. The tense thread of human resolution 
 snapped; wills and nerves broke down, and a hundred 
 /Women suspended their irons or dropped them. It was 
 Mary who had screamed so terribly, and Saxon saw a 
 strange black animal flapping great claw-like wings and 
 nestling on Mary's shoulder. With the scream, Mary 
 crouched down, and the strange creature, darting into the 
 air, fluttered full into the startled face of a woman at the 
 next board. This woman promptly screamed and fainted. 
 Into the air again, the flying thing darted hither and 
 thither, while the shrieking, shrinking women threw up 
 their arms, tried to run away along the aisles, or cowered 
 under their ironing boards. 
 
 "It's only a bat!" the forewoman shouted. She was 
 furious. "Ain't you ever seen a bat? It won't eat you!" 
 
 But they were ghetto people, and were not to be quieted. 
 Some woman who could not see the cause of the uproar, 
 out of her overwrought apprehension raised the cry of fire 
 and precipitated the panic rush for the doors. All of them 
 were screaming the stupid, soul-sickening high note of 
 terror, drowning the forewoman's voice. Saxon had been 
 merely startled at first, but the screaming panic broke her 
 grip on herself and swept her away. Though she did not 
 scream, she fled with the rest. When this horde of crazed 
 Vomen debouched on the next department, those who 
 worked there joined in the stampede to escape from they 
 knew not what danger. In ten minutes the laundry was 
 deserted, save for a few men wandering about with hand 
 grenades in futile search for the cause of the disturbance. 
 
 The forewoman was stout, but indomitable. Swept along 
 half the length of an aisle by the terror-stricken women, 
 she had broken her way back through the rout and quickly 
 caught the light-blinded visitant in a clothes basket. 
 
 "Maybe I don't know what God looks like, but take it
 
 116 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 from me I've seen a tintype of the devil," Mary gurgled, 
 emotionally fluttering back and forth between laughter 
 and tears. 
 
 But Saxon was angry with herself, for she had been as 
 frightened as the rest in that wild flight for out-of-doors. 
 
 "We're a lot of fools," she said. "It was only a bat. 
 I've heard about them. They live in the country. They 
 wouldn't hurt a fly. They can't see in the daytime. That' 
 was what was the matter with this one. It was only a 
 bat." 
 
 "Huh, you can't string me," Mary replied. "It was the 
 devil." She sobbed a moment, and then laughed hyster- 
 ically again. "Did you see Mrs. Bergstrom faint? And 
 it only touched her in the face. "Why, it was on my shoul- 
 der and touching my bare neck like the hand of a corpse. 
 And I didn't faint." She laughed again. "I guess, may- 
 be, I was too scared to faint. ' ' 
 
 "Come on back," Saxon urged. "We've lost half an 
 hour." 
 
 "Not me. I'm goin' home after that, if they fire me. 
 I couldn't iron for sour apples now, I'm that shaky." 
 
 One woman had broken a leg, another an arm, and a 
 number nursed milder bruises and bruises. No bullying 
 nor entreating of the forewoman could persuade the women 
 to return to w r ork. They were too upset and nervous, and 
 only here and there could one be found brave enough to 
 re-enter the building for the hats and lunch baskets of 
 the others. Saxon was one of the handful that returned) 
 and worked till six o'clock.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 "WHY, Bert! you're squiffed!" Mary cried reproach- 
 fully. 
 
 The four were at the table in the private room at Bar- 
 num's. The wedding supper, simple enough, but seemingly 
 too expensive to Saxon, had been eaten. Bert, in his hand 
 a glass of California red wine, which the management sup- 
 plied for fifty cents a bottle, was on his feet endeavoring 
 a speech. His face was flushed; his black eyes were fev- 
 erishly bright. 
 
 "You've ben drinkin' before you met me," Mary con- 
 tinued. "I can see it stickin' out all over you." 
 
 ''Consult an oculist, my dear," he replied. "Bertram 
 is himself to-night. An' he is here, arisin' to his feet to 
 
 give the glad hand to his old pal. Bill, old man, here 's 
 
 to you. It's how-de-do an' good-bye, I guess. You're a 
 married man now, Bill, an' you got to keep regular hours. 
 No more runnin' around with the boys. You gotta take 
 care of yourself, an' get your life insured, an' take out an 
 accident policy, an' join a buildin' an' loan society, an' a 
 buryin' association " 
 
 "Now you shut up, Bert," Mary broke in. "You don't 
 talk about buryin 's at weddings. You oughta be ashamed 
 of yourself." 
 
 "Whoa, Mary! Back up! I said what I said because 
 I meant it. I ain't tliinkin' what Mary thinks. What I 
 was thinkin' . . . Let me tell you what I was thinkin'. 
 I said buryin ' association, didn 't I ? Well, it was not with 
 the idea of castin' gloom over this merry gatherin'. Far 
 be it. . . ." 
 
 He was so evi^^ntly seeking a way out of his predica- 
 117
 
 118 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 meat, that Mary tossed her head triumphantly. This 
 acted as a spur to his reeling wits. 
 
 "Let me tell you why," he went on. "Because, Bill, 
 you got such an all-fired pretty wife, that's why. All the 
 fellows is crazy over her, an' when they get to runnin' 
 after her, what '11 you be doin'? You'll be gettin' busy. 
 And then won't you need a buryin' association to bury 
 } em ? I just guess yes. That was the compliment to your 
 good taste in skirts I was tryin' to come across with when 
 Mary butted in." 
 
 His glittering eyes rested for a moment in bantering 
 triumph on Mary. 
 
 "Who says I'm squiffed? Me? Not on your life. I'm 
 seein' all things in a clear white light. An' I see Bill 
 there, my old friend Bill. An* I don't see two Bills. I 
 see only one. Bill was never two-faced in his life. Bill, 
 old man, when I look at you there in the married harness, 
 
 I'm sorry " He ceased abruptly and turned on Mary. 
 
 "Now don't go up in the air, old girl. I'm onto my job. 
 My grandfather was a state senator, and he could spiel 
 graceful an' pleasin' till the cows come home. So can I. 
 Bill, when I look at you, I'm sorry. I repeat, I'm 
 sorry." He glared challengingly at Mary. "For myself 
 Tehen I look at you an' know all the happiness you got a 
 hammerlock on. Take it from me, you're a wise guy, bless 
 the women. You've started well. Keep it up. Marry 'em 
 all, bless 'em. Bill, here's to you. You're a Mohegan with 
 a scalplock. An' you got a squaw that is some squaw, take 
 it from me. Minnehaha, here's to you to the two of you 
 an ' to the papooses, too, gosh-dang them ! ' ' 
 
 He drained the glass suddenly and collapsed in his 
 chair, blinking his eyes across at the wedded couple while 
 tears trickled unheeded down his cheeks. Mary's hand 
 went out soothingly to his, completing his break-down. 
 
 "By God, I got a right to cry," he sobbed. "I'm losin' 
 my best friend, ain't I? It'll never be the same again 
 . . . never. When I think of the fun, an' scrapes, an' 
 good times Bill an' me has had together, I could darn
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 119 
 
 near hate you, Saxon, sittin' there with your hand ic 
 his." 
 
 "Cheer up, Bert," she laughed gently. "Look at whose 
 hand you are holding." 
 
 "Aw, it's only one of his cryin' jags," Mary said, with 
 a harshness that her free hand belied as it caressed his 
 hair with soothing strokes. "Buck up, Bert. Every- 
 thing's all right. And now it's up to Bill to say some* 
 thing after your dandy spiel." 
 
 Bert recovered himself quickly with another glass of 
 wine. 
 
 "Kick in, Bill," he cried. "It's your turn now." 
 
 "I'm no hot-air artist," Billy grumbled. "What '11 I 
 say, Saxon? They ain't no use tellin' 'em how happy we 
 are. They know that." 
 
 "Tell them we're always going to be happy," she said. 
 "And thank them for all their good wishes, and we both 
 wish them the same. And we're always going to be to- 
 gether, like old times, the four of us. And tell them 
 they're invited down to 507 Pine Street next Sunday for 
 
 Sunday dinner. And, Mary, if you want to come 
 
 Saturday night you can sleep in the spare bedroom." 
 
 "You've told'm yourself, better 'n I could." Billy 
 clapped his hands. "You did yourself proud, an' I guess 
 they ain't much to add to it, but just the same I'm goin' 
 to pass them a hot one." 
 
 He stood up, his hand on his glass. His clear blue eyes-, 
 under the dark brows and framed by the dark lashes, 
 seemed a deeper blue, and accentuated the blondness of 
 hair and skin. The smooth cheeks were rosy not with 
 wine, for it was only his second glass but with health 
 and joy. Saxon, looking up at him, thrilled with pride in 
 him, he was so well-dressed, so strong, so handsome, so 
 clean-looking her man-boy. And she was aware of pride 
 in herself, in her woman's desirableness that had won for 
 her so wonderful a lover. 
 
 "Well, Bert an' Mary, here you are at Saxon's and my 
 wedding supper. We're just goin' to take all your good
 
 120 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 wishes to heart, we wish you the same back, and when we 
 say it we mean more than you think we mean. Saxon an' 
 I believe in tit for tat. So we're wishin' for the day when 
 the table is turned clear around an* we're sittin' as guests 
 at your wed din' supper. And then, when you come to 
 Sunday dinner, you can both stop Saturday night in the 
 spare bedroom. I guess I was wised up when I furnished 
 it, eh?" 
 
 "I never thought it of you, Billy!" Mary exclaimed. 
 
 "You're every bit as raw as Bert. But just the same 
 
 
 There was a rush of moisture to her eyes. Her voica 
 faltered and broke. She smiled through her tears at them, 
 then turned to look at Bert, who put his arm around her 
 and gathered her on to his knees. 
 
 When they left the restaurant, the four walked to 
 Eighth and Broadway, where they stopped beside the elec- 
 tric car. Bert and Billy were awkward and silent, op- 
 pressed by a strange aloofness. But Mary embraced Saxon 
 with fond anxiousness. 
 
 "It's all right, dear," Mary whispered. "Don't be 
 scared. It's all right. Think of all the other women in 
 the world." 
 
 The conductor clanged the gong, and the two couples 
 separated in a sudden hubbub of farewell. 
 
 "Oh, you Mohegan!" Bert called after, as the car got 
 under way. "Oh, you Minnehaha!" 
 
 ' ' Remember what I said, ' ' was Mary 's parting to Saxon. 
 
 The car stopped at Seventh and Pine, the terminus of 
 the line. It was only a little over two blocks to the cot- 
 tage. On the front steps Billy took the key from his 
 pocket. 
 
 "Funny, isn't it?" he said, as the key turned in the 
 lock. "You an' me. Just you an' me." 
 
 While he lighted the lamp in the parlor, Saxon was tak- 
 ing off her hat. He went into the bedroom and lighted 
 the lamp there, then turned back and stood in the door-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 121 
 
 way. Saxon, still unaccountably fumbling with her hat- 
 pins, stole a glance at him. He held out his arms. 
 
 "Now," he said. 
 
 She came to him, and in his arms he could feel her 
 trembling.

 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 BOOK II
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE first evening after the marriage night Saxon met 
 Billy at the door as he came up the front steps. After 
 their embrace, and as they crossed the parlor hand in hand 
 toward the kitchen, he filled his lungs through his nostrils 
 with audible satisfaction. 
 
 "My, but this house smells good, Saxon! It ain't the 
 coffee I can smell that, too. It's the whole house. It 
 smells . . . well, it just smells good to me, that's all." 
 
 He washed and dried himself at the sink, while she 
 heated the frying pan on the front hole of the stove with 
 the lid off. As he wiped his hands he watched her keenly, 
 and cried out with approbation as she dropped the steak 
 in the f lying pan. 
 
 " Where 'd you learn to cook steak on a dry, hot pan? 
 It's the only way, but darn few women seem to know 
 about it." 
 
 As she took the cover off a second frying pan and stirred 
 the savory contents with a kitchen knife, he came behind 
 her, passed his arms under her arm-pits with down-droop- 
 ing hands upon her breasts, and bent his head over her 
 shoulder till cheek touched cheek. 
 
 "Una um um-m-m! Fried potatoes with onions like 
 mother used to make. Me for them. Don't they smell 
 good, though! Um um m-m-m!" 
 
 The pressure of his hands relaxed, and his cheek slid 
 caressingly past hers as he started to release her. Then 
 his hands closed down again. She felt his lips on her 
 hair and heard his advertised inhalation of delight. 
 
 "Um um m-m-m! Don't you smell good yourself, 
 though! I never understood what they meant when they 
 said a girl was sweet. I know, now. And you're the 
 sweetest I ever knew." 
 
 125
 
 126 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 His joy was boundless. When he returned from comb- 
 ing his hair in the bedroom and sat down at the small 
 table opposite her, he paused with knife and fork in 
 hand. 
 
 "Say, bein' married is a whole lot more than it's cracked 
 up to be by most married folks. Honest to God, Saxon, we 
 can show 'em a few. We can give 'em cards and spades 
 an' little casino an' win out on big casino and the aces. 
 I've got but one kick comin'." 
 
 The instant apprehension in her eyes provoked a chuckle 
 from him. 
 
 "An' that is that we didn't get married quick enough. 
 Just think. I've lost a whole week of this." 
 
 Her eyes shone with gratitude and happiness, and in 
 her heart she solemnly pledged herself that never in all 
 their married life would it be otherwise. 
 
 Supper finished, she cleared the table and began wash- 
 ing the dishes at the sink. When he evinced the intention 
 of wiping them, she caught him by the lapels of the coat 
 and backed him into a chair. 
 
 "You'll sit right there, if you know what's good for 
 you. Now be good and mind what I say. Alco, you will 
 
 smoke a cigarette. No; you're not going to watch 
 
 me. There's the morning paper beside you. And if you 
 don't hurry to read it, I'll be through these dishes before 
 you've started." 
 
 As he smoked and read, she continually glanced across 
 at him from her work. One thing more, she thought 
 slippers; and then the picture of comfort and content 
 would be complete. 
 
 Several minutes later Billy put the paper aside with 
 a sigh. 
 
 "It's no use," he complained. "I can't read." 
 
 "What's the matter?" she teased. "Eyes weak?" 
 
 "Nope. They're sore, and there's only one thing to do 
 'em any good, an' that's lookin' at you." 
 
 "All right, then, baby Billy; I'll be through in a jiffy." 
 
 When she had washed the dish towel and scalded out
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 127 
 
 the sink, she took off her kitchen ^apron, came to him, and 
 kissed first one eye and then the other. 
 
 "How are they now. Cured?" 
 
 ''They feel some better already." 
 
 She repeated the treatment. 
 
 "And now?" 
 
 "Still better." 
 
 "And now?" 
 
 "Almost well." 
 
 After he had adjudged them well, he ouehed and in- 
 formed her that there was still some hurt in the right eye. 
 
 In the course of treating it, she cried out as in pain. 
 Billy was all alarm. 
 
 "What is it? What hurt you?" 
 
 "My eyes. They're hurting like sixty." 
 
 And Billy became physician for a while and she the 
 patient. When the cure was accomplished, she led him 
 into tbe parlor, where, by the open window, they suc- 
 ceeded in occupying the same Morris chair. It was the 
 most expensive comfort in the house. It had cost seven 
 dollars and a half, and, though it was grander than any- 
 thing she had dreamed of possessing, the extravagance of 
 it had worried her in a half-guilty way all day. 
 
 The salt chill of the air that is the blessing of all the 
 bay cities after the sun goes down crept in about them. 
 They heard the switch engines puffing in the railroad 
 yards, and the rumbling thunder of the Seventh Street 
 local slowing down in its run from the Mole to stop at 
 West Oakland station. From the street came the noise of 
 children playing in the summer night, and from the steps 
 of the house next door the low voices of gossiping house- 
 wives. 
 
 "Can you beat it?" Billy murmured. "When I think 
 of that six-dollar furnished room of mine, it makes me 
 sick to think what I was missin' all the time. But there's 
 one satisfaction. If I'd changed it sooner I wouldn't 
 a-had you. You see, I didn't know you existed only until 
 a couple of weeks ago. ' '
 
 128 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 His hand crept along her bare forearm and up and 
 partly under the elbow-sleeve. 
 
 "Your skin's so cool," he said. "It ain't cold; it's 
 cool. It feels good to the hand." 
 
 "Pretty soon you'll be calling me your cold-storage 
 ,baby," she laughed. 
 
 "And your voice is cool," he went on. "It gives me 
 the feeling just as your hand does when you rest it on my 
 forehead. It's funny. I can't explain it. But your voice 
 just goes all through me, cool and fine. It's like a wind 
 of coolness just right. It's like the first of the sea-breeze 
 settin' in in the afternoon after a scorchin' hot morning. 
 An' sometimes, when you talk low, it sounds round and 
 sweet like the 'cello in the Macdonough Theater orchestra. 
 And it never goes high up, or sharp, or squeaky, or 
 scratchy, like some women's voices when they're mad, or 
 fresh, or excited, till they remind me of a bum phonograph 
 record. Why, your voice, it just goes through me till I 'm 
 all trembling like with the everlastin' cool of it. It's 
 it's straight delicious. I guess angels in heaven, if they is 
 any, must have voices like that." 
 
 After a few minutes, in which, so inexpressible was her 
 happiness that she could only pass her hand through his 
 hair and cling to him, he broke out again. 
 
 "I'll tell you what you remind me of. Did you 
 
 ever see a thoroughbred mare, all shinin' in the sun, with 
 hair like satin an' skin so thin an' tender that the least 
 touch of the whip leaves a mark all fine nerves, an' 
 delicate an' sensitive, that'll kill the toughest bronco when 
 it comes to endurance an' that can strain a tendon in a 
 flash or catch death-of-cold without a blanket for a night ? 
 I wanta tell you they ain't many beautifuler sights in 
 this world. An' they're that fine-strung, an' sensitive, 
 an' delicate. You gotta handle 'em right-side up, glass, 
 with care. Well, that's what you remind me of. And 
 I'm goin' to make it my job to see you get handled an' 
 gentled in the same way. You're as different from other 
 women as that kind of a mare is from scrub work-horse
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 129 
 
 mares. You're a thoroughbred/ You're clean-cut an* 
 spirited, an' your lines . . . 
 
 "Say, d'ye know you've got some figure? Well, you 
 have. Talk about Annette Kellerman. You can give her 
 cards and spades. She's Australian, an' you're Ameri- 
 can, only your figure ain't. You're different. You're 
 nifty I don't know how to explain it. Other women 
 ain't built like you. You belong in some other country. 
 You're Frenchy, that's what. You're built like a French 
 woman, an' more than that the way you walk, move, 
 stand up or sit down, or don't do anything." 
 
 And he, who had never been out of California, or, for 
 that matter, had never slept a night away from his birth- 
 town of Oakland, was right in his judgment. She was 
 a flower of Anglo-Saxon stock, a rarity in the exceptional 
 smallness and fineness of hand and foot and bone and 
 grace of flesh and carriage some throw-back across the 
 face of time to the foraying Norman-French that had in- 
 termingled with the sturdy Saxon breed. 
 
 "And in the way you carry your clothes. They belong 
 to you. They seem just as much part of you as the cool 
 of your voice and skin. They're always all right an' 
 couldn't be better. An' you know, a fellow kind of likes 
 to be seen taggin' around with a woman like you, that 
 wears her clothes like a dream, an' hear the other fellows 
 say: 'Who's Bill's new skirt? She's a peach, ain't she? 
 Wouldn't I like to win her, though.' And all that sort 
 of talk." 
 
 And Saxon, her cheek pressed to his, knew that she 
 was paid in full for all her midnight sewings and the 
 torturing hours of drowsy stitching when her head nodded 
 with the weariness of the day 's toil, while she recreated for 
 herself filched ideas from the dainty garments that had 
 steamed under her passing iron. 
 
 "Say, Saxon, I got a new name for you. You're my 
 Tonic Kid. That's what you are, the Tonic Kid." 
 
 "And you'll never get tired of me?" she queried. 
 
 "Tired? Why we was made for each other."
 
 130 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Isn't it wonderful, our meeting, Billy? We might 
 never have met. It was just by accident that we did." 
 
 "We was born lucky, " he proclaimed. "That's a 
 cinch." 
 
 "Maybe it was more than luck," she ventured. 
 
 "Sure. It just had to be. It was fate. Nothing could 
 a-kept us apart." 
 
 They sat on in a silence that was quick with unuttered 
 love, till she felt him slowly draw her more closely and 
 his lips come near to her ear as they whispered: "What 
 do you say we go to bed?" 
 
 Many evenings they spent like this, varied with an occa- 
 sional dance, with trips to the Orpheum and to Bell's 
 Theater, or to the moving picture shows, or to the Friday 
 night band concerts in City Hall Park. Often, on Sunday, 
 she prepared a lunch, and he drove her out into the hills 
 behind Prince and King, whom Billy's employer was still 
 glad to have him exercise. 
 
 Each morning Saxon was called by the alarm clock. 
 The first morning he had insisted upon getting up with 
 her and building the fire in the kitchen stove. She gave 
 in the first morning, but after that she laid the fire in 
 the evening, so that all that was required was the touching 
 of a match to it. And in bed she compelled him to remain 
 for a last little doze ere she called him for breakfast. 
 For the first several weeks she prepared his lunch for him. 
 Then, for a week, he came down to dinner. After that 
 he was compelled to take his lunch with him. It de- 
 pended on how far distant the teaming was done. 
 
 "You're not starting right with a man," Mary cau- 
 tioned. "You wait on him hand and foot. You'll spoil 
 him if you don't watch out. It's him that ought to be 
 waitin' on you." 
 
 "He's the bread-winner," Saxon replied. "He works 
 harder than I, and I've got more time than I know what 
 to do with time to burn. Besides, I want to wait on him 
 because I love to, and because . . . well, anyway, I 
 want to."
 
 CHAPTER H 
 
 DESPITE the fastidiousness of her housekeeping, Saxon, 
 once she had systematized it, found time and to spare on 
 her hands. Especially during the periods in which her 
 husband carried his lunch and there was no midday meal 
 to prepare, she had a number of hours each day to her- 
 self. Trained for years to the routine of factory and 
 laundry work, she could not abide this unaccustomed idle- 
 ness. She could not bear to sit and do nothing, whil& 
 she could not pay calls on her girlhood friends, for they 
 still worked in factory and laundry. Nor was she ac- 
 quainted with the wives of the neighborhood, save for 
 one strange old woman who lived in the house next door 
 and with whom Saxon had exchanged snatches of con- 
 versation over the back yard division fence. 
 
 One time-consuming diversion of which Saxon took ad- 
 vantage was free and unlimited baths. In the orphan 
 asylum and in Sarah 's house she had been used to but one 
 bath a week. As she grew to womanhood she had at- 
 tempted more frequent baths. But the effort proved dis- 
 astrous, arousing, first, Sarah's derision, and next, her 
 wrath. Sarah had crystallized in the era of the weekly 
 Saturday night bath, and any increase in this cleansing 
 function was regarded by her as putting on airs and as 
 an insinuation against her own cleanliness. Also, it was 
 an extravagant misuse of fuel, and occasioned extra towels 
 in the family wash. But now, in Billy's house, with her 
 own stove, her own tub and towels and soap, and no one 
 to say her nay, Saxon was guilty of a daily orgy. True, 
 it was only a common washtub that she placed on the 
 kitchen floor and filled by hand ; but -it was a luxury that 
 had tajsen her twenty-four years to achieve. It was from 
 131
 
 132 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 the strange woman next door that Saxon received a hint, 
 dropped in casual conversation, of what proved the 
 culminating joy of bathing. A simple thing a few drops 
 of druggist 's ammonia in the water ; but Saxon had never 
 heard of it before. 
 
 She was destined to learn much from the strange woman. 
 The acquaintance had begun one day when Saxon, in the 
 back yard, was hanging out a couple of corset covers 
 and several pieces of her finest undergarments. The wom- 
 an, leaning on the rail of her back porch, had caught her 
 eye, and nodded, as it seemed to Saxon, half to her and 
 half to the underlinen on the line. 
 
 "You're newly married, aren't you?" the woman asked. 
 "I'm Mrs. Higgins. I prefer my first name, which ia 
 Mercedes. ' ' 
 
 "And I'm Mrs. Eoberts," Saxon replied, thrilling to 
 the newness of the designation on her tongue. "My first 
 name is Saxon." 
 
 "Strange name for a Yankee woman," the other com- 
 mented. 
 
 "Oh, but I'm not Yankee," Saxon exclaimed. "I'm 
 Californian. ' ' 
 
 "La la," laughed Mercedes Higgins. "I forgot I was 
 in America. In other lands all Americans are called 
 Yankees. It is true that you are newly married?" 
 Saxon nodded with a happy sigh. Mercedes sighed, too. 
 "Oh, you happy, soft, beautiful young thing. I could 
 envy you to hatred you with all the man-world ripe to 
 be twisted about your pretty little fingers. And you 
 don't realize your fortune. No one does until it's too 
 late." 
 
 Saxon was puzzled and disturbed, though she answered 
 readily : 
 
 Oh, but I do know how lucky I am. I have the finest 
 man in the world." 
 
 Mercedes Higgins sighed again and changed the sub- 
 ject. She nodded her head at the garments. 
 
 "I see you like pretty things. It is good judgment for
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 133 
 
 a young woman. They're the bait for men half the 
 weapons in the battle. They win men, and they hold 
 
 men " She broke off to demand almost fiercely: 
 
 "And you, you would keep your husband? always, al- 
 ways if you can?" 
 
 "I intend to. I will make him love me always and 
 always. ' ' 
 
 Saxon ceased, troubled and surprised that she should 
 be so intimate with a stranger. 
 
 ' 'Tis a queer thing, this love of men," Mercedes said. 
 "And a failing of all women is it to believe they know 
 men like books. And with breaking hearts, die they do, 
 most women, out of their ignorance of men and still fool- 
 ishly believing they know all about them. Oh, la la, the 
 little fools. And so you say, little new-married woman, 
 that you will make your man love you always and always ? 
 And so they all say it, knowing men and the queerness 
 of men's love the way they think they do. Easier it is 
 to win the capital prize in the Little Louisiana, but the 
 little new-married women never know it until too late. 
 But you you have begun well. Stay by your pretties 
 and your looks. 'Twas so you won your man, 'tis so 
 you'll hold him. But that is not all. Some time I will 
 talk with you and tell what few women trouble to know, 
 
 what few women ever come to know. Saxon! 'tis a 
 
 strong, handsome name for a woman. But you don't look 
 it. Oh, I've watched you. French you are, with a Frenehi- 
 ness beyond dispute. Tell Mr. Roberts I congratulate him 
 on his good taste." 
 
 She paused, her hand on the knob of her kitchen door. 
 
 "And come and see me some time. You will never be 
 sorry. I can teach you much. Come in the afternoon. 
 My man is night watchman in the yards and sleeps of 
 mornings. He's sleeping now." 
 
 Saxon went into the house puzzling and pondering. 
 Anything but ordinary was this lean, dark-skinned woman, 
 with the face withered as if scorched in great heats, 
 and the eyes, large and black, that flashed and flamed with
 
 134 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 advertisement of an unquenched inner conflagration. 
 Old she was Saxon caught herself debating anywhere 
 between fifty and seventy; and her hair, which had once 
 been blackest black, was streaked plentifully with gray. 
 Especially noteworthy to Saxon was her speech. Good 
 English it was, better than that to which Saxon was ac- 
 customed. Yet the woman was not American. On the 
 other hand, she had no perceptible accent. Rather were 
 her words touched by a foreignness so elusive that Saxon 
 could not analyze nor place it. 
 
 "Uh, huh," Billy said, when she had told him that even- 
 ing of the day's event. "So she's Mrs. Higgins? He's 
 a watchman. He's got only one arm. Old Higgins an' 
 her a funny bunch, the two of them. The people's scared 
 of her some of 'em. The Dagoes an' some of the old 
 Irish dames thinks she's a witch. Won't have a thing to 
 do with her. Bert was tellin' me about it. Why, Saxon, 
 d'ye know, some of 'em believe if she was to get mad at 
 'em, or didn't like their mugs, or anything, that all she's 
 got to do is look at 'em an' they'll curl up their toes an' 
 croak. One of the fellows that works at the stable you 've 
 seen 'm Henderson he lives around the corner on 
 Fifth he says she's bughouse." 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," Saxon defended her new acquain- 
 tance. "She may be crazy, but she says the same thing 
 you're always saying. She says my form is not American 
 but French." 
 
 "Then I take my hat off to her," Billy responded. 
 "No wheels in her head if she says that. Take it from 
 me, she's a wise gazabo." 
 
 "And she speaks good English, Billy, like a school 
 teacher, like what I guess my mother used to speak. She 's 
 educated." 
 
 "She ain't no fool, or she wouldn't a-sized you up the 
 way she did." 
 
 "She told me to congratulate you on your good taste 
 in marrying me," Saxon laughed. 
 
 "She did, eh? Then give her my love. Me for her,
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 135 
 
 because she knows a good thing when she sees it, an' she 
 ought to be congratulating you on your good taste in me." 
 
 It was on another day that Mercedes Higgins nodded, 
 half to Saxon, and half to the dainty women's things 
 Saxon was hanging on the line. 
 
 "I've been worrying over your washing, little new- 
 wife," was her greeting. 
 
 "Oh, but I've worked in the laundry for years," Saxon 
 said quickly. 
 
 Mercedes sneered scornfully. 
 
 "Steam laundry. That's business, and it's stupid. Only 
 common things should go to a steam laundry. That is 
 their punishment for being common. But the pretties! 
 the dainties! the flimsies! la la, my dear, their wash- 
 ing is an art. It requires wisdom, genius, and discretion 
 fine as the clothes are fine. I will give you a recipe for 
 home-made soap. It will not harden the texture. It will 
 give whiteness, and softness, and life. You can wear them 
 long, and fine white clothes are to be loved a long time. 
 Oh, fine washing is a refinement, an art. It is to be done 
 as an artist paints a picture, or Writes a poem, with love, 
 holily, a true sacrament of beauty. 
 
 "I shall teach you better ways, my dear, better ways 
 than you Yankees know. I shall teach you new pret- 
 ties." She nodded her head to Saxon's underlinen on the 
 line. "I see you make little laces. I know all laces the 
 Belgian, the Maltese, the Mechlin oh, the many, many 
 loves of laces ! I shall teach you some of the simpler ones 
 so that you can make them for yourself, for your brave 
 man you are to make love you always and always." 
 
 On her first visit to Mercedes Higgins, Saxon received 
 the recipe for home-made soap and her head was filled 
 with a minutiae of instruction in the art of fine washing. 
 Further, she was fascinated and excited by all the new- 
 ness and strangeness of the withered old woman who blew 
 upon her the breath of wider lands and seas beyond the 
 horizon. 
 
 "You are Spanish?" Saxon ventured.
 
 136 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 M No, and yes, and neither, and more. My father was 
 Irish, my mother Peruvian-Spanish. 'Tis after her I took, 
 in color and looks. In other ways after my father, the 
 blue-eyed Celt with the fairy song on his tongue and the 
 restless feet that stole the rest of him away to far-wander- 
 ing. And the feet of him that he lent me have led me 
 away on as wide far roads as ever his led him." 
 
 Saxon remembered her school geography, and with her 
 mind's eye she saw a certain outline map of a continent 
 with jiggly wavering parallel lines that denoted coast. 
 
 "Oh," she cried, "then you are South American." 
 
 Mercedes shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "I had to be born somewhere. It was a great ranch, my 
 mother's. You could put all Oakland in one of its small- 
 est pastures." 
 
 Mercedes Higgins sighed cheerfully and for the time 
 was lost in retrospection. Saxon was curious to hear more 
 about this woman who must have lived much as the 
 Spanish- Calif ornians had lived in the old days. 
 
 "You received a good education," she said tentatively. 
 "Your English is perfect." 
 
 "Ah, the English came afterward, and not in school. 
 But, as it goes, yes, a good education in all things but 
 the most important men. That, too, came afterward. 
 And little my mother dreamed she was a grand lady, 
 what you call a cattle-queen little she dreamed my fine 
 education was to fit me in the end for a night watchman's 
 wife." She laughed genuinely at the grotesqueness of 
 the idea. "Night watchman, laborers, why, we had hun- 
 dreds, yes, thousands that toiled for us. The peons they 
 are like what you call slaves, almost, and the cowboys, 
 who could ride two hundred miles between side and side 
 of the ranch. And in the big house servants beyond 
 remembering or counting. La la, in my mother's house 
 were many servants. ' ' 
 
 Mercedes Higgins was voluble as a Greek, and wan- 
 dered on in reminiscence. 
 
 "But our servants were lazy and dirty. The Chinese
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 137 
 
 are the servants par excellence. So are the Japanese, when 
 you find a good one, but not so good as the Chinese. The 
 Japanese maidservants are pretty and merry, but you 
 never know the moment they'll leave you. The Hindoos 
 are not strong, but very obedient. They look upon sahibs 
 and memsahibs as gods ! I was a meinsahib which means 
 woman. I once had a Russian cook who always spat in 
 the soup for luck. It was very funny. But we put up 
 with it. It was the custom." 
 
 "How you must have traveled to have such strange ser- 
 vants!" Saxon encouraged. 
 
 The old woman laughed corroboration. 
 
 "And the strangest of all, down in the South Seas, 
 black slaves, little kinky-haired cannibals with bones 
 through their noses. When they did not mind, or when 
 they stole, they were tied up to a cocoanut palm behind 
 the compound and lashed with whips of rhinoceros hide. 
 They were from an island of cannibals and head-hunters, 
 and they never cried out. It was their pride. There was 
 little Vibi, only twelve years old he waited on me and 
 when his back was cut in shreds and I wept over him, he 
 would only laugh and say, 'Short time little bit I take 'm 
 
 head belong big fella white marster. ' That was Bruce 
 
 Anstey, the Englishman who whipped him. But little 
 Vibi never got the head. He ran away and the bushmen 
 cut off his own head and ate every bit of him." 
 
 Saxon chilled, and her face was grave; but Mercedes 
 Higgins rattled on. 
 
 "Ah, those were wild, gay, savage days. Would you 
 believe it, my dear, in three years those Englishmen of 
 the plantation drank up oceans of champagne and Scotch 
 whisky and dropped thirty thousand pounds on the ad- 
 venture. Not dollars pounds, which means one hundred 
 and fifty thousand dollars. They were princes while it 
 lasted. It was splendid, glorious. It was mad, mad. I 
 sold half my beautiful jewels in New Zealand before I got 
 started again. Bruce Anstey blew out his brains at the 
 end. Roger went mate on a trader with a black crew,
 
 138 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 for eight pounds a month. And Jack Gilbraith he was 
 the rarest of them all. His people were wealthy and 
 titled, and he went home to England and sold cat's meat 
 all around their big house till they gave him more money 
 to start a rubber plantation in the East Indies somewhere, 
 on Sumatra, I think or was it New Guinea?" 
 
 And Saxon, back in her own kitchen and preparing 
 supper for Billy, wondered what lusts and rapacities had 
 led the old, burnt-faced woman from the big Peruvian 
 ranch, through all the world, to West Oakland and Barry 
 Higgins. Old Barry was not the sort who would fling 
 away his share of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, 
 much less ever attain to such opulence. Besides, she 
 had mentioned the names of other men, but not his. 
 
 Much more Mercedes had talked, in snatches and frag- 
 ments. There seemed no great country nor city of the old 
 world or the new in which she had not been. She had 
 even been in Klondike, ten years before, in a half-dozen 
 flashing sentences picturing the fur-clad, be-moccasined 
 miners sowing the barroom floors with thousands of dol- 
 lars' worth of gold dust. Always, so it seemed to Saxon, 
 Mrs. Higgins had been with men to whom money was 
 as watee.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SAXON, brooding over her problem of retaining Billy's 
 love, of never staling the freshness of their feeling for 
 each other and of never descending from the heights which 
 at present they were treading, felt herself impelled toward 
 Mrs. Higgins. She knew; surely she must know. Had 
 she not hinted knowledge beyond ordinary women's 
 knowledge ? 
 
 Several weeks went by, during which Saxon was often 
 with her. But Mrs. Higgins talked of all other matters, 
 taught Saxon the making of certain simple laces, and in- 
 structed her in the arts of washing and of marketing. 
 And then, one afternoon, Saxon found Mrs. Higgins more 
 voluble than usual, with words, clean-uttered, that rippled 
 and tripped in their haste to escape. Her eyes were 
 flaming. So flamed her face. Her words were flames. 
 There was a smell of liquor in the air and Saxon knew 
 that the old woman had been drinking. Nervous and 
 frightened, at the same time fascinated, Saxon hemstitched 
 a linen handkerchief intended for Billy and listened to 
 Mercedes' wild flow of speech. 
 
 "Listen, my dear. I shall tell you about the world of 
 men. Do not be stupid like all your people, who think 
 me foolish and a witch with the evil eye. Ha ! ha t When 
 I think of silly Maggie Donahue pulling the shawl across 
 her baby 's face when we pass each other on the sidewalk ! 
 A witch I have been, 'tis true, but my witchery was with 
 men. Oh, I am wise, very wise, my dear. I shall tell 
 you of women's ways with men, and of men's ways with 
 women, the best of them and the worst of them. Of the 
 brute that is in all men, of the queerness of them that 
 breaks the hearts of stupid women who do not understand, 
 139
 
 140 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 And all women are stupid. I am not stupid. La la, listen. 
 
 "I am an old woman. And like a woman, I'll not tell 
 you how old I am. Yet can I hold men. Yet would I 
 hold men, toothless and a hundred, my nose touching my 
 chin. Not the young men. They were mine in my young 
 days. But the old men, as befits my years. And well 
 for me the power is mine. In all this world I am without 
 kin or cash. Only have I wisdom and memories mem- 
 ories that are ashes, but royal ashes, jeweled ashes. Old 
 women, such as I, starve and shiver, or accept the pau- 
 per's dole and the pauper's shroud. Not I. I hold my 
 man. True, 'tis only Barry Higgins old Barry, heavy, 
 an ox, but a male man, my dear, and queer as all men are 
 queer. 'Tis true, he has one arm." She shrugged her 
 shoulders. "A compensation. He cannot beat me, and 
 old bones are tender when the round flesh thins to strings. 
 
 "But when I think of my wild young lovers, princes, 
 mad with the madness of youth! I have lived. It is 
 enough. I regret nothing. And with old Barry I have my 
 surety of a bite to eat and a place by the fire. And why? 
 Because I know men, and shall never lose my cunning 
 to hold them. 'Tis bitter sweet, the knowledge of them, 
 more sweet than bitter men and men and men! Not 
 stupid dolts, nor fat bourgeois swine of business men, but 
 men of temperament, of flame and fire; madmen, maybe, 
 but a lawless, royal race of madmen. 
 
 "Little wife- woman, you must learn. Variety! There 
 lies the magic. 'Tis the golden key. 'Tis the toy that 
 amuses. Without it in the wife, the man is a Turk ; with 
 it, he is her slave, and faithful. A wife must be many 
 wives. If you would have your husband 's love you must be 
 all women to him. You must be ever new, with the dew 
 of newness ever sparkling, a flower that never blooms to 
 the fulness that fades. You must be a garden of flowers, 
 ever new, ever fresh, ever different. And in your garden 
 the man must never pluck the last of your posies. 
 
 "Listen, little wife- woman. In the garden of love is a 
 snake. It is the commonplace. Stamp on its head, or
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 141 
 
 it will destroy the garden. Remember the name. Common- 
 place. Never be too intimate. Men only seem gross. 
 
 Women are more gross than men. No, do not argue, 
 
 little new-wife. You are an infant woman. Women are 
 less delicate than men. Do I not know? Of their own 
 husbands they will relate the most intimate love-secrets 
 to other women. Men never do this of their wives. Ex- 
 plain it. There is only one way. In all things of love 
 women are less delicate. It is their mistake. It is the 
 father and the mother of the commonplace, and it is the 
 commonplace, like a loathsome slug, that beslimes and 
 destroys love. 
 
 "Be delicate, little wife- woman. Never be without your 
 veil, without many veils. Veil yourself in a thousand veils, 
 all shimmering and glittering with costly textures and 
 precious jewels. Never let the last veil be drawn. Against 
 the morrow array yourself with more veils, ever more 
 veils, veils without end. Yet the many veils must not 
 seem many. Each veil must seem the only one between 
 you and your hungry lover who will have nothing less 
 than all of you. Each time he must seem to get all, to 
 tear aside the last veil that hides you. He must think so. 
 It must not be so. Then there will be no satiety, for on 
 the morrow he will find another last veil that has escaped 
 him. 
 
 "Remember, each veil must seem the last and only one. 
 Always you must seem to abandon all to his arms ; always 
 you must reserve more that on the morrow and on all the 
 morrows you may abandon. Of such is variety, surprise, 
 so that your man's pursuit will be everlasting, so that 
 his eyes will look to you for newness, and not to other 
 women. It was the freshness and the newness of your 
 beauty and you, the mystery of you, that won your man. 
 When a man has plucked and smelled all the sweetness of 
 a flower, he looks for other flowers. It is his queerness. 
 You must ever remain a flower almost plucked yet never 
 plucked, stored with vats of sweet unbroached though ever 
 broached.
 
 142 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Stupid women, and all are stupid, think the first win- 
 ning of the man the final victory. Then they settle down 
 and grow fat, and stale, and dead, and heartbroken. Alas, 
 they are so stupid. But you, little infant-woman with your 
 first victory, you must make your love-life an unending 
 chain of victories. Each day you must win your man 
 again. And when you have won the last victory, when 
 you can find no more to win, then ends love. Finis 13 
 written, and your man wanders in strange gardens. Re- 
 member, love must be kept insatiable. It must have an 
 appetite knife-edged and never satisfied. You must feed 
 your lover well, ah, very well, most well; give, give, yet 
 send him away hungry to come back to you for more." 
 
 Mrs. Higgins stood up suddenly and crossed out of the 
 room. Saxon had not failed to note the litheness and 
 grace in that lean and withered body. She watched for 
 Mrs. Higgins' return, and knew that the litheness and 
 grace had not been imagined. 
 
 "Scarcely have I told you the first letter in love's al- 
 phabet," said Mercedes Higgins, as she reseated herself. 
 
 In her hands was a tiny instrument, beautifully grained 
 and richly brown, which resembled a guitar save that it 
 bore four strings. She swept them back and forth with 
 rhythmic forefinger and lifted a voice, thin and mellow, in 
 a fashion of melody that was strange, and in a foreign 
 tongue, warm-voweled, all-voweled, and love-exciting. 
 Softly throbbing, voice and strings arose on sensuous 
 crests of song, died away to whisperings and caresses, 
 drifted through love-dusks and twilights, or swelled again 
 to love-cries barbarically imperious in which were woven 
 plaintive calls and madnesses of invitation and promise. 
 It went through Saxon until she was as this instrument, 
 swept with passional strains. It seemed to her a dream, 
 and almost was she dizzy, when Mercedes Higgins 
 ceased. 
 
 ' ' If your man had clasped the last of you, and if all of 
 you were known to him as an old story, yet, did you sing 
 that one song, as I have sung it, yet would his arms again
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 143 
 
 go out to you and his eyes grow warm with the old mad 
 lights. Do you see? Do you understand, little wife- 
 woman ? ' ' 
 
 Saxon could only nod, her lips too dry for speech. 
 
 "The golden koa, the king of woods," Mercedes was 
 crooning over the instrument. ' ' The ukulele that is what 
 the Hawaiians call it, which means, my dear, the jumping 
 flea. They are golden-fleshed, the Hawaiians, a race of 
 lovers, all in the warm cool of the tropic night where the 
 trade winds blow." 
 
 Again she struck the strings. She sang in another 
 language, which Saxon deemed must be French. It was 
 a gayly-devilish lilt, tripping and tickling. Her large 
 eyes at times grew larger and wilder, and again narrowed 
 in enticement and wickedness. When she ended, she looked 
 to Saxon for a verdict. 
 
 "I don't like that one so well," Saxon said. 
 
 Mercedes shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "They all have their worth, little infant- woman with 
 so much to learn. There are times when men may be 
 won with wine. There are times when men may be won. 
 with the wine of song, so queer they are. La la, so many 
 ways, so many ways. There are your pretties, my dear, 
 your dainties. They are magic nets. No fisherman upon 
 the sea ever tangled fish more successfully than we women 
 with our flimsies. You are on the right path. I have 
 seen men enmeshed by a corset cover no prettier, no dain- 
 ,tier, than those of yours I have seen on the line. 
 
 "I have called the washing of fine linen an art. But 
 it is not for itself alone. The greatest of the arts is the 
 conquering of men. Love is the sum of all the arts, as 
 it is the reason for their existence. Listen. In all times 
 and ages have been women, great wise women. They did 
 not need to be beautiful. .Greater than all woman's beauty 
 was their wisdom. Princes and potentates bowed down 
 before them. Nations battled over them. Empires crashed 
 because of them. Religions were founded on them. 
 Aphrodite, Astarte, the worships of the night listen, in-
 
 144 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 fant-woman, of the great women who conquered worlds 
 of men." 
 
 And thereafter Saxon listened, in a maze, to what almost 
 seemed a wild farrago, save that the strange meaningless 
 phrases were fraught with dim, mysterious significance. 
 She caught glimmerings of profounds inexpressible and 
 unthinkable that hinted connotations lawless and ter-< 
 rible. The woman's speech was a lava rush, scorching 1 
 and searing; and Saxon's cheeks, and forehead, and neck 
 burned with a blush that continuously increased. She 
 trembled with fear, suffered qualms of nausea, thought 
 sometimes that she would faint, so madly reeled her 
 brain; yet she could not tear herself away, and sat on 
 and on, her sewing forgotten on her lap, staring with 
 inward sight upon a nightmare vision beyond all imagin- 
 ing. At last, when it seemed she could endure no more, 
 and while she was wetting her dry lips to cry out in 
 protest, Mercedes ceased. 
 
 "And here endeth the first lesson," she said quite 
 calmly, then laughed with a laughter that was tantalizing 
 and tormenting. "What is the matter? You are not 
 shocked ? ' ' 
 
 "I am frightened," Saxon quavered huskily, with a 
 half -sob of nervousness. "You frighten me. I am very 
 foolish, and I know so little, that I had never dreamed 
 
 . . that." 
 
 Mercedes nodded her head comprehendingly. 
 
 "It is indeed to be frightened at," she said. "It is sol- 
 emn ; it is terrible ; it is magnificent ! ' '
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 , SAXON had been clear-eyed all her days, though her field 
 of vision had been restricted. Clear-eyed, from her child 
 hood days with the saloonkeeper Cady and Cady's good- 
 natured but unmoral spouse, she had observed, and, later, 
 generalized much upon sex. She knew the post-nuptial 
 problem of retaining a husband's love, as few wives of 
 any class knew it, just as she knew the pre- nuptial problem 
 of selecting a husband, as few girls of the working class 
 knew it. 
 
 She had of herself developed an eminently rational 
 philosophy of love. Instinctively, and consciously, too, 
 she had made toward delicacy, and shunned the perils 
 of the habitual and commonplace. Thoroughly aware she 
 was that as she cheapened herself so did she cheapen love. 
 Never, in the weeks of their married life, had Billy found 
 her dowdy, or harshly irritable, or lethargic. And she 
 had deliberately permeated her house with her personal 
 atmosphere of coolness, and freshness, and equableness. 
 Nor had she been ignorant of such assets as surprise and 
 charm. Her imagination had not been asleep, and she 
 had been born with wisdom. In Billy she had won a 
 prize, and she knew it. She appreciated his lover's ardor 
 and was proud. His open-handed liberality, his desire 
 for everything of the best, his own personal cleanliness 
 and care of himself she recognized as far beyond the aver- 
 age. He was never coarse. He met delicacy with delicacy, 
 though it was obvious to her that the initiative in all such 
 matters lay with her and must lie with her always. He 
 was largely unconscious of what he did and why. But 
 she knew in all full clarity of judgment. And he was 
 such a prize among men. 
 
 145
 
 146 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 Despite her clear sight of her problem of keeping Billy 
 a lover, and despite the considerable knowledge and ex- 
 perience arrayed before her mental vision, Mercedes Hig- 
 gins had spread before her a vastly wider panorama. The 
 old woman had verified her own conclusions, given her new 
 ideas, clinched old ones, and even savagely emphasized the 
 tragic importance of the whole problem. Much Saxon 
 remembered of that mad preachment, much she guessed 
 and felt, and much had been beyond her experience and 
 understanding. But the metaphors of the veils and th 
 flowers, and the rules of giving to abandonment with al- 
 ways more to abandon, she grasped thoroughly, and she 
 was enabled to formulate a bigger and stronger love-phi- 
 losophy. In the light of the revelation she re-examined 
 the married lives of all she had ever known, and, with 
 sharp defmiteness as never before, she saw where and 
 why so many of them had failed. 
 
 With renewed ardor Saxon devoted herself to her house- 
 hold, to her pretties, and to her charms. She marketed 
 with a keener desire for the best, though never ignoring 
 the need for economy. From the women's pages of the 
 Sunday supplements, and from the women's magazines 
 in the free reading room two blocks away, she gleaned 
 many ideas for the preservation of her looks. In a sys- 
 tematic way she exercised the various parts of her body, 
 and a certain period of time each day she employed in fa- 
 cial exercises and massage for the purpose of retaining 
 the roundness and freshness, and firmness and color. 
 Billy did not know. These intimacies of the toilette were 
 not for him. The results, only, were his. She drew books 
 from the Carnegie Library and studied physiology and 
 hygiene, and learned a myriad of things about herself 
 and the ways of woman's health that she had never been 
 taught by Sarah, the women of the orphan asylum, nor 
 by Mrs. Cady. 
 
 After long debate she subscribed to a woman 's magazine, 
 the patterns and lessons of which she decided were the 
 best suited to her taste and purse. The other women's
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 147 
 
 magazines she had access to in the free reading room, 
 and more than one pattern of lace and embroidery she 
 copied by means of tracing paper. Before the lingerie 
 windows of the uptown shops she often stood and studied; 
 nor was she above taking advantage, when small pur- 
 chases were made, of looking over the goods at the hand- 
 embroidered underwear counters. Once, she even 
 'considered taking up with hand-painted china, but gave 
 over the idea when she learned its expensiveness. 
 
 She slowly replaced all her simple maiden underlinen 
 with garments which, while still simple, were wrought 
 with beautiful French embroidery, tucks, and drawn- 
 work. She crocheted fine edgings on the inexpensive 
 knitted underwear she wore in winter. She made little 
 corset covers and chemises of fine but fairly inexpen- 
 sive lawns, and, with simple flowered designs and per- 
 fect laundering, her nightgowns were always sweetly 
 fresh and dainty. In some publication she ran across a 
 brief printed note to the effect that French women were 
 just beginning to wear fascinating beruffled caps at the 
 breakfast table. It meant nothing to her that in her case 
 she must first prepare the breakfast. Promptly appeared 
 in the house a yard of dotted Swiss muslin, and Saxon was 
 deep in experimenting on patterns for herself, and in 
 sorting her bits of laces for suitable trimmings. The re- 
 sultant dainty creation won Mercedes Higgins' enthu- 
 siastic approval 
 
 Saxon made for herself simple house slips of pretty 
 gingham, with neat low collars turned back from her 
 fresh round throat. She crocheted yards of laces for her 
 underwear, and made Battenberg in abundance for her 
 table and for the bureau. A great achievement, that 
 aroused Billy's applause, was an Afghan for the bed. She 
 even ventured a rag carpet, which, the women 's maga- 
 zines informed her, had newly returned into fashion. As 
 a matter of course she hemstitched the best table linen 
 and bed linen they could afford. 
 
 As the happy months went by she was never idle. Nor
 
 148 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 vras Billy forgotten. When the cold weather came on 
 she knitted him wristlets, which he always religiously wore 
 from the house and pocketed immediately thereafter. The 
 two sweaters she made for him, however, received a better 
 fate, as did the slippers which she insisted on his slipping 
 into, on the evenings they remained at home. 
 
 The hard practical wisdom of Mercedes Higgins proved 
 of immense help, for Saxon strove with a fervor almost 
 religious to have everything of the best and at the same 
 time to be saving. Here she faced the financial and eco- 
 nomic problem of keeping house in a society where the 
 cost of living rose faster than the wages of industry. And 
 here the old woman taught her the science of marketing 
 so thoroughly that she made a dollar of Billy's go half as 
 far again as the wives of the neighborhood made the 
 dollars of their men go. 
 
 Invariably, on Saturday night, Billy poured his total 
 wages into her lap. He never asked for an accounting 
 of what she did with it, though he continually reiterated 
 that he had never fed so well in his life. And always, 
 the wages still untouched in her lap, she had him take out 
 what he estimated he would need for spending money for 
 the week to come. Not only did she bid him take plenty 
 but she insisted on his taking any amount extra that he 
 might desire at any time through the week. And, further, 
 she insisted he should not tell her what it was for. 
 
 "You've always had money in your pocket," she re- 
 minded him, "and there's no reason marriage should 
 change that. If it did, I'd wish I'd never married you. 
 Oh, I know about men when they get together. First 
 one treats and then another, and it takes money. Now if 
 you can't treat just as freely as the rest of them, why I 
 know you so well that I know you'd stay away from 
 them. And that wouldn't be right ... to you, I mean. 
 I want you to be together with men. It 's good for a man. ' ' 
 
 And Billy buried her in his arms and swore she was 
 the greatest little bit of woman that ever came down the 
 pike.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 149 
 
 "Why," he jubilated; "not only do I feed better, and 
 live more comfortable, and hold up my end with the fel- 
 lows; but I'm actually saving money or you are for me. 
 Here I am, with furniture being paid for regular every 
 month, and a little woman I'm mad over, and on top of it 
 money in the bank. How much is it now ? ' ' 
 ' "Sixty-two dollars," she told him. "Not so bad for 
 a rainy day. You might get sick, or hurt, or something 
 happen." 
 
 It was in mid-winter, when Billy, with quite a deal of 
 obvious reluctance, broached a money matter to Saxon. 
 His old friend, Billy Murphy, was laid up with la grippe, 
 and one of his children, playing in the street, had been 
 seriously injured by a passing wagon. Billy Murphy, 
 still feeble after two weeks in bed, had asked Billy for 
 the loan of fifty dollars. 
 
 "It's perfectly safe," Billy concluded to Saxon. "I've 
 known him since we was kids at the Durant School to- 
 gether. He's straight as a die." 
 
 "That's got nothing to do with it," Saxon chided. "If 
 you were single you'd have lent it to him immediately, 
 wouldn't you?" 
 
 Billy nodded. 
 
 "Then it's no different because you're married. It's 
 your money, Billy." 
 
 "Not by a damn sight," he cried. "It ain't mine. It's 
 ourn. And I wouldn't think of lettin' anybody have it 
 without seein' you first." 
 
 ' ' I hope you didn 't tell him that, : ' she said with quick 
 concern. 
 
 "Nope," Billy laughed. "I knew, if I did, you'd be 
 madder 'n a hatter. I just told him I'd try an' figure it 
 out. After all, I was sure you'd stand for it if you had 
 it." 
 
 "Oh, Billy," she murmured, her voice rich and low 
 with love; "maybe you don't know it, but that's one of 
 the sweetest things you've said since we got married." 
 
 The more Saxon saw of Mercedes Higgins the less did
 
 150 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 she understand her. That the old woman was a close- 
 fisted miser, Saxon soon learned. And this trait she found 
 hard to reconcile with her tales of squandering. On the 
 other hand, Saxon was bewildered by Merced es' extrava- 
 gance in personal matters. Her underlinen, hand-made 
 of course, was very costly. The table she set for Barry 
 was good, but the table for herself was vastly better. Yet 
 both tables were set on the same table. While Barry con- 
 tented himself with solid round steak, Mercedes ate tender- 
 loin. A huge, tough muttonchop on Barry's plate would 
 be balanced by tiny French chops on Mercedes' plate. 
 Tea was brewed in separate pots. So was coffee. While 
 Barry gulped twenty-five cent tea from a large and heavy 
 mug, Mercedes sipped three-dollar tea from a tiny cup 
 of Belleek, rose-tinted, fragile as an egg-shell. In the 
 same manner, his twenty-five cent coffee was diluted with 
 milk, her eighty cent Turkish with cream. 
 
 ' 'Tis good enough for the old man," she told Saxon, 
 "He knows no better, and it would be a wicked sin to 
 waste it on him." 
 
 Little traffickings began between the two women. After 
 Mercedes had freely taught Saxon the loose-wristed facility 
 of playing accompaniments on the ukulele, she proposed 
 an exchange. Her time was past, she said, for such frivoli- 
 ties, and she offered the instrument for the breakfast cap 
 of which Saxon had made so good a success. 
 
 "It's worth a few dollars," Mercedes said. "It cost 
 me twenty, though that was years ago. Yet it is well 
 worth the value of the cap." 
 
 "But wouldn't the cap be frivolous, .too?" Saxon 
 queried, though herself well pleased with the bargain. 
 
 " 'Tis not for my graying hair," Mercedes frankly dis- 
 claimed. "I shall sell it for the money. Much that I do, 
 when the rheumatism is not maddening my fingers, I sell. 
 La la, my dear, 'tis not old Barry's fifty a month that'll 
 satisfy all my expensive tastes. 'Tis I that make up the 
 difference. And old age needs money as never youth 
 needs it. Some day you will learn for yourself."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 151 
 
 "I am well satisfied with the trade," Saxon said. "And 
 I shall make me another cap when I can lay aside enough 
 for the material." 
 
 "Make several," Mercedes advised. "I'll sell them for 
 you, keeping, of course, a small commission for my ser- 
 vices. I can give you six dollars apiece for them. "We 
 will consult about them. The profit will more than cro- 
 vide material for your own."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 FOUR eventful things happened in the course of the 
 winter. Bert and Mary got married and rented a cottage 
 in the neighborhood three blocks away. Billy's wages were 
 cut, along with the wages of all the teamsters in Oakland. 
 Billy took up shaving with a safety razor. And, finally, 
 Saxon was proven a false prophet and Sarah a true one. 
 
 Saxon made up her mind, beyond any doubt, ere she 
 confided the news to Billy. At first, while still suspecting, 
 she had felt a frightened sinking of the heart and fear of 
 the unknown and unexperienced. Then had come econ- 
 omic fear, as she contemplated the increased expense en- 
 tailed. But by the time she had made surety doubly sure, 
 all was swept away before a wave of passionate gladness. 
 Hers and Billy's! The phrase was continually in her 
 mind, and each recurrent thought of it brought an actual 
 physical pleasure-pang to her heart. 
 
 The night she told the news to Billy, he withheld his 
 own news of the wage-cut, and joined with her in welcom- 
 ing the little one. 
 
 "What 11 we do? Go to the theater to celebrate?" 
 
 he asked, relaxing the pressure of his embrace so that she 
 might speak. "Or suppose we stay in, just you and me, 
 and . . . and the three of us?" 
 
 "Stay in," was her verdict. "I just want you to hold 
 me, and hold me, and hold me." 
 
 "That's what I wanted, too, only I wasn't sure, after 
 bein' in the house all day, maybe you'd want to go out." 
 
 There was frost in the air, and Billy brought the Morris 
 chair in by the kitchen stove. She lay cuddled in his 
 arms, her head on his shoulder, his cheek against her 
 hair. 
 
 -152
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 153 
 
 "We didn't make no mistake in our lightning marriage 
 with only a week's courtin'," he reflected aloud. "Why, 
 Saxon, we've been courtin' ever since just the same. And 
 now . . . my God, Saxon, it's too wonderful to be true. 
 Think of it ! Ourn ! The three of us ! The little rascal ! 
 I bet he's goin' to be a boy. An' won't I learn 'm to 
 put up his fists an' take care of himself! An' swirmnin', 
 too. If he don't know how to swim by the time he's 
 six. . . ." 
 
 "And if he's a girl?" 
 
 "She's goin' to be a boy," Billy retorted, joining in the 
 playful misuse of pronouns. 
 
 And both laughed and kissed, and sighed with content. 
 
 "I'm goin' to turn pincher, now," he announced, after 
 quite an interval of meditation. "No more drinks with 
 the boys. It's me for the water wagon. And I'm goin' 
 to ease down on smokes. Huh! Don't see why I can't 
 roll my own cigarettes. They 're ten times cheaper 'n tailor- 
 mades. An' I can grow a beard. The amount of money 
 the barbers get out of a fellow in a year would keep a 
 baby." 
 
 "Just you let your beard grow, Mister Roberts, and 
 I'll get a divorce," Saxon threatened. "You're just too 
 handsome and strong with a smooth face. I love your face 
 
 too much to have it covered up. Oh, you dear! you 
 
 dear! Billy, I never knew what happiness was until I 
 came to live with you." 
 
 "Nor me neither." 
 
 "And it's always going to be so?" 
 
 "You can just bet," he assured her. 
 
 "I thought I was going to be happy married," she 
 went on; "but I never dreamed it would be like this." 
 She turned her head on his shoulder and kissed his cheek. 
 "Billy, it isn't happiness. It's heaven." 
 
 And Billy resolutely kept undivulged the cut in wages. 
 Not until two weeks later, when it went into effect, and 
 he poured the diminished sum into her lap, did he break 
 it to her. The next day, Bert and Mary, already a month
 
 154 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 married, had Sunday dinner with them, and the matter 
 came up for discussion. Bert was particularly pessimis- 
 tic, and muttered dark hints of an impending strike in 
 the railroad shops. 
 
 "If you'd all shut your traps, it'd be all right," Mary 
 criticized. "These union agitators get the railroad sore. 
 They give me the cramp, the way they butt in an' stir^ 
 up trouble. If I was boss I'd cut the wages of any man 
 that listened to them." 
 
 "Yet you belonged to the laundry workers' union,'' 
 Saxon rebuked gently. 
 
 "Because I had to or I wouldn't a-got work. An' much 
 good it ever done me." 
 
 "But look at Billy," Bert argued. "The teamsters 
 ain't ben sayin' a word, not a peep, an' everything lovely, 
 and then, bang, right in the neck, a ten per cent. cut. 
 Oh, hell, what chance have we got? We lose. There's 
 nothin' left for us in this country we've made and our 
 fathers an' mothers before us. We're all shot to pieces. 
 We can see our finish we, the old stock, the children of 
 the white people that broke away from England an' licked 
 the tar outa her, that freed the slaves, an' fought the In- 
 dians, an' made the West! Any gink with half an eye 
 can see it comin'." 
 
 "But what are we going to do about it?" Saxon ques- 
 tioned anxiously. 
 
 "Fight. That's all. The country's in the hands of a 
 gang of robbers. Look at the Southern Pacific. It runs 
 California." 
 
 "Aw, rats, Bert," Billy interupted. "You're talkin' 
 through your lid. No railroad can run the government 
 of California." 
 
 "You're a bonehead," Bert sneered. "And some day. 
 When it's too late, you an' all the other boneheads'll realize 
 the fact. Rotten? I tell you it stinks. Why, there ain't 
 a man who wants to go to state legislature but has to 
 make a trip to San Francisco, an' go into the S. P. offices, 
 an' take his hat off, an' humbly ask permission. Why,
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 155 
 
 the governors of California has been railroad governors 
 since before you and I was born. Huh! You can't tell 
 me. We're finished. "We're licked to a frazzle. But it'd 
 do my heart good to help string up some of the dirty 
 thieves before I passed out. D 'ye know what we are ? we 
 old white stock that fought in the wars, an ' broke the land, 
 an' made all this? I'll tell you. We're the last of the. 
 Mohegans. ' ' 
 
 "He scares me to death, he's so violent," Mary said 
 with unconcealed hostility. "If he don't quit shootin* 
 off his mouth he'll get fired from the shops. And then 
 what '11 we do? He don't consider me. But I can tell 
 you one thing all right, all right. I'll not go back to the 
 laundry." She held her right hand up and spoke with 
 the solemnity of an oath. ' ' Not so 's you can see it. Never 
 again for yours truly." 
 
 "Oh, I know what you're drivin' at," Bert said with 
 asperity. "An' all I can tell you is, livin' or dead, in 
 a job or out, no matter what happens to me, if you will 
 lead that way, you will, an' there's nothin' else to it." 
 
 "I guess I kept straight before I met you," she came 
 back with a toss of the head. "And I kept straight after 
 I met you, which is going some if anybody should ask 
 you. ' ' 
 
 Hot words were on Bert's tongue, but Saxon intervened 
 and brought about peace. She was concerned over the 
 outcome of their marriage. Both were highstrung, both 
 were quick and irritable, and their continual clashes did 
 not augur well for their future. 
 
 The safety razor was a great achievement for Saxon. 
 Privily she conferred with a clerk she knew in Pierce 's 
 hardware store and made the purchase. On Sunday 
 morning, after breakfast, when Billy was starting to go 
 to the barber shop, she led him into the bedroom, whisked 
 a towel aside, and revealed the razor box, shaving mug, 
 soap, brush, and lather all ready. Billy recoiled, then 
 came back to make curious investigation. He gazed pity- 
 ingly at the safety razor.
 
 156 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Huh! Call that a man's tool!" 
 
 "It'll do the work," she said. "It does it for thou- 
 sands of men every day." 
 
 But Billy shook his head and backed away. 
 
 "You shave three times a week," she urged. "That's 
 forty-five cents. Call it half a dollar, and there are fifty- 
 two weeks in the year. Twenty-six dollars a year just for 
 shaving. Come on, dear, and try it. Lots of men swear 
 by it." 
 
 He shook his head mutinously, and the cloudy deeps 
 of his eyes grew more cloudy. She loved that sullen hand- 
 someness that made him look so boyish, and, laughing and 
 kissing him, she forced him into a chair, got off his coat, 
 and unbuttoned shirt and undershirt and turned them in. 
 
 Threatening him with, "If you open your mouth to 
 kick I'll shove it in," she coated his face with lather. 
 
 "Wait a minute," she checked him, as he reached des- 
 perately for the razor. "I've been watching the barbers 
 from the sidewalk. This is what they do after the lather 
 is on." 
 
 And thereupon she proceeded to rub the lather in with 
 her fingers. 
 
 "There," she said, when she had coated his face a sec- 
 ond time. "You're ready to begin. Only remember, I'm 
 not always going to do this for you. I'm just breaking 
 you in, you see." 
 
 With great outward show of rebellion, half genuine, 
 half facetious, he made several tentative scrapes with the 
 razor. He winced violently, and violently exclaimed: 
 
 "Holy jumping Jehosaphat!" 
 
 He examined his face in the glass, and a streak of blood 
 showed in the midst of the lather. 
 
 ' ' Cut ! by a safety razor, by God ! Sure, men swear 
 by it. Can't blame 'em. Cut! By a safety!" 
 
 "But wait a second," Saxon pleaded. "They have to 
 be regulated. The clerk told me. See those little screws. 
 There . . . that's it ... turn them around." 
 
 Again Billy applied the blade to his face. After a
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 157 
 
 couple of scrapes, he looked at himself closely in the mir- 
 ror, grinned, and went on shaving. With swiftness and 
 dexterity he scraped his face clean of lather. Saxon 
 clapped her hands. 
 
 "Fine," Billy approved. "Great! Here. Give me 
 your hand. See what a good job it made." 
 
 He started to rub her hand against his cheek. Saxon 
 jerked away with a little cry of disappointment, then ex- 
 amined him closely. 
 
 "It hasn't shaved at all," she said. 
 
 "It's a fake, that's what it is. It cuts the hide, but not 
 the hair. Me for the barber." 
 
 But Saxon was persistent. 
 
 "You haven't given it a fair trial yet. It was regulated 
 too much. Let me try my hand at it. There, that's it, 
 betwixt and between. Now, lather again and try it." 
 
 This time the unmistakable sand-papery sound of hair- 
 severing could be heard. 
 
 "How is it?" she fluttered anxiously. 
 
 "It gets the ouch! hair," Billy grunted, frowning 
 and making faces. "But it gee! say! ouch! pulls 
 like Sam Hill." 
 
 "Stay with it," she encouraged. "Don't give up the 
 ship, big Injun with a scalplock. Remember what Bert 
 says and be the last of the Mohegans." 
 
 At the end of fifteen minutes he rinsed his face and 
 dried it, sighing with relief. 
 
 "It's a shave, in a fashion, Saxon, but I can't say I'm 
 stuck on it. It takes out the nerve. I'm as weak as 
 a cat." 
 
 He groaned with sudden discovery of fresh misfortune. 
 
 "What's the matter now?" she asked. 
 
 "The back of my neck how can I shave the back of 
 my neck? I'll have to pay a barber to do it." 
 
 Saxon's consternation was tragic, but it only lasted a 
 moment. She took the brush in her hand. 
 
 "Sit down, Billy." 
 
 "What? you?" he demanded indignantly.
 
 158 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Yes; me. If any barber is good enough to shave your 
 neck, and then I am, too." 
 
 Billy moaned and groaned in the abjectness of humility 
 and surrender, and let her have her way. 
 
 "There, and a good job," she informed him when she 
 had finished. "As easy as falling off a log. And besides, 
 it means twenty-six dollars a year. And you'll buy the 
 crib, the baby buggy, the pinning blankets, and lots and 
 lots of things with it. Now sit still a minute longer." 
 
 She rinsed and dried the back of his neck and dusted 
 it with talcum powder. 
 
 "You're as sweet as a clean little baby, Billy Boy." 
 
 The unexpected and lingering impact of her lips on the 
 back of his neck made him writhe with mingled feelings 
 not all unpleasant. 
 
 Two days later, though vowing in the intervening time 
 to have nothing further to do with the instrument of the 
 devil, he permitted Saxon to assist him to a second shave. 
 This time it went easier. 
 
 "It ain't so bad," he admitted. "I'm gettin' the hang 
 of it. It's all in the regulating. You can shave as close as 
 you want an ' no more close than you want. Barbers can 't 
 do that. Every once an' a while they get my face sore." 
 
 The third shave was an unqualified success, and the 
 culminating bliss was reached when Saxon presented him 
 with a bottle of witch hazel. After that he began active 
 proselyting. He could not wait a visit from Bert, but 
 carried the paraphernalia to the latter 's house to demon- 
 strate. 
 
 ""We've ben boobs all these years, Bert, runnin' the 
 chances of barber's itch an' everything. Look at this, eh? 
 See her take hold. Smooth as silk. Just as easy. . . . 
 There! Six minutes by the clock. Can you beat it? 
 When I get my hand in, I can do it in three. It works 
 in the dark. It works under water. You couldn't cut 
 yourself if you tried. And it saves twenty-six dollars 
 a year. Saxon figured it out, and she's a wonder, I tell 
 you."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE trafficking between Saxon and Mercedes increased. 
 The latter commanded a ready market for all the fine 
 work Saxon could supply, while Saxon was eager and 
 happy in the work. The expected babe and the cut in 
 Billy's wages had caused her to regard the economic phase 
 of existence more seriously than ever. Too little money 
 was being laid away in the bank, and her conscience 
 pricked her as she considered how much she was laying out 
 on the pretty necessaries for the household and herself. 
 Also, for the first time in her life she was spending an- 
 other's earnings. Since a young girl she had been used 
 to spending her own, and now, thanks to Mercedes, she 
 was doing it again, and, out of her profits, essaying more 
 expensive and delightful adventures in lingerie. 
 
 Mercedes suggested, and Saxon carried out and even 
 bettered, the dainty things of thread and texture. She 
 made ruffled chemises of sheer linen, with her own fine 
 edgings and French embroidery on breast and shoulders; 
 linen hand-made combination undersuits; and night- 
 gowns, fairy and cobwebby, embroidered, trimmed with 
 Irish lace. On Mercedes' instigation she executed an am- 
 bitious and wonderful breakfast cap for which the old 
 woman returned her twelve dollars after deducting com- 
 mission. 
 
 She was happy and busy every waking moment, nor 
 was preparation for the little one neglected. The only 
 ready made garments she bought were three fine little knit 
 shirts. As for the rest, every bit was made by her own 
 hands featherstitehed pinning blankets, a crocheted 
 jacket and cap, knitted mittens, embroidered bonnets; 
 slim little princess slips of sensible length; underskirts 
 159
 
 160 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 on absurd Lilliputian yokes; silk-embroidered white flan- 
 nel petticoats; stockings and crocheted boots, seeming to 
 burgeon before her eyes with wriggly pink toes and plump 
 little calves; and last, but not least, many deliciously soft 
 squares of bird's-eye linen. A little later, as a crowning 
 masterpiece, she was guilty of a dress coat of white silk, 
 (embroidered. And into all the tiny garments, with every 
 'stitch, she sewed love. Yet this love, so unceasingly sewn, 
 she knew when she came to consider and marvel, was 
 more of Billy than of the nebulous, ungraspable new bit of 
 life that eluded her fondest attempts at visioning. 
 
 ' ' Huh, ' ' was Billy 's comment, as he went over the mite 's 
 wardrobe and came back to center on the little knit shirts, 
 "they look more like a real kid than the whole kit an' 
 caboodle. Why, I can see him in them regular man- 
 shirts." 
 
 Saxon, with a sudden rush of happy, unshed tears, held 
 one of the little shirts up to his lips. He kissed it sol- 
 emnly, his eyes resting on Saxon's. 
 
 "That's some for the boy," he said, "but a whole lot 
 for you." 
 
 But Saxon's money-earning was doomed to cease ig- 
 nominiously and tragically. One day, to take advantage 
 of a department store bargain sale, she crossed the bay to 
 San Francisco. Passing along Slitter Street, her eye was 
 attracted by a display in the small window of a small shop. 
 At first she could not believe it ; yet there, in the honored 
 place of the window, was the wonderful breakfast cap 
 for which she had received twelve dollars from Mercedes. 
 It was marked twenty-eight dollars. Saxon went in and 
 interviewed the shopkeeper, an emaciated, shrewd-eyed and 
 middle-aged woman of foreign extraction. 
 
 "Oh, I don't want to buy anything," Saxon said. "I 
 make nice things like you have here, and I wanted to 
 know what you pay for them for that breakfast cap in 
 the window, for instance." 
 
 The woman darted a keen glance to Saxon's left hand, 
 noted the innumerable tiny punctures in the ends of the
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 161 
 
 first and second fingers, then appraised her clothing and 
 her face. 
 
 "Can you do work like that?" 
 
 Saxon nodded. 
 
 "I paid twenty dollars to the woman that made that." 
 
 Saxon repressed an almost spasmodic gasp, and thought 
 coolly for a space. Mercedes had given her twelve. Then 
 Mercedes had pocketed eight, while she, Saxon, had fur- 
 nished the material and labor. 
 
 " Would you please show me other hand-made things 
 nightgowns, chemises, and such things, and tell me the 
 prices you pay?" 
 
 "Can you do such work?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And will you sell to me?" 
 
 "Certainly," Saxon answered. "That is why I am 
 here." 
 
 ""We add only a small amount when we sell," the 
 woman went on ; " you see, light and rent and such things, 
 as well as a profit or else we could not be here." 
 
 "It's only fair," Saxon agreed. 
 
 Amongst the beautiful stuff Saxon went over, she found 
 a nightgown and a combination undersuit of her own 
 manufacture. For the former she had received eight dol- 
 lars from Mercedes, it was marked eighteen, and the 
 woman had paid fourteen; for the latter Saxon received 
 six, it was marked fifteen, and the woman had paid eleven. 
 
 "Thank you," Saxon said, as she drew on her gloves. 
 "I should like to bring you some of my work at those 
 prices." 
 
 "And I shall be glad to buy it . . . if it is up to 
 the mark." The woman looked at her severely. "Mind 
 you, it must be as good as this. And if it is, I often get 
 special orders, and I'll give you a chance at them." 
 
 Mercedes was unblushingly candid when Saxon re- 
 proached her. 
 
 ' ' You told me you took only a commission, ' ' was Saxon 's 
 accusation.
 
 16-2 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "So I did; and so I have." 
 
 ''But I did all the work and bought all the materials, 
 yet you actually cleared more out of it than I did. You 
 got the lion's share." 
 
 "And why shouldn't I, my dear? I was the middle- 
 ,man. It's the way of the world. 'Tis the middlemen 
 that get the lion's share." 
 
 "It seems to me most unfair," Saxon reflected, more 
 in sadness than anger. 
 
 "That is your quarrel with the world, not with me," 
 Mercedes rejoined sharply, then immediately softened with 
 one of her quick changes. "We mustn't quarrel, my 
 dear. I like you so much. La la, it is nothing to you, 
 who are young and strong with a man young and strong. 
 Listen, I am an old woman. And old Barry can do little 
 for me. He is on his last legs. His kidneys are 'most 
 gone. Remember, 'tis I must bury him. And I do him 
 honor, for beside me he'll have his last long sleep. A 
 stupid, dull old man, heavy, an ox, 'tis true; but a good 
 old fool with no trace of evil in him. The plot is bought 
 and paid for the final installment was made up, in part, 
 out of my commissions from you. Then there are the 
 funeral expenses. It must be done nicely. I have still 
 much to save. And Barry may turn up his toes any day. ' ' 
 
 Saxon sniffed the air carefully, and knew the old woman 
 had been drinking again. 
 
 "Come, my dear, let me show you." Leading Saxon 
 to a large sea chest in the bedroom, Mercedes lifted the 
 lid. A faint perfume, as of rose-petals, floated up. "Be- 
 hold, my burial trousseau. Thus I shall wed the dust." 
 
 Saxon's amazement increased, as, article by article, the 
 old woman, displayed the airiest, the daintiest, the most 
 delicious and most complete of bridal outfits. Mercedes 
 held up an ivory fan. 
 
 "In Venice 'twas given me, my dear. See, this comb, 
 
 turtle shell ; Bruce Anstey made it for me the week before 
 he drank his last bottle and scattered his brave mad brains
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 163 
 
 with a Colt's 44. This scarf. La la, a Liberty scarf 
 
 "And all that will be buried with you," Saxon mused. 
 "Oh, the extravagance of it!" 
 
 Mercedes laughed. 
 
 "Why not? I shall die as I have lived. It is my 
 pleasure. I go to the dust as a bride. No cold and nar- 
 row bed for me. I would it were a couch, covered with the 
 soft things of the East, and pillows, pillows, without 
 end." 
 
 "It would buy you twenty funerals and twenty plots," 
 Saxon protested, shocked by this blasphemy of conven- 
 tional death. "It is downright wicked." 
 
 " 'Twill be as I have lived," Mercedes said compla- 
 cently. "And it's a fine bride old Barry '11 have to come 
 and lie beside him." She closed the lid and sighed 
 ' ' Though I wish it were Bruce Anstey, or any of the pick 
 of my young men to lie with me in the great dark and 
 to crumble with me to the dust that is the real death." 
 
 She gazed at Saxon with eyes heated by alcohol and at 
 the same time cool with the coolness of content. 
 
 "In the old days the great of earth were buried with 
 their live slaves with them. I but take my flimsies, my 
 dear." 
 
 "Then you aren't afraid of death? ... in the 
 least?" 
 
 Mercedes shook her head emphatically. 
 
 "Death is brave, and good, and kind. I do not fear 
 death. 'Tis of men I am afraid when I am dead. So 
 I prepare. They shall not have me when I am dead." 
 
 Saxon was puzzled. 
 
 "They would not want you then," she said. 
 
 "Many are wanted," was the answer. "Do you know 
 what becomes of the aged poor who have no money for 
 burial? They are not buried. Let me tell you. We stood 
 before great doors. He was a queer man, a professor who 
 ought to have been a pirate, a man who lectured in class 
 rooms when he ought to have been storming walled cities
 
 164 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 or robbing banks. He was slender, like Don Juan. HiL 
 hands were strong as steel. So was his spirit. And he 
 was mad, a bit mad, as all my young men have been, 
 ' Come, Mercedes, ' he said ; ' we will inspect our brethren 
 and become humble, and glad that we are not as they as 
 yet not yet. And afterward, to-night, we will dine with 
 a more devilish taste, and we will drink to them in golden 
 wine that will be the more golden for having seen them. 
 Come, Mercedes.' 
 
 "He thrust the great doors open, and by the hand led 
 me in. It was a sad company. Twenty-four, that lay 
 on marble slabs, or sat, half erect and propped, while 
 many young men, bright of eye, bright little knives in 
 their hands, glanced curiously at me from their work." 
 
 "They were dead?" Saxon interrupted to gasp. 
 
 "They were the pauper dead, my dear. 'Come, Mer- 
 cedes,' said he. 'There is more to show you that will 
 make us glad we are alive. ' And he took me down, down 
 to the vats. The salt vats, my dear. I was not afraid. 
 But it was in my mind, then, as I looked, how it would 
 be with me when I was dead. And there they were, so 
 jiany lumps of pork. And the order came, 'A woman; 
 an old woman.' And the man who worked there fished 
 in the vats. The first was a man he drew to see. Again 
 he fished and stirred. Again a man. He was impatient, 
 and grumbled at his luck. And then, up through the 
 brine, he drew a woman, and by the face of her she was 
 old, and he was satisfied." 
 
 "It is not true!" Saxon cried out. 
 
 "I have seen, my dear, I know. And I tell you fear 
 not the wrath of God when you are dead. Fear only the 
 salt vats. And as I stood and looked, and as he who led 
 me there looked at me and smiled and questioned and 
 bedeviled me with those mad, black, tired-scholar's eyes 
 of his, I knew that that was no way for my dear clay. 
 Dear it is, my clay to me; dear it has been to others, 
 La la, the salt vat is no place for my kissed lips and love- 
 lavished body." Mercedes lifted the lid of the chest and
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 165 
 
 gazed fondly at her burial pretties. "So I have made my 
 bed. So I shall lie in it. Some old philosopher said: we 
 know we must die; we do not believe it. But the old 
 do believe. I believe. 
 
 "My dear, remember the salt vats, and do not be angry 
 with me because my commissions have been heavy. To 
 escape the vats I would stop at nothing steal the widow's 
 mite, the orphan's crust, and pennies from a dead man's 
 eyes. ' ' 
 
 "Do you believe in God?" Saxon asked abruptly, hold- 
 ing herself together despite cold horror. 
 
 Mercedes dropped the lid and shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "Who knows? I shall rest well." 
 
 "And punishment?" Saxon probed, remembering the 
 unthinkable tale of the other's life. 
 
 "Impossible, my dear. As some old poet said, 'God's 
 a good fellow.' Some time I shall talk to you about God. 
 Never be afraid of him. Be afraid only of the salt vats 
 and the things men may do with your pretty flh after 
 you are dd."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BILLY quarreled with good fortune. He suspected he 
 was too prosperous on the wages he received. "What with 
 the accumulating savings account, the paying of the 
 monthly furniture installment and the house rent, the 
 spending money in pocket, and the good fare he was 
 eating, he was puzzled as to how Saxon managed to pay 
 for the goods used in her fancy work. Several times he 
 had suggested his inability to see how she did it, and 
 been baffled each time by Saxon's mysterious laugh. 
 
 "I can't see how you do it on the money," he was con 
 tending one evening. 
 
 He opened his mouth to speak further, then closed 
 it and for five minutes thought with knitted brows. 
 
 "Say," he said, "what's become of that frilly break- 
 fi*st cap you was workin' on so hard? I ain't never seen 
 you wear it, and it was sure too big for the kid." 
 
 Saxon hesitated, with pursed lips and teasing eyes. 
 With her, untruthfulness had always been a difficult mat- 
 ter. To Billy it was impossible. She could see the cloud- 
 drift in his eyes deepening and his face hardening in 
 the way she knew so well when he was vexed. 
 
 "Say, Saxon, you ain't . . . you ain't . . . sel 
 lin* your work?" 
 
 And thereat she related everything, not omitting Mer- 
 cedes Higgins' part in the transaction, nor Mercedes Hig- 
 gins' remarkable burial trousseau. But Billy was not to 
 be led aside by the latter. In terms anything but uncer= 
 tain he told Saxon that she was not to work for money. 
 
 "Bit I have so much spare time, Billy, dear," she 
 pleaded. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 166
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 167 
 
 "Nothing doing. I won't listen to it. I married you, 
 and I '11 take care of you. Nobody can say Bill Roberts' 
 wife has to work. And I don't want to think it myself. 
 Besides, it ain't necessary." 
 
 "But Billy " she began again. 
 
 "Nope. That's one thing I won't stand for, Saxon. 
 Not that I don't like fancy work. I do. I like it like 
 hell, every bit you make, but I like it on you. Go ahead 
 and make all you want of it, for yourself, an' I'll put up 
 for the goods. Why, I 'm just whistlin' an' happy all 
 day long, thinkin' of the boy an' seein' you at home 
 here workin' away on all them nice things. Because I 
 know how happy you are a-doin' it. But honest to God, 
 Saxon, it'd all be spoiled if I knew you was doin' it to sell. 
 You see, Bill Roberts' wife don't have to work. That's 
 my brag to myself, mind you. An' besides, it ain't 
 right." 
 
 "You're a dear," she whispered, happy despite hef 
 disappointment. 
 
 "I want you to have all you want," he continued. 
 "An' you're goin' to get it as long as I got two hands 
 stickin' on the ends of my arms. I guess I know how good 
 the things are you wear good to me, I mean, too. I'm 
 dry behind the ears, an' maybe I've learned a few things 
 I oughn't to before I knew you. But I know what I'm 
 talkin' about, and I want to say that outside the clothes 
 down underneath, an' the clothes down underneath the 
 outside ones, I never saw a woman like you. Oh " 
 
 He threw up his hands as if despairing of ability to? 
 express what he thought and felt, then essayed a further 
 attempt. 
 
 "It's not a matter of bein' only clean, though that's a 
 whole lot. Lots of women are clean. It ain't that. It's 
 something more, an' different. It's . . . well, it's the 
 look of it, so white, an' pretty, an' tasty. It gets on the 
 imagination. It's something I can't get out of my 
 thoughts of you. I want to tell you lots of men can't 
 strip to advantage, an' lots of women, too. But you well,
 
 168 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 you're a wonder, that's all, and you can't get too many 
 of them nice things to suit me, and you can't get them 
 too nice. 
 
 "For that matter, Saxon, you can just blow yourself. 
 There's lots of easy money layin' around. I'm in great 
 condition. Billy Murphy pulled down seventy-five round 
 iron dollars only last week for puttin' away the Pride of 
 North Beach. That's what he paid us the fifty back 
 out of." 
 
 But this time it was Saxon who rebelled. 
 
 "There's Carl Hensen," Billy argued. "The second 
 Sharkey, the alfalfa sportin' writers are callin' him. An' 
 he calls himself Champion of the United States Navy. 
 Well, I got his number. He's just a big stiff. I've 
 seen 'm fight, an' I can pass him the sleep medicine just 
 as easy. The Secretary of the Sportin' Life Club offered 
 to match me. An' a hundred iron dollars in it for the 
 winner. And it'll all be yours to blow in any way you 
 want. What d'ye say?" 
 
 "If I can't work for money, you can't fight," was Sax- 
 on's ultimatum, immediately withdrawn. "But you and 
 I don't drive bargains. Even if you'd let me work for 
 money, I wouldn't let you fight. I've never forgotten 
 what you told me about how prizefighters lose their silk. 
 Well, you're not going to lose yours. It's half my silk, 
 you know. And if you won't fight, I won't work there. 
 And more, I'll never do anything you don't want me to. 
 Billy." 
 
 . "Same here," Billy agreed. "Though just the same 
 I I'd like most to death to have just one go at that square- 
 'head Hansen." He smiled with pleasure at the thought. 
 "Say, let's forget it all now, an' you sing me 'Harvest 
 Days' on that dinky what-you-may-call-it. " 
 
 When she had complied, accompanying herself on the 
 ukulele, she suggested his weird "Cowboy's Lament." In 
 some inexplicable way of love, she had come to like her 
 husband's one song. Because he sang it, she liked its 
 inanity and monotonousness ; and most of all. it seemed
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 16 
 
 to her, she loved his hopeless and adorable flatting of 
 every note. She could even sing with him, flatting as ac- 
 curately and deliciously as he. Nor did she undeceive him 
 in his sublime faith. 
 
 "I guess Bert an' the rest have joshed me all the time,'* 
 he said. 
 
 "You and I get along together with it fine," she equi- 
 vocated ; for in such matters she did not deem the untruth 
 a wrong. 
 
 Spring was on when the strike came in the railroad 
 snops. The Sunday before it was called, Saxon and Billy 
 had dinner at Bert 's house. Saxon 's brother came, though 
 he had found it 'impossible to bring Sarah, who refused 
 to budge from her household rut. Bert was blackly pes* 
 simistic, and they found him singing with sardonic glee : 
 
 "Nobody loves a mft-yun-aire. 
 
 Nobody likes his looks. 
 Nobody '11 share his slightest care, 
 
 He classes with thugs and crooks. 
 Thriftiness has become a crime, 
 
 So spend everything you earn; 
 We're living now in a funny time, 
 
 When money is made to burn." 
 
 Mary went about the dinner preparation, flaunting un- 
 mistakable signals of rebellion; and Saxon, rolling up 
 her sleeves and tying on an apron, washed the breakfast 
 dishes. Bert fetched a pitcher of steaming beer from the 
 corner saloon, and the three men smoked and talked about 
 the coming strike. 
 
 "It oughta come years ago," was Bert's dictum. "It 
 can't come any too quick now to suit me, but it's too 
 late. "We're beaten thumbs down. Here's where the last 
 of the Mohegans gets theirs, in the neck, ker-whop ! ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," Tom, who had been smoking hia 
 pipe gravely, began to counsel. "Organized labor's get- 
 tin' stronger every day. Why, I can remember when there 
 wasn't any unions in California. Look at us now wages, 
 an' hours, an' everything."
 
 170 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "You talk like an organizer," Bert sneered, "shovin c^c 
 bull con on the boneheads. But we know different. Or- 
 ganized wages won't buy as much now as unorganized 
 wages used to buy. They've got us whipsawed. Look at 
 Frisco, the labor leaders doin' dirtier politics than the 
 t old parties, pawin' an' squabblin over graft, an' g-oin' 
 to San Quentin, while what are the Frisco carpenters 
 doin'? Let me tell you one thing, Tom Brown, if you 
 listen to all you hear you'll hear that every Frisco car- 
 penter is union an' gettin' full union wages. Do you 
 believe it? It's a damn lie. There ain't a carpenter that 
 don't rebate his wages Saturday night to the contractor. 
 An' that's your buildin' trades in San Francisco, vhile 
 the leaders are makin' trips to Europe on the earnings 
 of the tenderloin when they ain't coughing it U|> to 
 the lawyers to get out of wearin' stripes." 
 
 ' ' That 's all right, ' ' Tom concurred. * ' Nobody 's de;a yin * 
 it. The trouble is labor ain't quite got its eyes open. It 
 ought to play politics, but the politics ought to be the 
 right kind " 
 
 "Socialism, eh?" Bert caught him up with scorn 
 "Wouldn't they sell us out just as the Ruefs and Schmidt* 
 have?" 
 
 "Get men that are honest," Billy said. "That's the 
 
 whole trouble. Not that I stand for socialism. I dcn't. 
 
 All our folks was a long time in America, an' I for one 
 won't stand for a lot of fat Germans an' greasy Russian 
 Jews tellin' me how to run my country when they can't 
 speak English yet." 
 
 11 Your country !" Bert cried. "Why, you bonehead. you 
 ain't got a country. That's a fairy story the grafters 
 shove at you every time they want to rob you some more." 
 
 "But don't vote for the grafters," Billy contended. 
 "If we selected honest men we'd get honest treatment." 
 
 "I wish you'd come to some of our meetings, Billy," 
 Tom said wistfully. "If you would, you'd get your eyes 
 open an' vote the socialist ticket next election." 
 
 "Not on your life," Billy declined. "When you catch
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 17* 
 
 me in a socialist meeting '11 be when they can talk like 
 white men." 
 
 Bert was humming: 
 
 "We're living now in a funny time, 
 When money is made to burn." 
 
 Mary was too angry with her husband, because of the 
 impending strike and his incendiary utterances, to hold 
 conversation with Saxon, and the latter, bepuzzled, listened 
 to the conflicting opinions of the men. 
 
 "Where are we at?" she asked them, with a merriness 
 that concealed her anxiety at heart. 
 
 "We ain't at," Bert snarled. "We're gone." 
 
 "But meat and oil have gone up again," she chafed. 
 "And Billy's wages have been cut, and the shop men's 
 were cut last year. Something must be done." 
 
 ' ' The only thing to do is fight like hell, ' ' Bert answered. 
 " Fight, an' go down fightin'. That's all. We're licked 
 anyhow, but we can have a last run for our money." 
 
 "That's no way to talk," Tom rebuked. 
 
 "The time for talkin' 's past, old cock. The time for 
 ghtin' 's come." 
 
 "A hell of a chance you'd have against regular troops 
 and machine guns," Billy retorted. 
 
 "Oh, not that way. There's such things as greasy sticks 
 that go up with a loud noise and leave holes. There's such 
 things as emery powder " 
 
 ' ' Oh, ho ! " Mary burst out upon him, arms akimbo. * ' So 
 that's what it means. That's what the emery in your vest 
 : pocket meant." 
 
 Her husband ignored her. Tom smoked with a troubled 
 air. Billy was hurt. It showed plainly in his face. 
 
 "You ain't ben doin' that, Bert?" he asked, his manner 
 showing his expectancy of his friend's denial. 
 
 ' ' Sure thing, if you want to know. I 'd see 'm all in hell 
 if I could, before I go." 
 
 "Pie's a bloody-minded anarchist," Mary complained 
 "Men like him killed McKinley, and Garfield, an' an'
 
 172 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 an* all the rest. He'll be hung. You'll see. Mark my 
 words. I'm glad there's no children in sight, that's all." 
 
 ' ' It 's hot air, ' ' Billy comforted her. 
 
 "He's just teasing you," Saxon soothed. *'He always 
 was a josher." 
 
 But Mary shook her head. 
 
 "I know. I hear him talkin' in his sleep, fle swears 
 and curses something awful, an' grits his teeth. Listen to 
 him now." 
 
 Bert, his handsome face bitter and devil-may-care, had 
 tilted his chair back against the wall and was singing : 
 
 "Nobody loves a mil-jam- aire, 
 
 Nobody likes his looks, 
 Nobody '11 share his slightest care, 
 He classes with thugs and crooks." 
 
 Tom was saying something about reasonableness and 
 justice, and Bert ceased from singing to catch him up. 
 
 "Justice, eh? Another pipe-dream. I'll show you 
 where the working class gets justice. You remember 
 Forbes J. Alliston Forbes wrecked the Alta California 
 Trust Company an' salted down two cold millions. I saw 
 him yesterday, in a big hell-bent automobile. What'd he 
 get? Eight years' sentence. How long did he serve? 
 Less'n two years. Pardoned out on account of ill health. 
 IU hell! We'll be dead an' rotten before he kicks the 
 bucket. Here. Look out this window. You see the back 
 of that house with the broken porch rail. Mrs. Danaker 
 lives there. She takes in washin'. Her old man was killed 
 on the railroad. Nitsky on damages contributory neg- 
 ligence, or fellow-servant-something-or-other flimflam. 
 That's what the courts handed her. Her boy, Archie, was 
 sixteen. He was on the road, a regular road-kid. He blew 
 into Fresno an' rolled a drunk. Do you want to know how 
 much he got? Two dollars and eighty cents. Get that? 
 
 Two-eighty. And what did the alfalfa judge hand'm? 
 
 Fifty years. He's served eight of it already in San Quen- 
 tin. And he'll go on serving it till he croaks. Mrs. Dan-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 17$ 
 
 ake* says he's bad with consumption caught it inside, but 
 she ain't got the pull to get'm pardoned. Archie the Kid 
 steals two dollars an' eighty cents from a drunk and gets 
 fifty years. J. Alliston Forbes sticks up the Alta Trust 
 for two millions an' gets less'n two years. Who's country 
 is this anyway? Yourn an' Archie the Kid's? Guess 
 again. It's J. Alliston Forbes' Oh: 
 
 "Nobody likes a mil-yun-aire, 
 
 Nobody likes his looks, 
 Nobody '11 share his slightest care, 
 He classes with thugs and crooks." 
 
 Mary, at the sink, where Saxon was just finishing the 
 last dish, untied Saxon's apron and kissed her with the 
 sympathy that women alone feel for each other under the 
 shadow of maternity. 
 
 "Now you sit down, dear. You mustn't tire yourself, 
 and it's a long way to go yet. I'll get your sewing for 
 you, and you can listen to the men talk. But don't listen 
 to Bert. He's crazy." 
 
 Saxon sewed and listened, and Bert's face grew bleak 
 and bitter as he contemplated the baby clothes in her lap. 
 
 ' ' There you go, ' ' he blurted out, ' ' bringin ' kids into the 
 world when you ain't got any guarantee you can feed 
 'em." 
 
 "You must a-had a souse last night," Tom grinned. 
 
 Bert shook his head. 
 
 "Aw, what's the use of gettin' grouched?" Billy 
 cheered. "It's a pretty good country." 
 
 "It was a pretty good country," Bert replied, "when 
 ' we was all Mohegans. But not now. We're jiggerooed. 
 We 're hornswoggled. We 're backed to a standstill. We 're 
 double-crossed to a fare-you-well. My folks fought for 
 this country. So did yourn, all of you. We freed the 
 piggers, killed the Indians, an' starved, an' froze, an' 
 sweat, an' fought. This land looked good to us. We 
 cleared it, an' broke it, an' made the roads, an' built the 
 cities. And there was plenty for everybody. And we
 
 174 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 went on fightin' for it. I had two uncles killed at Qettys< 
 burg. All of us was mixed up in that war. Listen to 
 Saxon talk any time what her folks went through to get 
 out here an' get ranches, an' horses, an' cattle, an' every- 
 thing. And they got 'em. All our folks got 'em, Mary's, 
 
 "And if they'd ben ^mart they'd a-held on to them," 
 she interpolated. 
 
 "Sure thing," Bert continued. "That's the very point. 
 We're the losers. We've ben robbed. We couldn't mark 
 cards, deal from the bottom, an' ring in cold decks like the 
 others. We're the white folks that failed. You see, times 
 changed, and there was two kinds of us, the lions and the 
 plugs. The plugs only worked, the lions only gobbled, 
 They gobbled the farms, the mines, the factories, an' row 
 they've gobbled the government. We're the white folks an* 
 the children of white folks, that was too busy being good 
 to be smart. We're the white folks that lost out. We're 
 the ones that's ben skinned. D'ye get me?" 
 
 ' ' You 'd make a good soap-boxer, ' ' Tom commended, ' ' if 
 only you'd get the kinks straightened out in your reason- 
 ing." 
 
 "It sounds all right, Bert," BiUy said, "only it ain't. 
 Any man can get rich to-day " 
 
 "Or be president of the United States," Bert snapped. 
 "Sure thing if he's got it in him. Just the same I ain't 
 heard you makin' a noise like a millionaire or a president. 
 Why? You ain't got it in you. You're a bonehead. A 
 plug. That's why. Skiddoo for you. Skiddoo for all of 
 us." 
 
 At the table, while they ate, Tom talked of the joys of 
 farm-life he had known as a boy and as a young man, and 
 confided that it was his dream to go and take up govern- 
 ment land somewhere as his people had done before him 
 Unfortunately, as he explained, Sarah was set, so that the 
 dream must remain a dream. 
 
 "It's all in the game," Billy sighed. "It's played tv 
 rules. Some one has to get knocked out, I suppose."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 17fl 
 
 A little later, while Bert was off on a fresh diatribe, 
 Billy became aware that he was making comparisons. This 
 house was not like his house. Here was no satisfying at- 
 mosphere. Things seemed to run with a jar. He recol- 
 lected that when they arrived the breakfast dishes had 
 not yet been washed. With a man's general obliviousness 
 of household affairs, he had not noted details; yet it had 
 been borne in on him, all morning, in a myriad ways, that 
 Mary was not the housekeeper Saxon was. He glanced 
 proudly across at her, and felt the spur of an impulse to 
 leave his seat, go around, and embrace her. She was a 
 wife. He remembered her dainty undergarmenting, and 
 on the instant, into his brain, leaped the image of her so 
 appareled, only to be shattered by Bert. 
 
 "Hey, Bill, you seem to think I've got a grouch. Sure 
 thing. I have. You ain't had my experiences. You've 
 always done teamin' an' pulled down easy money prize- 
 fightin'. You ain't known hard times. You ain't ben 
 through strikes. You ain't had to take care of an old 
 mother an' swallow dirt on her account. It wasn't until 
 after she died that I could rip loose an' take or leave aa 
 I felt like it. 
 
 "Take that time I tackled the Niles Electric an' see 
 what a work-plug gets handed out to him. The Head 
 Cheese sizes me up, pumps me a lot of questions, an' gives 
 me an application blank. I make it out, payin' a dollar 
 to a doctor they sent me to for a health certificate. Then 
 I got to go to a picture garage an ' get my mug taken 
 for the Niles Electric rogues' gallery. And I cough up 
 another dollar for the mug. The Head Squirt takes the 
 blank, the health certificate, and the mug, an' fires more 
 
 questions. Did I belong to a labor union f ME? Of 
 
 course I told'm the truth I guess nit. I needed the job. 
 The grocery wouldn't give me any more tick, and there 
 was my mother. 
 
 "Huh, thinks I, here's where I'm a real carman. Back 
 platform for me, where I can pick up the fancy skirts. 
 Nitsky. Two dollars, please. Me mv two dollars. All
 
 176 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 for a pewter badge. Then there was the uniform nine- 
 teen fifty, and get it anywhere else for fifteen. Only that 
 was to be paid out of my first month. And then five 
 dollars in change in my pocket, my own money. That was 
 
 the rule. 1 borrowed that five from Tom Donovan, 
 
 the policeman. Then what? They worked me for two 
 weeks without pay, breakin' me in." 
 
 "Did you pick up any fancy skirts?" Saxon queried 
 teasingly. 
 
 Bert shook his head glumly. 
 
 "I only worked a month. Then we organized, and they 
 busted our union higher 'n a kite." 
 
 "And you boobs in the shops will be busted the same 
 way if you go out on strike," Mary informed him. 
 
 "That's what I've ben tellin' you all along," Bert re- 
 plied. "We ain't got a chance to win." 
 
 "Then why go out?" was Saxon's question. 
 
 He looked at her with lack-luster eyes for a moment 
 then answered: 
 
 "Why did my two uncles get killed at Gettysburg?'*
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SAXON went about her housework greatly troubled. She 
 ao longer devoted herself to the making of pretties. The 
 materials cost money, and she did not dare. Bert's thrust 
 had sunk home. It remained in her quivering conscious- 
 ness like a shaft of steel that ever turned and rankled. 
 She and Billy were responsible for this coming young life. 
 Could they be sure, after all, that they could adequately 
 feed and clothe it and prepare it for its way in the world ? 
 Where was the guaranty? She remembered, dimly, the 
 blight of hard times in the past, and the plaints of fathers 
 and mothers in those days returned to her with a new 
 significance. Almost could she understand Sarah's chronic 
 complaining. 
 
 Hard times were already in the neighborhood, where 
 lived the families of the shopmen who had gone out on 
 strike. Among the small storekeepers, Saxon, in the course 
 of the daily marketing, could sense the air of despondency. 
 Light and geniality seemed to have vanished. Gloom per 
 vaded everywhere. The mothers of the children that 
 played in the stree'ts showed the gloom plainly in their 
 faces. When they gossiped in the evenings, over front 
 gates and on door stoops, their voices were subdued and 
 less of laughter rang out. 
 
 Mary Donahue, who had taken three pints from the 
 milkman, now took one pint. There were no more family 
 trips to the moving picture shows. Scrap-meat was harder 
 to get from the butcher. Nora Delaney, in the third house, 
 no longer bought fresh fish for Friday. Salted codfish, 
 not of the best quality, was now on her table. The sturdy 
 children that ran out upon the street between meals with 
 huge slices of breav; 1 and butter and sugar now came out 
 177
 
 *78 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 with no sugar and with thinner slices spread more thinly 
 with butter. The very custom was dying out, and some 
 children already had desisted from piecing between meals. 
 
 Everywhere was manifest a pinching and scraping, a 
 tightening and shortening down of expenditure. And 
 everywhere was more irritation. Women became angered 
 with one another, and with the children, more quickly than 
 of yore; and Saxon knew that Bert and Mary bickeivl 
 incessantly. 
 
 "If she'd only realize I've got troubles of my own," 
 Bert complained to Saxon. 
 
 She looked at him closely, and felt fear for him in a 
 vague, numb way. His black eyes seemed to burn with a 
 continuous madness. The brown face was leaner, the skin 
 drawn tightly across the cheekbones. A slight twist had 
 come to the mouth, which seemed frozen into bitterness. 
 The very carriage of his body and the way he wore his 
 hat advertised a recklessness more intense than had been 
 his in the past. 
 
 Sometimes, in the long afternoons, sitting by the window 
 with idle hands, she caught herself reconstructing in her 
 vision that folk-migration of her people across the plains 
 and mountains and deserts to the sunset land by the West- 
 ern sea. And often she found herself dreaming of the 
 arcadian days of her people, when they had not lived in 
 cities nor been vexed with labor unions and employers' 
 associations. She would remember the old people's tales 
 of self-sufficingness, when they shot or raised their own 
 meat, grew their own vegetables, were their own black- 
 smiths and carpenters, made their own shoes yes, and 
 spun the cloth of the clothes they wore. And something 
 of the wistfulness in Tom's face she could see as she 
 recollected it when he talked of his dream of taking up 
 government land. 
 
 A farmer's life must be fine, she thought. "Why was it 
 that people had to live in cities ? Why had times changed ? 
 If there had been enough in the old days, why was there 
 not enough now? Why was it necessary for men to quar-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 179' 
 
 rel and jangle, and strike and fight, all about the matter 
 of getting work? AVhy wasn't there work for all? 
 Only that morning, and she shuddered with the recol- 
 lection, she had seen two scabs, on their way to work, 
 beaten up by the strikers, by men she knew by sight, and 
 some by name, who lived in the neighborhood. It had hap- 
 pened directly across the street. It had been cruel, terrible 
 -a dozen men on two. The children had begun it by 
 throwing rocks at the scabs and cursing them in ways 
 children should not know. Policemen had run upon the 
 scene with drawn revolvers, and the strikers had retreated 
 into the houses and through the narrow alleys between 
 the houses. One of the scabs, unconscious, had been car- 
 ried away in an ambulance; the other, assisted by special 
 railroad police, had been taken away to the shops. At 
 him, Mary Donahue, standing on her front stoop, her child 
 in her arms, had hurled such vile abuse that it had brought 
 the blush of shame to Saxon's cheeks. On the stoop of th 
 house on the other side, Saxon had noted Mercedes, in the 
 height of the beating up, looking on with a queer smile. 
 She had seemed very eager to witness, her nostrils dilated 
 and swelling like the beat of pulses as she watched. It 
 Lad struck Saxon at the time that the old woman was 
 quite unalarmed and only curious to see. 
 
 To Mercedes, who was so wise in love, Saxon went for 
 explanation of what was the matter with the world. But 
 the old woman's wisdom in affairs industrial and economic 
 was cryptic and unpalatable. 
 
 "La la, my dear, it is so simple. Most men are born 
 stupid. They are the slaves. A few are born clever. 
 They are the masters. God made men so, I suppose." 
 
 "Then how about God and that terrible beating across 
 the street this morning?" 
 
 "I'm afraid he was not interested," Mercedes smiled, 
 "I doubt he even knows that it happened." 
 
 "I was frightened to death," Saxon declared. "I was 
 made sick by it. And yet you I saw you you looked on 
 as cool as you please, as if it was a show."
 
 !80 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "It was a show, my dear." 
 
 "Oh, how could you?" 
 
 "La la, I have seen men killed. It is nothing strange. 
 All men die. The stupid ones die like oxen, they know 
 not why. It is quite funny to see. They strike each other 
 with fists and clubs, and break each other's heads. It i? 
 gross. They are like a lot of animals. They are like dog! 
 wrangling over bones. Jobs are bones, you know. Now, 1 
 if they fought for women, or ideas, or bars of gold, or 
 fabulous diamonds, it would be splendid. But no ; they 
 are only hungry, and fight over scraps for their stomach." 
 
 ' ' Oh, if I could only understand ! ' ' Saxon murmured, 
 her hands tightly clasped in anguish of incomprehension 
 and vital need to know. 
 
 "There is nothing to understand. It is clear as print. 
 There have always been the stupid and the clever, the 
 slave and the master, the peasant and the prince. There 
 always will be." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "Why is a peasant a peasant, my dear? Because he is 
 a peasant. Why is a flea a flea?" 
 
 Saxon tossed her head fretfully. 
 
 "Oh, but my dear, I have answered. The philosophies 
 of the world can give no better answer. Why do you like 
 your man for a husband rather than any other man? Be. 
 cause you like him that way, that is all. Why do you 
 like? Because you like. Why does fire burn and frost 
 bite? Why are there clever men a!nd stupid men? mas- 
 ters and slaves? employers and workingmen? Whj 
 is black black? Answer that and you answer every- 
 thing." 
 
 "But it is not right that men should go hungry and 
 without work when they want to work if only they can 
 get a square deal," Saxon protested. 
 
 "Oh, but it is right, just as it is right that stone wont 
 burn like wood, that sea sand isn't sugar, that thorns 
 orick, that water is wet, that smoke rises, that things fall 
 lown and not up."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON l8i 
 
 But such doctrine of reality made no impression on 
 Saxon. Frankly, she could not comprehend. It seemed 
 like so much nonsense. 
 
 "Then we have no liberty and independence," she cried 
 passionately. "One man is not as good as another. My 
 child has not the right to live that a rich mother's child 
 has. ' ' 
 
 "Certainly not," Mercedes answered. 
 
 "Yet all my people fought for these things," Saxon 
 urged, remembering her school history and the sword of 
 her father. 
 
 "Democracy the dream of the stupid peoples. Oh, la 
 la, my dear, democracy is a lie, an enchantment to keep 
 the work brutes content, just as religion used to keep them 
 content. When they groaned in their misery and toil, they 
 were persuaded to keep on in their misery and toil by 
 pretty tales of a land beyond the skies where they would 
 live famously and fat while the clever ones roasted in ever- 
 lasting fire. Ah, how the clever ones must have chuckled ! 
 And when that lie wore out, and democracy was dreamed, 
 the clever ones saw to it that it should be in truth a 
 dream, nothing but a dream. The world belongs to the 
 great and clever." 
 
 "But you are of the working people," Saxon charged. 
 
 The old woman drew herself up, and almost was 
 angry. 
 
 "I? Of the working people? My dear, because I had 
 misfortune with moneys invested, because I am old and 
 can no longer win the brave young men, because I have 
 outlived the men of my youth and there is no one to go to, 
 because I live here in the ghetto with Barry Higgins and 
 prepare to die why, my dear, I was born with the mas- 
 ters, and have trod all my days on the necks of the stupid. 
 I have drunk rare wines and sat at feasts that would have 
 supported this neighborhood for a lifetime. Dick Golden 
 and I it was Dickie's money, but I could have had it 
 Dick Golden and I dropped four hundred thousand franca 
 in a week's play at Monte Carlo. He was a Jew, but he
 
 182 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 was a spender. In India I have worn jewels that could 
 have saved the lives of ten thousand families dying before 
 my eyes." 
 
 ' ' You saw them die ? . . . and did nothing ? ' ' Saxon 
 asked aghast. 
 
 "I kept my jewels la la, and was robbed of them by 
 a brute of a Russian officer within the year." 
 
 "And you let them die," Saxon reiterated. 
 
 "They were cheap spawn. They fester and multiply 
 like maggots. They meant nothing nothing, my dear, 
 nothing. No more than your work people mean here, 
 whose crowning stupidity is their continuing to beget more 
 stupid spawn for the slavery of the masters." 
 
 So it was that while Saxon could get little glimmering 
 of common sense from others, from the terrible old woman 
 she got none at all. Nor could Saxon bring herself to 
 believe much of what she considered Mercedes' romancing. 
 As the weeks passed, the strike in the railroad shops grew 
 bitter and deadly. Billy shook his head and confessed his 
 inability to make head or tail of the troubles that were 
 looming on the labor horizon. 
 
 "I don't get the hang of it," he told Saxon. "It's a 
 mix-up. It's like a roughhouse with the lights out. Look 
 at us teamsters. Here we are, the talk just starting of 
 going out on sympathetic strike for the mill-workers. 
 They've ben out a week, most of their places is filled, an' 
 if us teamsters keep on haulin' the mill- work the strike's 
 lost." 
 
 "Yet you didn't consider striking for yourselves when! 
 your wages were cut," Saxon said with a frown. 
 
 "Oh, we wasn't in position then. But now the Frisco 
 teamsters and the whole Frisco Water Front Confederation 
 is liable to back us up. Anyway, we're just talkin' about 
 it, that's all. But if we do go out, we'll try to get back 
 that ten per cent, cut." 
 
 "It's rotten politics," he said another time. "Every- 
 body's rotten. If we'd only wise up and agree to pick out 
 Honest men n
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 183 
 
 "But if you, and Bert, and Tom can't agree, how do 
 you expect all the rest to agree?" Saxon asked. 
 
 "It gets me," he admitted. "It's enough to give a 
 guy the willies thinkin' about it. And yet it's plain as 
 the nose on your face. Get honest men for polities, an' 
 the whole thing's straightened out. Honest men'd make 
 honest laws, an' then honest men'd get their dues. But 
 Bert wants to smash things, an' Tom smokes his pipe and 
 dreams pipe dreams about by an' by when everybody 
 votes the way he thinks. But this by an' by ain't the 
 point. We want things now. Tom says we can't get them 
 now, an' Bert says we ain't never goin' to get them. 
 What can a fellow do when everybody's of different 
 minds? Look at the socialists themselves. They're always 
 disagreeing, splittin' up, an' firin' each other out of the 
 party. The whole thing's bughouse, that's what, an* I 
 almost get dippy myself thinkin' about it. The point T 
 can't get out of my mind is that we want things now." 
 
 He broke off abruptly and stared at Saxon. 
 
 "What is it?" he asked, his voice husky with anxiety 
 "You ain't sick ... or ... or anything?" 
 
 One hand she had pressed to her heart; but the startle* 
 and fright in her eyes was changing into a pleased intent- 
 ness, while on her mouth was a little mysterious smile. 
 She seemed oblivious to her husband, as if listening to 
 some message from afar and not for his ears. Then won- 
 der and joy transfused her face, and she looked at Billy, 
 'and her hand went out to his. 
 
 "It's life," she whispered. "I felt life. I am so glad, 
 so glad." 
 
 The next evening when Billy came home from work, 
 Saxon caused him to know and undertake more of the 
 responsibilities of fatherhood. 
 
 "I've been thinking it over, Billy," she began, "and 
 I'm such a healthy, strong woman that it won't have to 
 be very expensive. There's Martha Skelton she's a good 
 midwife. ' ' 
 
 But Billy shook his head.
 
 184 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Nothin' doin' in that line, Saxon. You're goin' to 
 have Doc Hentley. He's Bill Murphy's doc, an' Bill 
 swears by him. He's an old cuss, but he's a wooz. " 
 
 ' ' She confined Maggie Donahue, ' ' Saxon argued ; ' ' and 
 look at her and her baby." 
 
 "Well, she won't confine you not so as you can notice 
 it." 
 
 ' ' But the doctor will charge twenty dollars, ' ' Saxon pur- 
 sued, "and make me get a nurse because I haven't any 
 womenfolk to come in. But Martha Skelton would do 
 everything, and it would be so much cheaper." 
 
 But Billy gathered her tenderly in his arms and laid 
 down the law. 
 
 "Listen to me, little wife. The Roberts family ain't on 
 the cheap. Never forget that. You've gotta have the baby. 
 That's your business, an' it's enough for you. My business 
 is to get the money an' take care of you. An' the best 
 ain't none too good for you. Why, I wouldn't run the 
 chance of the teeniest accident happenin' to you for a 
 million dollars. It's you that counts. An' dollars is dirt. 
 Maybe you think I like that kid some. I do. Why, I can't 
 get him outa my head. I'm thinkin' about 'm all day long. 
 If I get fired, it '11 be his fault. I 'm clean dotty over him. 
 But just the same, Saxon, honest to God, before I'd havo 
 anything happen to you, break your little finger, even, I'd 
 see him dead an' buried first. That'll give you some- 
 thing of an idea what you mean to me. 
 
 "Why, Saxon, I had the idea that when folks got mar- 
 ried they just settled down, and after a while their busi- 
 ness was to get along with each other. Maybe it's the 
 way it is with other people; but it ain't that way with 
 you an' me. I love you more'n more every day. Right 
 now I love you more'n when I began talkin' to you five 
 minutes ago. An' you won't have to get a nurse. Doe 
 Hentley '11 come every day, an' Mary '11 come in an' do the 
 housework, an' take care of you an' all that, just as you'll 
 do for her if she ever needs it. ' ' 
 
 As the days and weeks passed, Saxon was possessed by a
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 185 
 
 conscious feeling of proud motherhood in her swelling 
 breasts. So essentially a normal woman was she, that 
 motherhood was a satisfying and passionate happiness. It 
 was true that she had her moments of apprehension, but 
 they were so momentary and faint that they tended, if 
 anything, to give zest to her happiness. 
 
 Only one thing troubled her, and that was the puzzling 
 and perilous situation of labor which no one seemed to 
 'understand, herself least of all. 
 
 "They're always talking about how much more is made 
 by machinery than by the old ways, ' ' she told her brother 
 Tom. "Then, with all the machinery we've got now, why 
 don't we get more?" 
 
 "Now you're talkin'," he answered. "It wouldn't take 
 you long to understand socialism." 
 
 But Saxon had a mind to the immediate need of things. 
 
 "Tom, how long have you been a socialist?" 
 
 "Eight years." 
 
 "And you haven't got anything by it?" 
 
 "But we will ... in time." 
 
 "At that rate you 11 be dead first," she challenged. 
 
 Tom sighed. 
 
 "I'm afraid so. Things move so slow." 
 
 Again he sighed. She noted the weary, patient look in 
 kis face, the bent shoulders, the labor-gnarled hands, and 
 it all seemed to symbolize the futility of his social creed
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IT began quietly, as the fateful unexpected so often 
 begins. Children, of all ages and sizes, were playing in 
 the street, and Saxon, by the open front window, was 
 watching them and dreaming day dreams of her child 
 soon to be. The sunshine mellowed peacefully down, and 
 a light wind from the bay cooled the air and gave to it a 
 tang of salt. One of the children pointed up Pine Street 
 toward Seventh. All the children ceased playing, and 
 stared and pointed. They formed into groups, the larger 
 boys, of from ten to twelve, by themselves, the older girls 
 anxiously clutching the small children by the hands or 
 gathering them into their arms. 
 
 Saxon could not see the cause of all this, but she could 
 guess when she saw the larger boys rush to the gutter, 
 pick up stones, and sneak into the alleys between the 
 houses. Smaller boys tried to imitate them. The girls, 
 dragging the tots by the arms, banged gates and clattered 
 up the front steps of the small houses. The doors slammed 
 behind them, and the street was deserted, though here and 
 there front shades were drawn aside so that anxious-faced 
 women might peer forth. Saxon heard the uptown train 
 puffing and snorting as it pulled out from Center Street. 
 Then, from the direction of Seventh, came a hoarse, 
 throaty manroar. Still, she could see nothing, and she 
 remembered Mercedes Higgins' words: "They are like 
 dogs wrangling over bones. Jobs are bones, you know." 
 
 The roar came closer, and Saxon, leaning out, saw a 
 dozen scabs, conveyed by as many special police and 
 Pinkertons, coming down the sidewalk on her side of the 
 street. They came compactly, as if with discipline, while 
 behind, disorderly, yelling confusedly, stooping to pick up 
 IML
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 187 
 
 rocks, were seventy-five or a hundred of the striking shop- 
 men. Saxon discovered herself trembling with apprehen- 
 sion, knew that she must not, and controlled herself. She 
 was helped in this by the conduct of Mercedes Higgins. 
 The old woman came out of her front door, dragging a 
 I chair, on which she coolly seated herself on the tiny stoop 
 'at the top of the steps. 
 
 In the hands of the special police were clubs. The 
 Pinkertons carried no visible weapons. The strikers, urg- 
 ing on from behind, seemed content with yelling their rage 
 and threats, and it remained for the children to precipitate 
 the conflict. From across the street, between the Olsen 
 and the Isham houses, came a shower of stones. Most of 
 these fell short, though one struck a scab on the head. 
 The man was no more than twenty feet away from Saxon. 
 He reeled toward her front picket fence, drawing a re- 
 volver. With one hand he brushed the blood from his 
 eyes and with the other he discharged the revolver into 
 the Isham house. A Pinkerton seized his arm to prevent 
 a second shot, and dragged him along. At the same in- 
 stant a wilder roar went up from the strikers, while a 
 volley of stones came from between Saxon's house and 
 Maggie Donahue's. The scabs and their protectors made 
 a stand, drawing revolvers. From their hard, determined 
 faces fighting men by profession Saxon could augur 
 nothing but bloodshed and death. An elderly man, evi- 
 dently the leader, lifted a soft felt hat and mopped the 
 perspiration from the bald top of his head. He was a 
 large man, very rotund of belly and helpless looking. His 
 gray beard was stained with streaks of tobacco juice, and 
 he was smoking a cigar. He was stoop-shouldered, and 
 Saxon noted the dandruff on the collar of his coat. 
 
 One of the men pointed into the street, and several of 
 his companions laughed. The cause of it was the little 
 Olsen boy, barely four years old, escaped somehow from 
 his mother and toddling toward his economic enemies. In 
 his right he bore a rock so heavy that he could scarcely 
 lift it. With this he feebly threatened them. His rosy
 
 188 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 little face was convulsed with rage, and he was screaming 
 over and over: "Dam scahs! Dam scabs! Dam scabs!" 
 The laughter with which they greeted him only increased 
 his fury. He toddled closer, and with a mighty exertion 
 threw the rock. It fell a scant six feet beyond his hand. 
 
 This much Saxon saw, and also Mrs. Olsen rushing into 
 the street for her child. A rattling of revolver-shots from 
 the strikers drew Saxon's attention to the men beneath 
 her. One of them cursed sharply and examined the biceps 
 of his left arm, which hung limply by his side. Down the 
 hand she saw the blood beginning to drip. She knew she 
 ought not remain and watch, but the memory of her fight- 
 ing forefathers was with her, while she possessed no more 
 than normal human fear if anything, less. She forgot 
 her child in the eruption of battle that had broken upon 
 her quiet street. And she forgot the strikers, and every- 
 thing else, in amazement at what had happened to the 
 round-bellied, cigar-smoking leader. In some strange way, 
 she knew not how, his head had become wedged at the 
 neck between the tops of the pickets of her fence. His 
 body hung down outside, the knees not quite touching the 
 ground. His hat had fallen off, and the sun was making 
 an astounding high light on his bald spot. The cigar, too, 
 was gone. She saw he was looking at her. One hand, be- 
 tween the pickets, seemed waving at her, and almost he 
 seemed to wink at her jocosely, though she knew it to be 
 the contortion of deadly pain. 
 
 Possibly a second, or, at most, two seconds, she gazed at 
 this, when she was aroused by Bert's voice. He was run- 
 ning along the sidewalk, in front of her house, and behind 
 him charged several more strikers, while he shouted: 
 "Come on, you Mohegans! We got 'em nailed to the 
 cross ! ' ' 
 
 In his left hand he carried a pick-handle, in his right 
 a revolver, already empty, for he clicked the cylinder 
 vainly around as he ran. With an abrupt stop, droppii?^ 
 the pick-handle, he whirled half about, facing Saxon's 
 gate. He was sinking down, when he straightened him*
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 189 
 
 self to throw the revolver into the face of a scab who 
 was jumping toward him. Then he began swaying, at 
 the same time sagging at the knees and waist. Slowly, 
 with infinite effort, he caught a gate picket in his right 
 hand, and, still slowly, as if lowering himself, sank down, 
 while past him leaped the crowd of strikers he had led. 
 
 It was battle without quarter a massacre. The scabs 
 and their protectors, surrounded, backed against Saxon's 
 fence, fought like cornered rats, but could not withstand 
 the rush of a hundred men. Clubs and pick-handles were 
 swinging, revolvers were exploding, and cobblestones were 
 tiuug with crushing effect at arm's distance. Saxon saw 
 young Frank Davis, a friend of Bert's and a father of 
 several months' standing, press the muzzle of his revolver 
 against a scab's stomach and fire. There were curses and 
 snarls of rage, wild cries of terror and pain. Mercedes 
 was right. These things were not men. They were beasts, 
 fighting over bones, destroying one another for bones. 
 
 Jobs are bones; jobs are bones. The phrase was an in- 
 cessant iteration in Saxon's brain. Much as she might 
 have wished it, she was powerless now to withdraw from 
 the window. It was as if she were paralyzed. Her brain 
 no longer worked. She sat numb, staring, incapable of 
 anything save seeing the rapid horror before her eyes 
 that flashed along like a moving picture film gone mad. 
 She saw Pinkertons, special police, and strikers go down. 
 One scab, terribly wounded, on his knees and begging for 
 mercy, was kicked in the face. As he sprawled backward, 
 .another striker, standing over him, fired a revolver into' 
 'his chest, quickly and deliberately, again and again, until 
 the weapon was empty. Another scab, backed over the 
 pickets by a hand clutching his throat, had his face pulped 
 by a revolver butt. Again and again, continually, the 
 revolver rose and fell, and Saxon knew the man who 
 wielded it Chester Johnson. She had met him at dances 
 and danced with him in the days before she was married. 
 He had always been kind and good natured. She re- 
 membered the Friday night, after a City Hall band con-
 
 190 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 cert, when he had taken her and two other girls to Tony's 
 Tamale Grotto on Thirteenth street. And after that they 
 had all gone to Pabst's Cafe and drunk a glass of beer 
 before they went home. It was impossible that this could 
 be the same Chester Johnson. And as she looked, she 
 saw the round-bellied leader, still wedged by the neck be- 
 tween the pickets, draw a revolver with his free hand, and, 
 squinting horribly sidewise, press the muzzle against Ches- 
 ter's side. She tried to scream a warning. She did 
 scream, and Chester looked up and saw her. At that 
 moment the revolver went off, and he collapsed prone upon 
 the body of the scab. And the bodies of three men hung 
 on her picket fence. 
 
 Anything could happen now. Quite without surprise, 
 she saw the strikers leaping the fence, trampling her few 
 little geraniums and pansies into the earth as they fled 
 between Mercedes' house and hers. Up Pine street, from 
 the railroad yards, was coming a rush of railroad police 
 and Pinkerton's, firing as they ran. While down Pine 
 street, gongs clanging, horses at a gallop, came three pa- 
 trol wagons packed with police. The strikers were in a 
 trap. The only way out was between the bouses and over 
 the back yard fences. The jam in the narrow alley pre- 
 vented them all from escaping. A dozen were cornered in 
 the angle between the front of her house and the steps. 
 And as they had done, so were they done by. No effort 
 was made to arrest. They were clubbed down and shot 
 down to the last man by the guardians of the peace who 
 were infuriated by what had been wreaked on their breth- 
 ren. 
 
 It was all over, and Saxon, moving as in a dream, 
 clutching the banister tightly, came down the front steps. 
 The round-bellied leader still leered at her and fluttered 
 one hand, though two big policemen were just bending to 
 extricate him. The gate was off its hinges, which seemed 
 strange, for she had been watching all the time and had 
 not seen it happen. 
 
 Bert's eyes were closed. His lips were blood-flecked, 

 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 191 
 
 and there was a gurgling in his throat as if he were trying 
 to say something. As she stooped above him, with her 
 handkerchief brushing the blood from his cheek where 
 some one had stepped on him, his eyes opened. The old 
 defiant light was in them. He did not know her. The 
 lips moved, and faintly, almost reminiscently, he mur- 
 mured, "The last of the Mohegans, the last of the Mo- 
 hegans." Then he groaned, and the eyelids drooped down 
 again. He was not dead. She knew that. The chest still 
 rose and fell, and the gurgling still continued in his 
 throat. 
 
 She looked up. Mercedes stood beside her. The old 
 woman's eyes were very bright, her withered cheeks 
 flushed. 
 
 "Will you help me carry him into the house?" Saxon 
 asked. 
 
 Mercedes nodded, turned to a sergeant of police, and 
 made the request to him. The sergeant gave a swift 
 glance at Bert, and his eyes were bitter and ferocious as 
 he refused: 
 
 "To hell with 'm. "We'll care for our own. 
 
 "Maybe you and I can do it," Saxon said. 
 
 "Don't be a fool." Mercedes was beckoning to Mrs. 
 Olsen across the street. "You go into the house, little 
 mother that is to be. This is bad for you. We'll carry 
 him in. Mrs. Olsen is coming, and we'll get Maggie Dona- 
 hue. ' ' 
 
 Saxon led the way into the back bedroom which Billy 
 had insisted on furnishing. As she opened the door, the 
 carpet seemed to fly up into her face as with the force 
 of a blow, for she remembered Bert had laid that carpet. 
 And as the women placed him on the bed she recalled that 
 it was Bert and she, between them, who had set the bed 
 up one Sunday morning. 
 
 And then she felt very queer, and was surprised to see 
 Mercedes regarding her with questioning, searching eyes. 
 After that her queerness came on very fast, and she de- 
 scended into the hell of pain that is given to women alone
 
 192 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 to know. She was supported, half-carried, to the front 
 bedroom. Many faces were about her Mercedes, Mrs. 
 Olsen, Maggie Donahue. It seemed she must ask Mrs. 
 Olsen if she had saved little Emil from the street, but 
 Mercedes cleared Mrs. Olsen out to look after Bert, and 
 Maggie Donahue went to answer a knock at the front door. 
 From the street came a loud hum of voices, punctuated by 
 shouts and commands, and from time to time there was 
 a clanging of the gongs of ambulances and patrol wagons. 
 Then appeared the fat, comfortable face of Martha Skel- 
 ton, and, later, Doctor Hentley came. Once, in a clear 
 interval, through the thin wall Saxon heard the high open- 
 ing notes of Mary's hysteria. And, another time, she 
 heard Mary repeating over and over: "I'll never go back 
 to tbe laundry. Never. Never."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 BILLY could never get over the shock, during that period, 
 of Saxon's appearance. Morning after morning, and eve- 
 ning after evening when he came home from work, he 
 would enter the room where she lay and fight a royal bat- 
 tle to hide his feelings and make a show of cheerfulness 
 and geniality. She looked so small lying there, so small 
 and shrunken and weary, and yet so child-like in her 
 Binallness. Tenderly, as he sat beside her, he would take 
 up her pale hand and stroke the slim, transparent arm, 
 marveling at the smallness and delicacy of the bones. 
 
 One of her first questions, puzzling alike to Billy and 
 Mary, was: 
 
 "Did they save little Emil Olsen?" 
 
 And when she told them how he had attacked, single- 
 handed, the whole twenty-four fighting men, Billy's face 
 glowed with appreciation. 
 
 "The little cuss!" he said. "That's the kind of a kid 
 to be proud of." 
 
 He halted awkwardly, and his very evident fear that 
 he had hurt her touched Saxon. She put her hand out 
 to his. 
 
 "Billy," she began; then waited till Mary left the 
 room. 
 
 "I never asked before not that it matters . . . 
 now. But I waited for you to tell me. "Was it . . . ? " 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "No; it was a girl. A perfect little girl. Only . . . 
 it was too soon. ' ' 
 
 She pressed his hand, and almost it was she that sym- 
 pathized with him in his affliction.
 
 194 THE VALLEY OF -THE MOON 
 
 "I never told you, Billy you were so set on a boy; but 
 I planned, just the same, if it was a girl, to call her Daisy. 
 You remember, that was my mother's name." 
 
 He nodded his approbation. 
 
 "Say, Saxon, you know 1 did want a boy like the very 
 dickens . . . well, I don't care now. I think I'm set 
 just as hard on a girl, an', well, here's hopin' the next will 
 be called . . . you wouldn't mind, would you?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "If we called it the same name, Daisy?" 
 
 "Oh, Billy! I was thinking the very same thing." 
 
 Then his face grew stern, as he went on. 
 
 "Only there ain't go in' to be a next. I didn't know 
 what havin' children was like before. You can't run any 
 more risks like that." 
 
 "Hear the big, strong, afraid-man talk!" she jeered, 
 with a wan smile. "You don't know anything about it. 
 How can a man? I am a healthy, natural woman. Every- 
 thing would have been all right this time if ... if 
 all that fighting hadn't happened. Where did they bury 
 Bert?" 
 
 "You knew?" 
 
 "All the time. And where is Mercedes? She hasn't 
 been in for two days." 
 
 ' ' Old Barry 's sick. She 's with him. ' ' 
 
 He did not tell her that the old night watchman was 
 dying, two thin walls and half a dozen feet away. 
 
 Saxon's lips were trembling, and she began to cry 
 weakly, clinging to Billy's hand with both of hers. 
 
 "I I can't help it," she sobbed. "I'll be all right in 
 a minute . . . Our little girl, Billy. Think of it! 
 And I never saw her!" 
 
 She was still lying on her bed, when, one evening, Mary 
 saw fit to break out in bitter thanksgiving that she had 
 escaped, and was destined to escape, what Saxon had gone 
 through. 
 
 "Aw, what are you talkin' about?" Billy demanded.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 195 
 
 J< You'll get married some time again as sure as beans is 
 beans." 
 
 "Not to the best man living," she proclaimed. "And 
 there ain't no call for it. There's too many people in 
 the world now, else why are there two or three men 
 for every job? And, besides, havin' children is too ter- 
 rible/' 
 
 Saxon, with a look of patient wisdom in her face that 
 became glorified as she spoke, made answer: 
 
 "I ought to know what it means. I've been through 
 it, and I'm still in the thick of it, and I want to say to 
 you right now, out of all the pain and the ache and the 
 sorrow, that it is the most beautiful-, wonderful thing in 
 the world." 
 
 As Saxon's strength came back to her (and when Doc- 
 tor Hentley had privily assured Billy that she was sound 
 as a dollar), she herself took up the matter of the indus- 
 trial tragedy that had taken place before her door. The 
 militia had been called out immediately, Billy informed 
 her, and was encamped then at the foot of Pine street on 
 the waste ground next to the railroad yards. As for the 
 strikers, fifteen of them were in jail. A house to house 
 search had been made in the neighborhood by the police, 
 and in this way nearly the whole fifteen, all wounded, had 
 been captured. It would go hard with them, Billy fore- 
 boded gloomily. The newspapers were demanding blood 
 for blood, and all the ministers in Oakland had preached 
 fierce sermons against the .strikers. The railroad had 
 filled every place, and it was well known that the striking 
 shopmen not only would never get their old jobs back but 
 were blacklisted in every railroad in the United States. 
 Already they were beginning to scatter. A number had 
 gone to Panama, and four were talking of going to Ecua- 
 dor to work in the shops of the railroad that ran over the 
 Andes to Quito. 
 
 With anxiety keenly concealed, she tried to feel out 
 Billy's opinion on what had happened.
 
 196 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "That shows what Bert's violent methods come to,' 
 she said. 
 
 He shook his head slowly and gravely. 
 
 "They'll hang Chester Johnson, anyway," he answered 
 indirectly. "You know him. You told me you used to 
 dance with him. Pie was caught red-handed, lyin' on 
 the body of a scab he beat to death. Old Jelly Belly's got 
 three bullet holes in him, but he ain't goin' to die, and 
 he's got Chester's number. They'll hang 'm on Jell^ 
 Belly's evidence. It was all in the papers. Jelly Belly 
 shot him, too, a-hangin' by the neck on our pickets." 
 
 Saxon shuddered. Jelly Belly must be the man with 
 the bald spot and the tobacco-stained whiskers. 
 
 "Yes," she said. "I saw it all. It seemed he must 
 have hung there for hours." 
 
 "It was all over, from first to last, in five minutes." 
 
 "It seemed ages and ages." 
 
 "I guess that's the way it seemed to Jelly Belly, stuck 
 on the pickets," Billy smiled grimly. "But he's a hard 
 one to kill. He's been shot an' cut up a dozen different 
 times. But they say now he'll be crippled for life have 
 to go around on crutches, or in a wheel-chair. That'll stop 
 him from doin' any more dirty work for the railroad. He 
 was one of their top gun-fighters always up to his ears 
 in the thick of any fightin' that was goin' on. He never 
 was leary of anything on two feet, I'll say that much 
 for 'm." 
 
 "Where does he live?" Saxon inquired. 
 
 "Up on Adeline, near Tenth fine neighborhood an* 
 fine two-storied house. He must pay thirty dollars a 
 month rent. I guess the railroad paid him pretty well." 
 
 "Then he must be married?" 
 
 "Yep. I never seen his wife, but he's got one son, Jack, 
 a passenger engineer. I used to know him. He was a 
 nifty boxer, though he never went into the ring. An' he's 
 got another son that's teacher in the high school. His 
 name's Paul. We're about the same age. He was great 
 at baseball. I knew him when we was kids. He pitched
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 19V 
 
 me out three times hand-runnin* once, when the Durant 
 played the Cole School." 
 
 Saxon sat back in the Morris chair, resting and think- 
 ing. The problem was growing more complicated than 
 ever. This elderly, round-bellied, and bald-headed gun- 
 fighter, too, had a wife and family. And there was Frank 
 Davis, married barely a year and with a baby boy. Per- 
 haps the scab he shot in the stomach had a wife and chil- 
 dren. All seemed to be acquainted, members of a 
 very large family, and yet, because of their particular 
 families, they battered and killed each other. She had 
 seen Chester Johnson kill a scab, and now they were going 
 to hang Chester Johnson, who had married Kittie Brady 
 out of the cannery, and she and Kittie Brady had worked 
 together years before in the paper box factory. 
 
 Vainly Saxon waited for Billy to say something that 
 would show he did not countenance the killing of the 
 
 "It was wrong," she ventured finally. 
 
 "They killed Bert," he countered. "An' a lot of others. 
 An' Frank Davis. Did you know he was dead? Had his 
 whole lower jaw shot away died in the ambulance before 
 they could get him to the receiving hospital. There was 
 never so much killin' at one time in Oakland before." 
 
 "But it was their fault," she contended. "They began 
 it. It was murder." 
 
 Billy did not reply, but she heard him mutter hoarsely, 
 She knew he said "God damn them"; but when she askec^ 
 "What?" he made no answer. His eyes were deep with, 
 troubled clouds, while the mouth had hardened, and ail 
 his face was bleak. 
 
 To her it was a heart-stab. Was he, too, like the rest? 
 Would he kill other men who had families, like Bert, and 
 Frank Davis, and Chester Johnson had killed? Was he, 
 too, a wild beast, a dog that would snarl over a bone ? 
 
 She sighed. Life was a strange puzzle. Perhaps Mer- 
 cedes Higgins was right in her cruel statement of the 
 terms of existence.
 
 198 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "What of it?" Billy laughed harshly, as if in answer 
 to her mmttered questions. "It's dog eat dog, I guess, 
 and it's always ben that way. Take that scrap outside 
 there. They killed each other just like the North an* 
 South did in the Civil War." 
 
 "But workingmen can't win that way, Billy. You say 
 yourself that it spoiled their chance of winning. ' ' 
 
 "I suppose not," he admitted reluctantly. "But what 
 other chance they've got to win I don't see. Look at us. 
 We'll be up against it next." 
 
 "Not the teamsters?" she cried. 
 
 He nodded gloomily. 
 
 "The bosses are cuttin' loose all along the line for a 
 high old time. Say they're goin' to beat us to our knees 
 till we come crawlin* back a-beggin' for our jobs. They've 
 bucked up real high an' mighty what of all that killin* 
 the other day. Havin' the troops out is half the fight, 
 along with havin' the preachers an' the papers an' the 
 public behind 'em. They're shootin' off their mouths al- 
 ready about what they're goin' to do. They're sure gun- 
 ning for trouble. First, they're goin' to hang Chester 
 Johnson an' as many more of the fifteen as they can. 
 They say that flat. The Tribune, an' the Enquirer, an* 
 the Times keep sayin' it over an' over every day. They're 
 all union-bustin ' to beat the band. No more closed shop. 
 To hell with organized labor. Why, the dirty little Intel- 
 ligencer vome out this morning an' said that every union 
 official in Oakland ought to be run outa town or stretched 
 up. Fine, eh? You bet it's line. 
 
 . ''Look at us. It ain't a case any more of sympathetic 
 'strike for the mill- workers. We got our own troubles. 
 They've fired our four best men the ones that was always 
 on the conference committees Did it without cause. 
 They're lookin' for trouble, as I told you, an' they'll get 
 it, too, if they don't watch out. We got our tip from the 
 Frisco Water Front Confederation. With them backin" 
 V we'll go some." 
 
 "'You mean you'll . .. , strike?" Saxon asked.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 199 
 
 He bent his head. 
 
 "But isn't that what they want you io do? from the 
 way they're acting?" 
 
 ' ' What 's the difference ? ' ' Billy shrugged his shoulders, 
 then continued. ''It's better to strike than to get fired. 
 We beat 'em to it, that's all, an' we catch 'em before 
 they're ready. Don't we know what they're doin'? 
 They're collectin' gradin '-camp drivers an' mule-skinners 
 all up an' down the state. They got forty of 'em, feedin' 
 'em in a hotel in Stockton right now, an' ready to rush 
 'em in on us, an' hundreds more like 'em. So this Satur- 
 day 's the last wages I '11 likely bring home for some time. ' ' 
 
 Saxon closed her eyes and thought quietly for five min- 
 utes. It was not her way to take things excitedly. The 
 coolness of poise that Billy so admired never deserted her 
 in time of emergency. She realized that she herself was 
 no more than a mote caught up in this tangled, nonunder- 
 standable conflict of many motes. 
 
 "We'll have to draw from our savings to pay for this 
 month's rent," she said brightly. 
 
 Billy's face fell. 
 
 "We ain't got as much in the bank as you think," he 
 confessed. "Bert had to be buried, you know, an' I 
 coughed up what the others couldn't raise." 
 
 "How much was it?" 
 
 "Forty dollars. I was goin' to stand off the butcher an' 
 the rest for a while. They knew I was good pay. But 
 they put it to me straight. They'd ben carryin' the shop- 
 men right along an' was up against it themselves. An' 
 now, with that strike smashed they 're pretty much smashed 
 themselves. So I took it all out of the bank. I knew you 
 wouldn't mind. You don't, do you?" 
 
 She smiled bravely, and bravely overcame the sinking 
 feeling at her heart. 
 
 "It was the only right thing to do, Billy. I would 
 have done it if you were lying sick, and Bert would have 
 done it for you an' me if it had been the other way 
 around."
 
 200 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 His face was glowing. 
 
 "Gee, Saxon, a fellow can always count on you. You're 
 like my right hand. That's why I say no more babies. If 
 I lose you I'm crippled for life." 
 
 "We've got to economize," she mused, nodding her ap- 
 preciation. "How much is in bank?" 
 
 "Just about thirty dollars. You see, I had to pay 
 Martha Skelton an' for the ... a few other little 
 things. An' the union took time by the neck and levied 
 a four dollar emergency assessment on every member just 
 to be ready if the strike was pulled off. But Doc Hentley 
 can wait. He said as much. He's the goods, if anybody 
 should ask you. How'd you like 'm?" 
 
 "I liked him. But I don't know about doctors. He's 
 the first I ever had except when I was vaccinated once, 
 and then the city did that." 
 
 "Looks like the street car men are goin' out, too. Dan 
 Fallon 's come to town. Came all the way from New York. 
 Tried to sneak in on the quiet, but the fellows knew when 
 he left New York, an' kept track of him all the way 
 acrost. They have to. He's Johnny-on-the-Spot when- 
 ever street car men are licked into shape. He's won lots 
 of street car strikes for the bosses. Keeps an army of 
 strike breakers an' ships them all over the country on 
 special trains wherever they're needed. Oakland's never 
 seen labor troubles like she's got and is goin' to get. All 
 hell's goin' to break loose from the looks of it." 
 
 "Watch out for yourself, then, Billy. I don't want to 
 lose you either." 
 
 "Aw, that's all right. I can take care of myself. An 
 besides, it ain't as though we was licked. We got a good 
 chance. ' ' 
 
 "But you'll lose if there is any killing." 
 
 "Yep; we gotta keep an eye out against that." 
 
 "No violence." 
 
 "No gun-fighting or dynamite," he assented. "But a 
 heap of scabs '11 get their heads broke. That has to be." 
 
 "But you won't do any of that, Billy."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 201 
 
 "Not so as any slob can testify before a court to havin v 
 seen me." Then, with a quick shift, he changed the sub- 
 ject. "Old Barry Higgins is dead. I didn't want to tell 
 you till you was outa bed. Buried 'm a week ago. An' 
 the old woman's movin' to Frisco. She told me she'd be 
 in to say good bye. She stuck by you pretty well them 
 first couple of days, an' she showed Martha Skelton a few 
 that made her hair curl. She got Martha's goat from the 
 jump."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 WITH Billy on strike and away doing picket duty, ano 
 with the departure of Mercedes and the death of Bert 
 Saxon was left much to herself in a loneliness that evei 
 in one as healthy-minded as she could not fail to produce 
 morbidness. Mary, too, had left, having spoken vaguely 
 f taking a job at housework in Piedmont. 
 
 Billy could help Saxon little in her trouble. He dimly 
 sensed her suffering, without comprehending the scope 
 and intensity of it. He was too man-practical, and, by his 
 very sex, too remote from the intimate tragedy that was 
 hers. He was an outsider at the best, a friendly onlooker 
 who saw little. To her the baby had been quick and 
 real. It was still quick and real. That was her trouble. 
 By no deliberate effort of will could she fill the aching 
 void of its absence. Its reality became, at times, an hallu- 
 cination. Somewhere it still was, and she must find it. 
 She would catch herself, on occasion, listening with 
 strained ears for the cry she had never heard, yet which, 
 in fancy, she had heard a thousand times in the happy 
 months before the end. Twice she left her bed in her 
 sleep and went searching each time coming to herself 
 beside her mother's chest of drawers in which were the 
 tiny garments. To herself, at such moments, she would 
 say, "I had a baby once." And she would say it, aloud 
 as she watched the children playing in the street. 
 
 One day, on the Eighth street cars, a young mother sat 
 beside her, a crowing infant in her arms. And Saxon 
 said to her: 
 
 "I had a baby once. It died." 
 
 The mother looked at her, startled, half-drew the baby 
 tighter in her arms, jealously, or as if in fear; then she 
 softened as she said : 
 
 202
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 203 
 
 "You poor thing." 
 
 "Yes," Saxon nodded. "It died." 
 
 Tears welled into her eyes, and the telling of her grief 
 seemed to have brought relief. But all the day she suf- 
 fered from an almost overwhelming desire to recite her sor- 
 row to the world to the paying teller at the bank, to the 
 elderly floor- walker in Salinger's, to the blind woman, 
 guided by a little boy, who played on the concertina to 
 every one save the policeman. The police were new and 
 terrible creatures to her now. She had seen them kill 
 the strikers as mercilessly as the strikers had killed the 
 scabs. And, unlike the strikers, the police were profes- 
 sional killers. They were not fighting for jobs. They 
 did it as a business. They could have taken prisoners 
 that day, in the angle of her front steps and the house. 
 But they had not. Unconsciously, whenever approaching 
 one, she edged across the sidewalk so as to get as far as 
 possible away from him. She did not reason it out, but 
 deeper than consciousness was the feeling that they were 
 typical of something inimical to her and hers. 
 
 At Eighth and Broadway, waiting for her car to re- 
 turn home, the policeman on the corner recognized her 
 and greeted her. She turned white to the lips, and her 
 heart fluttered painfully. It was only Ned Hermanmann, 
 fatter, broader-faced, jollier looking than ever. He had 
 sat across the aisle from her for three terms at school. He 
 and she had been monitors together of the composition 
 books for one term. The day the powder works blew up 
 v at Pinole, breaking every window in the school, he and 
 she had not joined in the panic rush for out-of-doors. 
 'Both had remained in the room, and the irate principal 
 had exhibited them, from room to room, to the cowardly 
 classes, and then rewarded them with a month's holiday 
 from school. And after that Ned Hermanmann had be- 
 come a policeman, and married Lena Highland, and Saxon 
 had heard they had five children. 
 
 But, in spite of all that, he was now a policeman, and 
 Billy was now a striker. Might not Ned Hermanmann
 
 204 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 some day club and shoot Billy just as those other police- 
 men clubbed and shot the strikers by her front steps? ' 
 
 "What's the matter, Saxon?" he asked. "Sick?" 
 
 She nodded and choked, unable to speak, and started 
 to move toward her car which was coming to a stop. 
 
 "I'll help you," he offered. 
 
 She shrank away from his hand. 
 
 "No; I'm all right," she gasped hurriedly. "I'm not 
 going to take it. I've forgotten something." 
 
 ' ' She turned away dizzily, up Broadway to Ninth. Two 
 blocks along Ninth, she turned down Clay and back to 
 Eighth street, where she waited for another car. 
 
 As the summer months dragged along, the industrial 
 situation in Oakland grew steadily worse. Capital every- 
 where seemed to have selected this city for the battle with 
 organized labor. So many men in Oakland were out on 
 strike, or were locked out, or were unable to work because 
 of the dependence of their trades on the other tied-up 
 trades, that odd jobs at common labor were hard to ob- 
 tain. Billy occasionally got a day's work to do, but did 
 not earn enough to make both ends meet, despite the small 
 strike wages received at first, and despite the rigid econ- 
 omy he and Saxon practiced. 
 
 The table she set had scarcely anything in common 
 with that of their first married year. Not alone was every 
 item of cheaper quality, but many items had disappeared. 
 Meat, and the poorest, was very seldom on the table. 
 Cow's milk had given place to condensed milk, and even 
 the sparing use of the latter had ceased. A roll of butter, 
 when they had it, lasted half a dozen times as long as 
 formerly. "Where Billy had been used to drinking three 
 cups of coffee for breakfast, he now drank one. Saxon 
 boiled this coffee an atrocious length of time, and she paid 
 twenty cents a pound for it. 
 
 The blight of hard times was on all the neighborhood, 
 The families not involved in one strike were touched by 
 some other strike or by the cessation of work in some
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 205 
 
 dependent trade. Many single young men who were 
 lodgers had drifted away, thus increasing the house rent 
 of the families which had sheltered them. 
 
 ' ' Gott ! ' ' said the butcher to Saxon. ' ' We working clasp 
 all suffer together. My wife she cannot get her teeth fixed 
 now. Pretty soon I go smash broke maybe." 
 
 Once, when Billy was preparing to pawn his watch, 
 Saxon suggested his borrowing the money from Billy 
 Murphy. 
 
 "I was plannin' that," Billy answered, "only I can't 
 now. I didn't tell you what happened Tuesday night at 
 the Sporting Life Club. You remember that squarehead 
 Champion of the United States Navy? Bill was matched 
 with him, an' it was sure easy money. Bill had 'm goin' 
 south by the end of the sixth round, an' at the seventh 
 went in to finish 'm. And then just his luck, for his 
 trade's idle now he snaps his right forearm. Of course 
 the squarehead comes back at 'm on the jump, an' it's 
 
 good night for Bill. Gee ! Us Mohegans are gettin' our 
 
 bad luck handed to us in chunks these days. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Don 't ! " Saxon cried, shuddering involuntarily. 
 
 "What?" Billy asked with open mouth of surprisfe. 
 
 "Don't say that word again. Bert was always saying 
 it." 
 
 "Oh, Mohegans. All right, I won't. You ain't super- 
 stitious, are you?" 
 
 "No; but just the same there's too much truth in the 
 word for me to like it. Sometimes it seems as though he 
 was right. Times have changed. They've changed even 
 since I was a little girl. We crossed the plains and 
 opened up this country, and now we're losing even the 
 chance to work for a living in it. Anc it's not my fault, 
 it's not your fault. We've got to live well or bad 
 just by luck, it seems. There's no other way to explain 
 it." 
 
 "It beats me," Billy concurred. "Look at the way 1 
 worked last year. Never missed a day. I'd want to never 
 miss a day this year, an' here I haven't done a tap for
 
 206 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 weeks an* weeks an* weeks. Say ! Who runs this country 
 anyway?" 
 
 Saxon had stopped the morning paper, but frequently 
 Maggie Donahue's hoy, who served a Tribune route, tossed 
 an "extra" on her steps. From its editorials Saxon 
 gleaned that organized labor was trying to run the coun- 
 try and that it was making a mess of it. It was all the 
 fault of domineering labor so ran the editorials, column 
 by column, day by day; and Saxon was convinced, yet 
 remained unconvinced. The social puzzle of living was 
 too intricate. 
 
 The teamsters' strike, backed financially by the team- 
 sters of San Francisco and by the allied unions of the 
 San Francisco Water Front Confederation, promised to 
 be long-drawn, whether or not it was successful. The 
 Oakland harness-washers and stablemen, with few ex- 
 ceptions, had gone out with the teamsters. The teaming 
 firms were not half-filling their contracts, but the employ- 
 ers' association was helping them. In fact, half the em- 
 ployers' associations of the Pacific Coast were helping the 
 Oakland Employers' Association. 
 
 Saxon was behind a month's rent, which, when it is 
 considered that rent was paid in advance, was equivalent 
 to two months. Likewise, she was two months behind in 
 the installments on the furniture. Yet she was not pressed 
 very hard by Salinger's, the furniture dealers. 
 
 "We're givin' you all the rope we can," said their col- 
 lector. "My orders is to make you dig up every cent I 
 can and at the same time not to be too hard. Salinger's 
 are trying to do the right thing, but they're up against it, 
 too. You 've no idea how many accounts like yours they 're 
 carrying along. Sooner or later they'll have to call a halt 
 or get it in the neck themselves. And in the meantime just 
 see if you can't scrape up five dollars by next week just 
 to cheer them along, you know. ' ' 
 
 One of the stablemen who had not gone out, Henderson 
 by name, worked at Billy's stables. Despite the urging of 
 the bosses to eat and sleep in the stable like the other
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 207 
 
 men, Henderson had persisted in coming home each morn- 
 ing to his little house around the corner from Saxon's on 
 Fifth street. Several times she had seen him swinging 
 along defiantly, his dinner pail in his hand, while the 
 neighborhood boys dogged his heels at a safe distance and 
 \informed him in yapping chorus that he was a scab and 
 fio good. But one evening, on his way to work, in a spirit 
 of bravado he went into the Pile-Drivers' Home, the saloon 
 at Seventh and Pine. There it was his mortal mischance 
 to encounter Otto Frank, a striker who drove from the 
 same stable. Not many minutes later an ambulance was 
 hurrying Henderson to the receiving hospital with a frac- 
 tured skull, while a patrol wagon was no less swiftly 
 carrying Otto Frank to the city prison. 
 
 Maggie Donahue it was, eyes shining with gladness, who 
 told Saxon of the happening. 
 
 "Served him right, too, the dirty scab," Maggie con- 
 cluded. 
 
 "But his poor wife!" was Saxon's cry. "She's not 
 strong. And then the children. She'll never be able to 
 take care of them if her husband dies." 
 
 * ' An ' serve her right, the damned slut ! ' ' 
 
 Saxon was both shocked and hurt by the Irishwoman's 
 brutality. But Maggie was implacable. 
 
 " 'Tis all she or anny woman deserves that'll put up 
 &n' live with a scab. What about her children? Let 'm 
 starve, an ' her man a-takin ' the food out of other children 'a 
 mouths." 
 
 Mrs. Olsen's attitude was different. Beyond passive 
 sentimental pity for Henderson's wife and children, she 
 gave them no thought, her chief concern being for Otto 
 Frank and Otto Frank's wife and children herself and 
 Mrs. Frank being full sisters. 
 
 "If he dies, they will hang Otto," she said. "And then 
 what will poor Hilda do? She has varicose veins in both 
 legs, and she never can stand on her feet all day an' work 
 for wages. And me, I cannot help. Ain't Carl out of 
 work, f oo?"
 
 20S THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 Billy had still another point of view. 
 
 "It will give the strike a black eye, especially if Hen- 
 derson croaks, ' ' he worried, when he came home. ' ' They 11 
 hang Frank on record time. Besides, we'll have to put 
 up a defense, an' lawyers charge like Sam Hill. They'll 
 eat a hole in our treasury you could drive every team in 
 Oakland through. An' if Frank hadn't ben screwed up 
 with whisky he'd never a-done it. He's the mildest, good- 
 aaturedest man sober you ever seen." 
 
 Twice that evening Billy left the house to find out if 
 Henderson was dead yet. In the morning the papers gave 
 little hope, and the evening papers published his death. 
 Otto Frank lay in jail without bail. The Tribune de- 
 manded a quick trial and summary execution, calling on 
 the prospective jury manfully to do its duty and dwelling 
 at length on the moral effect that would be so produced 
 upon the lawless working class. It went further, empha- 
 sizing the salutary effect machine guns would have on 
 the mob that had taken the fair city of Oakland by the 
 throat. 
 
 And all such occurrences struck at Saxon personally, 
 Practically alone in the world, save for Billy, it was her 
 life, and his, and their mutual love-life, that was menaced. 
 From the moment he left the house to the moment of his 
 return she knew no peace of mind. Rough work was 
 afoot, of which he told her nothing, and she knew he was 
 playing his part in it. On more than one occasion she 
 noticed fresh-broken skin on his knuckles. At such times 
 he was remarkably taciturn, and would sit in brooding 
 silence or go almost immediately to bed. She was afraid 
 to have this habit of reticence grow on him, and bravely 
 she bid for his confidence. She climbed into his lap and 
 inside his arms, one of her arms around his neck, and 
 with the free hand she caressed his hair back from th 
 forehead and smoothed out the moody brows. 
 
 "Now listen to me, Billy Boy," she began lightly. 
 *'You haven't been playing fair, and I won't have it. 
 No!" She pressed his lips shut with her -fingers. "I'm
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 2<& 
 
 doing the talking now, and because you haven't been, do 
 ing your share of the talking for some time. You re- 
 member we agreed at the start to always talk things over 
 I was the first to break this, when I sold my fancy work 
 to Mrs. Higgins without speaking to you about it. And I 
 was very sorry. I am still sorry. And I've never done 
 'it since. Now it's your turn. You're not talking things 
 over with me. You are doing things you don't tell nib 
 about. 
 
 "Billy, you're dearer to me than anything else in th 
 world. You know that. We're sharing each other's lives, 
 only, just now, there's something you're not sharing 
 Every time your knuckles are sore, there's something you 
 don't share. If you can't trust me, you can't trust any- 
 body. And, besides, I love you so that no matter what 
 you do I'll go on loving you just the same." 
 
 Billy gazed at her with fond incredulity. 
 
 ' ' Don 't be a pinch er, ' ' she teased. ' ' Remember, I stand 
 for whatever you do." 
 
 "And you won't buck against me?" he queried. 
 
 "How can I? I'm not ycur boss, Billy. I wouldn't 
 boss you for anything in the world. And if you'd let 
 me boss you, I wouldn't love you half as much." 
 
 He digested this slowly, and finally nodded. 
 
 "An' you won't be mad?" 
 
 "With you? You 've never seen me mad yet. Now come 
 on and be generous and tell me how you hurt your 
 knuckles. It's fresh to-day. Anybody can see that." 
 
 "All right. I'll tell you how it happened." He 
 stopped and giggled with genuine boyish glee at some 
 
 recollection. "It's like this. You won't be mad, now? 
 
 We gotta do these sort of things to hold our own. Well, 
 here's the show, a regular movin' picture except for the 
 talkin'. Here's a big rube comin' along, hayseed stickin* 
 out all over, hands like hams an' feet like Mississippi gun- 
 boats. He'd make half as much again as me in size, an' 
 he's young, too. Only he ain't lookin' for trouble, an' he'g 
 as innocent as ... well, he's the innocentcst scab
 
 210 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 that ever come down the pike an' bumped into a couple 
 of pickets. Not a regular strike-breaker, you see, just a 
 big rube that's read the bosses' ads an' come a-humpin' to 
 town for the big wages. 
 
 "An' here's Bud Strothers an' me comin' along. We 
 always go in pairs that way, an' sometimes bigger bunches. 
 I flag the rube. 'Hello,' says I, 'lookin' for a job?' 'You 
 bet,' says he. 'Can you drive?' 'Yep.' 'Four horses?' 
 'Show me to 'em,' says he. 'No josh, now,' says I ; 'you're 
 sure wantin' to drive?' 'That's what I come to town for,' 
 he says. 'You're the man we're lookin' for,' says L 
 'Come along, an' we'll have you busy in no time.' 
 
 "You see, Saxon, we can't pull it off there, because 
 there's Tom Scanlon you know, the red-headed cop 
 only a couple of blocks away an' pipin' us off though not 
 recognizin' us. So away we go, the three of us, Bud an' 
 me leadin' that boob to take our jobs away from us I 
 guess nit. We turn into the alley back of Campwell's 
 grocery. Nobody in sight. Bud stops short, and the rube 
 an' me stop. 
 
 " 'I don't think he wants to drive,' Bud says, consid- 
 erin'. An' the rube says quick, 'You betcher life I do.' 
 'You're dead sure you want that job?' I says. Yes, he's 
 dead sure. Nothin's goin' to keep him away from that 
 job. Why, that job's what he come to town for, an' we 
 can't lead him to it too quick. 
 
 " 'Well, my friend,' says I, 'it's my sad duty to inform 
 you that you've made a mistake.' 'How's that?' he 
 says. 'Go on,' I says; 'you're standin' on your foot. 1 
 And, honest to God, Saxon, that gink looks down at his feet 
 to see. 'I don't understand,' says he. 'We're goin' to 
 show you,' says I. 
 
 "An' then Biff! Bang! Bingo! Swat! Zooie! Ker-slam- 
 bango-blam! Fireworks, Fourth of July, Kingdom Come, 
 blue lights, sky-rockets, an' hell fire just like that. It 
 don't take long when you're scientific an' trained to tan- 
 dem work. Of course it's hard on the knuckles. But 
 nay, Saxon, if you 'd seen that rube before an ' after you 'd
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 211 
 
 thought he was a lightnin' change artist. Laugh? You'd 
 a-busted." 
 
 Billy halted to give vent to his own mirth. Saxon forced 
 herself to join with him, but down in her heart was hor- 
 ror. Mercedes was right. The stupid workers wrangled 
 and snarled over jobs. The clever masters rode in auto- 
 mobiles and did not wrangle and snarl. They hired other 
 stupid ones to do the wrangling and snarling for them. 
 It was men like Bert and Frank Davis, like Chester John- 
 son and Otto Frank, like Jelly Belly and the Pinkertons, 
 like Henderson and all the rest of the scabs, who were 
 beaten up, shot, clubbed, or hanged. Ah, the clever ones 
 were very clever. Nothing happened to them. They only 
 rode in their automobiles. 
 
 " 'You big stiffs,' the rube snivels as he crawls to his 
 feet at the end," Billy was continuing. " 'You think you 
 still want that job ? ' I ask. He shakes his head. Then I 
 read 'm the riot act: 'They's only one thing for you to 
 do, old hoss, an' that's beat it. D'ye get me? Beat it. 
 Back to the farm for you. An' if you come monkeyin' 
 around town again, we'll be real mad at you. We was 
 only foolin' this time. But next time we catch you your 
 awn mother won't know you when we get done with you.' 
 
 "An' say! you oughta seen 'm beat it. I bet he's 
 goin' yet. An* when he gets back to Milpitas, or Sleepy 
 Hollow, or wherever he hangs out, an' tells how the boys 
 does things in Oakland, it's dollars to doughnuts they 
 won't be a rube in his district that'd come to town to 
 'drive if they offered ten dollars an hour." 
 
 ' ' It was awful, ' ' Saxon said, then laughed well-simulated 
 ' appreciation. 
 
 "But that was nothin'," Billy went on. "A bunch of 
 the boys caught another one this morning. They didn't do 
 a thing to him. My goodness gracious, no. In less'n two 
 minutes he was the worst wreck they ever hauled to the 
 receivin' hospital. The evenin' papers gave the score: 
 nose broken, three bad scalp wounds, front teeth out, a 
 broken collarbone, an' two broken ribs. Gee! He cer-
 
 212 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 fainly got all that was comin' to him. But that's nothin'. 
 D'ye want to know what the Frisco teamsters did in the 
 big strike before the Earthquake? They took every scab 
 they caught an' broke both his arms with a crowbar. That 
 was so he couldn't drive, you see. Say, the hospitals was 
 filled with 'em. An' the teamsters won that strike, too." 
 
 "But is it necessary, Billy, to be so terrible? I know 
 they're scabs, and that they're taking the bread out of 
 the strikers' children's mouths to put in their own chil- 
 dren's mouths, and that it isn't fair and all that; but 
 just the same is it necessary to be so . . . terrible?" 
 
 "Sure thing," Billy answered confidently. "We just 
 gotta throw the fear of God into them when we can 
 do it without bein' caught." 
 
 "And if you're caught." 
 
 "Then the union hires the lawyers to defend us, though 
 that ain't much good now, for the judges are pretty hos- 
 tyle, an' the papers keep hammerin' away at them to give 
 stiff er an' stiff er sentences. Just the same, before this 
 strike's over there'll be a whole lot of guys a-wishin' they'd 
 never gone scabbin'." 
 
 Very cautiously, in the next half hour, Saxon tried to 
 feel out her husband's attitude, to find if he doubted the 
 Tightness of the violence he and his brother teamsters 
 committed. But Billy's ethical sanction was rock-bedded 
 and profound. It never entered his head that he was 
 not absolutely right. It was the game. Caught in its 
 tangled meshes, he could see no other way to play it than 
 the way all men played it. He did not stand for dyna- 
 mite and murder, however. But then the unions did noln, 
 stand for such. Quite naive was his explanation that dy- 
 namite and murder did not pay; that such actions al- 
 ways brought down the condemnation of the public and 
 broke the strikes. But the healthy beating up of a scab, 
 he contended the "throwing of the fear of God into a 
 scab," as he expressed it was the only right and proper 
 thing to do. 
 
 "Our folks never had to do such things," Saxon said
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 213 
 
 finally. ' ' They never had strikes nor scabs in those times. ' ' 
 "You bet they didn't," Billy agreed. "Them was the 
 
 good old days. I'd liked to a-lived then." He drew a 
 
 long breath and sighed. "But them times will never come 
 
 again. ' ' 
 
 "Would you have liked living in the country?" Saxon 
 
 "Sure thing." 
 
 "There's lots of men living in the country now," she 
 suggested. 
 
 "Just the same I notice them a-hikin* to town to get 
 our jobs," was his reply.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A GLEAM of light came, when Billy got a job driving 
 a grading team for the contractors of the big bridge then 
 building at Niles. Before he went he made certain that 
 it was a union job. And a union job it was for two days, 
 when the concrete workers threw down their tools. The 
 contractors, evidently prepared for such happening, im- 
 mediately filled the places of the concrete men with non- 
 union Italians. Whereupon the carpenters, structural iron- 
 workers and teamsters walked out ; and Billy, lacking train 
 fare, spent the rest of the day in walking home. 
 
 "I couldn't work as a scab," he concluded his tale. 
 
 "No," Saxon said; "you couldn't work as a scab." 
 
 But she wondered why it was that when men wanted to 
 work, and there was work to do, yet they were unable to 
 Work because their unions said no. Why were there 
 unions ? And, if unions had to be, why were not all work- 
 ingmen in them ? Then there would be no scabs, and Billy 
 could work every day. Also, she wondered where she was 
 to get a sack of flour, for she had long since ceased the 
 extravagance of baker's bread. And so many other of 
 the neighborhood women had done this, that the little 
 Welsh baker had closed up shop and gone away, taking 
 his wife and two little daughters with him. Look where 
 she would, everybody was being hurt by the industrial 
 strife. 
 
 One afternoon came a caller at her door, and that 
 evening came Billy with dubious news. He had been ap- 
 proached that day. All he had to do, he told Saxon, was 
 to say the word, and he could go into the stable as fore- 
 man at one hundred dollars a month.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 215 
 
 The nearness of such a sum, the possibility of it, was 
 almost stunning to Saxon, sitting at a supper which con- 
 sisted of boiled potatoes, warmed-over beans, and a small 
 dry onion which they were eating raw. There was neither 
 bread, coffee, nor butter. The onion Billy had pulled 
 from his pocket, having picked it up in the street. One 
 hundred dollars a month! She moistened her lips and 
 fought for control. 
 
 "What made them offer it to you?" she questioned. 
 
 "That's easy," was his answer. "They got a dozen 
 reasons. The guy the boss has had exereisin' Prince and 
 King is a dub. King has gone lame in the shoulders. Then 
 they're guessin' pretty strong that I'm the party that's 
 put a lot of their scabs outa commission. Macklin's ben 
 their foreman for years an' years why I was in knee 
 pants when he was foreman. Well, he's sick an' all in. 
 They gotta have somebody to take his place. Then, too, 
 I've been with 'em a long time. An' on top of that, I'm 
 the man for the job. They know I know horses from the 
 ground up. Hell, it's all I'm good for, except sluggin'." 
 
 "Think of it, Billy!" she breathed. "A hundred dol- 
 lars a month! A hundred dollars a month!" 
 
 "An' throw the fellows down," he said. 
 
 It was not a question. Nor was it a statement. It was 
 anything Saxon chose to make of it. They looked at each 
 other. She waited for him to speak; but he continued 
 merely to look. It came to her that she was facing one 
 of the decisive moments of her life, and she gripped her- 
 self to face it in all coolness. Nor would Billy proffer her 
 the slightest help. Whatever his own judgment might 
 be, he masked it with an expressionless face. His eyes be- 
 trayed nothing. He looked and waited. 
 
 "You . . . you can't do that, Billy," she said 
 finally. "You can't throw the fellows down." 
 
 His hand shot out to hers, and his face was a sudden, 
 radiant dawn. 
 
 "Put her there!" he cried, their hands meeting and 
 clasping. "You're the truest true blue wife a man ever
 
 216 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 had. If all the other fellows' wives was like you, we could 
 win any strike we tackled." 
 
 "AVhat would you have done if you weren't married, 
 Billy?" 
 
 "Seen 'em in hell first." 
 
 "Then it doesn't make any difference being married. 
 I 've got to stand by you in everything you stand for. I 'd 
 be a nice wife if I didn't." 
 
 She remembered her caller of the afternoon, and knew 
 the moment was too propitious to let pass. 
 
 "There was a man here this afternoon, Billy. He 
 wanted a room. I told him I'd speak to you. He said he 
 would pay six dollars a month for the back bedroom. That 
 would pay half a month's installment on the furniture and 
 buy a sack of flour, and we're all out of flour." 
 
 Billy's old hostility to the idea was instantly upper- 
 most, and Saxon watched him anxiously. 
 
 "Some scab in the shops, I suppose?" 
 
 "No; he's firing on the freight run to San Jose. Har- 
 mon, he said his name was, James Harmon. They've just 
 transferred him from the Truckee division. He'll sleep 
 days mostly, he said; and that's why he wanted a quiet 
 house without children in it." 
 
 In the end, with much misgiving, and only after Saxon 
 had insistently pointed out how little work it entailed 
 on her, Billy consented, though he continued to protest, 
 as an afterthought: 
 
 "But I dont want you makin' beds for any man. It 
 ain't right, Saxon. I oughta take care of you." 
 
 "And you would," she flashed back at him, "if you'd 
 take the foremanship. Only you can't. It wouldn't be 
 right. And if I'm to stand by you it's only fair to let 
 me do what I can." 
 
 James Harmon proved even less a bother than Saxon 
 had anticipated. For a fireman he was scrupulously clean, 
 always washing up in the roundhouse before he came home. 
 He used the key to the kitchen door, coming and going 
 by the back steps. To Saxon he barely said how-do-you-do
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOOtf 217 
 
 or good day; and, sleeping in the day time and working 
 at night, he was in the house a week before Billy laid 
 eyes on him. 
 
 Billy had taken to coming home later and later, and to 
 going out after supper by himself. He did not offer to tell 
 Saxon where he went. Nor did she ask. For that mat- 
 ter, it required little shrewdness on her part to guess. The 
 fumes of whisky were on his lips at such times. His slow, 
 deliberate ways were even slower, even more deliberate. 
 Liquor did not affect his legs. He walked as soberly as 
 any man. There was no hesitancy, no faltering, in his 
 muscular movements. The whisky went to his brain, 
 making his eyes heavy-lidded and the cloudiness of them 
 more cloudy. Not that he was nighty, nor quick, nor 
 irritable. On the contrary, the liquor imparted to his 
 mental processes a deep gravity and brooding solemnity. 
 He talked little, but that little was ominous and oracular. 
 At such times there was no appeal from his judgment, no 
 discussion. He knew, as God knew. And when he chose 
 to speak a harsh thought, it was ten-fold harsher than 
 ordinarily, because it seemed to proceed out of such pro- 
 fundity of cogitation, because it was as prodigiously de- 
 liberate in its incubation as it was in its enunciation. 
 
 It was not a nice side he was showing to Saxon. It was, 
 almost, as if a stranger had come to live with her. Despite 
 herself, she found herself beginning to shrink from him. 
 And little could she comfort herself with the thought that 
 it was not his real self, for she remembered his gentleness 
 and considerateness, all his finenesses of the past. Then, 
 he had made a continual effort to avoid trouble and fight- 
 ing. Now he enjoyed it, exulted in it, went looking for 
 it. All this showed in his face. No longer was he the 
 smiling, pleasant-faced boy. He smiled infrequently now. 
 His face was a man's face. The lips, the eyes, the lines 
 were harsh as his thoughts were harsh. 
 
 He was rarely unkind to Saxon ; but, on the other hand, 
 &e was rarely kind. His attitude toward her was growing 
 negative. He was disinterested. Desjnte the fi.srht for
 
 218 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 the union she was enduring with him, putting up with 
 him shoulder to shoulder, she occupied but little space in 
 his mind. "When he acted toward her gently, she could 
 see that it was merely mechanical, just as she was well 
 aware that the endearing terms he used, the endearing 
 caresses he gave, were only habitual. The spontaneity and 
 warmth had gone out. Often, when he was not in liquor, 
 flashes of the old Billy came back, but even such flashes 
 dwindled in frequency. He was growing preoccupied, 
 moody. Hard times and the bitter stresses of industrial 
 conflict strained him. Especially was this apparent in 
 his sleep, when he suffered paroxysms of lawless dreams, 
 groaning and muttering, clenching his fists, grinding his 
 teeth, twisting with muscular tensions, his face writhing 
 with passions and violences, his throat guttering with ter- 
 rible curses that rasped and aborted on his lips. And 
 Saxon, lying beside him, afraid of this visitor to her bed 
 whom she did not know, remembered what Mary had told 
 her of Bert. He, too, had cursed and clenched his fists, 
 in his nights fought out the battles of his days. 
 
 One thing, however, Saxon saw clearly. By no deliber- 
 ate act of Billy's was he becoming this other and unlovely 
 Billy. "Were there no strike, no snarling and wrangling 
 over jobs, there would be only the old Billy she had loved 
 in all absoluteness. This sleeping terror in him would 
 have lain asleep. It was something that was being awak- 
 ened in him, an image incarnate of outward conditions, as 
 cruel, as ugly, as maleficent as were those outward condi- 
 tions. But if the strike continued, then, she feared, with 
 reason, would this other and grisly self of Billy strengthen 
 to fuller and more forbidding stature. And this, she knew, 
 would mean the wreck of their love-life. Such a Billy she 
 could not love ; in its nature such a Billy was not lovable 
 nor capable of love. And then, at the thought of off- 
 spring, she shuddered. It was too terrible. And at such 
 moments of contemplation, from her soul the inevitable 
 plaint of the human went up: Why? Why? Why? 
 
 Billy, too, had his unanswerable queries.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 219 
 
 "Why won't the building trades come out?" he de- 
 manded wrathfully of the obscurity that veiled the ways 
 of living and the world. "But no; O'Brien won't stand 
 for a strike, and he has the Building Trades Council under 
 his thumb. But why don't they chuck him and come out 
 anyway? We'd win hands down all along the line. But 
 no, O'Brien's got their goat, an' him up to his dirty neck 
 in politics an' graft! An' damn the Federation of Labor! 
 If all the railroad boys had come out, wouldn't the shop 
 
 men have won instead of bein' licked to a frazzle? 
 
 Lord, I ain 't had a smoke of decent tobacco or a cup of de- 
 cent coffee in a coon's age. I've forgotten what a square 
 meal tastes like. I weighed myself yesterday. Fifteen 
 pounds lighter than when the strike begun. If it keeps on 
 muh more I can fight middleweight. An' this is what I 
 get after payin' dues into the union for years and years. I 
 can't get a square meal, an' my wife has to make other 
 men's beds. It makes my tired ache. Some day I'll get 
 real huffy an' chuck that lodger out." 
 
 "But it's not his fault, Billy," Saxon protested. 
 
 "Who said it was?" Billy snapped roughly. "Can't 
 I kick in general if I want to? Just the same it makes me 
 sick. What's the good of organized labor if it don't stand 
 together? For two cents I'd chuck the whole thing up 
 an' go over to the employers. Only I wouldn't, God 
 damn them! If they think they can beat us down to our 
 knees, let 'em go ahead an' try it, that's all. But it gets 
 me just the same. The whole world's clean dippy. They 
 ain't no sense in anything. What's the good of supportin' 
 a union that can't win a strike? What's the good of 
 knockin' the blocks off of scabs when they keep a-comin* 
 thick as ever? The whole thing's bughouse, an' I guess T 
 am, too." 
 
 Such an outburst on Billy's part was so unusual that it 
 was the only time Saxon knew it to occur. Always he 
 was sullen, and dogged, and unwhipped ; while whisky 
 only served to set the maggots of certitude crawling in his 
 brain.
 
 220 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 One night Billy did not get home till after twelve. 
 Saxon's anxiety was increased by the fact that police 
 fighting and head breaking had been reported to have oc- 
 curred. "When Billy came, his appearance verified the 
 report. His coatsleeves were half torn off. The Windsor 
 tie had disappeared from under his soft turned-down col- 
 lar, and every button had been ripped off the front of the 
 shirt. When he took his hat off, Saxon was frightened by 
 a lump on his head the size of an apple. 
 
 "D'ye know who did that? That Dutch slob Her- 
 
 manmann, with a riot club. An' I'll get 'm for it some 
 day, good an' plenty. An' there's another fellow I got 
 staked out that'll be my meat when this strike's over an' 
 things is settled down. Blanchard's his name, Roy 
 Blanchard. ' ' 
 
 "Not of Blanchard, Perkins and Company?" Saxon 
 asked, busy washing Billy's hurt and making her usual 
 fight to keep him calm. 
 
 "Yep; except he's the son of the old man. What's he 
 do, that ain't done a tap of work in all his life except to 
 blow the old man's money? He goes strike-breakin'. 
 Grandstand play, that's what I call it. Gets his name 
 in the papers an' makes all the skirts he runs with fluster 
 up an' say: 'My! Some bear, that Roy Blanchard, some 
 bear.' Some bear the gazabo! He'll be bear-meat for 
 me some day. I never itched so hard to lick a man in 
 my life. 
 
 "And oh, I guess I'll pass that Dutch cop up. He 
 got his already. Somebody broke his head with a lump 
 of coal the size of a water bucket. That was when the 
 wagons was turnin' into Franklin, just off Eighth, by the 
 old Galindo Hotel. They was hard fightin' there, an' 
 some guy in the hotel lams that coal down from the sec- 
 ond story window. 
 
 "They was fightin' every block of the way bricks, cob- 
 blestones, an' police-clubs to beat the band. They don't 
 dast call out the troops. An' they was afraid to shoot. 
 Why, w<? tore holes through the police force, an' the
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 22V 
 
 ambulances and patrol wagons worked over-time. But say, 
 we got the procession blocked at Fourteenth and Broad- 
 way, right under the nose of the City Hall, rushed the 
 rear end, cut out the horses of five wagons, an' handed 
 them college guys a few love-pats in passin'. All that 
 saved 'em from hospital was the police reserves. Jnst 
 the same we had 'em jammed an hour there. You oughta 1 
 seen the street cars blocked, too Broadway, Fourteenth, 
 San Pablo, as far as you could see." 
 
 "But what did Blanchard do?" Saxon called him back. 
 
 "He led the procession, an' he drove my team. All the 
 teams was from my stable. He rounded up a lot of them 
 college fellows fraternity guys, they're called yaps that 
 live off their fathers' money. They come to the stable in 
 big tourin' cars an' drove out the wagons with half the 
 police of Oakland to help them. Say, it was sure some 
 day. The sky rained cobblestones. An' you oughta heard 
 the clubs on our heads rat-tat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat- tat ! An' 
 say, the chief of police, in a police auto, sittin' up like 
 God Almighty just before we got to Peralta street they 
 was a block an ' the police chargin ', an ' an old woman, right 
 from her front gate, lammed the chief of police full in 
 the face with a dead cat. Phew! You could hear it. 
 'Arrest that woman!' he yells, with his handkerchief out. 
 But the boys beat the cops to her an' got her away. Some 
 day? I guess yes. The receivin' hospital went outa com- 
 mission on the jump, an' the overflow was spilled into St. 
 Mary's Hospital, an' Fabiola, an' I don't know where else.. 
 Eight of our men was pulled, an' a dozen of the Frisco 
 teamsters that's come over to help. They're holy terrors, 
 them Frisco teamsters. It seemed half the workingmen 
 of Oakland was helpin' us, an' they must be an army of 
 therm in jail. Our lawyers '11 have to take their cases, too. 
 
 "But take it from me, it's the last we'll see of Roy 
 Blanchard an' yaps of his kidney buttin' into our affairs. 
 I guess we showed 'em some football. You know that 
 brick buildin' they're puttin' up on Bay street? That's 
 where we loaded up first, an', say, you couldn't see the
 
 222 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 wagon-seats for bricks when they started from the stables. 
 Blanchard drove the first wagon, an' he was knocked clean 
 off the seat once, but he stayed with it." 
 
 "He must have been brave," Saxon commented. 
 
 "Brave?" Billy flared. "With the police, an' the army 
 an' navy behind him? I suppose you'll be takin' their 
 part next. Brave? A-takin' the food outa the mouths 
 of our women an' children. Didn't Curley Jones's little 
 kid die last night? Mother's milk not nourishin', that's 
 what it was, because she didn't have the right stuff to eat. 
 An' I know, an' you know, a dozen old aunts, an' sister- 
 in-laws, an' such, that's had to hike to the poorhouse be- 
 cause their folks couldn 't take care of 'em in these times. ' ' 
 
 In the morning paper Saxon read the exciting account 
 of the futile attempt to break the teamsters' strike. Boy 
 Blanchard was hailed a hero and held up as a model of 
 wealthy citizenship. And to save herself she could not 
 help glowing with appreciation of his courage. There was 
 something fine in his going out to face the snarling pack. 
 A brigadier general of the regular army was quoted as 
 lamenting the fact that the troops had not been called out 
 to take the mob by the throat and shake law and order 
 into it. "This is the time for a little healthful blood- 
 letting," was the conclusion of his remarks, after deplor- 
 ing the pacific methods of the police. "For not until 
 the mob has been thoroughly beaten and cowed will tran- 
 quil industrial conditions obtain." 
 
 That evening Saxon and Billy went up town. Return- 
 ing home and finding nothing to eat, he had taken her 
 on one arm, his overcoat on the other. The overcoat he 
 had pawned at Uncle Sam's, and he and Saxon had eaten 
 drearily at a Japanese restaurant which in some mirac- 
 ulous way managed to set a semi-satisfying meal for ten 
 cents. After eating, they started on their way to spend 
 an additional five cents each on a moving picture show. 
 
 At the Central Bank Building, two striking teamsters 
 accosted Billy and took him away with them. Saxon 
 waited on the corner, and when he returned, three quarters 
 of an hour later, she knew be had been drinking.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 223 
 
 Half a block on, passing the Forum Cafe, he stopped 
 suddenly. A limousine stood at the curb, and into it a 
 young man was helping several wonderfully gowned wom- 
 en. A chauffeur sat in the driver's seat. Billy touched 
 ihe young man on the arm. He was as broad-shouldered 
 as Billy and slightly taller. Blue-eyed, strong-featured, 
 in Saxon's opinion he was undeniably handsome. 
 
 "Just a word, sport," Billy said, in a low, slow voice. 
 
 The young man glanced quickly at Billy and Saxon, and 
 asked impatiently: 
 
 "Well, what is it?" 
 
 "You're Blanchard," Billy began. "I seen you yester- 
 day lead out that bunch of teams." 
 
 "Didn't I do it all right?" Blanchard asked gaily, 
 with a flash of glance to Saxon and back again. 
 
 "Sure- But that ain't what I want to talk about." 
 
 "Who are you?" the other demanded with sudden sus- 
 picion. 
 
 "A striker. It just happens you drove my team, that's 
 
 all. No; don't move for a gun." (As Blanchard half 
 
 reached toward his hip pocket.) "I ain't startin' anythin* 
 tare. But I just want to tell you something." 
 
 "Be quick, then." 
 
 Blanchard lifted one foot to step into the machine. 
 
 "Sure," Billy went on without any diminution of hi* 
 exasperating slowness. "What I want to tell you is that 
 Vin after you. Not now, when the strike's on. but some 
 time later I'm goin' to get you an' give you the beatin' 
 of your life." 
 
 Blanchard looked Billy over with new interest and) 
 measuring eyes that sparkled with appreciation. 
 
 "You are a husky yourself," he said. "But do you 
 think you can do it?" 
 
 "Sure. You're my meat." 
 
 "All right, then, my friend. Look me up after the 
 strike is settled, and I'll give you a chance at me." 
 
 "Remember," Billy added, "I got you staked out." 
 
 Blanchard nodded, smiled genially to both of them,, 
 raised his hat to Saxon, and stepped into the machine.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 PROM now on, to Saxon, life seemed bereft of its lat 
 reason and rhyme. It had become senseless, nightmarish, 
 Anything irrational was possible. There was nothing sta- 
 ble in the anarchic flux of affairs that swept her on she 
 knew not to what catastrophic end. Had Billy been de- 
 pendable, all would still have been well. With him to cling 
 to she would have faced everything fearlessly. But he 
 had been whirled away from her in the prevailing mad- 
 ness. So radical was the change in him that he seemed 
 almost an intruder in the house. Spiritually he was such 
 an intruder. Another man looked out of his eyes a man 
 whose thoughts were of violence and hatred; a man to 
 whom there was no good in anything, and who had be- 
 come an ardent protagonist of the evil that was rampant 
 and universal. This man no longer condemned Bert, him- 
 self muttering vaguely of dynamite, and sabotage, and 
 revolution. 
 
 Saxon strove to maintain that sweetness and coolness of 
 flesh and spirit that Billy had praised in the old days. 
 Once, only, she lost control. He had been in a particularly- 
 ugly mood, and a final harshness and unfairness cut her 
 to the quick. 
 
 "Who are you speaking to?" she flamed out at him. 
 
 He was speechless and abashed, and could only stars 
 at her face, which was white with anger. 
 
 "Don't you ever speak to me like that again, Billy," she 
 commanded. 
 
 "Aw, can't you put up with a piece of bad temper?" 
 he muttered, half apologetically, yet half defiantly. "God 
 knows I got enough to make me cranky." 
 
 After he left the house she flung herself on the bed
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 225 
 
 and cried heart-brokenly. For she, who knew so thor- 
 oughly the humility of love, was a proud woman. Only 
 the proud can be truly humble, as only the strong may 
 know the fullness of gentleness. But what was the use, she 
 demanded, of being proud and game, when the only person 
 in the world who mattered to her lost his own pride and 
 gameness and fairness and gave her the worse share of 
 their mutual trouble? 
 
 And now, as she had faced alone the deeper, organic 
 hurt of the loss of her baby, she faced alone another, and, 
 in a way, an even greater personal trouble. Perhaps she 
 loved Billy none the less, but her love was changing into 
 something less proud, less confident, less trusting; it was 
 becoming shot through with pity with the pity that is 
 parent to contempt. Her own loyalty was threatening 
 to weaken, and she shuddered and shrank from the con- 
 tempt she could see creeping in. 
 
 She struggled to steel herself to face the situation. 
 Forgiveness stole into her heart, and she knew relief until 
 the thought came that in the truest, highest love forgiveness 
 should have no place. And again she cried, and continued 
 her battle. After all, one thing was incontestable: This 
 Billy was not the Billy she had loved. This Billy was 
 another man, a sick man, and no more to be held respon- 
 sible than a fever-patient in the ravings of delirium. She 
 must be Billy's nurse, without pride, without contempt, 
 with nothing to forgive. Besides, he was really bearing 
 the brunt of the fight, was in the thick of it, dizzy with, 
 the striking of blows and the blows he received. If fault 
 there was, it lay elsewhere, somewhere in the tangled 
 scheme of things that made men snarl over jobs like dogs 
 over bones. 
 
 So Saxon arose and buckled on her armor again for the 
 hardest fight of all in the world's arena the woman's 
 fight. She ejected from her thought all doubting and 
 distrust. She forgave nothing, for there was nothing 
 requiring forgiveness. She pledged herself to an absolute- 
 ness of belief that her love and Billy's was unsullied,
 
 226 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 unperturbed serene as it had always been, as it would 
 be when it came back again after the world settled down 
 once more to rational ways. 
 
 That night, when he came home, she proposed, as an 
 emergency measure, that she should resume her needle- 
 ^work and help keep the pot boiling until the strike was 
 over. But Billy would hear nothing of it. 
 
 "It's all right," he assured her repeatedly. "They 
 ain't no call for you to work. I'm goin' to get some 
 money before the week is out. An' I'll turn it over to you. 
 An' Saturday night we'll go to the show a real show, 
 no movin' pictures. Harvey's nigger minstrels is comin' 
 to town. We'll go Saturday night. I'll have the money 
 before that, as sure as beans is beans." 
 
 Friday evening he did not come home to supper, which 
 Saxon regretted, for Maggie Donahue had returned a 
 pan of potatoes and two quarts of flour (borrowed the 
 week before), and it was a hearty meal that awaited him. 
 Saxon kept the stove going till nine o'clock, when, despite 
 her reluctance, she went to bed. Her preference would 
 have been to wait up, but she did not dare, knowing full 
 well what the effect would be on him did he come home 
 in liquor. 
 
 The clock had just struck one, when she heard the click 
 of the gate. Slowly, heavily, ominously, she heard him 
 come up the steps and fumble with his key at the door. 
 He entered the bedroom, and she heard him sigh as he 
 sat down. She remained quiet, for she had learned the 
 hypersensitiveness induced by drink and was fastidiously 
 careful not to hurt him even with the knowledge that she 
 had lain awake for him. It was not easy. Her hands were 
 clenched till the nails dented the palms, and her body 
 was rigid in her passionate effort for control. Never had 
 he come home as bad as this. 
 
 "Saxon," he called thickly. "Saxon." 
 
 She stirred and yawned. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked. 
 
 "Won't you strike a light? My fingers is all thumbs."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 227 
 
 Without looking at him, she complied; but so violent 
 was the nervous trembling of her hands that the glass 
 chimney tinkled against the globe and the match went out. 
 
 "I ain't drunk, Saxon," he said in the darkness, a hint 
 of amusement in his thick voice. "I've only had two or 
 three jolts ... of that sort." 
 
 On her second attempt with the lamp she succeeded. 
 When she turned to look at him she screamed with fright. 
 Though she had heard his voice and knew him to be Billy, 
 for the instant she did not recognize him. His face was 
 a face she had never known. Swollen, bruised, discolored, 
 every feature had been beaten out of all semblance of fa- 
 miliarity. One eye was entirely closed, the other showed 
 through a narrow slit of blood-congested flesh. One ear 
 seemed to have lost most of its skin. The whole face was 
 a swollen pulp. His right jaw, in particular, was twice the 
 size of the left. No wonder his speech had been thick, 
 was her thought, as she regarded the fearfully cut and 
 swollen lips that still bled. She was sickened by the sight, 
 and her heart went out to him in a great wave of tender- 
 ness. She wanted to put her arms around him, and cuddle 
 and soothe him; but her practical judgment bade other- 
 wise. 
 
 "You poor, poor boy," she cried. "Tell me what you 
 want me to do first. I don't know about such things." 
 
 "If you could help me get my clothes off," he sug- 
 gested meekly and thickly. "I got 'em on before I stif- 
 fened up." 
 
 "And then hot water that will be good," she said, as 
 she began gently drawing his coat sleeve over a puffed 
 and helpless hand. 
 
 "I told you they was all thumbs," he grimaced, holding 
 np his hand and squinting at it with the fraction of sight 
 remaining to him. 
 
 "You sit and wait," she said, "till I start the fire and 
 get the hot water going. I won't be a minute. Thea 
 I'll finish getting your clothes off." 
 
 From the kitchen she could hear him mumbling to him-
 
 228 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 self, and when she returned he was repeating over and 
 over: 
 
 " "We needed the money, Saxon. "We needed the money." 
 
 Drunken he was not, she could see that, and from his 
 babbling she knew he was partly delirious. 
 
 "He was a surprise box," he wandered on, while she 
 proceeded to undress him; and bit by bit she was able 
 to piece together what had happened. "He was an un- 
 known from Chicago. They sprang him on me. The sec- 
 retary of the Acme Club warned me I'd have my hands 
 full. An' I'd a- won if I'd been in condition. But fifteen 
 pounds off without trainin ' ain 't condition. Then I 'd been 
 drinkin' pretty regular, an' I didn't have my wind." 
 
 But Saxon, stripping his undershirt, no longer heard 
 him. As with his face, she could not recognize his splen- 
 didly muscled back. The white sheath of silken skin was 
 torn and bloody. The lacerations occurred oftenest in 
 horizontal lines, though there were perpendicular lines as 
 well. 
 
 "How did you get all that?" she asked. 
 
 "The ropes. I was up against 'em more times than I 
 like to remember. Gee ! He certainly gave me mine. But 
 I fooled 'm. He couldn't put me out. I lasted the twenty 
 rounds, an' I wanta tell you he's got some marks to re- 
 member me by. If he ain't got a couple of knuckles broke 
 
 in the left hand I'm a geezer. Here, feel my head here 
 
 Swollen, eh? Sure thing. He hit that more times than 
 
 he's wishin' he had right now. But, oh, what a lacin' ! 
 
 'What a lacin'! I never had anything like it before. The 
 
 Chicago Terror, they call 'm. I take my hat off to 'm. 
 
 ,He's some bear. But I could a-made 'm take the count 
 
 if I'd ben in condition an' had my wind. Oh ! Ouch ! 
 
 Watch out! It's like a boil!" 
 
 Fumbling at his waistband, Saxon's hand had come in 
 contact with a brightly inflamed surface larger than a 
 soup plate. 
 
 ' ' That 's from the kidney blows, ' ' Billy explained. ' ' He 
 was a regular devil at it. 'Most every clench, like clock
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 229 
 
 work, down he'd chop one on me. It got so sore I was 
 wincin' . . . until I got groggy an' didn't know much, 
 of anything. It ain't a knockout blow, you know, but 
 it's awful wearin' in a long fight. It takes the starch out 
 of you." 
 
 When his knees were bared, Saxon could see the skin 
 across the knee-caps was broken and gone. 
 
 "The skin ain't made to stand a heavy fellow like me 
 on the knees," he volunteered. "An' the rosin in the 
 canvas cuts like Sam Hill." 
 
 The tears were in Saxon's eyes, and she could have 
 cried over the manhandled body of her beautiful sick boy. 
 
 As she cari-ied his pants across the room to hang them 
 up, a jingle of money came from them. He called her 
 back, and from the pocket drew forth a handful of silver. 
 
 "We needed the money, we needed the money," he 
 kept muttering, as he vainly tried to count the coins ; and 
 Saxon knew that his mind was wandering again. 
 
 It cut her to the heart, for she could not but remember 
 thf harsh thoughts that had threatened her loyalty dur- 
 ing the week past. After all, Billy, the splendid physical 
 man, was only a boy, her boy. And he had faced and 
 endured all this terrible punishment for her, for the house 
 and the furniture that were their house and furniture. He 
 said so, now, when he scarcely knew what he said. He 
 said " We needed the money." She was not so absent from 
 his thoughts as she had fancied. Here, down to the naked 
 tie-ribs of his soul, when he was half unconscious, the 
 thought of her persisted, was uppermost. We needed the 
 money. We! 
 
 The tears were trickling down her cheeks as she bent 
 over him, and it seemed she had never loved him so much 
 as now. 
 
 "Here; you count," he said, abandoning the effort and 
 handing the money to her. " ... How much do 
 you make it?" 
 
 "Nineteen dollars and thirty- five cents." 
 
 "That's right ... the loser's end . . - twenty
 
 230 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 dollars. I had some drinks, an' treated a couple of the 
 boys, an' then there was carfare. If I'd a-won, I'd a-got 
 a hundred. That's what I fought for. It'd a-put us 
 on Easy street for a while. You take it an' keep it. It's 
 better'n nothin'." 
 
 In bed, he could not -sleep because of his pain, and hour 
 by hour she worked over him, renewing the hot com- 
 presses over his bruises, soothing the lacerations with witch 
 hazel and cold cream and the tenderest of finger tips. And 
 all the while, with broken intervals of groaning, he bab- 
 bled on, living over the fight, seeking relief in telling her 
 his trouble, voicing regret at loss of the money, and crying 
 out the hurt to his pride. Far worse than the sum of 
 his physical hurts was his hurt pride. 
 
 "He couldn't put me out, anyway. He had full swing 
 at me in the times when I was too much in to get my 
 hands up. The crowd was crazy. I showed 'em some 
 stamina. They was times when he only rocked me, for 
 I'd evaporated plenty of his steam for him in the openin' 
 rounds. I don't know how many times he dropped me. 
 Things was gettin' too dreamy. . . . 
 
 "Sometimes, toward the end, I could see three of him 
 in the ring at once, an' I wouldn't know which to hit 
 an' which to duck. . . . 
 
 "But I fooled 'm. When I couldn't see, or feel, an' 
 when my knees was shakin' an' my head goin' like a 
 merry-go-round, I'd fall safe into clenches just the same. 
 I bet the referee's arms is tired from draggin' us 
 apart. . . . 
 
 "But what a lacin'! What a lacin'! Say, Saxon 
 
 . . . where are you? Oh, there, eh? I guess I was 
 dreamin'. But, say, let this be a lesson to you. I broke 
 my word an' went fightin', an' see what I got. Look at 
 me. an' take warnin' so you won't make the same mistake 
 an' go to makin' an' sellin' fancy work again. . . . 
 
 "But I fooled 'em everybody. At the beginnin' the 
 bettin' was even. By the sixth round the wise gazabos was 
 offerin' two to one against me. I was licked from the
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 231 
 
 first drop outa the box anybody could see that; but he 
 couldn't put me down for the count. By the tenth round 
 they was offerin' even that I wouldn't last the round. 
 At the eleventh they was offerin' I wouldn't last the fif- 
 teenth. An' I lasted the whole twenty. But some pun- 
 ishment, I want to tell you, some punishment. . . . 
 
 ""Why, they was four rounds I was in dreamland all 
 the time . . . only I kept on my feet an' fought, or 
 took the count to eight an' got up, an' stalled an' covered 
 an' whanged away. I don't know what I done, except I 
 must a-done like that, because I wasn't there. I don't 
 know a thing from the thirteenth, when he sent me to 
 the mat on my head, till the eighteenth. . . . 
 
 "Where was I? Oh, yes. I opened my eyes, or one 
 eye, because I had only one that would open. An' there 
 I was, in my corner, with the towels goin' an ammonia in 
 my nose an' Bill Murphy with a chunk of ice at the back 
 of my neck. An' there, across the ring, I could see the 
 Chicago Terror, an' I had to do some thinkin' to remem- 
 ber I was fightin' him. It was like I'd been away some- 
 where an' just got back. 'What round's this comin'?' I 
 ask Bill. 'The eighteenth,' says he. 'The hell,' I says. 
 'What's come of all the other rounds? The last I was 
 fightin' in was the thirteenth.' 'You're a wonder,' says 
 Bill. 'You've ben out four rounds, only nobody knows it 
 except me. I've ben tryin' to get you to quit all the 
 time.' Just then the gong sounds, an' I can see the Terror 
 startin' for me. 'Quit,' says Bill, makin' a move to throw 
 in the towel. 'Not on your life,' I says. 'Drop it, Bill.' 
 But he went on wantin' me to quit. By that time the 
 Terror had come across to my corner an* was standin' with 
 his hands down, lookin' at me. The referee was lookin', 
 too, an' the house was that quiet, lookin', you could hear 
 a pin drop. An' my head was gettin' some clearer, but 
 not much. 
 
 " 'You can't win, 7 Bill says. 
 
 " 'Watch me,' says I. An' with that I make a rush 
 for the Terror, catchin' him unexpected. I'm that groggy
 
 232 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 I can't stand, but I just keep a-goin', wallopin' the Terror 
 clear across the ring to his corner, where he slips an' falls, 
 an' I fall on top of 'm. Say, that crowd goes crazy. 
 
 ''Where was I? My head's still goin' round I guess 
 
 It's buzzin' like a swarm of bees." 
 
 "You'd just fallen on top of him in his corner," Saxon 
 prompted. 
 
 "Oh, yes. Well, no sooner are we on our feet an' I 
 can't stand I rush 'm the same way back across to my 
 corner an' fall on 'm. That was luck. We got up, an' 
 I'd a- fallen, only I clenched an' held myself up by him. 
 
 " *I got your goat/ I says to him. 'An' now I'm goin' 
 to eat you up.' 
 
 "I hadn't his goat, but I was play in' to get a piece 
 of it, an' I got it, rushin' 'm as soon as the referee drags 
 us apart an' fetchin' 'm a lucky wallop in the stomach 
 that steadied 'in an' made him almighty careful. Too 
 almighty careful. He was afraid to chance a mix with 
 me. He thought I had more fight left in me than I had. 
 So you see I got that much of his goat anyway. 
 
 "An' he couldn't get me. He didn't get me. An' in 
 the twentieth we stood in the middle of the ring an' ex- 
 changed wallops even. Of course, I'd made a fine showin' 
 for a licked man, but he got the decision, which was right. 
 But I fooled 'm. He couldn't get me. An' I fooled the 
 gazabos that was bettin' he would on short order." 
 
 At last, as dawn came on, Billy slept. He groaned 
 and moaned, his face twisting with pain, his body vainly 
 moving and tossing in quest of easement. 
 
 So this was prizefighting, Saxon thought. It was much 
 worse than she had dreamed. She had had no idea that 
 such damage could be wrought with padded gloves. He 
 must never fight again. Street rioting was preferable. 
 She was wondering how much of his silk had been lost, 
 when he mumbled and opened his eyes. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked, ere it came to her that his 
 eyes were unseeing and that he was in delirium.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 233 
 
 "Saxon! ..." Saxon!" he called. 
 
 "Yes, Billy. What is it?" 
 
 His hand fumbled over the bed where ordinarily it would 
 have encountered her. 
 
 Again he called her, and she cried her presence loudly 
 in his ear. He sighed with relief and muttered brokenly: 
 
 "I had to do it. ... We needed the money." 
 
 His eyes closed, and he slept more soundly, though his 
 muttering continued. She had heard of congestion of 
 the brain, and was frightened. Then she remembered his 
 telling her of the ice Billy Murphy had held against his 
 head. 
 
 Throwing a shawl over her head, she ran to the Pile 
 Drivers' Home on Seventh street. The barkeeper had just 
 opened, and was sweeping out. From the refrigerator he 
 gave her all the ice she wished to carry, breaking it into 
 convenient pieces for her. Back in the house, she applied 
 the ice to the base of Billy's brain, placed hot irons to 
 his feet, and bathed his head with witch hazel made cold 
 bv resting on the ice. 
 
 He slept in the darkened room until late afternoon, 
 when, to Saxon's dismay, he insisted on getting up. 
 
 "Gotta make a showin'," he explained. "They ain't 
 goin' to have the laugh on me." 
 
 In torment he was helped by her to dress, and in tor- 
 ment he went forth from the house so that his world 
 should have ocular evidence that the beating he had re- 
 ceived did not keep him in bed. 
 
 It was another kind of pride, different from a woman's, 
 and Saxon wondered if it were the less admirable for that.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IN the days that followed Billy's swellings went down 
 and the bruises passed away with surprising rapidity. 
 The quick healing of the lacerations attested the healthi- 
 ness of his blood. Only remained the black eyes, unduly 
 conspicuous on a face as blond as his. The discoloration 
 was stubborn, persisting half a month, in which time 
 happened divers events of importance. 
 
 Otto Frank's trial had been expeditious. Found guilty 
 by a jury notable for the business and professional men 
 on it, the death sentence was passed upon him and he 
 was removed to San Quentin for execution. 
 
 The case of Chester Johnson and the fourteen others 
 had taken longer, but within the same week, it, too, was 
 finished. Chester Johnson was sentenced to be hanged. 
 Two got life; three, twenty years. Only two were ac- 
 quitted. The remaining seven received terms of from two 
 to ten years. 
 
 The effect on Saxon was to throw her into deep depres- 
 sion. Billy was made gloomy, but his fighting spirit was 
 not subdued. 
 
 "Always some men killed in battle," he said. "That's 
 to be expected. But the way of sentencin' 'em gets me. 
 I All found guilty was responsible for the killin'; or none 
 was responsible. If all was, then they should get the 
 same sentence. They oughta hang like Chester Johnson, 
 or else he oughtn't to hang. I'd just like to know how the 
 judge makes up his mind. It must be like markin' China 
 lottery tickets. He plays hunches. He looks at a guy 
 an' waits for a spot or a number to come into his head. 
 How else could he give Johnny Black four years an' Cal 
 Hutchins twenty years? He played the hunches as they 
 .234
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 235 
 
 came into his head, an' it might just as easy ben the other 
 way around an' Cal Hutchins got four years an' Johnny 
 Black twenty. 
 
 ' ' I know both them boys. They hung out with the Tenth 
 an' Kirkham gang mostly, though sometimes they ran with 
 my gang. We used to go swimmin' after school down to 
 Sandy Beach on the marsh, an' in the Transit slip where 
 they said the water was sixty feet deep, only it wasn't. 
 An' once, on a Thursday, we dug a lot of clams together, 
 an' played hookey Friday to peddle them. An' we used 
 to go out on the Rock Wall an' catch pogies an' rock cod. 
 One day the day of the eclipse Cal caught a perch 
 half as big as a door. I never seen such a fish. An' now 
 he's got to wear the stripes for twenty years. Lucky he 
 wasn't married. If he don't get the consumption he'll 
 be an old man when he comes out. Cal's mother wouldn't 
 let 'm go swimmin', an' whenever she suspected she al- 
 ways licked his hair with her tongue. If it tasted salty, he 
 got a beltin'. But he was onto himself. Comin' home, 
 he'd jump somebody's front fence an' hold his head under 
 a faucet." 
 
 "I used to dance with Chester Johnson," Saxon said. 
 "And I knew his wife, Kittie Brady, long and long ago. 
 She had next place at the table to me in the paper-box 
 factory. She's gone to San Francisco to her married 
 sister's. She's going to have a baby, too. She was awfully 
 pretty, and there was always a string of fellows after 
 her." 
 
 The effect of the conviction and severe sentences was a 
 bad one on the union men. Instead of being disheartening, 
 it intensified the bitterness. Billy's repentance for having 
 fought and the sweetness and affection which had flashed 
 up in the days of Saxon 's nursing of him were blotted out. 
 At home, he scowled and brooded, while his talk took on 
 the tone of Bert's in the last days ere that Mohegan died. 
 Also, Billy stayed away from home longer hours, and 
 was again steadily drinking. 
 
 Saxon well-nigh abandoned hope. Almost was she
 
 236 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 steeled to the inevitable tragedy which her morbid fancy 
 painted in a thousand guises. Oftenest, it was of Billy 
 being brought home on a stretcher. Sometimes it was a 
 call to the telephone in the corner grocery and the curt 
 information by a strange voice that her husband was lying 
 in the receiving hospital or the morgue. And when the 
 mysterious horse-poisoning cases occurred, and when the 
 residence of one of the teaming magnates was half de- 
 stroyed by dynamite, she saw Billy in prison, or wearing 
 stripes, or mounting to the scaffold at San Quentin ; while 
 at the same time she could see the little cottage on Pine 
 street besieged by newspaper reporters and photographers. 
 
 Yet her lively imagination failed altogether to antici- 
 pate the real catastrophe. Harmon, the fireman lodger, 
 passing through the kitchen on his way out to work, had 
 paused to tell Saxon about the previous day's train- wreck 
 in the Alviso marshes, and of how the engineer, impris- 
 oned under the overturned engine and unhurt, being 
 drowned by the rising tide, had begged to be shot. Billy 
 came in at the end of the narrative, and from the somber 
 light in his heavy-lidded eyes Saxon knew he had been 
 drinking. He glowered at Harmon, and, without greeting 
 to him or Saxon, leaned his shoulder against the wall. 
 
 Harmon felt the awkwardness of the situation, and did 
 his best to appear oblivious. 
 
 "I was just telling your wife " he began, but was 
 
 savagely interrupted. 
 
 "I don't care what you was tellin' her. But I got some- 
 thing to tell you, Mister Man. My wife's made up your 
 bed too many times to suit me." 
 
 "Billy!" Saxon cried, her face scarlet with resentment, 
 and hurt, and shame. 
 
 Billy ignored her. Harmon was saying. 
 
 "I don't understand " 
 
 "Well, I don't like your mug," Billy informed him. 
 "You're standin' on your foot. Get off of it. Get out. 
 Beat it. D'ye understand that?" 
 
 "I don't know what's got into him," Saxon gasped hur-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 237 
 
 riedly to the fireman. "He's not himself. Oh, I am so 
 ashamed, so ashamed." 
 
 Billy turned on her. 
 
 "You shut your mouth an' keep outa this." 
 
 "But, Billy," she remonstrated. 
 
 "An' get outa here. You go into the other room." 
 
 "Here, now," Harmon broke in. "This is a fine way 
 to treat a fellow." 
 
 "I've given you too much rope as it is," was Billy's 
 answer. 
 
 "I've paid my rent regularly, haven't I?" 
 
 "An' I oughta knock your block off for you. Don't 
 see any reason I shouldn't, for that matter." 
 
 "If you do anything like that, Billy " Saxon began. 
 
 "You here still? Well, if you won't go into the other 
 room, I'll see that you do." 
 
 His hand clutched her arm. For one instant she 
 resisted his strength ; and in that instant, the flesh 
 crushed under his fingers, she realized the fullness of his 
 strength. 
 
 In the front room she could only lie back in the Morris 
 chair sobbing, and listen to what occurred in the kitchen. 
 
 "I'll stay to the end of the week," the fireman was 
 saving. "I've paid in advance." 
 
 "Don't make no mistake," came Billy's voice, so slow 
 that it was almost a drawl, yet quivering with rage. "You 
 can't get out too quick if you wanta stay healthy j^ou 
 an' your traps with you. I'm likely to start something 
 any moment." 
 
 "Oh, I know you're a slugger " the fireman's voice 
 
 began. 
 
 Then came the unmistakable impact of a blow ; the crash 
 of glass; a scuffle on the back porch; and, finally, the 
 heavy bumps of a body down the steps. She heard Billy 
 reenter the kitchen, move about, and knew he was sweep- 
 ing up the broken glass of the kitchen door. Then he 
 washed himself at the sink, whistling while he dried his 
 face and hands, and walked into the front room. She did
 
 238 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 not look at him. She was too sick and sad. He paused 
 irresolutely, seeming to make up his mind. 
 
 "I'm goin' up town," he stated. "They's a meeting 
 of the union. If I don't come back it'll be because that 
 geezer's sworn out a warrant." 
 
 He opened the front door and paused. She knew he 
 was looking at her. Then the door closed and she heard; 
 kim go down the steps. 
 
 Saxon was stunned. She did not think. She did not 
 know what to think. The whole thing was incomprehensi- 
 ble, incredible. She lay back in the chair, her eyes closed, 
 her mind almost a blank, crushed by a leaden feeling that 
 the end had come to everything. 
 
 The voices of children playing in the street aroused 
 her. Night had fallen. She groped her way to a lamp 
 and lighted it. In the kitchen she stared, lips trembling, 
 at the pitiful, half prepared meal. The fire had gone out. 
 The water had boiled away from the potatoes. When she 
 lifted the lid, a burnt smell arose. Methodically she 
 scraped and cleaned the pot, put things in order, and 
 peeled and sliced the potatoes for next day's frying. And 
 just as methodically she went to bed. Her lack of nerv- 
 ousness, her placidity, was abnormal, so abnormal that she 
 closed her eyes and was almost immediately asleep. Nor 
 did she awaken till the sunshine was streaming into the 
 room. 
 
 It was the first night she and Billy had slept apart. 
 She was amazed that she had not lain awake worrying 
 about him. She lay with eyes wide open, scarcely think- 
 ing, until pain in her arm attracted her attention. It was 
 where Billy had gripped her. On examination she found 
 the bruised flesh fearfully black and blue. She was as- 
 tonished, not by the spiritual fact that such bruise had 
 been administered by the one she loved most in the world, 
 but by the sheer physical fact that an instant's pressure 
 had inflicted so much damage. The strength of a man 
 was a terrible thing. Quite impersonally, she found her- 
 self wondering if Charley Long were as strong as Billy.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 239 
 
 It was not until she dressed and built the fire that she 
 began to think about more immediate things. Billy had 
 not returned. Then he was arrested. What was she to 
 do? leave him in jail, go away, and start life afresh? 
 Of course it was impossible to go on living with a man 
 who had behaved as he had. But then, came another 
 thought, was it impossible ? After all, he was her husbando 
 For better or worse the phrase reiterated itself, a mo- 
 notonous accompaniment to her thoughts, at the back of her 
 consciousness. To leave him was to surrender. She car- 
 ried the matter before the tribunal of her mother's mem- 
 ory. No; Daisy would never have surrendered. Daisy 
 was a fighter. Then she, Saxon, must fight. Besides and 
 she acknowledged it readily, though in a cold, dead 
 way besides, Billy was better than most husbands. Bet- 
 ter than any other husband she had heard of, she con- 
 cluded, as she remembered many of his earlier nicenesses 
 and finenesses, and especially his eternal chant: Nothing 
 is too good for us. The Eobertses ain't on the cheap. 
 
 At eleven o'clock she had a caller. It was Bud Stroth- 
 ers, Billy's mate on strike duty. Billy, he told her, had 
 refused bail, refused a lawyer, had asked to be tried by 
 the Court, had pleaded guilty, and had received a sentence 
 of sixty dollars or thirty days. Also, he had refused to 
 let the boys pay his fine. 
 
 "He's clean looney," Strothers summed up. "Won't 
 listen to reason. Says he'll serve the time out. He's ben 
 tankin' up too regular, I guess. His wheels are buzzin'. 
 Here, he give me this note for you. Any time you want 
 anything send for me. The boys '11 all stand by Bill's 
 wife. You belong to us, you know. How are you off for 
 money ? ' ' 
 
 Proudly she disclaimed any need for money, and not 
 until her visitor departed did she read Billy's note: 
 
 Dear Saxon Bud Strothers is going to give you this. Don't 
 worry about me. I am going to take my medicine. I deserve it 
 you Tcnow that. I guess I am gone bughouse. Just the same, I an 
 sorry for what I done. Don't come to see me. I don't want you to.
 
 240 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 // you need money, the union will give you some. The Zmstnsa 
 agent is all right. 1 will be out in a month. Now, Saxon, you know 
 I love you, and just say to yourself that you forgive me this time, 
 and yon won't never have to do it again. 
 
 Billy. 
 
 Bud Strothers was followed by Maggie Donahue, and 
 Mrs. Olsen, who paid neighborly calls of cheer and were 
 tactful in their offers of help and in studiously avoiding 
 more reference than was necessary to Billy's predicament. 
 
 In the afternoon James Harmon arrived. He limped 
 slightly, and Saxon divined that he was doing his best to 
 minimize that evidence of hurt. She tried to apologize to 
 him, but he would not listen. 
 
 "I don't blame you, Mrs. Roberts," he said. "I know 
 it wasn't your doing. But your husband wasn't just him- 
 self, I guess. He was fightin' mad on general principles, 
 and it was just my luck to get in the way- that was all." 
 
 "But just the same -" 
 
 The fireman shook his head. 
 
 "I know all about it. I used to punish the drink my- 
 self, and I done some funny things in them days. And 
 I'm sorry I swore that warrant out and testified. But I 
 was hot in the collar. I'm cooled down now, an' I'm 
 sorry I done it." 
 
 "You're awfully good and kind," she said, and then 
 began hesitantly on what was bothering her. "You 
 . . . you can't stay now, with him . . , away, you 
 know." 
 
 "Yes; that wouldn't do, would it? I'll tell you: I'll 
 pack up right now, and skin out, and then, before six 
 o'clock, I'll send a wagon for my things. Here's the key 
 to the kitchen door." 
 
 Much as he demurred, she compelled him to receive back 
 the unexpired portion of his rent. He shook her hand 
 heartily at leaving, and tried to get her to promise to call 
 upon him for a loan any time she might be in need. 
 
 "It's all right," he assured her. "I'm married, and got 
 two boys. One of them's got his lungs touched, and she's
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 241 
 
 with 'em down in Arizona campin' out. The railroad 
 helped with passes." 
 
 And as he went down the steps she wondered that so 
 kind a man should be in so madly cruel a world. 
 
 The Donahue boy threw in a spare evening paper, and 
 Saxon found half a column devoted to Billy. It was not 
 nice. The fact that he had stood up in the police court 
 with his eyes blacked from some other fray was noted. 
 He was described as a bully, a hoodlum, a rough-neck, 
 a professional slugger whose presence in the ranks was a 
 disgrace to organized labor. The assault he had pleaded 
 guilty of was atrocious and unprovoked, and if he were a 
 fair sample of a striking teamster, the only wise thing 
 for Oakland to do was to break up the union and drive 
 every member from the city. And, finally, the paper com- 
 plained at the mildness of the sentence. It should have 
 been six months at least. The judge was quoted as ex- 
 pressing regret that he had been unable to impose a six 
 months' sentence, this inability being due to the condi- 
 tion of the jails, already crowded beyond capacity by 
 the many cases of assault committed in the course of the 
 various strikes. 
 
 That night, in bed, Saxon experienced her first loneli- 
 ness. Her brain seemed in a whirl, and her sleep was 
 broken by vain gropings for the form of Billy she imag- 
 ined at her side. At last, she lighted the lamp and lay 
 staring at the ceiling, wide-eyed, conning over and over 
 the details of the disaster that had overwhelmed her. She 
 could forgive, and she could not forgive. The blow to 
 fher love-life had been too savage, too brutal. Her pride 
 was too lacerated to permit her wholly to return in mem- 
 ory to the other Billy whom she loved. Wine in, wit out, 
 she repeated to herself; but the phrase could not absolve 
 the man who had slept by her side, and to whom she had 
 consecrated herself. She wept in the loneliness of the all- 
 too-spacious bed, strove to forget Billy's incomprehensi- 
 ble cruelty, even pillowed her cheek with numb fondness 
 against the bruise of her arm ; but still resentment burned
 
 242 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 within her, a steady flame of protest against Billy and all 
 that Billy had done. Her throat was parched, a dull 
 ache never ceased in her breast, and she was oppressed 
 
 by a feeling of goneness. Whyf Why? And from the 
 
 puzzle of the world came no solution. 
 
 In the morning she received a visit from Sarah the 
 second in all the period of her marriage; and she could 
 easily guess her sister-in-law's ghoulish errand. No exer- 
 tion was required for the assertion of all of Saxon's pride. 
 She refused to be in the slightest on the defensive. There 
 was nothing to defend, nothing to explain. Everything 
 was all right, and it was nobody's business anyway. This 
 attitude but served to vex Sarah. 
 
 "I warned you, and you can't say I didn't," her dia- 
 tribe ran. "I always knew he was no good, a jailbird, 
 a hoodlum, a slugger. My heart sunk into my boots when 
 I heard you was runnin' with a prizefighter. I told you 
 so at the time. But no; you wouldn't listen, you with 
 your highfalutin' notions an' more pairs of shoes than 
 any decent woman should have. You knew better 'n me. 
 An' I said then, to Tom, I said, 'It's all up with Saxon 
 now.' Them was my very words. Them that touches 
 pitch is denied. If you'd only a-married Charley Long! 
 Then the family wouldn't a-ben disgraced. An' this is 
 only the beginnin', mark me, only the beginnin'. Where 
 it'll end, God knows. He'll kill somebody yet, that plug- 
 ugly of yourn, an' be hanged for it. You wait an' see, 
 that's all, an' then you'll remember my words. As you 
 make your bed, so you will lay in it " 
 
 'Best bed I ever had," Saxon commented. 
 
 'So you can say, so you can say," Sarah snorted. 
 
 'I wouldn't trade it for a queen's bed," Saxon added. 
 
 'A jailbird's bed," Sarah rejoined witheringly. 
 
 'Oh, it's the style," Saxon retorted airily. "Every- 
 body's getting a taste of jail. Wasn't Tom arrested at 
 some street meeting of the socialists? Everybody goes to 
 jail these days." 
 The barb had struck home.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 243 
 
 "But Tom was acquitted," Sarah hastened to proclaim. 
 
 "Just the same he lay in jail all night without bail." 
 
 This was unanswerable, and Sarah executed her favor- 
 ite tactic of attack in flank. 
 
 "A nice come-down for you, I must say, that was raised 
 straight an' right, a-cuttin' up didoes with a lodger." 
 
 "\\lio says so?" Saxon blazed with an indignation 
 quickly mastered. 
 
 ' ' Oh, a blind man can read between the lines. A lodger, 
 a young married woman with no self respect, an' a prize- 
 fighter for a husband what else would they fight about ? ' ' 
 
 "Just like any family quarrel, wasn't it?" Saxon 
 smiled placidly. 
 
 Sarah was shocked into momentary speechlessness. 
 
 "And I want you to understand it," Saxon continued. 
 "It makes a woman proud to have men fight over her. 
 I am proud. Do you hear? I am proud. I want you to 
 tell them so. I want you to tell all your neighbors. Tell 
 everybody. I am no cow. Men like me. Men fight for 
 me. Men go to jail for me. What is a woman in the 
 world for, if it isn't to have men like her? Now, go, 
 Sarah; go at once, and tell everybody what you've read 
 between the lines. Tell them Billy is a jailbird and that I 
 am a bad woman whom all men desire. Shout it out, and 
 good luck to you. And get out of my house. And never 
 put your feet in it again. You are too decent a woman 
 to come here. You might lose your reputation. And 
 think of your children. Now get out. Go." 
 
 Not until Sarah had taken an amazed and horrified de- 
 parture did Saxon fling herself on the bed in a convul- 
 sion of tears. She had been ashamed, before, merely of 
 Billy's inhospitality, and surliness, and unfairness. But 
 she could see, now, the light in which others looked on 
 the affair. It had not entered Saxon's head. She was 
 confident that it had not entered Billy's. She knew his 
 attitude from the first. Always he had opposed taking 
 a lodger because of his proud faith that his wife should 
 not work. Only hard times had compelled his consent,
 
 244 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 and, now that she looked back, almost had she inveigled 
 him into consenting. 
 
 But all this did not alter the viewpoint the neighbor- 
 hood must hold, that every one who had ever known her 
 must hold. And for this, too, Billy was responsible. It 
 was more terrible than all the other things he had been 
 guilty of put together. She could never look any one ir 
 the face again. Maggie Donahue and Mrs. Olsen had been 
 very kind, but of what must they have been thinking all 
 the time they talked with her ? And what must they have 
 said to each other? What was everybody saying? over 
 front gates and back fences? the men standing on the 
 corners or talking in saloons? 
 
 Later, exhausted by her grief, when the tears no longer 
 fell, she grew more impersonal, and dwelt on the disas- 
 ters that had befallen so many women since the strike 
 troubles began Otto Frank's wife, Henderson's widow, 
 pretty Kittie Brady, Mary, all the womenfolk of the other 
 workmen who were now wearing the stripes in San Quen- 
 tin. Her world was crashing about her ears. No one was 
 exempt. Not only had she not escaped, but hers was the 
 worst disgrace of all. Desperately she tried to hug the 
 delusion that she was asleep, that it was all a nightmare, 
 and that soon the alarm would go off and she would get 
 up and cook Billy 's breakfast so that he could go to work. 
 
 She did not leave the bed that day. Nor did she sleep. 
 Her brain whirled on and on, now dwelling at insistent 
 length upon her misfortunes, now pursuing the most fan- 
 tastic ramifications of what she considered her disgrace, 
 and. again, going back to her childhood and wandering 
 through endless trivial detail. She worked at all the tasks 
 she had ever done, performing, in fancy, the myriads of 
 mechanical movements peculiar to each occupation shap- 
 ing and pasting in the paper box factory, ironing in the 
 laundry, weaving in the jute mill, peeling fruit in the 
 cannery and countless boxes of scalded tomatoes. She 
 attended all her dances and all her picnics over again; 
 went through her school days, recalling the face and name
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 245 
 
 and seat of every schoolmate; endured the gray "bleak- 
 ness of the years in the orphan asylum; revisioned every 
 memory of her mother, every tale; and relived all her life 
 with Billy. But ever and here the torment lay she was 
 drawn back from these far-wanderings to her present trou- 
 ble, with its parch in the throat, its ache in the breast, 
 and its gnawing, vacant goneness.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 ALL that night Saxon lay, unsleeping, without taking 
 off her clothes, and when she arose in the morning and 
 washed her face and dressed her hair she was aware of 
 a strange numbness, of a feeling of constriction about her 
 head as if it were bound by a heavy band of iron. It 
 seemed like a dull pressure upon her brain. It was the 
 beginning of an illness that she did not know as illness. 
 All she knew was that she felt queer. It was not fever. 
 It was not cold. Her bodily health was as it should be, 
 and, when she thought about it, she put her condition down 
 to nerves nerves, according to her ideas and the ideas of 
 her class, being unconnected with disease. 
 
 She had a strange feeling of loss of self, of being a 
 stranger to herself, and the world in which she moved 
 seemed a vague and shrouded world. It lacked sharpness 
 of definition. Its customary vividness was gone. She had 
 lapses of memory, and was continually finding herself do- 
 ing unplanned things. Thus, to her astonishment, she 
 came to in the back yard hanging up the week's wash. 
 She had no recollection of having done it, yet it had been 
 done precisely as it should have been done. She had boiled 
 the sheets and pillowslips and the table linen. Billy's 
 woolens had been washed in warm water only, with the 
 home-made soap, the recipe of which Mercedes had given 
 her. On investigation, she found she had eaten a mutton 
 chop for breakfast. This meant that she had been to the 
 butcher shop, yet she had no memory of having gone. 
 Curiously, she went into the bedroom. The bed was made 
 up and everything in order. 
 
 At twilight she came upon herself in the front room, 
 seated by the window, crying in an ecstasy of joy. At
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 247 
 
 first she did not know what this joy was; then it came 
 to her that it was because she had lost her baby. "A 
 blessing, a blessing," she was chanting aloud, wringing 
 her hands, but with joy, she knew it was with joy that 
 she wrung her hands. 
 
 The days came and went. She had little notion of time. 
 Sometimes, centuries agone, it seemed to her it was since 
 Billy had gone to jail. At other times it was no more than 
 the night before. But through it all two ideas persisted: 
 she must not go to see Billy in jail; it was a blessing she 
 had lost her baby. 
 
 Once, Bud Strothers came to see her. She sat in the 
 front room and talked with him, noting with fascination 
 that there were fringes to the heels of his trousers. An- 
 other day, thp business agent of the union called. She told 
 him, as she had told Bud Strothers, that everything was 
 all right, that she needed nothing, that she could get 
 along comfortably until Billy came out. 
 
 A fear began to haunt her. When he came out. No; 
 it must not be. There must not be another baby. It might 
 live. No, no, a thousand times no. It must not be. She 
 would run away first. She would never see Billy again. 
 Anything but that. Anything but that. 
 
 This fear persisted. In her nightmare-ridden sleep it 
 became an accomplished fact, so that she would awake, 
 trembling, in a cold sweat, crying out. Her sleep had 
 become wretched. Sometimes she was convinced that she 
 did not sleep at all, and she knew that she had insomnia, 
 *;and remembered that it was of insomnia her mother had 
 died. 
 
 She came to herself one day, sitting in Doctor Hentley's 
 office. He was looking at her in a puzzled way. 
 
 "Got plenty to eat?" he was asking. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Any serious troubled" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "Everything's all right, Doctor . . . except
 
 248 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Yes, yes," he encouraged. 
 
 And then she knew why she had come. Simply, ex- 
 plicitly, she told him. He shook his head slowly. 
 
 "It can't be done, little woman," he said. 
 
 " Oh, but it can ! ' ' she cried. ' ' I know it can. ' ' 
 
 "I don't mean that," he answered. "I mean I can't 
 ell you. I dare not. It is against the law. There is 
 a doctor in Leaven worth prison right now for that." 
 
 In vain she pleaded with him. He instanced his own 
 wife and children whose existence forbade his imperiling 
 himself. 
 
 "Besides, there is no likelihood now," he told her. 
 
 ' ' But there will be, there is sure to be, ' ' she urged. 
 
 But he could only shake his head sadly. 
 
 "Why do you want to know?" he questioned finally. 
 
 Saxon poured her heart out to him. She told of her first 
 year of happiness with Billy, of the hard times caused 
 by the labor troubles, of the change in Billy so that there 
 was no love-life left, of her own deep horror. Not if it 
 died, she concluded. She could go through that again. 
 But if it should live. Billy w r ould soon be out of jail, 
 and then the danger would begin. It was only a few 
 words. She would never tell any one. Wild horses could 
 not drag it out of her. 
 
 But Doctor Hentley continued to shake his head. 
 
 "I can't tell you, little woman. It's a shame, but 
 I can't take the risk. My hands are tied. Our laws 
 are all wrong. I have to consider those who are dear 
 to me." 
 
 It was when she got up to go that he faltered. 
 
 "Come here," he said. "Sit closer." 
 
 He prepared to whisper in her ear, then, with a sudden 
 excess of caution, crossed the room swiftly, opened the 
 door, and looked out. When he sat down again he drew 
 his chair so close to hers that the arms touched, and when 
 he whispered his beard tickled her ear. 
 
 "No, no," he shut her off when she tried to voice her 
 gratitude. "I have told you nothing. You were here
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 249 
 
 to consult me about your general health. Ton are run 
 down, out of condition ~" 
 
 As he talked he moved her toward the door. When he 
 opened it, a patient for the dentist in the adjoining office 
 was standing in the hall. Doctor Hentley lifted his voice. 
 
 "What you need is that tonic I prescribed. Remember 
 that. And don't pamper your appetite when it comes 
 back. Eat strong, nourishing food, and beefsteak, plenty 
 of beefsteak. And don't cook it to a cinder. Good day." 
 
 At times the silent cottage became unendurable, and 
 Saxon would throw a shawl about her head and walk out 
 the Oakland Mole, or cross the railroad yards and the 
 marshes to Sandy Beach where Billy had said he used 
 to swim. Also, by going out the Transit slip, by climbing 
 down the piles on a precarious ladder of iron spikes, and 
 by crossing a boom of logs, she won access to the Rock 
 Wall that extended far out into the bay and that served 
 as a barrier between the mudflats and the tide-scoured 
 channel of Oakland Estuary. Here the fresh sea breezes 
 blew and Oakland sank down to a smudge of smoke be- 
 hind her, while across the bay she could see the smudge 
 that represented San Francisco. Ocean steamships passed 
 up and down the estuary, and lofty-masted ships, towed 
 by red-stacked tugs. 
 
 She gazed at the sailors on the ships, wondered on what 
 far voyages and to what far lands they went, wondered 
 what freedoms were theirs. Or were they girt ia by as 
 remorseless and cruel a world as the dwellers in Oakland 
 were ? Were they as unfair, as unjust, as brutal, in their 
 I dealings with their fellows as were the city dwellers ? It 
 did not seem so, and sometimes she wished herself on board, 
 out-bound, going anywhere, she cared not where, so long 
 as it was away from the world to which she had given 
 her best and which had trampled her in return. 
 
 She did not know always when she left the house, nor 
 where her feet took her. Once, she came to herself in a 
 strange part of Oakland. The street wap wide and
 
 250 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 with rows of shade trees. Velvet lawns, broken only by 
 cement sidewalks, ran down to the gutters. The houses 
 stood apart and were large. In her vocabulary they were 
 mansions. What had shocked her to consciousness of her- 
 self was a young man in the driver's seat of a touring 
 car standing at the curb. He was looking at her curiously, 
 and she recognized him as Roy Blanchard, whom, in front 
 of the Forum, Billy had threatened to whip. Beside the 
 car, bareheaded, stood another young man. He, too, she 
 remembered. He it was, at the Sunday picnic where she 
 first met Billy, who had thrust his cane between the legs 
 of the flying foot-racer and precipitated the free-for-all 
 fight. Like Blanchard, he was looking at her curiously, 
 and she became aware that she had been talking to herself. 
 The babble of her lips still beat in her ears. She blushed, a 
 rising tide of shame heating her face, and quickened her 
 pace. Blanchard sprang out of the car and came to her 
 with lifted hat. 
 
 "Is anything the matter?" he asked. 
 
 She shook her head, and, though she had stopped, she 
 evinced her desire to go on. 
 
 "I know you," he said, studying her face. "You were 
 with the striker who promised me a licking." 
 
 "He is my husband," she said. 
 
 ' ' Oh ! Good for him. ' ' He regarded her pleasantly and 
 frankly. "But about yourself? Isn't there anything I 
 can do for you? Something is the matter." 
 
 "No, I'm all right," she answered. "I have been sick," ' 
 she lied; for she never dreamed of connecting her queer- 
 Bess with sickness. 
 
 ' ' You look tired, ' ' he pressed her. ' ' I can take you in , 
 the machine and run you anywhere you want. It won't 
 be any trouble. I 've plenty of time. ' ' 
 
 Saxon shook her head. 
 
 "If . . . if you would tell me where I can catch 
 the Eighth street cars. I don't often come to this part 
 of town." 
 
 He told her where to find an electric car and what
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 251 
 
 transfers to make, and she was surprised at the distance 
 she had wandered. 
 
 "Thank you," she said. "And good bye." 
 
 "Sure I can't do anything now?" 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 "Well, good bye," he smiled good humoredly. "And 
 tell that husband of yours to keep in good condition. I'm 
 likely to make him need it all when he tangles up with 
 me." 
 
 "Oh, but you can't fight with him," she warned. "You 
 mustn't. You haven't got a show." 
 
 "Good for you," he admired. "That's the way for a 
 woman to stand up for her man. Now the average woman 
 would be so afraid he was going to get licked " 
 
 "But I'm not afraid ... for him. It's for you. 
 He's a terrible fighter. You wouldn't have any chance. 
 It would be like . . . like . . . " 
 
 "Like taking candy from a baby?" Blanchard finished 
 for her. 
 
 "Yes," she nodded. "That's just what he would call it. 
 And whenever he tells you you are standing on your foot 
 watch out for him. Now I must go. Good bye, and 
 thank you again." 
 
 She went on down the sidewalk, his cheery good bye 
 ringing in her ears. He was kind she admitted it hon- 
 estly; yet he was one of the clever ones, one of the mas- 
 ters, who, according to Billy, were responsible for all 
 the cruelty to labor, for the hardships of the women, for 
 the punishment of the labor men who were wearing stripes 
 in San Quentin or were in the death cells awaiting the 
 scaffold. Yet he was kind, sweet natured, clean, good. 
 She could read his character in his face. But how could 
 this be, if he were responsible for so much evil ? She shook 
 her head wearily. There was no explanation, no under- 
 standing of this world which destroyed little babes and 
 bruised women's breasts. 
 
 As for her having strayed into that neighborhood of 
 fine residences, she was unsurprised. It was in line with
 
 '252 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 her queerness. She did so many things without knowing 
 that she did them. But she must be careful. It was 
 better to wander on the marshes and the Kock Wall. 
 
 Especially she liked the Bock Wall. There was a free- 
 dom about it, a wide spaciousness that she found herself 
 instinctively trying to breathe, holding her arms out to 
 embrace and make part of herself. It was a more natural 
 world, a more rational world. She could understand 
 it understand the green crabs with white-bleached claws 
 that scuttled before her and which she could see pastur- 
 ing on green-weeded rocks when the tide was low. Here, 
 hopelessly man-made as the great wall was, nothing seemed 
 artificial. There were no men there, no laws nor con- 
 flicts of men. The tide flowed and ebbed; the sun rose 
 and set ; regularly each afternoon the brave west wind came 
 romping in through the Golden Gate, darkening the water, 
 cresting tiny wavelets, making the sailboats fly. Every- 
 thing ran with frictionless order. Everything was free. 
 Firewood lay about for the taking. No man sold it by the 
 sack. Small boys fished with poles from the rocks, with 
 no one to drive them away for trespass, catching fish as 
 Billy had caught fish, as Cal Hutchins had caught fish. 
 Billy had told her of the great perch Cal Hutchins caught 
 on the day of the eclipse, when he had little dreamed the 
 heart of his manhood would be spent in convict's garb. 
 
 And here was food, food that was free. She watched 
 the small boys on a day when she had eaten nothing, and 
 emulated them, gathering mussels from the rocks at low 
 water, cooking them by placing them among the coals of 
 >a fire she built on top of the wall. They tasted particu- 
 larly good. She learned to knock the small oysters from 
 the rocks, and once she found a string of fresh-caught 
 fish some small boy had forgotten to take home with him. 
 
 Here drifted evidences of man's sinister handiwork 
 from a distance, from the cities. One flood tide she found 
 the water covered with muskmelons. They bobbed and 
 bumped along up the estuary in countless thousands. 
 Where they stranded against the rocks she was able to get
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 253 
 
 them. But each and every melon and she patiently tried 
 scores of them had been spoiled by a sharp gash that let 
 in the salt water. She could not understand. She asked 
 an old Portuguese woman gathering driftwood. 
 
 "They do it, the people who have too much," the old 
 woman explained, straightening her labor-stiffened back 
 with such an effort that almost Saxon could hear it creak. 
 The old woman 's black eyes flashed angrily, and her , 
 wrinkled lips, drawn tightly across toothless gums, wry \ 
 with bitterness. "The people that have too much. It is 
 to keep up the price. They throw them overboard in San 
 Francisco. ' ' 
 
 "But why don't they give them away to the poor peo- 
 ple?" Saxon asked. 
 
 "They must keep up the price." 
 
 "But the poor people cannot buy them anyway," Saxon 
 objected. "It would not hurt the price." 
 
 The old woman shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " I do not know. It is their way. They chop each melon 
 so that the poor people cannot fish them out and eat any- 
 way. They do the same with the oranges, with the apples. 
 Ah, the fishermen! There is a trust. When the boats 
 catch too much fish, the trust throws them overboard from 
 Fisherman Wharf, boat-loads, and boat-loads, and boat- 
 loads of the beautiful fish. And the beautiful good fish 
 sink and are gone. And no one gets them. Yet they are 
 dead and only good to eat. Fish are very good to eat." 
 
 And Saxon eould not understand a world that did such 
 things a world in which some men possessed so much 
 food that they threw it away, paying men for their labor 
 of spoiling it before they threw it away ; and in the same 
 world so many people who did not have enough food, 
 whose babies died because their mothers' milk was not 
 nourishing, whose young men fought and killed one an- 
 other for the chance to work, whose old men and women 
 went to the poorhouse because there was no food for them 
 in the little shacks they wept at leaving. She wondered if 
 all the world were that way, and remembered Mercedes'
 
 254 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 tales. Yes; all the world was that way. Had not Mer- 
 cedes seen ten thousand families starve to death in that far 
 away India, when, as she had said, her own jewels that she 
 wore would have fed and saved them all ? It was the poor- 
 house and the salt vats for the stupid, jewels and automo- 
 biles for the clever ones. 
 
 She was one of the stupid. She must be. The evidence 
 all pointed that way. Yet Saxon refused to accept it. 
 She was not stupid. Her mother had not been stupid, nor 
 had the pioneer stock before her. Still it must be so. Here 
 she sat, nothing to eat at home, her love-husband changed 
 to a brute beast and lying in jail, her arms and heart 
 empty of the babe that would have been there if only the 
 stupid ones had not made a shambles of her front yard 
 in their wrangling over jobs. 
 
 She sat there, racking her brain, the smudge of Oakland 
 at her back, staring across the bay at the smudge of San 
 Francisco. Yet the sun was good; the wind was good, as 
 was the keen salt air in her nostrils; the blue sky, flecked 
 with clouds, was good. All the natural world was right, 
 and sensible, and beneficent. It was the man-world that 
 was wrong, and mad, and horrible. Why were the stupid 
 stupid? Was it a law of God? No; it could not be. God 
 had made the wind, and air, and sun. The man-world 
 was made by man, and a rotten job it was. Yet, and she 
 remembered it well, the teaching in the orphan asylum, 
 God had made everything. Her mother, too, had believed 
 this, had believed in this God. Things could not be 
 .different. It was ordained. 
 
 For a time Saxon sat crushed, helpless. Then smoldered 
 protest, revolt. Vainly she asked why God had it in for 
 her. What had she done to deserve such fate ? She briefly 
 reviewed her life in quest of deadly sins committed, and 
 found them not. She had obeyed her mother; obeyed 
 Cady, the saloon-keeper, and Cady's wife; obeyed the ma- 
 tron and the other women in the orphan asylum; obeyed 
 Tom when she came to live in his house, and never run in 
 the streets because he didn't wish her to. At school she
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 255 
 
 had always been honorably promoted, and never had her 
 deportment report varied from one hundred per cent. 
 She had worked from the day she left school to the day of 
 her marriage. She had been a good worker, too. The 
 little Jew who ran the paper box factory had almost wept 
 when she quit. It was the same at the cannery. She was 
 among the high-line weavers when the jute mills closed 
 down. And she had kept straight. It was not as if she 
 had been ugly or unattractive. She had known her temp- 
 tations and encountered her dangers. The fellows had 
 been crazy about her. They had run after her, fought 
 over her, in a way to turn most girls' heads. But she had 
 kept straight. And then had come Billy, her reward. 
 She had devoted herself to him, to his house, to all that 
 would nourish his love; and now she and Billy were sink- 
 ing down into this senseless vortex of misery and heart- 
 break of the man-made world. 
 
 No, God was not responsible. She could have made a 
 better world herself a finer, squarer world. This being 
 so, then there was no God. God could not make a botch. 
 The matron had been wrong, her mother had been wrong. 
 Then there was no immortality, and Bert, wild and crazy 
 Bert, falling at her front gate with his foolish death-cry, 
 was right. One was a long time dead. 
 
 Looking thus at life, shorn of its superrational sanctions, 
 Saxon floundered into the morass of pessimism. There 
 was no justification for right conduct in the universe, no 
 square deal for her who had earned reward, for the mil- 
 lions who worked like animals, died like animals, and 
 were a long time and forever dead. Like the hosts of more 
 learned thinkers before her, she concluded that the uni- 
 verse was unmoral and without concern for men. 
 
 And now she sat crushed in greater helplessness than 
 when she had included God in the scheme of injustice. 
 As long as God was, there was always chance for a mir- 
 acle, for some supernatural intervention, some rewarding 
 with ineffable bliss. With God missing, the world was a 
 trap. Life was a trap. She was like a linnet, caught by
 
 256 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 small boys and imprisoned in a cage. That was because 
 the linnet was stupid. But she rebelled. She fluttered 
 and beat her soul against the hard face of things as did 
 the linnet against the bars of wire. She was not stupicL 
 She did not belong in the trap. She would fight her way 
 out of the trap. There must be such a way out. When 
 ",anal boys and rail-splitters, the lowliest of the stupid 
 lowly, as she had read in her school history, could find 
 ( their way out and become presidents of the nation and 
 rule over even the clever ones in their automobiles, then 
 could she find her way out and win to the tiny reward she 
 craved Billy, a little love, a little happiness. She would 
 not mind that the universe was unmoral, that there was 
 no God, no immortality. She was willing to go into the 
 black grave and remain in its blackness forever, to go into 
 the salt vats and let the young men cut her dead flesh to 
 sausage-meat, if if only she could get her small meed of 
 happiness first. 
 
 How she would work for that happiness! How she 
 would appreciate it, make the most of each least particle 
 of it! But how was she to do it? "Where was the path? 
 She could not vision it. Her eyes showed her only the 
 smudge of San Francisco, the smudge of Oakland, where 
 men were breaking heads and killing one another, where 
 babies were dying, born and unborn, and where women 
 were weeping with bruised breasts.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 HER vague, unreal existence continued. It seemed in some 
 previous life-time that Billy had gone away, that another 
 life-time would have to come before he returned. She still 
 suffered from insomnia. Long nights passed in succession, 
 during which she never closed her eyes. At other times 
 she slept through long stupors, waking stunned and 
 numbed, scarcely able to open her heavy eyes, to move her 
 weary limbs. The pressure of the iron band on her head 
 never relaxed. She was poorly nourished. Nor had she 
 a cent of money. She often went a whole day without 
 eating. Once, seventy-two hours elapsed without food 
 passing her lips. She dug clams in the marsh, knocked the 
 tiny oysters from the rocks, and gathered mussels. 
 
 And yet, when Bud Strothers came to see how she was 
 getting along, she convinced him that all was well. One 
 evening after work, Tom came, and forced two dollars 
 upon her. He was terribly worried. He would like to 
 help more, but Sarah was expecting another baby. There 
 had been slack times in his trade because of the strikes 
 in the other trades. He did not know what the country 
 was coming to. And it was all so simple. All they had 
 to do was see things in his way and vote the way he voted. 
 Then everybody would get a square deal. Christ was a 
 Socialist, he told her. 
 
 "Christ died two thousand years ago," Saxon said. 
 
 ""Well?" Tom queried, not catching her implication. 
 
 "Think," she said, "think of all the men and women 
 who died in those two thousand years, and socialism has 
 not come yet. And in two thousand years more it may be 
 as far away as ever. Tom, your socialism neve* did you 
 any good. It is a dream." 
 
 257
 
 258 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "It wouldn't be if " he began with, a flash of resent- 
 ment. 
 
 "If they believed as you do. Only they don't. You 
 don't succeed in making them." 
 
 "But we are increasing every year," he argued. 
 
 "Two thousand years is an awfully long time," she said 
 quietly. 
 
 Her brother's tired face saddened as he nodded. Then 
 he sighed: 
 
 "Well, Saxon, if it's a dream, it is a good dream." 
 
 "I don't want to dream," was her reply. "I want things 
 real. I want them now." 
 
 And before her fancy passed the countless genr rations 
 of the stupid lowly, the Billys and Saxons, the Berts and 
 Marys, the Toms and Sarahs. And to what end? The 
 salt vats and the grave. Mercedes was a hard and wicked 
 woman, but Mercedes was right. The stupid must always 
 be under the heels of the clever ones. Only she, Saxon, 
 daughter of Daisy who had written wonderful poems and 
 of a soldier-father on a roan war-horse, daughter of the 
 strong generations who had won half a world from wild 
 nature and the savage Indian no, she was not stupid. It 
 was as if she suffered false imprisonment. There was 
 some mistake. She would find the way out. 
 
 "With the two dollars she bought a sack of flour and 
 half a sack of potatoes. This relieved the monotony of 
 her clams and mussels. Like the Italian and Portuguese 
 women, she gathered driftwood and carried it home, 
 though always she did it with shamed pride, timing her 
 'arrival so that it would be after dark. One day, on the 
 mud-flat side of the Rock Wall, an Italian fishing boat 
 hauled up on the sand dredged from the channel. From 
 the top of the wall Saxon watched the men grouped about 
 the charcoal brazier, eating crusty Italian bread and a 
 stew of meat and vegetables, washed down with long 
 draughts of thin red wine. She envied them their free- 
 dom that advertised itself in the heartiness of their meal, 
 in the tones of their chatter and laughter, in the very boat
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 259 
 
 itself that was not tied always to one place and that car- 
 ried them wherever they willed. Afterward, they dragged 
 a seine across the mud-flats and up on the sand, selecting 
 for themselves only the larger kinds of fish. Many thou- 
 sands of small fish, like sardines, they left dying on the 
 sand when they sailed away. Saxon got a sackful of the 
 fish, and was compelled to make two trips in order to 
 carry them home, where she salted them down in a wooden 
 washtub. 
 
 Her lapses of consciousness continued. The strangest 
 thing she did while in such condition was on Sandy Beach. 
 There she discovered herself, one windy afternoon, lying 
 in a hole she had dug, with sacks for blankets. She had 
 even roofed the hole in rough fashion by means of drift 
 wood and marsh grass. On top of the grass she had 
 piled sand. 
 
 Another time she came to herself walking across the 
 marshes, a bundle of driftwood, tied with bale-rope, on 
 her shoulder. Charley Long was walking beside her. She 
 could see his face in the starlight. She wondered dully 
 how long he had been talking, what he had said. Then 
 she was curious to hear what he was saying. She was not 
 afraid, despite his strength, his wicked nature, and the 
 loneliness and darkness of the marsh. 
 
 "It's a shame for a girl like you to have to do this," 
 he was saying, apparently in repetition of what he had 
 already urged. "Come on an' say the word, Saxon. Come 
 on an' say the word." 
 
 Saxon stopped and quietly faced him. 
 
 "Listen, Charley Long. Billy's only doing thirty days, 
 and his time is almost up. When he gets out your life 
 won't be worth a pinch of salt if I tell him you've been 
 bothering me. Now listen. If you go right now away 
 from here, and stay away, I won't tell him. That's all 
 I've got to say." 
 
 The big blacksmith stood in scowling indecision, his face 
 pathetic in its fierce yearning, his hands making uncon- 
 scious, clutching contractions.
 
 260 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 ""Why, you little, small thing," he said desperately, "I 
 could break you in one hand. I could why, I could do 
 anything I wanted. I don't want to hurt you, Saxon. 
 You know that. Just say the word " 
 
 "I've said the only word I'm going to say.' 5 
 
 "God!" he muttered in involuntary admiration. "You 
 ain't afraid. You ain't afraid." 
 
 They faced each other for long silent minutes. 
 
 "Why ain't you afraid?" he demanded at last, after 
 peering into the surrounding darkness as if searching for 
 her hidden allies. 
 
 "Because I married a man," Saxon said briefly. "And 
 now you'd better go." 
 
 When he had gone she shifted the load of wood to her 
 other shoulder and started on, in her breast a quiet 
 thrill of pride in Billy. Though behind prison bars, 
 still she leaned against his strength. The mere naming 
 of him was sufficient to drive away a brute like Charley 
 Long. 
 
 On the day that Otto Frank was hanged she remained 
 indoors. The evening papers published the account. There 
 had been no reprieve. In Sacramento was a railroad Gov- 
 ernor who might reprieve or even pardon bank-wreckers 
 and grafters, but who dared not lift his finger fof a work- 
 inginan. All this was the talk of the neighborhood. It 
 had been Billy's talk. It had been Bert's talk. 
 
 The next day Saxon started out the Rock Wall, and 
 the specter of Otto Frank walked by her side. And with 
 him was a dimmer, mistier specter that she recognized as 
 Billy. Was he, too, destined to tread his way to Otto 
 Frank 's dark end ? Surely so, if the blood and strife con- 
 tinued. He was a fighter. He felt he was right in fight- 
 ing. It was easy to kill a man. Even if he did not in- 
 tend it, some time, when he was slugging a scab, the scab 
 would fracture his skull on a stone curbing or a cement 
 sidewalk. And then Billy would hang. That was why 
 Otto Frank hanged. He had not intended to kill Hender- 
 son. It was only by accident that Henderson's skull was
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 261 
 
 fractured. Yet Otto Frank had been hanged for it just 
 the same. 
 
 She wrung her hands and wept loudly as she stumbled 
 among the windy rocks. The hours passed, and she was 
 lost to herself and her grief. When she came to she found 
 herself on the far end of the wall where it jutted into 
 the bay between the Oakland and Alameda Moles. But 
 she could see no wall. It was the time of the full moon, 
 and the unusual high tide covered the rocks. She was 
 knee deep in the water, and about her knees swam scores 
 of big rock rats, squeaking and fighting, scrambling to 
 climb upon her out of the flood. She screamed with fright 
 and horror, and kicked at them. Some dived and swam 
 away under water; others circled about her warily at a 
 distance; and one big fellow laid his teeth into her shoe. 
 Him she stepped on and crushed with her free foot. By 
 this time, though still trembling, she was able coolly to con- 
 sider the situation. She waded to a stout stick of drift- 
 wood a few feet away, and with this quickly cleared a 
 space about herself. 
 
 A grinning small boy, in a small, bright-painted and 
 half-decked skiff, sailed close in to the wall and let go his 
 sheet to spill the wind. 
 
 "Want to get aboard?" he called. 
 
 "Yes," she answered. "There are thousands of big 
 rats here. I'm afraid of them." 
 
 He nodded, ran close in, spilled the wind from his sail, 
 the boat's way carrying it gently to her. 
 
 "Shove out its bow," he commanded. "That's right. 
 I don't want to break my centerboard. . . . An' then 
 .jump aboard in the stern quick! alongside of me." 
 
 She obeyed, stepping in lightly beside him. He held the 
 tiller up with his elbow, pulled in on the sheet, and as the 
 sail filled the boat sprang away over the rippling water, 
 
 "You know boats," the boy said approvingly. 
 
 He was a slender, almost frail lad, of twelve or thirteen 
 years, though healthy enough, with sunburned freckled 
 face and large gray eyes that were clear and wistful
 
 262 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 Despite his possession of the pretty boat, Saxon was quick 
 to sense that he was one of them, a child of the people. 
 
 "First boat I was ever in, except ferryboats," Saxon 
 laughed. 
 
 He looked at her keenly. "Well, you take to it like 
 a duck to water is all I can say about it. Where d'ye 
 want me to land you?" 
 
 "Anywhere." 
 
 He opened his mouth to speak, gave her another long 
 look, considered for a space, then asked suddenly: 
 
 "Got plenty of time?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "All day?" 
 
 Again she nodded. 
 
 "Say I'll tell you, I'm goin' out on this ebb to Goat 
 Island for rockcod, an' I'll come in on the flood this even- 
 ing. I got plenty of lines an' bait. Want to come along? 
 We can both fish. And what you catch you can have." 
 
 Saxon hesitated. The freedom and motion of the small 
 boat appealed to her. Like the ships she had envied, it 
 was outbound. 
 
 "Maybe you'll drown me," she parleyed. 
 
 The boy threw back his head with pride. 
 
 "I guess I've been sailin' many a long day by myself, 
 an' I ain't drowned yet." 
 
 "All right," she consented. "Though remember, I don't 
 know anything about boats." 
 
 "Aw, that's all right. Now I'm goin' to go about, 
 
 When I say 'Hard a-lee!' like that, you duck your head 
 so the boom don't hit you, an' shift over to the other 
 side." 
 
 He executed the maneuver, Saxon obeyed, and found 
 herself sitting beside him on the opposite side of the boat, 
 while the boat itself, on the other tack, was heading to- 
 ward Long Wharf where the coal bunkers were. She 
 was aglow with admiration, the more so because tiie me- 
 chanics of boat-sailing was to her a complex and mysteri' 
 ius thin~
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 263 
 
 " "Where did you learn it all?" she inquired. 
 
 "Taught myself, just naturally taught myself. I liked 
 it, you see, an' what a fellow likes he's likeliest to do. 
 This is my second boat. My first didn't have a center- 
 board. I bought it for two dollars an' learned a lot, 
 though it never stopped leaking. What d'ye think I paid 
 for this one? It's worth twenty-five dollars right now. 
 What d'ye think I paid for it?" 
 
 "I give up," Saxon said. "How much?" 
 
 ' ' Six dollars. Think of it ! A boat like this ! Of course 
 I done a lot of work, an' the sail cost two dollars, the oars 
 one forty, an' the paint one seventy-five. But just the 
 same eleven dollars and fifteen cents is a real bargain. It 
 took me a long time saving for it, though. I carry papers 
 morning and evening there's a boy taking my route for 
 me this afternoon I give 'm ten cents, an' all the extras 
 he sells is his; and I'd a-got the boat sooner only I had to 
 pay for my shorthand lessons. My mother wants me to 
 become a court reporter. They get sometimes as much as 
 twenty dollars a day. Gee! But I don't want it. It's 
 a shame to waste the money on the lessons." 
 
 "What do you want?" she asked, partly from idleness, 
 and yet with genuine curiosity; for she felt drawn to this 
 boy in knee pants who was so confident and at the same 
 time so wistful. 
 
 "What do I want?" he repeated after her. 
 
 Turning his head slowly, he followed the sky-line, paus- 
 ing especially when his eyes rested landward on the brown 
 Contra Costa hills, and seaward, past Alcatraz, on the 
 Grolden Gate. The wistfulness in his eyes was overwhelm- 
 ing and went to her heart. 
 
 "That," he said, sweeping the circle of the world with 
 a wave of his arm. 
 
 "That?" she queried. 
 
 He looked at her, perplexed in that he had not made his 
 meaning clear. 
 
 "Don't you ever feel that way?" he asked, bidding for 
 sympathy with his dream. "Don't you sometimes feel
 
 264 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 you'd die if you didn't know what's beyond them hills air 
 what's heyond the other hills behind them hills? An' the 
 Golden Gate! There's the Pacific Ocean beyond, and 
 China, an' Japan, an' India, an' . . . an' all the coral 
 islands. You can go anywhere out through the Golden 
 Gate to Australia, to Africa, to the seal islands, to the 
 Xorth Pole, to Cape Horn. Why, all them places are just 
 waitin' for me to come an' see 'em. I've lived in Oak- 
 land all my life, but I'm not going to live in Oakland the 
 vest of my life, not by a long shot. I'm go in' to get 
 away . . . away . . ." 
 
 Again, as words failed to express the vastness of his 
 desire, the wave of his arm swept the circle of the world. 
 
 Saxon thrilled with him. She too, save for her earlier 
 childhood, had lived in Oakland all her life. And it had 
 been a good place in which to live . . . until now. 
 And now, in all its nightmare horror, it was a place to get 
 away from, as with her people the East had been a place 
 to get away from. And why not? The world tugged at 
 her, and she felt in touch with the lad 's desire. Now that 
 she thought of it, her race had never been given to staying 
 long in one place. Always it had been on the move. She 
 remembered back to her mother's tales, and to the wood 
 engraving in her scrapbook where her half-clad forebears, 
 sword in hand, leaped from their lean beaked boats to do 
 battle on the blood-drenched sands of England. 
 
 "Did you ever hear about the Anglo-Saxons?" she 
 asked the boy. 
 
 "You bet!" His eyes glistened, and he looked at her 
 with new interest. "I'm an Anglo-Saxon, every inch of 
 me. Look at the color of my eyes, my skin. I'm awful 
 white where I ain't sunburned. An' my hair was yellow 
 when I was a baby. My mother says it'll be dark brown 
 by the time I'm grown up, worse luck. Just the same 
 I'm Anglo-Saxon. I am of a fighting race. "We ain't 
 afraid of nothin'. This bay think I'm afraid of it!" 
 He looked out over the water with flashing eye of scorn, 
 "Why, I've crossed it when it was howlin' an' when the
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 265 
 
 scow schooner sailors said I lied an' that I didn't. Huh! 
 They were only squareheads. "Why, we licked their kind 
 thousands of years ago. We lick everything we go up 
 against. "We've wandered all over the world, licking the 
 world. On the sea, on the land, it's all the same. Look 
 at Lord Nelson, look at Davy Crockett, look at Paul Jones, 
 look at Clive, an' Kitchener, an' Fremont, an' Kit Carson, 
 an' all of 'em." 
 
 Saxon nodded, while he continued, her own eyes shin- 
 ing, and it came to her what a glory it would be to be 
 the mother of a man-child like this. Her body ached with 
 the fancied quickening of unborn life. A good stock, a 
 wood stock, she thought to herself. Then she thought of 
 herself and Billy, healthy shoots of that same stock, yet 
 condemned to childlessness because of the trap of the man- 
 made world and the curse of being herded with the stupid 
 ones. 
 
 She came back to the boy. 
 
 "My father was a soldier in the Civil "War," he was 
 telling her, "a scout an' a spy. The rebels were going 
 to hang him twice for a spy. At the battle of Wilson's 
 Creek he ran half a mile with his captain wounded on hia 
 back. He's got a bullet in his leg right now, just above 
 tha knee. It's ben there all these years. He let me feel 
 it once. He was a buffalo hunter and a trapper before 
 the war. He was sheriff of his county when he was twenty 
 years old. An' after the war, when he was marshal of 
 Silver City, he cleaned out the bad men an' gun-fighters. 
 He's ben in almost every state in the Union. He could 
 wrestle any man at the raisings in his day, an' he waa 
 bully of the raftsmen of the Susquehanna when he was 
 jnly a youngster. His father killed a man in a standup 
 fight with a blow of his fist when he was sixty years old. 
 An' when he was seventy-four, his second wife had twins, 
 an' he died when he was plowing in the field with oxen 
 when he was ninety-nine years old. He just unyoked the 
 oxen, an' sat down under a tree, an' died there sitting up. 
 An' my father's just like him. He's pretty old now, but
 
 266 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 he ain't afraid of nothing. He's a regular Anglo-Saxon, 
 you see. He's a special policeman, an' he didn't do a 
 thing to the strikers in some of the fightin'. He had his 
 face all cut up with a rock, but he broke his club short 
 off over some hoodlum's head." 
 
 He paused breathlessly and looked at her. 
 
 "Gee!" he said. "I'd hate to a-ben that hoodlum." 
 
 "My name is Saxon," she said. 
 
 "Your name?" 
 
 "My first name." 
 
 "Gee!" he cried. "You're lucky. Now if mine had ben 
 only Erling you know, Erling the Bold or Wolf, or 
 Swen, or Jarl!" 
 
 "What is it?" she asked. 
 
 "Only John," he admitted sadly. "But I don't let 
 'em call me John. Everybody's got to call me Jack. I've 
 scrapped with a dozen fellows that tried to call me John 
 or Johnnie wouldn't that make you sick? Johnnie!" 
 
 They were now off the coal bunkers of Long Wharf, and 
 the boy put the skiff about, heading toward San Francisco. 
 They were well out in the open bay. The west wind had 
 strengthened and was whitecapping the strong ebb tide. 
 The boat drove merrily along. When splashes of spray 
 flew aboard, wetting them, Saxon laughed, and the boy 
 surveyed her with approval. They passed a ferryboat, 
 and the passengers on the upper deck crowded to one 
 side to watch them. In the swell of the steamer's wake, 
 the skiff shipped quarter-full of water. Saxon picked 
 an empty can and looked at the boy. 
 
 "That's right," he said. "Go ahead an' bale out.'* 
 And, when she had finished: "We'll fetch Goat Island 
 next tack. Right there off the Torpedo Station is where 
 we fish, in fifty feet of water an' the tide runnin' to 
 beat the band. You're wringing wet, ain't you? Gee! 
 You're like your name. You're a Saxon, all right. Are 
 you married?" 
 
 Saxon nodded, and the boy frowned. 
 
 *'What'd you want to do that for? Now you can't wan-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 267 
 
 der over the world like I'm going to. You're tied down. 
 You're anchored for keeps." 
 
 ''It's pretty good to be married, though," she smiled. 
 
 "Sure, everybody gets married. But that's no reason to 
 be in a rush about it. Why couldn't you wait a while, 
 like me? I'm goin' to get married, too, but not until I'm 
 an old man an' have ben every wheres. " 
 
 Under the lee of Goat Island, Saxon obediently sitting 
 still, he took in the sail, and, when the boat had drifted 
 to a position to suit him, he dropped a tiny anchor. He 
 got out the fish lines and showed Saxon how to bait her 
 hooks with salted minnows. Then they dropped the lines 
 to bottom, where they vibrated in the swift tide, and 
 waited for bites. 
 
 "They'll bite pretty soon," he encouraged. "I've never 
 failed but twice to catch a mess here. What d'ye say we 
 eat while we're waiting?" 
 
 Vainly she protested she was not hungry. He shared 
 his lunch with her with a boy's rigid equity, even to 
 the half of a hard-boiled egg and the half of a big red 
 apple. 
 
 Still the rockcod did not bite. Prom under the stern- 
 sheets he drew out a cloth-bound book. 
 
 "Free Library," he vouchsafed, as he began to read, 
 with one hand holding the place while with the other lie 
 waited for the tug on the fishline that would announce 
 rockcod. 
 
 Saxon read the title. It was "Afloat in the Forest." 
 
 "Listen to this," he said after a few minutes, and he 
 read several pages descriptive of a great flooded tropical 
 forest being navigated by boys on a raft. 
 
 "Think of that!" he concluded. "That's the Amazon 
 river in flood time in South America. And the world's 
 full of places like that everywhere, most likely, except 
 Oakland. Oakland's just a place to start from, I guess. 
 Now that 's adventure, I want to tell you. Just think of the 
 luck of them boys ! All the same, some day I 'm going to go 
 over the Andes to the headwaters of the Amazon, all
 
 268 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 through the rubber country, an' canoe down the Amazon 
 thousands of miles to its mouth where it's that wide you 
 can't see one bank from the other an' where you can scoop 
 up perfectly fresh water out of the ocean a hundred miles 
 from land." 
 
 But Saxon was not listening. One pregnant sentence 
 had caught her fancy. Oakland is just a place to itart 
 from. She had never viewed the city in that light. She 
 had accepted it as a place to live in, as an end in itself. 
 But a place to start from ! Why not ? Why not like any 
 railroad station or ferry depot? Certainly, as things were 
 going, Oakland was not a place to stop in. The boy was 
 right, It was a place to start from. But to go where? 
 Here she was halted, and she was driven from the train 
 of thought by a strong pull and a series of jerks on the 
 line. She began to haul in, hand under hand, rapidly 
 and deftly, the boy encouraging her, until hooks, sinker, 
 and a big gasping rockcod tumbled into the bottom of the 
 boat. The fish was free of the hook, and she baited afresh 
 and dropped the line over. The boy marked his place and 
 closed the book. 
 
 "They'll be biting soon as fast as we can haul 'em in," 
 he said. 
 
 But the rush of fish did not come immediately. 
 
 "Did you ever read Captain Mayne Reid?" he asked. 
 "Or Captain Marryatt? Or Ballantyne?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "And you an Anglo-Saxon!" he cried derisively. 
 "Why, there's stacks of 'em in the Free Library. I have 
 two cards, my mother's an' mine, an' I draw 'em out all 
 the time, after school, before I have to carry my papers. 
 I stick the books inside my shirt, in front, under the sus- 
 penders. That holds 'em. One time, deliverin' papers at 
 Second an' Market there's an awful tough gang of kids 
 hang out there I got into a fight with th*; leader. He 
 hauled off to knock my wind out, an' he landed square 
 on a book. You ought to seen his face. An ' then I landed 
 on him. An' then his whole gang was goin' to jump on
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 269 
 
 me, only a couple of iron-molders stepped in an* saw fair 
 play. I gave 'em the books to hold. ' ' 
 
 "Who won?" Saxon asked. 
 
 "Nobody," the boy confessed reluctantly. "I think I 
 was lickin' him, but the molders called it a draw because 
 the policemen on the beat stopped us when we'd only ben 
 fightin' half an hour. But you ought to seen the crowd. 
 I bet there was five hundred " 
 
 He broke off abruptly and began hauling in his line. 
 Saxon, too, was hauling in. And in the next couple of 
 hours they caught twenty pounds of fish between them. 
 
 That night, long after dark, the little, half-decked skiff 
 sailed up the Oakland Estuary. The wind was fair but 
 light, and the boat moved slowly, towing a long pile which 
 the boy had picked up adrift and announced as worth three 
 dollars anywhere for the wood that was in it. The tide 
 flooded smoothly under the full moon, and Saxon recog- 
 nized the points they passed the Transit slip, Sandy 
 Beach, the shipyards, the nail works, Market street wharf. 
 The boy took the skiff in to a dilapidated boat-wharf at 
 the foot of Castro street, where the scow schooners, laden 
 with sand and gravel, lay hauled to the shore in a long 
 row. He insisted upon an equal division of the fish, be- 
 cause Saxon had helped catch them, though he explained 
 at length the ethics of flotsam to show her that the pile 
 was wholly his. 
 
 At Seventh and Poplar they separated, Saxon walking 
 on alone to Pine street with her load of fish. Tired though 
 she was from the long day, she had a strange feeling of 
 well-being, and, after cleaning the fish, she fell asleep 
 wondering, when good times came again, if she could 
 persuade Billy to get a boat and go out with her on Sun- 
 days as she had gone out that day.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SHE slept all night, without stirring, without dreaming,, 
 and awoke naturally and, for the first time in weeks, re- 
 freshed. She felt her old self, as if some depressing 
 weight had been lifted, or a shadow had been swept away 
 from between her and the sun. Her head was clear. The 
 seeming iron band that had pressed it so hard was gone. 
 She was cheerful. She even caught herself humming aloud 
 as she divided the fish into messes for Mrs. Olsen, Maggie 
 Donahue, and herself. She enjoyed her gossip with each 
 of them, and, returning home, plunged joyfully into the 
 task of putting the neglected house in order. She sang 
 as she worked, and ever as she sang the magic words of 
 the boy danced and sparkled among the notes: Oakland 
 is just a place to start from. 
 
 Everything was clear as print. Her and Billy's prob- 
 lem was as simple as an arithmetic problem at school: to 
 carpet a room so many feet long, so many feet wide; to 
 paper a room so many feet high, so many feet around. 
 She had been sick in her head, she had had strange lapses, 
 she had been irresponsible. Very well. All this had been 
 because of her troubles troubles in which she had had 
 no hand in the making. Billy's case was hers precisely. 
 He had behaved strangely because he had been irresponsi- 
 ble. And all their troubles were the troubles of the trap. 
 Oakland was the trap. Oakland was a good place to start 
 from. 
 
 She reviewed the events of her married life. The strikes 
 and the hard times had caused everything. If it had not 
 been for the strike of the shopmen and the fight in her front 
 yard, she would not have lost her baby. If Billy had 
 not been made desperate by the idleness and the hopeless 
 270
 
 THE TALLEY OF THE MOON 271 
 
 fight of the teamsters, he would not have taken to drink- 
 ing. If they had not been hard up, they would not have 
 taken a lodger, and Billy would not be in jail. 
 
 Her mind was made up. The city was no place for her 
 and Billy, no place for love nor for babies. The way out 
 .was simple. They would leave Oakland. It was the stupid 
 jthat remained and bowed their heads to fate. But she and 
 LBilly were not stupid. They would not bow their heads. 
 
 "They would go forth and face fate. Where, she did not 
 
 know. But that would come. The world was large. Be- 
 yond the encircling hills, out through the Golden Gate, 
 somewhere they would find what they desired. The boy 
 had been wrong in one thing. She was not tied to Oak- 
 land, even if she was married. The world was free to 
 her and Billy as it had been free to the wandering gen- 
 erations before them. It was only the stupid who had 
 been left behind everywhere in the race's wandering. Th 
 strong had gone on. Well, she and Billy were strong. 
 They would go on, over the brown Contra Costa hills or out 
 through the Golden Gate. 
 
 The day before Billy's release Saxon completed her 
 meager preparations to receive him. She was without 
 money, and, except for her resolve not to offend Billy in 
 that way again, she would have borrowed ferry fare from 
 Maggie Donahue and journeyed to San Francisco to sell 
 some of her personal pretties. As it was, with bread and 
 potatoes and salted sardines in the house, she went out 
 at the afternoon low tidb and dug clams for a chowder. 
 Also, she gathered a load of driftwood, and it was nine 
 in the evening when she emerged from the marsh, on her 
 shoulder a bundle of wood and a short-handled spade, in 
 her free hand the pail of clams. She sought the darker 
 side of the street at the corner and hurried across the zone 
 of electric light to avoid detection by the neighbors. But 
 a woman came toward her, looked sharply and stopped 
 in front of her. It was Mary. 
 
 ''My God, Saxon!" she exclaimed. "Is it as bad at 
 this?"
 
 272 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 Saxon looked at her old friend curiously, with a swift 
 glance that sketched all the tragedy. Mary was thinner, 
 though there was more color in her cheeks color of which 
 Saxon had her doubts. Mary's bright eyes were hand- 
 somer, larger too large, too feverish bright, too restless. 
 She was well dressed too well dressed; and she was suf- 
 fering from nerves. She turned her head apprehensively 
 to glance into the darkness behind her. 
 
 "My God!" Saxon breathed. "And you . . ."She 
 shut her lips, then began anew. "Come along to the 
 house," she said. 
 
 "If you're ashamed to be seen with me " Mary 
 blurted, with one of her old quick angers. 
 
 "No, no," Saxon disclaimed. "It's the driftwood and 
 the clams. I don't want the neighbors to know. Come 
 along." 
 
 "No; I can't, Saxon. I'd like to, but I can't. I've got 
 to catch the next train to Frisco. I 've ben waitin ' around. 
 I knocked at your back door. But the house was dark. 
 Billy's still in, ain't he?" 
 
 "Yes, he gets out to-morrow." 
 
 "I read about it in the papers,'* Mary went on hur- 
 riedly, looking behind her. "I was in Stockton when it 
 happened." She turned upon Saxon almost savagely. 
 "'You don't blame me, do you? I just couldn't go back 
 to work after bein' married. I was sick of work. Played 
 out, I guess, an' no good anyway. But if you only knew 
 how I hated the laundry even before I got married. It's 
 a dirty world. You don't dream. Saxon, honest to God, 
 you could never guess a hundredth part of its dirtiness. 
 Oh, I wish I was dead, I wish I was dead an' out of it 
 all. Listen no, I can't now. There's the down train 
 puffin' at Adeline. I'll have to run for it. Can I 
 come " 
 
 "Aw, get a move on, can't you?" a man's voice inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 Behind her the speaker had partly emerged from the 
 darkness. No workingman. Saxon could see that lower
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOGN 273 
 
 in the world scale, despite his good clothes, than any work- 
 ingman. 
 
 "I'm comin', if you'll only wait a second," Mary pla- 
 cated. 
 
 And by her answer and its accents Saxon knew that 
 Mary was afraid of this man who prowled on the rim of 
 light. 
 
 Mary turned to her. 
 
 "I got to beat it; good bye," she said, fumbling Li the 
 palm of her glove. 
 
 She caught Saxon's free hand, and Saxon felt a small 
 hot coin pressed into it. She tried to resist, to force 
 it back. 
 
 "No, no," Mary pleaded. "For old times. You can 
 do as much for me some day. I'll see you again. Good 
 bye." 
 
 Suddenly, sobbing, she threw her arms around Saxon's 
 waist, crushing the feathers of her hat against the load 
 of wood as she pressed her face against Saxon's breast. 
 Then she tore herself away to arm's length, passionate, 
 quivering, and stood gazing at Saxon. 
 
 "Aw, get a hustle, get a hustle," came from the dark- 
 ness the peremptory voice of the man. 
 
 "Oh, Saxon!" Mary sobbed; and was gone. 
 
 In the house, the lamp lighted, Saxon looked at the 
 coin. It was a five-dollar piece to her, a fortune. Then 
 she thought of Mary, and of the man of whom she waa 
 afraid. Saxon registered another black mark against Oak- 
 land. Mary was one more destroyed. They lived only 
 five years, on the average, Saxon had heard somewhere. 
 She looked at the coin and tossed it into the kitchen sink. 
 "When she cleaned the clams, she heard the coin tinkle 
 down the vent pipe. 
 
 It was the thought of Billy, next morning, that led 
 Saxon to go under the sink, unscrew the cap to the catch- 
 trap, and rescue the five-dollar piece. Prisoners were not 
 well fed, she had been told; and the thought of placing 
 clams and dry bread before Billy, after thirty days of
 
 274 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 prison fare, was too appalling for her to contemplate. She 
 knew how he liked to spread his butter on thick, how he 
 liked thick, rare steak fried on a dry hot pan, and how 
 he liked coffee that was coffee and plenty of it. 
 
 Not until after nine o'clock did Billy arrive, and she 
 was dressed in her prettiest house gingham to meet him. 
 She peeped on him as he came slowly up the front steps, 
 and she would have run out to him except for a group 
 of neighborhood children who were staring from across 
 the street. The door opened before him as his hand 
 reached for the knob, and, inside, he closed it by backing 
 against it, for his arms were filled with Saxon. No, he had 
 not had breakfast, nor did he want any now that he had 
 her. He had only stopped for a shave. He had stood the 
 barber off, and he had walked all the way from the City 
 Hall because of lack of the nickel carfare. But he'd like 
 a bath most mighty well, and a change of clothes. She 
 mustn't come near him until he was clean. 
 
 "When all this was accomplished, he sat in the kitchen 
 and watched her cook, noting the driftwood she put in the 
 Btove and asking about it. While she moved about, she 
 told how she had gathered the wood, how she had managed 
 to live and not be beholden to the union, and by the time 
 they were seated at the table she was telling him about 
 her meeting with Mary the night before. She did not 
 mention the five dollars. 
 
 Billy stopped chewing the first mouthful of steak. His 
 expression frightened her. He spat the meat out on his 
 plate. 
 
 "You got the money to buy the meat from her," he ac- 
 cused slowly. "You had no money, no more tick with the 
 butcher, yet here's meat. Am I right?" 
 
 Saxon could only bend her head. 
 
 The terrifying, ageless look had come into his face, the 
 bleak and passionless glaze into his eyes, which she had 
 first seen on the day at Weasel Park when he had fought 
 with the three Irishmen. 
 
 "What else did you buy?" he demanded not roughly,
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 275 
 
 not angrily, but with the fearful coldness of a rage that 
 words could not express. 
 
 To her surprise, she had grown calm. What did it 
 matter? It was merely what one must expect, living in 
 Oakland something to be left behind when Oakland was 
 a thing behind, a place started from. 
 
 "The coffee," she answered. "And the butter." 
 
 He emptied his plate of meat and her plate into the 
 {frying pan, likewise the roll of butter and the slice on the 
 table, and on top he poured the contents of the coffee can- 
 ister. All this he carried into the back yard and dumped 
 in the garbage can. The coffee pot he emptied into the 
 sink. 
 
 "How much of the money you got left?" he next 
 wanted to know. 
 
 Saxon had already gone to her purse and taken it out. 
 
 "Three dollars and eighty cents," she counted, hand- 
 ing it to him. "I paid forty-five cents for the steak." 
 
 He ran his eye over the money, counted it, and went to 
 the front door. She heard the door open and close, and 
 knew that the silver had been flung into the street. When 
 he came back to the kitchen, Saxon was already serving 
 him fried potatoes on a clean plate. 
 
 "Nothing's too good for the Robertses," he said; "but, 
 by God, that sort of truck is too high for my stomach. 
 It's so high it stinks." 
 
 He glanced at the fried potatoes, the fresh slice of dry 
 bread, and the glass of water she was placing by his 
 plate. 
 
 "It's all right," she smiled, as he hesitated. "There's 
 nothing left that's tainted." 
 
 He shot a swift glance at her face, as if for sarcasm, 
 then sighed and sat down. Almost immediately he was 
 up again and holding out his arms to her. 
 
 "I'm goin' to eat in a minute, but I want to talk to 
 you first," he said, sitting down and holding her closely. 
 "Besides, that water ain't like coffee. Gettin' cold won't 
 spoil it none. Now, listen. You're the only one I got
 
 276 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 in this world. You wasn't afraid of me an' what I just 
 done, an' I'm glad of that. Now we'll forget all about 
 Mary. I got charity enough. I'm just as sorry for her 
 as you. I'd do anything for her. I'd wash her feet for 
 her like Christ did. I'd let her eat at my table, an' sleep 
 under my roof. But all that ain't no reason I should 
 touch anything she's earned. Now forget her. It's you/ 
 an' me, Saxon, only you an' me an' to hell with the rest 
 of the world. Nothing else counts. You won't never have' 
 to be afraid of me again. Whisky an' I don't mix very 
 well, so I'm goin' to cut whisky out. I've ben clean off 
 my nut, an' I ain't treated you altogether right. But 
 that's all past. It won't never happen again. I'm goin' 
 to start out fresh. 
 
 "Now take this thing. I oughtn't to acted so hasty. 
 But I did. I oughta talked it over. But I didn't. My 
 damned temper got the best of me, an' you know I got 
 one. If a fellow can keep his temper in boxin', why he 
 can keep it in bein' married, too. Only this got me too 
 sudden-like. It's something I can't stomach, that I never 
 could stomach. An' you wouldn't want me to any more'n 
 I'd want you to stomach something you just couldn't." 
 
 She sat up straight on his knees and looked at him, afire 
 with an idea. 
 
 "You mean that, Billy?" 
 
 "Sure I do." 
 
 "Then I'll tell you something I can't stomach any more. 
 I'll die if I have to." 
 
 "Well?" he questioned, after a searching pause. 
 
 "It's up to you," she said. 
 
 "Then fire away." 
 
 "You don't know what you're letting yourself in for," 
 she warned. "Maybe you'd better back out before it's too 
 late." 
 
 He shook his head stubbornly. 
 
 "What you don't want to stomach you ain't goin' to 
 stomach. Let her go." 
 
 "First," she commenced, "no more slugging of scabs."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 277 
 
 His mouth opened, but he checked the involuntary pro- 
 test. 
 
 "And, second, no more Oakland." 
 
 "I don't get that last." 
 
 "No more Oakland. No more living in Oakland. I'll 
 'die if I have to. It's pull up stakes and get out." 
 
 He digested this slowly. 
 
 "Where?" he asked finally. 
 
 "Anywhere. Everywhere. Smoke a cigarette and think 
 it over." 
 
 He shook his head and studied her. 
 
 ' ' You mean that ? " he asked at length. 
 
 "I do. I want to chuck Oakland just as hard as you 
 wanted to chuck the beefsteak, the coffee, and the butter." 
 
 She could see him brace himself. She could feel him 
 brace his very body ere he answered. 
 
 "All right then, if that's what you want. We'll quit 
 Oakland. We'll quit it cold. God damn it, anyway, it 
 never done nothin' for me, an' I guess I'm husky enough 
 to scratch for us both anywheres. An' now that's settled, 
 just tell me what you got it in for Oakland for." 
 
 And she told him all she had thought out, marshaled all 
 the facts in her indictment of Oakland, omitting nothing, 
 not even her last visit to Doctor Hentley's office nor 
 Billy's drinking. He but drew her closer and proclaimed 
 his resolves anew. The time passed. The fried potatoes 
 grew cold, and the stove went out. 
 
 When a pause came, Billy stood up, still holding her. 
 -He glanced at the fried potatoes. 
 
 , "Stone cold," he said, then turned to her. "Come on. 
 Put on your prettiest. We're goin' up town for some- 
 thing to eat an' to celebrate. I guess we got a celebration 
 comin', seein' as we're going to pull up stakes an' pull 
 our freight from the old burg. An' we won't have to 
 walk. I can borrow a dime from the barber, an' I got 
 enough junk to hock for a blowout." 
 
 His junk proved to be several gold medals won in hia 
 amateur days at boxing tournaments. Once up town and
 
 278 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 in the pawnshop, Uncle Sam seemed thoroughly versed iu 
 the value of the medals, and Billy jingled a handful of 
 silver in his pocket as they walked out. 
 
 He was as hilarious as a boy, and she joined in his good 
 spirits. When he stopped at a corner cigar store to buy a 
 sack of Bull Durham, he changed his mind and bought 
 Imperials. 
 
 "Oh, I'm a regular devil," he laughed. ''Nothing's too 
 good to-day not even tailor-made smokes. An' no chop 
 houses nor Jap joints for you an' me. It's Barnum's." 
 
 They strolled to the restaurant at Seventh and Broad- 
 way where they had had their wedding supper. 
 
 "Let's make believe we're not married," Saxon sng- 
 
 "Sure," he agreed, " an' take a private room so as 
 
 the waiter '11 have to knock on the door each time he comes 
 in." 
 
 Saxon demurred at that. 
 
 "It will be too expensive, Billy. You'll have to tip him 
 for the knocking. We'll take the regular dining room." 
 
 "Order anything you want," Billy said largely, when 
 they were seated. "Here's family porterhouse, a dollar 
 an' a half. What d'ye say?" 
 
 "And hash-browned," she abetted, "and coffee extra 
 special, and some oysters first I want to compare them 
 with the rock oysters." 
 
 Billy nodded, and looked up from the bill of fare. 
 
 "Here's mussels bordelay. Try an order of them, too, 
 an' see if they beat your Rock Wall ones." 
 
 "Why not?" Saxon cried, her eyes dancing. "The 
 world is ours. We're just travelers through this town." 
 
 "Yep, that's the stuff," Billy muttered absently. He 
 was looking at the theater column. He lifted his eyes 
 from the paper. "Matinee at Bell's. We can get re- 
 served seats for a quarter. Doggone the luck any- 
 way!" 
 
 His exclamation was so aggrieved and violent that it 
 brought alarm into her eyes.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 279 
 
 "If I'd only thought," he regretted, "we could a-gone 
 to the Forum for grub. That's the swell joint where fel- 
 lows like Roy Blanchard hangs out, blowin' the money 
 we sweat for them." 
 
 They bought reserved tickets at Bell's Theater; but it 
 was too early for the performance, and they went down 
 Broadway and into the Electric Theater to while away 
 the time on a moving picture show. A cowboy film was 
 un off, and a French comic; then came a rural drama 
 situated somewhere in the Middle West. It began with a 
 farm yard scene. The sun blazed down on a corner of 
 a barn and on a rail fence where the ground lay in the 
 mottled shade of large trees overhead. There were chick- 
 ens, ducks, and turkeys, scratching, waddling, moving 
 about. A big sow, followed by a roly-poly litter of seven 
 little ones, marched majestically through the chickens, root- 
 ing them out of the way. The hens, in turn, took it out 
 on the little porkers, pecking them when they strayed too 
 far from their mother. And over the top rail a horse 
 looked drowsily on, ever and anon, at mathematically pre- 
 cise intervals, switching a lazy tail that flashed high lights 
 in the sunshine. 
 
 "It's a warm day and there are flies can't you just 
 feel it?" Saxon whispered. 
 
 "Sure. An' that horse's tail! It's the most natural 
 -aver. Gee ! I bet he knows the trick of clampin ' it down 
 over the reins. I wouldn't wonder if his name was Iron 
 Tail." 
 
 A dog ran upon the scene. The mother pig turned tail 
 and with short ludicrous jumps, followed by her progeny 
 and pursued by the dog, fled out of the film. A young 
 girl came on, a sunbonnet hanging down her back, her 
 apron caught up in front and filled with grain which she 1 
 threw to the fluttering fowls. Pigeons flew down from the 
 top of the film and joined in the scrambling feast. The 
 dog returned, wading scarcely noticed among the feathered 
 creatures, to wag his tail and laugh up at the girl. And, 
 behind, the horse nodded over the rail and switched on
 
 280 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 A young man entered, his errand immediately known to 
 an audience educated in moving pictures. But Saxon had 
 no eyes for the love-making, the pleading forcefulness, the 
 shy reluctance, of man and maid. Ever her gaze wan- 
 dered back to the chickens, to the mottled shade under the 
 trees, to the warm wall of the barn, to the sleepy horse t 
 with its ever recurrent whisk of tail. 
 
 She drew closer to Billy, and her hand, passed around 
 his arm, sought his hand. 
 
 "Oh, Billy," she sighed. "I'd just die of happiness in 
 a place like that. " And, when the film was ended : "We 
 got lots of time for Bell's. Let's stay and see that one 
 over again." 
 
 They sat through a repetition of the performance, and 
 when the farm yard scene appeared, the longer Saxon 
 looked at it the more it affected her. And this time she 
 took in further details. She saw fields beyond, rolling 
 hills in the background, and a cloud-flecked sky. She 
 identified some of the chickens, especially an obstreperous 
 old hen who resented the thrust of the sow's muzzle, par- 
 ticularly pecked at the little pigs, and laid about her with 
 a vengeance when the grain fell. Saxon looked back across 
 the fields to the hills and sky, breathing the spaciousness of 
 it, the freedom, the content. Tears welled into her eyes and 
 she wept silently, happily. 
 
 "I know a trick that'd fix that old horse if he ever 
 clamped his tail down on me," Billy whispered. 
 
 "Now I know where we're going when we leave Oak- 
 land," she informed him. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "There." 
 
 He looked at her, and followed her gaze to the screen. 
 
 "Oh," he said, and cogitated. "An' why shouldn't we?" 
 he added. 
 
 "Oh, Billy, will you?" 
 
 Her lips trembled in her eagerness, and her whisper 
 broke and was almost 'naudible. 
 
 "Sure," he said. It was his day of royal largess.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 281 
 
 "What you want is yourn, an' I'll scratch my fingers off 
 for it. An' I've always had a hankerin' for the country 
 myself. Say ! I Ve known horses like that to sell for half 
 the price, an' I can cure 'em of the habit."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 IT was early evening when they got off the car at Sev- 
 enth and Pine on their way home from Bell's Theater. 
 Billy and Saxon did their little marketing together, then 
 separated at the corner, Saxon to go on to the house and 
 prepare supper, Billy to go and see the boys the teamsters 
 who had fought on in the strike during his month of retire- 
 ment. 
 
 ' ' Take care of yourself, Billy, ' ' she called, as he started 
 off. 
 
 "Sure," he answered, turning his face to her over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 Her heart leaped at the smile. It was his old, unsullied 
 love-smile which she wanted always to see on his face 
 for which, armed with her own wisdom and the wisdom of 
 Mercedes, she would wage the utmost woman 's war to pos- 
 sess. A thought of this flashed brightly through her brain, 
 and it was with a proud little smile that she remembered 
 all her pretty equipment stored at home in the bureau 
 and the chest of drawers. 
 
 Three-quarters of an hour later, supper ready, all but 
 the putting on of the lamb chops at the sound of his step, 
 Saxon waited. She heard the gate click, but instead of 
 his step she heard a curious and confused scraping of 
 many steps. She flew to open the door. Billy stood there, 
 but a different Billy from the one she had parted from 
 so short a time before. A small boy, beside him, held his 
 hat. His face had been fresh- washed, or, rather, drenched, 
 for his shirt and shoulders were wet. His pale hair lay 
 damp and plastered against his forehead, and was dark- 
 ened by oozing blood. Both arms hung limply by his 
 side. But his face was composed, and he even grinned. 
 283-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 283 
 
 "It's all right," he reassured Saxon. "The joke's on 
 ire. Somewhat damaged but still in the ring." He 
 
 stepped gingerly across the threshold. " Come on in, 
 
 you fellows. We're all mutts together." 
 
 He was followed in by the boy with his hat, by Bud 
 Strothers and another teamster she knew, and by two 
 strangers. The latter were big, hard-featured, sheepish- 
 faced men, who stared at Saxon as if afraid 01 her. 
 
 " It 's all right, Saxon, ' ' Billy began, but was interrupted 
 by Bud. 
 
 "First thing is to get him on the bed an' cut his 
 clothes off him. Both arms is broke, and here are the 
 ginks that done it." 
 
 He indicated the two strangers, who shuffled their feet 
 with embarrassment and looked more sheepish than ever. 
 
 Billy sat down on the bed, and while Saxon held the 
 lamp, Bud and the strangers proceeded to cut coat, shirt, 
 and undershirt from him. 
 
 "He wouldn't go to the receivin' hospital," Bud said 
 to Saxon. 
 
 < Not on your life," Billy concurred. "I had 'em send 
 for Doc Hentley. He'll be here any minute. Them two 
 arms is all I got. They've done pretty well by me, an' 
 
 I gotta do the same by them. No medical students a- 
 
 learnin' their trade on me." 
 
 "But how did it happen?" Saxon demanded, looking 
 from Billy to the two strangers, puzzled by the amity that 
 so evidently existed among them all. 
 
 "Oh, they're all right," Billy dashed in. "They done 
 it through mistake. They're Frisco teamsters, an' they 
 come over to help us a lot of 'em." 
 
 The two teamsters seemed to cheer up at this, and 
 nodded their heads. 
 
 "Yes, missus," one of them rumbled hoarsely. "It's all 
 a mistake, an' . . . well the joke's on us." 
 
 "The drinks, anyway, " Billy grinned. 
 
 Not only was Saxon not excited, but she was scarcely 
 perturbed. What had happened was only to be expected.
 
 284 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 It was in line with all that Oakland had already done to 
 her and hers, and, besides, Billy was not dangerously hurt. 
 Broken arms and a sore head would heal. She brought 
 chairs and seated everybody. 
 
 "Now tell me what happened," she begged. "I'm all 
 at sea, what of you two hurleys breaking my husband's 
 arms, then seeing him home and holding a love-fest with 
 him." 
 
 "An' you got a right," Bud Strothers assured her. 
 "You see, it happened this way " 
 
 "You shut up, Bud," Billy broke in. "You didn't see 
 anything of it." 
 
 Saxon looked to the San Francisco teamsters. 
 
 "We'd come over to lend a hand, seein' as the Oakland 
 boys was gettin' some the short end of it," one spoke up, 
 "an' we've sure learned some scabs there's better trades 
 than drivin' team. Well, me an' Jackson here was nosin' 
 around to see what we can see, when your husband comes 
 moseyin' along. When he " 
 
 "Hold on," Jackson interrupted. "Get it straight as 
 you go along. We reckon we know the boys by sight. 
 But your husband we ain't never seen around, him 
 bein' . . ." 
 
 "As you might say, put away for a while," the first 
 teamster took up the tale. "So, when we sees what we 
 thinks is a scab dodgin' away from us an' takin' the short- 
 cut through the alley " 
 
 "The alley back of Campbell's grocery," Billy eluci- 
 date.d. 
 
 ' ' Yep, back of the grocery, ' ' the first teamster went on ; 
 "why, we're sure he's one of them squarehead scabs, hired 
 through Murray an' Eeady, makin' a sneak to get into 
 the stables over the back fences." 
 
 "We caught one there, Billy an' me," Bud interpolated. 
 
 "So we don 't waste any time, ' ' Jackson said, addressing 
 himself to Saxon. "We've done it before, an' we know 
 how to do 'em up brown an' tie 'em with baby ribbon. 
 So we catch your husband right in the alley."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 285 
 
 "I was lookin' for Bud," said Billy. "The boys told 
 me I'd find him somewhere around the other end of the 
 alley. An' the first thing I know, Jackson, here, asks me 
 for a match." 
 
 "An' right there's where I get in my fine work," re- 
 sumed the first teamster. 
 
 "What?" asked Saxon. 
 
 "That." The man pointed to the wound in Billy's 
 scalp. "I laid 'm out. He went down like a steer, 
 an' got up on his knees dippy, a-gabblin' about some- 
 body standin' on their foot. He didn't know where 
 he was at, you see, clean groggy. An' then we done 
 it." 
 
 The man paused, the tale told. 
 
 "Broke both his arms with the crowbar," Bud supple- 
 mented. 
 
 "That's when I come to myself, when the bones broke," 
 Billy corroborated. "An' there was the two of 'em givin' 
 me the ha-ha. 'That'll last you some time,' Jackson was 
 savin'. An' Anson says, 'I'd like to see you drive horses 
 with them arms.' An' then Jackson says, 'Let's give 'm 
 something for luck.' An' with that he fetched me a wal- 
 lop on the jaw " 
 
 "No," corrected Anson. "That wallop was mine." 
 
 ""Well, it sent me into dreamland over again," Billy 
 sighed. "An' when I come to, here was Bud an' Anson 
 an' Jackson sousin' me at a water trough. An' then we 
 dodged a reporter an' all come home together." 
 
 Bud Strothers held up his fist and indicated freshly 
 abraded skin. 
 
 "The reporter-guy just insisted on samplin' it," he said. 
 Then, to Billy: "That's why I cut around Ninth an' 
 caught up with you down on Sixth." 
 
 A few minutes later Doctor Hentley arrived, and drove 
 the men from the rooms. They waited till he had finished, 
 to assure themselves of Billy's well being, and then de- 
 parted. In the kitchen Doctor Hentley washed his hands 
 and gave Saxon final instructions. As he dried himself
 
 286 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 he sniffed the air and looked toward the stove where a pot 
 was simmering. 
 
 "Clams," he said. "Where did you buy them?" 
 
 "I didn't buy them," replied Saxon. "I dug them 
 myself." 
 
 "Not in the marsh?" he asked with quickened interest. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Throw them away. Throw them out. They're death 
 and corruption. Typhoid I've got three cases now, all 
 traced to the clams and the marsh." 
 
 When he had gone, Saxon obeyed. Still another mark 
 against Oakland, she reflected Oakland, the man-trap, 
 that poisoned those it could not starve. 
 
 "If it wouldn't drive a man to drink," Billy groaned, 
 when Saxon returned to him. "Did you ever dream such 
 luck? Look at all my fights in the ring, an' never a 
 broken bone, an' here, snap, snap, just like that, two arms 
 smashed." 
 
 "Oh, it might be worse," Saxon smiled cheerfully. 
 
 "I'd like to know how." 
 
 "It might have been your neck." 
 
 "An' a good job. I tell you, Saxon, you gotta show 
 me anything worse." 
 
 "I can," she said confidently. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well, wouldn't it be worse if you intended staying on 
 in Oakland where it might happen again?" 
 
 "I can see myself becomin' a farmer an' plowin' with 
 a pair of pipe-stems like these," he persisted. 
 
 "Doctor Hentley says they'll be stronger at the break 
 than ever before. And you know yourself that's true of 
 clean-broken bones. Now you close your eyes and go to 
 sleep. You're all done up, and you need to keep your 
 brain quiet and stop thinking." 
 
 He closed his eyes obediently. She slipped a cool hand 
 under the nape of his neck and let it rest. 
 
 "That feels good," he murmured. "You're so cool, 
 Saxon. Your hand, and you, all of you. Bein' with you
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 287 
 
 is like comin' out into the cool night after dancin' in a 
 hot room." 
 
 After several minutes of quiet, he began to giggle. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked. 
 
 "Oh, nothin'. I was just thinkin' thinking of them 
 mutts doin' me up me, that's done up more scabs than I 
 can remember." 
 
 Next morning Billy awoke with his blues dissipated. 
 From the kitchen Saxon heard him painfully wrestling 
 strange vocal acrobatics. 
 
 "I got a new song you never heard," he told her when 
 she came in with a cup of coffee. "I only remember the 
 chorus though. It's the old man talkin' to some hobo 
 of a hired man that wants to marry his daughter. Mamie, 
 that Billy Murphy used to run with before he got married, 
 used to sing it. It's a kind of a sobby song. It used to 
 always give Mamie the weeps. Here 's the way the chorus 
 goes an' remember, it's the old man spielin'." 
 
 And with great solemnity and excruciating flatting, Billy 
 sang: 
 
 "O treat my daughter kind-i-ly, 
 
 An' say you'll do no harm, 
 An' when I die I'll will to you 
 
 My little house an' farm 
 My horse, my plow, my sheep, my cow, 
 
 An' all them little chickens in the ga-a-rden. 
 
 "It's them little chickens in the garden that gets me," 
 he explained. "That's how I remembered it from the 
 chickens in the movin' pictures yesterday. An' some day 
 we'll have little chickens in the garden, won't we, old 
 girl?" 
 
 "And a daughter, too," Saxon amplified. 
 
 "An' I'll be the old geezer sayin' them same words to 
 the hired man," Billy carried the fancy along. "It don't 
 take long to raise a daughter if you ain't in a hurry." 
 
 Saxon took her long-neglected ukulele from its case and 
 strummed it into tune.
 
 288 THE VALLEY OP THE MOON 
 
 "And I've a song you never heard, Billy. Tom's always 
 singing it. He's crazy about taking up government land 
 and going farming, only Sarah won't think of it. He 
 sings it something like this: 
 
 "We'll have a little farm, 
 
 A pig, a horse, a cow, 
 And you will drive the wagon, 
 And I will drive the plow." 
 
 "Only in this case I guess it's me that'll do the plow- 
 in'," Billy approved. "Say, Saxon, sing 'Harvest Days.' 
 That's a farmer's song, too." 
 
 After that she feared the coffee was growing cold and 
 compelled Billy to take it. In the helplessness of two 
 broken arms, he had to be fed like a baby, and as she fed 
 him they talked. 
 
 "I'll tell you one thing," Billy said, between mouthfuls. 
 ' ' Once we get settled down in the country you '11 have that 
 horse you've ben wishin' for all your life. An' it'll be 
 all your own, to ride, drive, sell, or do anything you want 
 with." 
 
 And, again, he ruminated: "One thing that'll come 
 handy in the country is that I know horses; that's a big 
 start. I can always get a job at that if it ain't at union 
 wages. An' the other things about farmin' I can learn 
 
 fast enough. Say, d'ye remember that day you first 
 
 told me about wantin' a horse to ride all your life?" 
 
 Saxon remembered, and it was only by a severe struggle 
 that she was able to keep the tears from welling into her 
 eyes. She seemed bursting with happiness, and she was 
 remembering many things all the warm promise of life 
 with Billy that had been hers in the days before hard 
 times. And now the promise was renewed again. Since 
 its fulfillment had not come to them, they were going away 
 to fulfill it for themselves and make the moving pictures 
 come true. 
 
 Impelled by a half-feigned fear, she stole away into the 
 kitchen bedroom where Bert had died, to study her face in
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 289 
 
 the bureau mirror. No, she decided; she was little 
 changed. She was still equipped for the battlefield of love. 
 Beautiful she was not. She knew that. But had not 
 Mercedes said that the great women of history who had 
 won men had not been beautiful? And yet, Saxon in- 
 sisted, as she gazed at her reflection, she was anything but 
 unlovely. She studied her wide gray eyes that were so 
 very gray, that were always alive with light and vivacities, 
 where, in the surface and depths, always swam thoughts 
 unuttered, thoughts that sank down and dissolved to give 
 place to other thoughts. The brows were excellent she 
 realized that. Slenderly penciled, a little darker than her 
 light brown hair, they just fitted her irregular nose that 
 was feminine but not weak, that if anything was piquant 
 and that picturesquely might be declared impudent. 
 
 She could see that her face was slightly thin, that the 
 red of her lips was not quite so red, and that she had 
 lost some of her quick coloring. But all that would come 
 back again. Her mouth was not of the rosebud type she 
 saw in the magazines. She paid particular attention to 
 it. A pleasant mouth it was, a mouth to be joyous with, 
 a mouth for laughter and to make laughter in others. 
 She deliberately experimented with it, smiled till the cor- 
 ners dented deeper. And she knew that when she smiled 
 her smile was provocative of smiles. She laughed with her 
 eyes alone a trick of hers. She threw back her head 
 and laughed with eyes and mouth together, between her 
 spread lips showing the even rows of strong white teeth. 
 
 And she remembered Billy's praise of her teeth, the 
 night at Germania Hall after he had told Charley Long 
 he was standing on his foot. ' ' Not big, and not little dinky 
 baby's teeth either," Billy had said, " ... just 
 right, and they fit you." Also, he had said that to look 
 at them made him hungry, and that they were good 
 enough to eat. 
 
 She recollected all the compliments he had ever paid 
 her. Beyond all treasures, these were treasures to her 
 the love phrases, praises, and admirations. He had said
 
 290 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 her skin was cool soft as velvet, too, and smooth as silk. 
 She rolled tip her sleeve to the shoulder, brushed her 
 cheek with the white skin for a test, with deep scrutiny 
 examined the fineness of its texture. And he had told 
 her that she was sweet; that he hadn't known what it 
 meant when they said a girl was sweet, not until he had 
 known her. And he had told her that her voice was 
 cool, that it gave him the feeling her hand did when it 
 rested on his forehead. Her voice went all through him, 
 he had said, cool and fine, like a wind of coolness. And he 
 had likened it to the first of the sea breeze setting in in 
 the afternoon after a scorching hot morning. And, also, 
 when she talked low, that it was round and sweet, like the 
 'cello in the Macdonough Theater orchestra. 
 
 He had called her his Tonic Kid. He had called her a 
 thoroughbred, clean-cut and spirited, all fine nerves and 
 delicate and sensitive. He had liked the way she carried 
 her clothes. She carried them like a dream, had been his 
 way of putting it. They were part of her, just as much as 
 the cool of her voice and skin and the scent of her hair. 
 
 And her figure! She got upon a chair and tilted the 
 mirror so that she could see herself from hips to feet. She 
 drew her skirt back and up. The slender ankle was just as 
 slender. The calf had lost none of its delicately mature 
 swell. She studied her hips, her waist, her bosom, her 
 neck, the poise of her head, and sighed contentedly. Billy 
 must beright, and he had said that she was built like a 
 French woman, and that in the matter of lines and form 
 she could give Annette Kellerman cards and spades. 
 
 He had said so many things, now that she recalled them 
 all at one time. Her lips! The Sunday he proposed he 
 had said : "I like to watch your lips talking. It 's funny, 
 but every move they make looks like a tickly kiss." And 
 afterward, that same day: "You looked good to me from 
 the first moment I spotted you." He had praised her 
 housekeeping. He had said he fed better, lived more com- 
 fortably, held up his end with the fellows, and saved 
 money. And she remembered that day when he had
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 291 
 
 crushed her in his arms and declared she was the greatest 
 little bit of a woman that had ever come down the pike. 
 
 She ran her eyes over all herself in the mirror again, 
 gathered herself together into a wiiole, compact and good 
 to look upon delicious, she knew. Yes, she would do. 
 Magnificent as Billy was in his man way, in her own way 
 she was a match for him. Yes, she had done well by 
 Billy. She deserved much all he could give her, the 
 best he could give her. But she made no blunder of ego- 
 tism. Frankly valuing herself, she as frankly valued 
 him. When he was himself, his real self, not harassed by 
 trouble, not pinched by the trap, not maddened by drink, 
 her man-boy and lover, he was well worth all she gave him 
 or could give him. 
 
 Saxon gave herself a farewell look. No. She was not 
 dead, any more than was Billy's love dead, than was her 
 love dead. All that was needed was the proper soil, and 
 their love would grow and blossom. And they were turn- 
 ing their backs upon Oakland to go and seek that proper 
 soil. 
 
 "Oh, Billy!" she called through the partition, still 
 standing on the chair, one hand tipping the mirror for- 
 ward and back, so that she was able to run her eyes from 
 the reflection of her ankles and calves to her face, warm 
 with color and roguishly alive. 
 
 "Yes?" she heard him answer. 
 
 "I'm. loving myself," she called back. 
 
 "What's the game?" came his puzzled query. "What 
 are you so stuck on yourself f or ! " 
 
 "Because you love me," she answered. "I love every 
 bit of me, Billy, because . . . because . . . well," 
 because you love every bit of me."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 BETWEEN feeding and caring for Billy, doing the house* 
 work, making plans, and selling her store of pretty needle- 
 work, the days flew happily for Saxon. Billy's consent to 
 sell her pretties had been hard to get, but at last she suc- 
 ceeded in coaxing it out of him. 
 
 "It's only the ones I haven't used," she urged; "and 
 I can always make more when we get settled somewhere." 
 
 What she did not sell, along with the household linen 
 and hers and Billy's spare clothing, she arranged to store 
 with Tom. 
 
 "Go ahead," Billy said. "This is your picnic. What 
 you say goes. You're Robinson Crusoe an' I'm your raan 
 Friday. Made up your mind yet which way you're goin' 
 to travel?" 
 
 Saxon shook her head. 
 
 "Or how?" 
 
 She held up one foot and then the other, encased in 
 stout walking shoes which she had begun that morning to 
 break in about the house. 
 
 "Shank's mare, eh?" 
 
 "It's the way our people came into the West," she said 
 proudly. 
 
 "It'll be regular trampin', though," he argued. "An 9 
 I never heard of a woman tramp. ' ' 
 
 "Then here's one. Why, Billy, there's no shame in 
 tramping. My mother tramped most of the way across 
 the Plains. And 'most everybody else's mother tramped 
 across in those days. I don't care what people will think. 
 I guess our race has been on the tramp since the beginning 
 of creation, just like we'll be, looking for a piece of land 
 that looked good to settle down on." 
 292
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 293 
 
 After a few days, when his scalp was sufficiently healed 
 and the bone-knitting was nicely in process, Billy was able 
 to be up and about. He was still quite helpless, however, 
 with both his arms in splints. 
 
 Doctor Hentley not only agreed, but himself suggested, 
 that his bill should wait against better times. *"" settle- 
 ment. Of government land, in response to Saxon w ^3?' 
 questioning, he knew nothing, except that he had a hazy 
 idea that the days of government land were over. 
 
 Tom, on the contrary, was confident that there waa 
 plenty of government land. He talked of Honey Lake, 
 of Shasta County, and of Humboldt. 
 
 "But you can't tackle it at this time of year, with 
 winter comin' on," he advised Saxon. "The thing for 
 you to do is head south for warmer weather say along 
 the coast. It don't snow down there. I tell you what 
 you do. Go down by San Jose and Salinas an' come out 
 on the coast at Monterey. South of that you'll find gov- 
 ernment land mixed up with forest reserves and Mexican 
 rancheros. It's pretty wild, without any roads to speak- 
 of. All they do is handle cattle. But there's some fine 
 redwood canyons, with good patches of farming ground, 
 that run right down to the ocean. I was talkin* last year 
 with a fellow that 's ben all through there. An ' I 'd a-gone, 
 like you an' Billy, only Sarah wouldn't hear of it. There's 
 gold down there, too. Quite a bunch is in there pros- 
 pectin', an' two or three good mines have opened. But 
 that's farther along and in a ways from the coast. You 
 might take a look." 
 
 Saxon shook her head. "We're not looking for gold but 
 for chickens and a place to grow vegetables. Our folks 
 had all the chance for gold in the early days, and what 
 have they got to show for it?" 
 
 "I guess you're right," Tom conceded. "They always 
 played too big a game, an' missed the thousand little 
 chances right under their nose. Look at your pa. I've 
 heard him tell of selling three Market street lots in San 
 Francisco for fifty dollars each. They're worth five hun-
 
 294 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 dred thousand right now. An' look at Uncle Will. He 
 had ranches till the cows come home. Satisfied ? No. He 
 wanted to be a cattle king, a regular Miller and Lux. An* 
 when he died he was a night watchman in Los Angeles 
 at forty dollars a month. There's a spirit of the times, an' 
 'the spirit of the times has changed. It's all big business 
 now, an' we're the small potatoes. Why, I've heard our 
 folks talk of livin' in the Western Reserve. That was all 
 around what's Ohio now. Anybody could get a farm 
 them days. All they had to do was yoke their oxen an' go 
 after it, an* the Pacific Ocean thousands of miles to the 
 west, an' all them thousands of miles an' millions of farms 
 just waitin' to be took up. A hundred an' sixty acres? 
 Shucks! In the early days in Oregon they talked six 
 hundred an' forty acres. 
 
 "That was the spirit of them times free land, an* 
 plenty of it. But when we reached the Pacific Ocean them 
 times was ended. Big business begun; an' big business 
 means big business men ; an ' every big business man means 
 thousands of little men without any business at all except 
 to work for the big ones. They're the losers, don't you 
 see? An' if they don't like it they can lump it, but it 
 won't do them no good. They can't yoke up their oxen 
 an' pull on. There's no place to pull on. China's over 
 there, an' in between 's a mighty lot of salt water that's 
 no good for farmin' purposes." 
 
 "That's all clear enough," Saxon commented. 
 
 "Yes," her brother went on. "We can all see it after 
 rit's happened, when it's too late." 
 
 "But the big men were smarter," Saxon remarked. 
 } ' ' They were luckier, ' ' Tom contended. ' ' Some won, but 
 most lost, an' just as good men lost. It was almost like 
 a lot of boys scramblin' on the sidewalk for a handful 
 of small change. Not that some didn't have far-seein'. 
 But just take your pa, for example. He come of good 
 Down East stock that's got business instinct an' can add 
 to what it's got. Now suppose your pa had developed a 
 weak heart, or got kidney disease, or caught rheumatism, so
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 295 
 
 he couldn't go gallivantin' an' rainbow chasin', an' fightin* 
 an' explorin' all over the West. Why, most likely 
 he'd a settled down in San Francisco he'd a-had to 
 an' held onto them three Market street lots, an' bought 
 more lots, of course, an' gone into steamboat companies, 
 an' stock gamblin', an' railroad buildin', an' Comstock- 
 tunnelin'. 
 
 "Why, he'd a-become big business himself. I know 'HL 
 He was the most energetic man I ever saw, think quick 
 as a wink, as cool as an icicle an' as wild as a Comanche. 
 Why, he'd a-cut a swath through th free an' easy big busi- 
 ness gamblers an' pirates of them days; just as he cut a 
 swath through the hearts of the ladies when he went gal- 
 lopin' past on that big horse of his, sword clatterin', spurs 
 jinglin', his long hair flyin', straight as an Indian, clean- 
 built an' graceful as a blue-eyed prince out of a fairy 
 book an' a Mexican caballero all rolled into one; just as 
 he cut a swath through the Johnny Rebs in Civil War 
 days, chargin' with his men all the way through an' back 
 again, an' yellin' like a wild Indian for more. Cady, that 
 helped raise you, told me about that. Cady rode with 
 your pa. 
 
 "Why, if your pa'd only got laid up in San Francisco, 
 he would a-ben one of the big men of the West. An' in 
 that case, right now, you'd be a rich young woman, trav- 
 elin' in Europe, with a mansion on Nob Hill along with 
 the Floods and Crockers, an' holdin' majority stock most 
 likely in the Fairmount Hotel an' a few little concerns 
 like it. An' why ain't you? Because your pa wasn't 
 smart? No. His mind was like a steel trap. It's because 
 he was filled to burstin' an' spillin' over with the spirit 
 of the times; because he was full of fire an' vinegar an* 
 couldn't set down in one place. That's all the difference 
 between you an' the young women right now in the Flood 
 and Crocker families. Your father didn't catch rheuma- 
 tism at the right time, that's all." 
 
 Saxon sighed, then smiled. 
 
 "Just the same, I've got them beaten," she said. "The
 
 296 THE VALLEY OP THE MOON 
 
 Miss Floods and Miss Oockers can't marry prizefighters, 
 and I did." 
 
 Tom looked at her, taken aback for the moment, with 
 admiration, slowly at first, growing in his face. 
 
 "Well, all I got to say," he enunciated solemnly, "is 
 that Billy's so lucky he don't know how lucky he is." 
 
 Not until Doctor Hentley gave the word did the splinta 
 come off Billy's arms, and Saxon insisted upon an addi- 
 tional two weeks' delay so that no risk would be run. 
 These two weeks would complete another month's rent, 
 and the landlord had agreed to wait payment for the last 
 two months until Billy was on his feet again. 
 
 Salinger's awaited the day set by Saxon for taking back 
 their furniture. Also, they had returned to Billy seventy' 
 five dollars. 
 
 "The rest you've paid will be rent," the collector told 
 Saxon. "And the furniture's second hand now, too. The 
 deal will be a loss to Salinger's, and they didn't have to 
 do it, either; you know that. So just remember they've 
 been pretty square with you, and if you start over again 
 don't forget them." 
 
 Out of this sum, and out of what was realized from 
 Saxon's pretties, they were able to pay all their 
 small bills and yet have a few dollars remaining in 
 pocket. 
 
 "I hate owin' things worse 'n poison," Billy said to 
 Saxon. "An' now we don't owe a soul in this world ex- 
 cept the landlord an' Doc Hentley." 
 
 "And neither of them can afford to wait longer than 
 J they have to," she said. 
 
 "And they won't," Billy answered quietly. 
 
 She smiled her approval, for she shared with Billy his 
 horror of debt, just as both shared it with that early tide 
 of pioneers with a Puritan ethic, which had settled the 
 West. 
 
 Saxon timed her opportunity when Billy was out of the 
 house to pack the chest of drawers which had crossed the
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 297 
 
 Atlantic by sailing ship and the Plains by ox team. She 
 kissed the bullet hole in it, made in the fight at Little 
 Meadow, as she kissed her father's sword, the while she 
 visioned him, as she always did, astride his roan war- 
 horse. With the old religious awe, she pored over her 
 mother's poems in the scrap-book, and clasped her moth- 
 er's red satin Spanish girdle about her in a farewell em- 
 brace. She unpacked the scrap-book in order to gaze a 
 last time at the wood engraving of the Vikings, sword in * 
 hand, leaping upon the English sands. Again she identi- 
 fied Billy as one of the Vikings, and pondered for a space 
 on the strange wanderings of the seed from which she 
 sprang. Always had her race been land-hungry, and she 
 took delight in believing she had bred true; for had not 
 she, despite her life passed in a city, found this same 
 land-hunger in her? And was she not going forth to sat- 
 isfy that hunger, just as her people of old time had done, 
 as her father and mother before her? She remembered 
 her mother's tale of how the promised land looked to them 
 as their battered wagons and weary oxen dropped down 
 through the early winter snows of the Sierras to the vast 
 and flowering sun-land of California. In fancy, herself 
 a child of nine, she looked down from the snowy heights 
 as her mother must have looked down. She recalled and 
 repeated aloud one of her mother's stanzas: 
 
 " 'Sweet as a wind-lute's airy strains 
 
 Your gentle muse has learned to sing, 
 And California's boundless plains 
 Prolong the soft notes echoing.' ' 
 
 She sighed happily and dried her eyes. Perhaps the 
 hard times were past. Perhaps they had constituted her 
 Plains, and she and Billy had won safely across and were 
 even then climbing the Sierras ere they dropped down into 
 the pleasant valley land. 
 
 Salinger's wagon was at the house, taking out the fur- 
 niture, the morning they left. The landlord, standing at
 
 298 tfHE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 the gate, received the keys, shook hands with them, and 
 wished them luck. 
 
 "You're goin' at it right," he congratulated them. 
 "Sure an' wasn't it under me roll of blankets I tramped 
 into Oakland meself forty year ago? Buy land, like me, 
 when it's cheap. It'll keep you from the poorhouse in 
 your old age. There's plenty of new towns springin' up. 
 Get in on the ground floor. The work of your hands 11 
 keep you in food an' under a roof, an' the land '11 make 
 you well to do. An' you know me address. "When you 
 can spare send me along that small bit of rent. An' good 
 luck. An' don't mind what people think. 'Tie them that 
 looks that finds. ' ' 
 
 Curious neighbors peeped from behind the blinds as 
 Billy and Saxon strode up the street, while the children 
 gazed at them in gaping astonishment. On Billy's back, 
 inside a painted canvas tarpaulin, was slung the roll of 
 bedding. Inside the roll were changes of underclothing 
 and odds and ends of necessaries. Outside, from the lash- 
 ings, depended a frying pan and cooking pail. In his hand 
 he carried the coffee pot. Saxon carried a small telescope 
 basket protected by black oilcloth, and across her back was 
 the tiny ukulele case. 
 
 "We must look like holy frights," Billy grumbled, 
 shrinking from every gaze that was bent upon him. 
 
 "It'd be all right, if we were going camping," Saxon 
 consoled. 
 
 "Only we're not." 
 
 * ' But they don 't know that, ' ' she continued. " It 's only 
 you know that, and what you think they're thinking isn't 
 what they're thinking at all. Most probably they think 
 we're going camping. And the best of it is we are going 
 camping. We are! We are!" 
 
 At this Billy cheered up, though he muttered his firm 
 intention to knock the block off of any guy that got fresh. 
 He stole a glance at Saxon. Her cheeks were red, her 
 eyes glowing. 
 
 "Say," he said suddenly. "I seen an opera once, where
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 299 
 
 fellows wandered over the country with guitars slung on 
 their backs just like you with that strummy-strum. You 
 made me think of them. They was always singin' songs." 
 
 "That's what I brought it along for," Saxon answered. 
 "And when we go down country roads we'll sing as we 
 go along, and we'll sing by the campfires, too. We're going 
 ! camping, that's all. Taking a vacation and seeing the 
 country. So why shouldn't we have a good time? Why, 
 we don't even know where we're going to sleep to-night, 
 or any night. Think of the fun!" 
 
 "It's a sporting proposition all right, all right," Billy 
 considered. "But, just the same, let's turn off an* go 
 around the block. There's some fellows I know, standin' 
 ap there on the next corner, an' I don I want to knock 
 *heir blocks off."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOOJii 
 BOOK III
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE electric car ran as far as Hay wards, but at Saxon's 
 suggestion they got off at San Leandro. 
 
 "It doesn't matter where we start walking," she said, 
 "for start to walk somewhere we must. And as we're 
 looking for land and finding out about land, the quicker 
 we begin to investigate the better. Besides, we want to 
 know all about all kinds of land, close to the big cities as 
 well as back in the mountains." 
 
 "Gee! this must be the Porchugeeze headquarters," 
 was Billy's reiterated comment, as they walked through 
 San Leandro. 
 
 "It looks as though they'd crowd our kind out," Saxon 
 adjudged. 
 
 "Some tall crowdin', I guess," Billy grumbled. "It 
 looks like the free-born American ain't got no room left 
 in his own land." 
 
 "Then it's his own fault," Saxon said, with vague as- 
 perity, resenting conditions she was just beginning to 
 grasp. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know about that. I reckon the American 
 could do what the Porchugeeze do if he wanted to. Only 
 I he don't want to, thank God. He ain't much given to 
 livin' like a pig off en leavin's. " 
 
 "Not in the country, maybe," Saxon controverted. 
 "But I've seen an awful lot of Americans living like pigs 
 in the cities." 
 
 Billy grunted unwilling assent. "I guess they quit the 
 farms an' go to the city Jor something better, an' get it 
 in the neck." 
 
 "Look at all the children!" Saxon cried. "School's 
 letting out. And nearly all are Portuguese, Billy, not 
 Porchugeeze. Mercedes taught me the right way."
 
 304 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "They never wore glad rags like them in the old coun< 
 try," Billy sneered. "They had to come over here to get 
 decent clothes and decent grub. They're as fat as butter- 
 balls." 
 
 Saxon nodded affirmation, and a great light seemed 
 suddenly to kindle in her understanding. 
 
 "That's the very point, Billy. They're doing it doing 
 it farming, too. Strikes don't bother them." 
 
 "You don't call that dinky gardenin' farming," he ob- 
 jected, pointing to a piece of land barely the size of an 
 acre, which they were passing. 
 
 "Oh, your ideas are still big," she laughed. "You're 
 like Uncle Will, who owned thousands of acres and wanted 
 to own a million, and who wound up as night watchman. 
 That's what was the trouble with all us Americans. 
 Everything large scale. Anything less than one hundred 
 and sixty acres was small scale." 
 
 "Just the same," Billy held stubbornly, "large scale's 
 a whole lot better 'n small scale like all these dinky gar- 
 dens." 
 
 Saxon sighed. 
 
 "I don't know which is the dinkier," she observed 
 
 finally, " owning a few little acres and the team you're 
 
 driving, or not owning any acres and driving a team 
 somebody else owns for wages." 
 
 Billy winced. 
 
 "Go on, Robinson Crusoe," he growled good naturedly. 
 "Rub it in good an' plenty. An' the worst of it is it's 
 correct. A hell of a free-born American I've been, a- 
 drivin' other folkses' teams for a livin', a-strikin' and 
 a-sluggin' scabs, an' not bein' able to keep up with the 
 installments for a few sticks of furniture. Just the same 
 I was sorry for one thing. I hated worse 'n Sam Hill to 
 see that Morris chair go back you liked it so. We did 
 a lot of honeymoonin' in that chair." 
 
 They were well out of San Leandro, walking through 
 a region of tiny holdings ' ' f armlets, ' ' Billy called them ; 
 and Saxon got out her ukulele to cheer him with a song.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 30$ 
 
 First, it was "Treat my daughter kind-i-ly," and then 
 she swung into old-fashioned darky camp-meeting hymns, 
 beginning with: 
 
 "Oh! de Judgmen' Day am rollin' roun% 
 
 Eollin', yes, a-rollin', 
 I hear the trumpets' awful soun', 
 Eollin', yes, a-rollin'." 
 
 A big touring car, dashing past, threw a dusty pause 
 in her singing, and Saxon delivered herself of her latest 
 wisdom. 
 
 "Now, Billy, remember we're not going to take up with 
 the first piece of land we see. "We've got to go into this 
 with our eyes open " 
 
 "An' they ain't open yet," he agreed. 
 
 "And we've got to get them open. * 'Tis them that 
 looks that finds. ' There 's lots of time to learn things. We 
 don't care if it takes months and months. We're foot- 
 loose. A good start is better than a dozen bad ones. We Ve 
 got to talk and find out. We'll talk with everybody we 
 meet. Ask questions. Ask everybody. It's the only way 
 to find out." 
 
 "I ain't much of a hand at askin' questions," Billy de- 
 murred. 
 
 'Then I'll ask," she cried. "We've got to win out at 
 this game, and the way is to know. Look at all these 
 Portuguese. Where are all the Americans? They owned 
 the land first, after the Mexicans. What made the Amer- 
 icans clear out? How do the Portuguese make it go? 
 Don't you see. We've got to ask millions of questions." 
 
 She strummed a few chords, and then her clear sweet 
 roice rang out gaily: 
 
 "I's gwine back to Dixie, 
 I's gwine back to Dixie, 
 I 's gwine where de orange blossoms grow, 
 For I hear de chillun callin', 
 I see de sad tears fallin' 
 My heart's turned back to Dixie, 
 An' I mus' go."
 
 306 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 She broke off to exclaim: "Oh! "What a lovely place! 
 See that arbor just covered with grapes!" 
 
 Again and again she was attracted by the small places 
 they passed. Now it was: "Look at the flowers!" or: 
 "My! those vegetables!" or: "See! They've got a cow!" 
 
 Men Americans driving along in buggies or run- 
 abouts looked at Saxon and Billy curiously. This Saxon 
 could brook far easier than could Billy, who would mut- 
 ter and grumble deep in his throat. 
 
 Beside the road they came upon a lineman eating his 
 lunch. 
 
 "Stop and talk," Saxon whispered. 
 
 "Aw, what's the good? He's a lineman. What'd he 
 know about farmin'?" 
 
 "You never can tell. He's our kind. Go ahead, Billy. 
 You just speak to him. He isn't working now anyway, 
 and he'll be more likely to talk. See that tree in there, 
 just inside the gate, and the way the branches are grown 
 together. It's a curiosity. Ask him about it. That's a 
 good way to get started." 
 
 Billy stopped, when they were alongside. 
 
 "How do you do," he said gruffly. 
 
 The lineman, a young fellow, paused in the cracking 
 of a hard-boiled egg to stare up at the couple. 
 
 "How do you do," he said. 
 
 Billy swung his pack from his shoulders to the ground, 
 and Saxon rested her telescope basket. 
 
 "Peddlin'?" the young man asked, too discreet to put 
 his question directly to Saxon, yet dividing it between 1 
 her and Billy, and cocking his eye at the covered basket. 
 
 "No," she spoke up quickly. "We're looking for land. 
 Do you know of any around here?" 
 
 Again he desisted from the egg, studying them with 
 sharp eyes as if to fathom their financial status. 
 
 "Do you know what land sells for around here?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "No," Saxon answered. "Do you?"' 
 
 "I guess I ought to. I was born here. And land like
 
 THE GALLEY OF THE MOON 307 
 
 this all around you runs at from two to three hundred to 
 four an' five hundred dollars an acre." 
 
 "Whew!" Billy whistled. "I guess we don't want 
 none of it." 
 
 ' ' But what makes it that high ? Town lots ? ' ' Saxon 
 
 wanted to know. 
 
 "Nope. The Porchugeeze make it that high, I guess." 
 
 "I thought it was pretty good land that fetched a hun- 
 dred an acre," Billy said. 
 
 "Oh, them times is past. They used to give away land 
 once, an' if you was good, throw in all the cattle runnin' 
 on it." 
 
 ' ' How about government land around here ? ' ' was Billy 's 
 next query. 
 
 "Ain't none, an' never was. This was old Mexican 
 grants. My grandfather bought sixteen hundred of the 
 best acres around here for fifteen hundred dollars five 
 hundred down an' the balance in five years without inter- 
 est. But that was in the early days. He come West in 
 '48, try in' to find a country without chills an' fever." 
 
 "He found it all right," said Billy. 
 
 "You bet he did. An' if him. an' father 'd held onto the 
 land it'd ben better than a gold mine, an' I wouldn't be 
 workin' for a livin'. What's your business?" 
 
 "Teamster." 
 
 "Ben in the strike in Oakland?" 
 
 "Sure thing. I've teamed there most of my life." 
 
 Here the two men wandered off into a discussion of 
 union affairs and the strike situation; but Saxon refused 
 to be balked, and brought back the talk to the land. 
 
 "How was it the Portuguese ran up the price of land?" 
 she asked. 
 
 The young- fellow broke away from union matters with 
 an effort, and for a moment regarded her with lack luster 
 eyes, until the question sank into his consciousness. 
 
 "Because they worked the land overtime. Because they 
 worked mornin', noon, an' night, all hands, women an' 
 kids. Because they could get more out of twenty acres
 
 308 THE Y ALLEY OF TEE MOON 
 
 than we could out of a hundred an' sixty. Look at eld 
 Silva Antonio Silva. I've known him ever since I was 
 a shaver. He didn't have the price of a square meal when 
 he hit this section and begun leasin' land from my folks. 
 Look at him now worth two hundred an' fifty thousan' 
 cold, an' I bet he's got credit for a million, an' there's 
 no tellin' what the rest of his family owns." 
 
 ' ' And he made all that out of your folks ' land ? ' ' Saxon 
 demanded. 
 
 The young man nodded his head with evident reluctance. 
 
 "Then why didn't your folks do it?" she pursued. 
 
 The lineman shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Search me," he said. 
 
 "But the money was in the land," she persisted. 
 
 "Blamed if it was," came the retort, tinged slightly 
 with color. "We never saw it stickin' out so as you could 
 notice it. The money was in the heads of the Porchu/ 
 geeze, I guess. They knew a few more'n we did, that's 
 all" 
 
 !5axon showed such dissatisfaction with his explanation 
 that he was stung to action. He got up wrathfully. 
 
 "Come on, an' I'll show you," he said. "I'll show 
 you why I'm workin' for wages when I might a-ben a 
 millionaire if my folks hadn't ben mutts. That's what 
 we old Americans are, Mutts, with a capital M." 
 
 He led them inside the gate, to the fruit tree that had 
 first attracted Saxon's attention. From the main crotch 
 diverged the four main branches of the tree. Two feet 
 above the crotch the branches were connected, each to 
 the ones on both sides, by braces of living wood. 
 
 "You think it gro wed that way. eh? Well, it did. But 
 it was old Silva that made it just the same caught two 
 sprouts, when the tree was young, an' twisted 'em together. 
 Pretty slick, eh? You bet. That tree '11 never blow down. 
 It's a natural, springy brace, an' beats iron braces stiff. 
 Look along all the rows. Every tree's that way. See? 
 An' that's just one trick of the Porohugeeze. They got 
 a million like it.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 3C9 
 
 "Figure it out for yourself. They don't need props 
 when the crop's heavy. Why, when we had a heavy crop, 
 we used to use five props to a tree. Now take ten acres 
 of trees. That'd be some several thousan' props. "Which 
 cost money, an' labor to put in an' take out every year. 
 These here natural braces don't have to have a thing 
 done. They're Johnny-on-the-spot all the time. Why, 
 the Porchugeeze has got us skinned a mile. Come on, 
 I'll show you." 
 
 Billy, with city notions of trespass, betrayed pertur- 
 bation at the freedom they were making of the little farm. 
 
 "Oh, it's all right, as long as you don't step on nothin'," 
 the lineman reassured him. "Besides, my grandfather 
 used to own this. They know me. Forty years ago old 
 Silva come from the Azores. Went sheep-herdin' in the 
 mountains for a couple of years, then blew in to San 
 Leandro. These five acres was the first land he leased. 
 That wae the beginnin'. Then he began leasin' by the 
 hundreds of acres, an' by the hundred-an '-sixties. An' 
 his sisters an' his uncles an' his aunts begun pourin' in 
 from the Azores they're all related there, you know; an' 
 pretty soon San Leandro was a regular Porchugeeze set- 
 tlement. 
 
 ' ' An ' old Silva wound up by buyin ' these five acres from 
 grandfather. Pretty soon an' father by that time was 
 in the hole to the neck he was buyin' father's land by 
 the hundred-an '-sixties. An' all the rest of his relations 
 was doin' the same thing. Father was always gettin' rich 
 quick, an' he wound up by dyin' in debt. But old Silva 
 never overlooked a bet, no matter how dinky. An' all the 
 rest are just like him. You see outside the fence there, 
 clear to the wheel-tracks in the road horse-beans. "We'd 
 a-scorned to do a picayune thing like that. Not Silva. 
 Why he's got a town house in San Leandro now. An' 
 he rides around in a four-thousan '-dollar tourin' car. An' 
 just the same his front door yard grows onions clear to 
 the sidewalk. He clears three hundred a year on that 
 patch alone. I know ten acres of land he bought last
 
 310 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 year a thousan' an acre they asked 'm, an' he never bat- 
 ted an eye. He knew it was worth it, that's all. He knew 
 he could make it pay. Back in the hills, there, he's got a 
 ranch of five hundred an' eighty acres, bought it dirt 
 cheap, too; an' I want to tell you I could travel around 
 in a different tourin' car every day in the week just outa 
 the profits he makes on that ranch from the horses all 
 the way from heavy draughts to fancy steppers. 
 
 "But how ? how ? how did he get it all?" Saxon 
 clamored. 
 
 "By bein' wise to farmin'. Why, the whole blame fam- 
 ily works. They ain't ashamed to roll up their sleeves 
 an' dig sons an' daughters an' daughter-in-laws, old man, 
 old woman, an' the babies. They have a sayin' that a kid 
 four years old that can't pasture one cow on the county 
 road an' keep it fat ain't worth his salt. Why, the Silvas, 
 the whole tribe of 'em, works a hundred acres in peas, 
 eighty in tomatoes, thirty in asparagus, ten in pie-plant, 
 forty in cucumbers, an' oh, stacks of other things." 
 
 "But how do they do it?" Saxon continued to demand. 
 "We've never been ashamed to work. We've worked 
 hard all our lives. I can out-work any Portuguese woman 
 ever born. And I Ve done it, too, in the jute mills. There 
 were lots of Portuguese girls working at the looms all 
 around me, and I could out-weave them, every day, and 
 I did, too. It isn't a case of work. What is it?" 
 
 The lineman looked at her in a troubled way. 
 
 "Many's the time I've asked myself that same ques- 
 tion. 'We're better 'n these cheap emigrants,' I'd say to 
 myself. 'We was here first, an' owned the land. I can 
 lick any Dago that ever hatched in the Azores. I got 
 a better education. Then how in thunder do they put it 
 all over us, get our land, an' start accounts in the banks?' 
 An' the only answer I know is that we ain't got the 
 sabe. We don't use our head-pieces right. Something's 
 wrong with us. Anyway, we wasn't wised up to farming. 
 We played at it. Show you? That's what I brung you 
 In for the way old Silva an' all his tribe farms. Look
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 31l 
 
 at this place. Some cousin of his, just out from the Azores, 
 is makin' a start on it, an' payin' good rent to Silva. 
 Pretty soon he'll be up to snuff an' buyin' land for himself 
 from some perishin' American farmer. 
 
 "Look at that though you ought to see it in summer. 
 Not an inch wasted. Where we got one thin crop, they 
 get four fat crops. An' look at the way they crowd it 
 currants between the tree rows, beans between the cur- 
 rant rows, a row of beans close on each side of the trees, 
 an' rows of beans along the ends of the tree rows. "Why, 
 Silva wouldn't sell these five acres for five hundred an 
 acre cash down. He gave grandfather fifty an acre for 
 it on long time, an' here am I, workin' for the telephone 
 company an' puttin' in a telephone for old Silva 's cousin 
 from the Azores that can't speak American yet. 
 
 "Horse-beans along the road say, when Silva swung 
 that trick he made more outa fattenin' hogs with 'em 
 than grandfather made with all his farmin'. Grandfather 
 stuck up his nose at horse-beans. He died with it stuck 
 up, an' with more mortgages on the land he had left than 
 
 you could shake a stick at. Plantin' tomatoes wrapped 
 
 up in wrappin' paper ever heard of that? Father 
 snorted when he first seen the Porchugeeze doin' it. An' 
 he went on snortin'. Just the same they got bumper 
 crops, an ' father 's house-patch of tomatoes was eaten fey the 
 black beetles. We ain't got the sabe, or the knack, or some- 
 thing or other. Just look at this piece of ground four 
 crops a year, an' every inch of soil workin' over time. 
 Why, back in town there, there's single acres that earns 
 more than fifty of ours in the old days. The Porchugeez* 
 is natural-born farmers, that's all, an' we don't kno\? 
 nothin' about farmin' an' never did." 
 
 Saxon talked with the lineman, following him about, 
 till one o'clock, when he looked at his watch, said good 
 bye, and returned to his task of putting in a telephone 
 for the latest immigrant from the Azores. 
 
 When in town, Saxon carried her oilcloth-wrapped tel- 
 escope in her hand; but it was so arranged with loops,
 
 312 THE VALLEY 0* THE MOON 
 
 that, once on the road, she could thrust her arms through 
 the loops and carry it on her back. When she did this, 
 the tiny ukulele case was shifted so that it hung under 
 her left arm. 
 
 A mile on from the lineman, they stopped where a small 
 creek, fringed with brnsh, crossed the county road. Billy 
 was for the cold lunch, which was the last meal Saxon 
 had prepared in the Pine street cottage; but she was de- 
 termined upon building a fire and boiling coffee. Not 
 that she desired it for herself, but that she was impressed 
 with the idea that everything at the starting of their 
 strange wandering must be as comfortable as possible for 
 Billy's sake. Bent on inspiring him with enthusiasm 
 equal to her own, she declined to dampen what sparks 
 "he had caugtit by anything so uncheerful as a cold 
 meal. 
 
 "Now one thing we want to get out of our heads right 
 at the start, Billy, is that we're in a hurry. We're not in 
 a hurry, and we don't care whether school keeps or not. 
 We're out to have a good time, a regular adventure like 
 
 you read about in books. My! I wish that boy that 
 
 took me fishing to Goat Island could see me now. Oak- 
 land was just a place to start from, he said. And, well, 
 we've started, haven't we? And right hare's where we 
 stop and boil coffee. You get the fire going, Billy, and I'll 
 get the water and the things ready to spread out.*' 
 
 ' ' Say, ' ' Billy remarked, while they waited for the water 
 to boil, " d'ye know what this reminds me of?" 
 
 Saxon was certain she did know, but she shook her 
 iiead. She wanted to hear him say it. 
 
 "Why, the second Sunday I knew you, when we drove 
 out to Moraga Valley behind Prince and King. You 
 spread the lunch that day." 
 
 "Only it was a more scrumptious lunch," she added, 
 with a happy smile. 
 
 "But I wonder why we didn't have coffee that day," he 
 Went on. 
 
 "Perhaps it would have ben too much like housekeep-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 313 
 
 ing," she laughed; "kind of what Mary would call in- 
 delicate " 
 
 "Or raw," Billy interpolated. "She was always spring- 
 in' that word." 
 
 "And yet look what became of her." 
 
 "That's the way with all of them," Billy growled som- 
 berly. "I've always noticed it's the fastidious, la-de-da 
 ones that turn out the rottenest. They 're like some horsea 
 I know, a-shyin' at the things they're the least afraid of." 
 
 Saxon was silent, oppressed by a sadness, vague and 
 remote, which the mention of Bert's widow had served 
 to bring on. 
 
 "I know something else that happened that day which 
 you'd never guess," Billy reminisced. "I bet you 
 couldn't." 
 
 "I wonder," Saxon murmured, and guessed it with 
 her eyes. 
 
 Billy's eyes answered, and quite spontaneously he 
 reached over, caught her hand, and pressed it caressingly 
 to his cheek. 
 
 "It's little, but oh my," he said, addressing the impris- 
 oned hand. Then he gazed at Saxon, and she warmed 
 with his words. "We're beginnin' courtin' all over again, 
 ain't we?" 
 
 Both ate heartily, and Billy was guilty of three cups 
 of coffee. 
 
 "Say, this country air gives some appetite," he mum 
 bled, as he sank his teeth into his fifth bread-and-meat 
 sandwich. "I could eat a horse, an' drown his head off 
 in coffee afterward." 
 
 Saxon's mind had reverted to all the young lineman had 
 told her, and she completed a sort of general resume of the 
 information. 
 
 "My!" she exclaimed, "but we've learned a lot!" 
 
 "An' we've sure learned one thing," Billy said. "An* 
 that is that this is no place for us, with land a thousan' 
 an acre an' only twenty dollars in our pockets." 
 
 "Oh, we're not going to stop here," she hastened to sav.
 
 314 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "But just the same it's the Portuguese that gave it its 
 price, and they make things go on it send their chil- 
 dren to school . . . and have them; and, as you said 
 yourself, they're as fat as butterballs. " 
 
 "An* I take my hat off to them," Billy responded. 
 "But all the same, I'd sooner have forty acres at a hun- 
 dred an acre than four at a thousan' an acre. Somehow, 
 you know, I'd be scared stiff on four acres scared of 
 fallin' off, you know." 
 
 She was in full sympathy with him. In her heart of 
 hearts the forty acres tugged much the harder. In her 
 way, allowing for the difference of a generation, her de- 
 sire for spaciousness was as strong as her Uncle Will's. 
 
 "Well, we're not going to stop here," she assured Billy. 
 "We're going in, not for forty acres, but for a hundred 
 and sixty acres free from the government." 
 
 "An' I guess the government owes it to us for what 
 our fathers an' mothers done. I tell you, Saxon, when 
 a woman walks across the plains like your mother done, 
 an' a man an' wife gets massacred by the Indians like 
 my grandfather an' mother done, the government does 
 owe them something." 
 
 "Well, it's up to us to collect." 
 
 "An* well collect all right, all right, somewhere down 
 in them redwood mountains south of Monter^."
 
 CHAPTER Li 
 
 IT was a good afternoon's tramp to Niles, passing 
 through the town of Haywards ; yet Saxon and Billy 
 found time to diverge from the main county road and 
 take the parallel roads through acres of intense cultiva- 
 tion where the land was farmed to the wheel-tracks. Saxon 
 looked with amazement at these small, brown-skinned im- 
 migrants who came to the soil with nothing and yet made 
 the soil pay for itself to the tune of two hundred, of 
 five hundred, and of a thousand dollars an acre. 
 
 On every hand was activity. Women and children wer& 
 in the fields as well as men. The land was turned end- 
 lessly over and over. They seemed never to let it rest. 
 And it rewarded them. It must reward them, or their 
 children would not be able to go to school, nor would 
 so many of them be able to drive by in rattletrap, second- 
 hand buggies or in stout light wagons. 
 
 "Look at their faces," Saxon said. "They are happy 
 and contented. They haven't faces like the people in 
 our neighborhood after the strikes began." 
 
 "Oh, sure, they got a good thing," Billy agreed. "You 
 can see it stickin' out all over them. But they needn't 
 get chesty with me, I can tell you that much just because 
 they've jiggerrooed us out of our land an' everything." 
 
 "But they're not showing any signs of chestiness," 
 Saxon demurred. 
 
 "No, they're not, come to think of it. All the same, 
 they ain't so wise. I bet I could tell 'em a few about 
 horses. ' ' 
 
 It was sunset when they entered the little town of Niles. 
 Billy, who had been silent for the last half mile, hesi- 
 tantly ventured a suggestion 
 
 a**
 
 316 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Say ... I could put up for a room in the hotel 
 just as well as not. What d'ye think?" 
 
 But Saxon shook her head emphatically. 
 
 "How long do you think our twenty dollars will last 
 at that rate? Besides, the only way to begin is to begin 
 ffl the beginning. We didn't plan sleeping in hotels." 
 
 "All right," he gave in. "I'm game. I was just 
 thinkin* about you." 
 
 "Then you'd better think I'm game, too," she flashed 
 forgivingly. "And now we'll have to see about getting 
 things for supper." 
 
 They bought a round steak, potatoes, onions, and a dozen 
 eating apples, then went out from the town to the fringe 
 of trees and brush that advertised a creek. Beside the 
 trees, on a sand bank, they pitched camp. Plenty of dry 
 wood lay about, and Billy whistled genially while he 
 gathered and chopped. Saxon, keen to follow his every 
 mood, was cheered by the atrocious discord on his lips. 
 She smiled to herself as she spread the blankets, with 
 the tarpaulin underneath, for a table, having first removed 
 all twigs from the sand. She had much to learn in the 
 matter of cooking over a camp-fire, and made fair prog- 
 ress, discovering, first of all, that control of the fire 
 meant far more than the size of it. When the coffee was 
 boiled, she settled the grounds with a part-cup of cold 
 water and placed the pot on the edge of the coals where 
 it would keep hot and yet not boil. She fried potato 
 dollars and onions in the same pan, but separately, and 
 set them on top of the coffee pot in the tin plate she 
 was to eat from, covering it with Billy's inverted plate. 
 On the dry hot pan, in the way that delighted Billy, she 
 fried the steak. This completed, and while Billy poured 
 the coffee, she served the steak, putting the dollars and 
 onions back into the frying pan for a moment to make 
 them piping hot again. 
 
 "What more d'ye want than this?" Billy challenged 
 with deep-toned satisfaction, in the pause after his final 
 eup of coffee, while he rolled a cigarette. He lay on
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 317 
 
 his side, full length, resting on his elbow. The fire was 
 burning brightly, and Saxon's color was heightened by 
 the flickering flames. "Now our folks, when they was 
 on the move, had to be afraid for Indians, and wild 
 animals and all sorts of things; an' here we are, as safe 
 as bugs in a rug. Take this sand. What better bed 
 could you ask? Soft as feathers. Say you look good 
 to me, heap little squaw. I bet you don't look an inch 
 over sixteen right now, Mrs. Babe-in-the-Woods. " 
 
 "Don't I?" she glowed, with a flirt of the head side- 
 ward and a white flash of teeth. "If you weren't smok- 
 ing a cigarette I'd ask you if your mother knew you're 
 out, Mr. Babe-in-the-Sandbank. " 
 
 "Say," he began, with transparently feigned serious 
 ness. "I want to ask you something, if you don't mind. 
 Now, of course, I don't want to hurt your feelin's or 
 nothin', but just the same there's something important 
 I'd like to know." 
 
 "Well, what is it?" she inquired, after a fruitless wait. 
 
 "Well, it's just this, Saxon. I like you like anything 
 an ' all that, but here 's night come on, an ' we 're a thousand 
 miles from anywhere, and well, what I wanta know is: 
 are we really an' truly married, you an' me?" 
 
 "Really and truly," she assured him. "Why?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing; but I'd kind a-forgotten, an' I was get- 
 tin' embarrassed, you know, because if we wasn't, seein' 
 the way I was brought up, this'd be no place " 
 
 "That will do you," she said severely. "And this is 
 just the time and place for you to get in the firewood 
 for morning while I wash up the dishes and put the 
 kitchen in order." 
 
 He started to obey, but paused to throw his arm about 
 her and draw her close. Neither spoke, but when he went 
 his way Saxon 's breast was fluttering and a song of thanks- 
 giving breathed on her lips. 
 
 The night had come on, dim with the light of faint 
 stars. But these had disappeared behind clouds that seemed 
 to have arisen from nowhere. It was the beginning of Cali-
 
 318 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 fornia Indian summer. The air was warm, with just the 
 first hint of evening chill, and there was no wind. 
 
 "I've a feeling as if we've just started to live," Saxon 
 said, when Billy, his firewood collected, joined her on the 
 blankets before the fire. "I've learned more to-day than 
 ten years in Oakland." She drew a long breath and 
 braced her shoulders. "Farming's a bigger subject than 
 I thought." 
 
 Billy said nothing. With steady eyes he was staring 
 into the fire, and she knew he was turning something 
 over in his mind. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked, when she saw he had reached 
 a conclusion, at the same time resting her hand on the 
 back of his. 
 
 "Just ben framin' up that ranch of ourn," he an- 
 swered. "It's all well enough, these dinky f armlets. 
 They'll do for foreigners. But we Americans just gotta 
 have room. I want to be able to look at a hilltop an' 
 know it 's my land, and know it 's my land down the other 
 side an' up the next hilltop, an' know that over beyond 
 that, down alongside some creek, my mares are most likely 
 grazin', an' their little colts grazin' with 'em or kickin* 
 up their heels. You know, there 's money in raisin ' horses 
 especially the big workhorses that run to eighteen hun- 
 dred an' two thousand pounds. They're payin' for 'em, 
 in the cities, every day in the year, seven an' eight hun- 
 dred a pair, matched geldings, four years old. Good 
 pasture an' plenty of it, in this kind of a climate, is 
 ,all they need, along with some sort of shelter an' a little 
 hay in long spells of bad weather. I never thought of 
 it before, but let me tell you that this ranch proposition 
 is beginnin' to look good to me." 
 
 Saxon was all excitement. Here was new information 
 on the cherished subject, and, best of all, Billy was the 
 authority. Still better, he was taking an interest him- 
 self. 
 
 "There'll be room for that and for everything on a 
 quarter section, ' ' she encouraged.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 319 
 
 "Sure thing. Around the house we'll have vegetables 
 an' fruit and chickens an' everything, just like the Por- 
 chugeeze, an' plenty of room beside to walk around an' 
 range the horses." 
 
 "But won't the colts cost money, Billy?" 
 
 "Not much. The cobblestones eat horses up fast. That's 
 where I'll get my brood mares, from the ones knocked 
 out by the city. I know that end of it. They sell 'em at 
 auction, an' they're good for years an' years, only no 
 good on the cobbles any more." 
 
 There ensued a long pause. In the dying fire both were 
 busy visioning the farm to be. 
 
 "It's pretty still, ain't it?" Billy said, rousing him- 
 self at last. He gazed about him. "An' black as a stack 
 of black cats. ' ' He shivered, buttoned his coat, and tossed 
 several sticks on the fire. "Just the same, it's the best 
 kind of a climate in the world. Many's the time, when 
 I was a little kid, I've heard my father brag about Cali- 
 fornia's bein' a blanket climate. He went East, once, an' 
 staid a summer an' a winter, an' got all he wanted. 
 Never again for him." 
 
 "My mother said there never was such a land for cli- 
 mate. How wonderful it must have seemed to them after 
 crossing the deserts and mountains. They called it the 
 land of milk and honey. The ground was so rich that 
 all they needed to do was scratch it, Cady used to say." 
 
 "And wild game everywhere," Billy contributed. "Mr. 
 Roberts, the one that adopted my father, he drove cattle 
 from the San Joaquin to the Columbia river. He had 
 forty men helpin' him, an' all they took along was pow- 
 der an' salt. They lived off the game they shot." 
 
 "The hills were full of deer, and my mother saw whole 
 herds of elk around Santa Rosa. Some time we'll go 
 there. Billy. I've always wanted to." 
 
 "And when my father was a young man, somewhere 
 up north of Sacramento, in a creek called Cache Slough, 
 the tules was full of grizzlies. He used to go in an' shoot 
 'em. An' when they caught 'em in the open, he an*
 
 320 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 the Mexicans used to ride up an' rope them catch them 
 with lariats, you know. He said a horse that wasn't afraid 
 of grizzlies fetched ten times as much as any other horse. 
 An' panthers! all the old folks called 'em painters 
 an' catamounts an' varmints. Yes, we'll go to Santa 
 Rosa some time. Maybe we won't like that laud down 
 the coast, an' have to keep on hikin'." 
 
 By this time the fire had died down, and Saxon had 
 finished brushing and braiding her hair. Their bed-going 
 preliminaries were simple, and in a few minutes they 
 were side by side under the blankets. Saxon closed her 
 eyes, but could not sleep. On the contrary, she had never 
 been more wide awake. She had never slept out of doors 
 in her life, and by no exertion of will could she overcome 
 the strangeness of it. In addition, she was stiffened from 
 the long trudge, and the sand, to her surprise, was any- 
 thing but soft. An hour passed. She tried to believe that 
 Billy was asleep, but felt certain he was not. The sharp 
 crackle of a dying ember startled her. She was confident 
 that Billy had moved slightly. 
 
 "Billy," she whispered, "are you awake?" 
 
 "Yep," came his low answer, " an' thinkin' this sand 
 is harder 'n a cement floor. It's one on me, all right. 
 But who'd a-thought it?" 
 
 Both shifted their postures slightly, but vain was the 
 attempt to escape from the dull, aching contact of the 
 sand. 
 
 An abrupt, metallic, whirring noise of some nearby 
 cricket gave Saxon another startle. She endured the sound 
 for some minutes, until Billy broke forth. 
 
 "Say, that gets my goat whatever it is." 
 
 "Do you think it's a rattlesnake?" she asked, main- 
 taming a calmness she did not feel. 
 
 "Just what I've been thinkin'." 
 
 "I saw two, in the window of Bowman's Drug Store. 
 An' you know, Billy, they've got a hollow fang, and when 
 they stick it into you the poison runs down the hollow." 
 
 "Br-r-r-r," Billy shivered, in fear that was not alto-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 321 
 
 gether mockery. "Certain death, everybody says, unless 
 you're a Bosco. Remember him?" 
 
 "He eats 'em alive! He eats 'em alive! Bosco! Bos- 
 co!" Saxon responded, mimicking the cry of a side- 
 show barker. 
 
 "Just the same, all Bosco 's rattlers had the poison- 
 sacs cut outa them. They must a-had. Gee! It's funny 
 I can't get asleep. I wish that damned thing 'd close its 
 trap. I wonder if it is a rattlesnake." 
 
 "No; it can't be," Saxon decided. "All the rattle- 
 snakes are killed off long ago." 
 
 "Then where did Bosco get his?" Billy demanded with 
 unimpeachable logic. "An' why don't you get to sleep?" 
 
 "Because it's all new, I guess," was her reply. "You 
 see, I never camped out in my life." 
 
 "Neither did I. An' until now I always thought it was 
 a lark." He changed his position on the maddening 
 sand and sighed heavily. "But we'll get used to it in 
 time, I guess. What other folks can do, we can, an' a 
 mighty lot of 'em has camped out. It's all right. Here 
 we are, free an' independent, no rent to pay, our own 
 bosses " 
 
 He stopped abruptly. From somewhere in the brush 
 came an intermittent rustling. "When they tried to lo- 
 cate it, it mysteriously ceased, and when the first hint 
 of drowsiness stole upon them the rustling as mysteriously 
 recommenced. 
 
 "It sounds like something creeping up on us," Saxon 
 suggested, snuggling closer to Billy. 
 
 "Well, it ain't a wild Indian, at all events," was the* 
 best he could offer in the way of comfort. He yawned 
 deliberately. "Aw, shucks! What's there to be scared 
 of? Think of what all the pioneers went through." 
 
 Several minutes later his shoulders began to shake, and 
 Saxon knew he was giggling. 
 
 "I was just thinkin' of a yarn my father used to tell 
 about," he explained. "It was about old Susan Kleg- 
 horn, one of the Oregon pioneer women. Wall-Eyed Susan,
 
 322 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 they used to call her; but she could shoot to beat the 
 band. Once, on the Plains, the wagon train she was in 
 was attacked by Indians. They got all the wagons in a 
 circle, an' all hands an' the oxen inside, an' drove the 
 Indians off, killin' a lot of 'em. They was too strong 
 that way, so what'd the Indians do, to draw 'em out into 
 the open, but take two white girls, captured from some 
 other train, an' begin to torture 'em. They done it just 
 out of gunshot, but so everybody could see. The idea was 
 that the white men couldn't stand it, an' would rush out, 
 an' then the Indians 'd have 'em where they wanted 'em. 
 
 "The white men couldn't do a thing. If they rushed 
 out to save the girls, they'd be finished, an' then the In- 
 dians 'd rush the train. It meant death to everybody. But 
 what does old Susan do, but get out an old, long-barreled 
 Kentucky rifle. She rams down about three times the 
 regular load of powder, takes aim at a big buck that's 
 pretty busy at the torturin', an' bangs away. It knocked 
 her clean over backward, an' her shoulder was lame all 
 the rest of the way to Oregon, but she dropped the big 
 Indian deado. He never knew what struck 'm. 
 
 "But that wasn't the yarn I wanted to tell. It seems 
 old Susan liked John Barleycorn. She'd souse herself 
 to the ears every chance she got. An' her sons an' daugh- 
 ters an' the old man had to be mighty careful not to leave 
 any around where she could get hands on it." 
 
 "On what?" asked Saxon. 
 
 "On John Barleycorn. Oh, you ain't on to that. 
 
 It's the old fashioned name for whisky. "Well, one day 
 all the folks was goin' away that was over somewhere 
 at a place called Bodega, where they'd settled after comin* 
 down from Oregon. An' old Susan claimed her rheu- 
 matics was hurtin' her an' so she couldn't go. But the 
 family was on. There was a two-gallon demijohn of whis- 
 ky in the house. They said all right, but before they 
 left they sent one of the grandsons to climb a big tree 
 in the barnyard, where he tied the demijohn sixty feet 
 from the ground. Just the same, when they come home
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 323 
 
 that night they found Susan on the kitchen floor dead to 
 the world." 
 
 "And she'd climbed the tree after all," Saxon hazarded, 
 when Billy had shown no inclination of going on. 
 
 "Not on your life," he laughed jubilantly. "All she'd 
 done was to put a washtub on the ground square under 
 the demijohn. Then she got out her old rifle an' shot the 
 demijohn to smithereens, an' all she had to do was lap 
 the whisky outa the tub." 
 
 Again Saxon was drowsing, when the rustling sound 
 was heard, this time closer. To her excited apprehen- 
 sion there was something stealthy about it, and she imag- 
 ined a beast of prey creeping upon them. 
 
 "Billy," she whispered. 
 
 "Yes, I'm a-listenin' to it," came his wide awake 
 answer. 
 
 "Mightn't that be a panther, or maybe ... a wild- 
 cat?" 
 
 "It can't be. All the varmints was killed off long ago. 
 This is peaceable farmin' country." 
 
 A vagrant breeze sighed through the trees and made 
 Saxon shiver. The mysterious cricket-noise ceased with 
 suspicious abruptness. Then, from the rustling noise, en- 
 sued a dull but heavy thump that caused both Saxon and 
 Billy to sit up in the blankets. There were no further 
 sounds, and they lay down again, though the very silence 
 now seemed ominous. 
 
 "Huh," Billy muttered with relief. "As though I 
 don't know what it was. It was a rabbit. I've heard 
 tame ones bang their hind feet down on the floor that 
 way." 
 
 In vain Saxon tried to win sleep. The sand grew harder 
 with the passage of time. Her flesh and her bones ached 
 from contact with it. And, though her reason flouted any 
 possibility of wild dangers, her fancy went on picturing 
 them with unflagging zeal. 
 
 A new sound commenced. It was neither a rustling 
 nor a rattling, and it tokened some large body passing
 
 324 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 through the brush. Sometimes twigs crackled and broke, 
 and, once, they heard bush-branches press aside and spring 
 back into place. 
 
 ' ' If that other thing was a panther, this is an elephant, ' ' 
 was Billy's uncheering opinion. "It's got weight. Listen 
 to that. An' it's comin' nearer." 
 
 There were frequent stoppages, then the sounds would 
 jbegin again, always louder, always closer. Billy sat up in 
 the blankets once more, passing one arm around Saxon, who 
 had also sat up. 
 
 "I ain't slept a wink," he complained. " There it 
 
 goes again. I wish I could see." 
 
 "It makes a noise big enough for a grizzly," Saxon 
 chattered, partly from nervousness, partly from the chill 
 of the night. 
 
 "It ain't no grasshopper, that's sure." 
 
 Billy started to leave the blankets, but Saxon caught 
 his arm. 
 
 "What are you going to do?" 
 
 "Oh, I ain't scairt none," he answered. "But, honest 
 to God, this is gettin' on my nerves. If I don't find what 
 that thing is, it'll give me the willies. I'm just goin' 
 to reconnoiter. I won't go close." 
 
 So intensely dark was the night, that the moment Billy 
 crawled beyond the reach of her hand he was lost to sight. 
 She sat and waited. The sound had ceased, though she 
 could follow Billy's progress by the cracking of dry twigs 
 and limbs. After a few moments he returned and crawled 
 under the blankets. 
 
 "I scared it away, I guess. It's got better ears, an r 
 when it heard me comin' it skinned out most likely. I 
 
 did my dangdest, too, not to make a sound. O Lord, 
 
 there it goes again." 
 
 They sat up. Saxon nudged Billy. 
 
 "There," she warned, in the faintest of whispers. "I 
 can hear it breathing. It almost made a snort." 
 
 A dead branch cracked loudly, and so near at hand, 
 that both of them jumped shamelessly.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 325 
 
 "I ain't goin' to stand any more of its foolin'," Billy 
 .declared wrathfully. "It'll be on top of us if I don't." 
 
 "What are you going to do?" she queried anxiously. 
 
 "Yell the top of my head off. I'll get a fall outa what- 
 ever it is." 
 
 He drew a deep breath and emitted a wild yell. 
 
 The result far exceeded any expectation he could have 
 entertained, and Saxon's heart leaped up in sheer panic. 
 On the instant the darkness erupted into terrible sound 
 and movement. There were crashings of underbrush and 
 lunges and pjunges of heavy bodies in different directions, 
 Fortunately for their ease of mind, all these sounds re- 
 ceded and died away. 
 
 "An' what d'ye think of that?" Billy broke the silence, 
 "Gee ! all the fight fans used to say I was scairt of nothin',, 
 Just the same I'm glad they ain't seem' me to-night." 
 He groaned. "I've got all I want of that blamed sand, 
 I'm goin' to get up and start the fire." 
 
 This was easy. Under the ashes were live embers which 
 quickly ignited the wood he threw on. A few stars were 
 peeping out in the misty zenith. He looked up at them, 
 deliberated, and started to move away. 
 
 "Where are you going now?" Saxon called. 
 
 "Oh, I've got an idea," he replied noncommittally, and 
 walked boldly away beyond the circle of the firelight. 
 
 Saxon sat with the blankets drawn closely under he*" 
 chin, and admired his courage. He had not even taken the 
 hatchet, and he was going in the direction in which the 
 disturbance had died away. 
 
 Ten minutes later he came back chuckling. 
 
 "The sons-of-guns, they got my goat all right. I'll be 
 
 scairt of my own shadow next. What was they ? Huh ! 
 
 You couldn't guess in a thousand years. A bunch of half- 
 grown calves, an' they was worse scairt than us." 
 
 He smoked a cigarette by the fire, then rejoined Saxon 
 under the blankets. 
 
 "A hell of a farmer I'll make," he chafed, "when a 
 lot of little calves can scare the stuffin' outa me. I bet
 
 326 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 your father or mine wouldn't a-batted an eye. The stock 
 has gone to seed, that's what it has." 
 
 "No, it hasn't," Saxon defended. "The stock is all 
 right. "We're just as able as our folks ever were, and 
 we're healthier on top of it. We've been brought up 
 different, that's all. We've lived in cities all our lives. 
 We know the city sounds and things, but we don't know 
 the country ones. Our training has been unnatural, that's 
 the whole thing in a nutshell. Now we're going in for 
 natural training. Give us a little time, and we'll sleep as 
 sound out of doors as ever your father or mire did." 
 
 "But not on sand," Billy groaned. 
 
 "We won't try. That's one thing, for good and all, 
 we've learned the very first time. And now hush up and 
 go to sleep." 
 
 Their fears had vanished, but the 'sand, receiving now 
 their undivided attention, multiplied its unyieldingness. 
 Billy dozed off first, and roosters were crowing somewhere 
 in the distance when Saxon's eyes closed. But they could 
 not escape the sand, and their sleep was fitful. 
 
 At the first gray of dawn, Billy crawled out and built 
 a roaring fire. Saxon drew up to it shiveringly. They 
 were hollow-eyed and weary. Saxon began to laugh. Billy 
 joined sulkily, then brightened up as his eyes chanced 
 upon the coffee pot, which he immediately put on to boil.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IT is forty miles from Oakland to San Jose, and Saxon 
 *nd Billy accomplished it in three easy days. No more 
 obliging and angrily garrulous linemen were encountered, 
 and few were the opportunities for conversation with 
 chance wayfarers. Numbers of tramps, carrying rolls of 
 blankets, were met, traveling both north and south on 
 the county road ; and from talks with them Saxon quickly 
 learned that they knew little or nothing about farming. 
 They were mostly old men, feeble or besotted, and all 
 they knew was work where jobs might be good, where 
 jobs had been good; but the places they mentioned were 
 always a long way off. One thing she did glean from them, 
 and that was that the district she and Billy were passing 
 through was "small-farmer" country in which labor was 
 rarely hired, and that when it was it generally was Portu- 
 guese. 
 
 The farmers themselves were unfriendly. They drove 
 by Billy and Saxon, often with empty wagons, but never 
 invited them to ride. When chance offered and Saxon 
 did ask questions, they looked her over curiously, or sus- 
 piciously, and gave ambiguous and facetious answers. 
 
 "They ain't Americans, damn them," Billy fretted. 
 "Why, in the old days everybody was friendly to every- 
 body." 
 
 But Saxon remembered her last talk with her brother. 
 
 "It's the spirit of the times, Billy. The spirit has 
 changed Besides, these people are too near. Wait til\ we 
 get farther away from the cities, then we'll find them 
 more friendly." 
 
 "A measly lot these ones are," he sneered. 
 
 "Maybe they've a ris-ht to be." she laughed.. "For all 
 327
 
 328 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 you know, more than one of the scabs you've slugged were 
 sons of theirs." 
 
 "If I could only hope so/' Billy said fervently. "But 
 I don't care if I owned ten thousand acres, any man hikin' 
 with his blankets might be just as good a man as me, 
 an' maybe better, for all I'd know. I'd give 'm the benefit 
 of the doubt, anyway." 
 
 Billy asked for work, at first, indiscriminately, later, 
 only at the larger farms. The unvarying reply was that 
 there was no work. A few said there would be plowing 
 after the first rains. Here and there, in a small way, dry 
 plowing was going on. But in the main the farmers were 
 waiting. 
 
 "But do you know how to plow?" Saxon asked Billy. 
 
 "No; but I guess it ain't much of a trick to turn. Be- 
 sides, next man I see plowing I'm goin' to get a lesson 
 from. ' ' 
 
 In the mid-afternoon of the second day his opportunity 
 came. He climbed on top of the fence of a small field 
 and watched an old man plow round and round it. 
 
 "Aw, shucks, just as easy as easy," Billy commented 
 scornfully. "If an old codger like that can handle one 
 plow, I can handle two." 
 
 "Go on and try it," Saxon urged. 
 
 "What's the good?" 
 
 "Cold feet," she jeered, but with a smiling face. "All 
 you have to do is ask him. All he can do is say no. And 
 what if he does? You faced the Chicago Terror twenty 
 rounds without flinching." 
 
 "Aw, but it's different," he demurred, then dropped 
 to the ground inside the fence. "Two to one the old 
 geezer turns me down." 
 
 "No, he won't. Just tell him you want to learn, and 
 ask him if he'll let you drive around a few times. Tell 
 him it won't cost him anything." 
 
 "Huh! If he gets chesty I'll take his blamed plow 
 away from him." 
 
 From the top of the fence, but too far away to hear.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 329 
 
 Saxon watched the colloquy. After several minutes, the 
 lines were transferred to Billy's neck, the handles to his 
 hands. Then the team started, and the old man, deliver- 
 ing a rapid fire of instructions, walked alongside of Billy. 
 When a few turns had been made, the farmer crossed the 
 plowed strip to Saxon, and joined her on the rail. 
 
 "He's plowed before, a little mite, ain't he?" 
 
 Saxon shook her head. 
 
 "Never in his life. But he knows how to drive horses." 
 
 "He showed he wa'n't all greenhorn, an' he learns 
 pretty quick." Here the farmer chuckled and cut him- 
 self a chew from a plug of tobacco. "I reckon he won't 
 tire me out a-settin' here." 
 
 The unplowed area grew smaller and smaller, but Billy 
 evinced no intention of quitting, and his audience on the 
 fence was deep in conversation. Saxon's questions flew 
 fast and furious, and she was not long in concluding that 
 the old man bore a striking resemblance to the descrip- 
 tion the lineman had given of his father. 
 
 Billy persisted till the field was finished, and the old 
 man invited him and Saxon to stop for the night. There 
 was a disused outbuilding where they would find a small 
 cook stove, he said, and also he would give them fresh 
 milk. Further, if Saxon wanted to test her desire for 
 farming, she could try her hand on the cow. 
 
 The milking lesson did not prove as successful as Billy 's 
 plowing; but when he had mocked sufficiently, Saxon 
 challenged him to try, and he failed as grievously as she. 
 Saxon had eyes and questions for everything, and it did 
 not take her long to realize that she was looking upon the 
 other side of the farming shield. Farm and fanner were 
 old-fashioned. There was no intensive cultivation. There 
 was too much land too little farmed. Everything was 
 slipshod. House and barn and outbuildings were fast fall- 
 ing into ruin. The front yard was weed-grown. There 
 was no vegetable garden. The small orchard was old, 
 sickly, and neglected. The trees were twisted, spindling, 
 and overgrown with a gray moss. The sons and daugh-
 
 330 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 ters were away in the cities, Saxon found out. One daugh- 
 ter had married a doctor, the other was a teacher in the 
 state normal school; one son was a locomotive engineer, 
 the second was an architect, and the third was a police 
 court reporter in San Francisco. On occasion, the fathef 
 said, they helped out the old folks. 
 
 "What do you think?" Saxon asked Billy as he smoked 
 his after-supper cigarette. 
 
 His shoulders went up in a comprehensive shrug. 
 
 "Huh! That's easy. The old geezer's like his or- 
 chard covered with moss. It's plain as the nose on your 
 face, after San Leandro, that he don't know the first 
 thing. An' them horses. It'd be a charity to him, an' 
 a savin' of money for him, to take 'era out an' shoot 'em 
 both. You bet you don't see the Porchugeeze with horses 
 like them. An' it ain't a case of bein' proud, or puttin' 
 on side, to have good horses. It's brass tacks an' business. 
 It pays. That's the game. Old horses eat more'n young 
 ones to keep in condition an ' they can J t do the same amount 
 of work. But you bet it costs just as much to shoe them. 
 An' his is scrub on top of it. Every minute he has them 
 horses he's losin' money. You oughta see the way they 
 work an' figure horses in the city." 
 
 They slept soundly, and, after an early breakfast, pre- 
 pared to start. 
 
 "I'd like to give you a couple of days' work," the old 
 man regretted, at parting, "but I can't see it. The ranch 
 just about keeps me and the old woman, now that the 
 children are gone. An' then it don't always. Seems 
 times have been bad for a long spell now. Ain't never 
 been the same since Grover Cleveland." 
 
 Early in the afternon, on the outskirts of San Jose,, 
 Saxon called a halt. 
 
 "I'm going right in there and talk," she declared, 
 "unless they set the dogs on me. That's the prettiest 
 place yet, isn't it?" 
 
 Billy, who was always visioning hills and spacious range! 
 for his horses, mumbled unenthusiastic assent.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 331 
 
 "And the vegetables! Look at them! And the flow- 
 ers growing along the borders! That beats tomato plants 
 in wrapping paper." 
 
 "Don't see the sense of it," Billy objected. "Where's 
 the money come in from flowers that take up the ground 
 that good vegetables might be growin' on?" 
 
 "And that's what I'm going to find out." She pointed 
 to a woman, stooped to the ground and working with 
 a trowel, in front of the tiny bungalow. "I don't know 
 what she's like, but at the worst she can only be mean. 
 See ! She 's looking at us now. Drop your load alongside 
 of mine, and come on in." 
 
 Billy slung the blankets from his shoulder to the ground, 
 but elected to wait. As Saxon went up the narrow, flower- 
 bordered walk, she noted two men at work among the 
 vegetables one an old Chinese, the other old and of 
 some dark-eyed foreign breed. Here were neatness, effi- 
 ciency, and intensive cultivation with a vengeance even 
 her untrained eye could see that. The woman stood up 
 and turned from her flowers, and Saxon saw that she was 
 middle-aged, slender, and simply but nicely dressed. She 
 wore glasses, and Saxon's reading of her face was that 
 it was kind but nervous looking. 
 
 "I don't want anything to-day," she said, before Saxon 
 could speak, administering the rebuff with a pleasant 
 smile. 
 
 Saxon groaned inwardly over the black-covered telescope 
 basket. Evidently the woman had seen he* put it down. 
 
 "We're not peddling," she explained quickly. 
 
 "Oh, I am sorry for the mistake." 
 
 This time the woman's smile was even pleasanter, and 
 she waited for Saxon to state her errand. 
 
 Nothing loath, Saxon took it at a plunge. 
 
 "We're looking for land. We want to be farmers, you 
 know, and before we get the land we want to find out 
 what kind of land we want. And seeing your pretty place 
 has just filled me up with questions. You see, we don't 
 know anything about farming. We've lived in the city
 
 332 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 all our life, and now we've given it up and are going 
 to live in the country and be happy." 
 
 She paused. The woman's face seemed to grow quiz- 
 zical, though the pleasantness did not abate. 
 
 "But how do you know you will be happy in the coun- 
 try?" she asked. 
 
 "I don't know. All I do know is that poor people 
 can't be happy in the city where they have labor trou- 
 bles all the time. If they can't be happy in the country, 
 then there's no happiness anywhere, and that doesn't seem 
 fair, does it?" 
 
 "It is sound reasoning, my dear, as far as it goes. But 
 you must remember that there are many poor people 
 in the country and many unhappy people." 
 
 "You look neither poor nor unhappy," Saxon chal- 
 lenged. 
 
 "You are a dear." 
 
 Saxon saw the pleased flush in the other's face, which 
 lingered as she went on. 
 
 "But still, I may be peculiarly qualified to live 
 and succeed in the country. As you say yourself, 
 you've spent your life in the city. You don't know the 
 first thing about the country. It might even break your 
 heart." 
 
 Saxon's mind went back to the terrible months in the 
 Pine street cottage. 
 
 "I know already that the city will break my heart. 
 Maybe the country will, too, but just the same it's my 
 only chance, don't you see. It's that or nothing. Be- 
 sides, our folks before us were all of the country. It' 
 seems the more natural way. And better, here I am, which 
 proves that 'way down inside I must want the country, 
 must, as you call it, be peculiarly qualified for the coun- 
 try, or else I wouldn't be here." 
 
 The other nodded approval, and looked at her with 
 growing interest. 
 
 "That young man " she began. 
 
 "Is my husband. He was a teamster until the big
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 333 
 
 strike came. My name is Roberts, Saxon Roberts, and 
 my husband is "William Roberts." 
 
 "And I am Mrs. Mortimer," the other said, with a bow 
 of acknowledgment. "I am a widow. And now, if you 
 will ask your husband in, I shall try to answer some of 
 your many questions. Tell him to put the bundles inside 
 the gate. . . . And now what are all the questions 
 you are filled with?" 
 
 "Oh, all kinds. How does it pay? How did you man- 
 age it all? How much did the land cost? Did you build 
 that beautiful house? How much do you pay the men? 
 How did you learn all the different kinds of things, and 
 which grew best and which paid best? "What is the best 
 way to sell them ? How do you sell them ? ' ' Saxon paused 
 and laughed. "Oh, I haven't begun yet. Why do you 
 have flowers on the borders everywhere? I looked over 
 the Portuguese farms around San Leandro, but they never 
 mixed flowers and vegetables." 
 
 Mrs. Mortimer held up her hand. "Let me answer the 
 last first. It is the key to almost everything." 
 
 But Billy arrived, and the explanation was deferred un- 
 til after his introduction. 
 
 "The flowers caught your eyes, didn't they, my dear?" 
 Mrs. Mortimer resumed. "And brought you in through 
 my gate and right up to me. And that's the very reason 
 they were planted with the vegetables to catch eyes. 
 You can't imagine how many eyes they have caught, nor 
 how many owners of eyes they have lured inside my gate. 
 This is a good road, and is a very popular short country 
 drive for townsfolk. Oh, no ; I 've never had any luck 
 with automobiles. They can't see anything for dust. But 
 I began when nearly everybody still used carriages. The 
 townswomen would drive by. My flowers, and then my 
 place, would catch their eyes. They would tell their driv- 
 ers to stop. And well, somehow, I managed to be in the 
 front within speaking distance. Usually I succeeded in in- 
 viting them in to see my flowers . . . and vegetables, 
 of course. Everything was sweet, clean, pretty. It all
 
 334 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 appealed. And " Mrs. Mortimer shrugged her shoul- 
 ders. ''It is well known that the stomach sees through 
 the eyes. The thought of vegetables growing among flow- 
 ers pleased their fancy. They wanted my vegetables. 
 They must have them. And they did, at double the market 
 price, which they were only too glad to pay. You see, I 
 became the fashion, or a fad, in a small way. Nobody 
 lost. The vegetables were certainly good, as good as any 
 on the market and often fresher. And, besides, my cus- 
 tomers killed two birds with one stone; for they were 
 pleased with themselves for philanthropic reasons. Not 
 only did they obtain the finest and freshest possible vege- 
 tables, but at the same time they were happy with the 
 knowledge that they were helping a deserving widow- 
 woman. Yes, and it gave a certain tone to their estab- 
 lishments to be able to say they bought Mrs. Mortimer's 
 vegetables. But that 's too big a side to go into. In short, 
 my little place became a show place anywhere to go, for 
 a drive or anything, you know, when time has to be killed. 
 And it became noised about who I was, and who my hus- 
 band had been, what I had been. Some of the towns- 
 ladies I had known personally in the old days. The}" 
 actually worked for my success. And then, too, I used 
 to serve tea. My patrons became my guests for the time 
 being. I still serve it, when they drive out to show me 
 off to their friends. So you see, the flowers are one of 
 the ways I succeeded." 
 
 Saxon was glowing with appreciation, but Mrs. Mortimer, 
 glancing at Billy, noted not entire approval. His blue 
 eyes were clouded. 
 
 "Well, out with it," she encouraged. ''What are you 
 thinking ? ' ' 
 
 To Saxon's surprise, he answered directly, and to her 
 double surprise, his criticism was of a nature which had 
 never entered her head. 
 
 "It's just a trick," Billy expounded. "That's what 
 I was gettin' at "
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 33* 
 
 "But a paying trick," Mrs. Mortimer interrupted, her 
 eyes dancing and vivacious behind the glasses. 
 
 "Yes, and no," Billy said stubbornly, speaking in his 
 slow, deliberate fashion. "If every farmer was to mix 
 flowers an' vegetables, then every farmer would get dou- 
 ble the market price, an' then there wouldn't be any 
 double market price. Everything 'd be as it was before." 
 
 "You are opposing a theory to a fact," Mrs. Mortimer 
 stated. "The fact is that all the farmers do not do it. 
 The fact is that I do receive double the price. You can't 
 get away from that." 
 
 Billy was unconvinced, though unable to reply. 
 
 "Just the same," he muttered, with a slow shake of 
 the head, "I don't get the hang of it. There's something 
 wrong so far as we're concerned my wife an* me, I 
 mean. Maybe I'll get hold of it after a while." 
 
 "And in the meantime, we'll look around," Mrs. Morti- 
 mer invited. "I want to show you everything, and tell 
 you how I make it go. Afterward, we '11 sit down, and I '11 
 tell you about the beginning. You see " she bent her 
 gaze on Saxon "I want you thoroughly to understand 
 that you can succeed in the country if you go about it 
 right. I didn't know a thing about it when I began, and 
 I didn't have a fine big man like yours. I was all alone. 
 But I'll tell you about that." 
 
 For the next hour, among vegetables, berry-bushes and 
 fruit trees, Saxon stored her brain with a huge mass of 
 information to be digested at her leisure. Billy, too, was 
 interested, but he left the talking to Saxon, himself rarely 
 asking a question. At the rear of the bungalow, where 
 everything was as clean and orderly as the front, they 
 were shown through the chicken yard. Here, in differ- 
 ent runs, were kept several hundred small and snow-white 
 hens. 
 
 "White Leghorns," said Mrs. Mortimer. "You have 
 no idea what they netted me this year. I never keep a hen 
 a moment past the prime of her laying period "
 
 336 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Just what I was tellin' you, Saxon, about horses," 
 Billy broke in. 
 
 "And by the simplest method of hatching them at the 
 right time, which not one farmer in ten thousand ever 
 dreams of doing, I have them laying in the winter when 
 most hens stop laying and when eggs are highest. An- 
 other thing: I have my special customers. They pay 
 me ten cents a dozen more than the market price, because 
 my specialty is one-day eggs." 
 
 Here she chanced to glance at Billy, and guessed that 
 he was still wrestling with his problem. 
 
 "Same old thing?" she queried. 
 
 He nodded. "Same old thing. If every farmer deliv- 
 ered day-old eggs, there wouldn't be no ten eents higher 'n 
 the top price. They'd be no better off than they was 
 before." 
 
 "But the eggs would be one-day eggs, all the eggs would 
 be one-day eggs, you mustn't forget that," Mrs. Mortimer 
 pointed out. 
 
 "But that don't butter no toast for my wife an' me," 
 he objected. "An* that's what I've ben tryin' to get the 
 hang of, an' now I got it. You talk about theory an' fact. 
 Ten cents higher than top price is a theory to Saxon an' 
 me. The fact is, we ain't got no eggs, no chickens, an' no 
 land for the chickens to run an' lay eggs on." 
 
 Their hostess nodded sympathetically. 
 
 "An' there's something else about this outfit of yourn 
 that I don't get the hang of," he pursued. "I can't just 
 pt my finger on it, but it's there all right." 
 
 They were shown over the cattery, the piggery, the 
 milkery, and the kennelry, as Mrs. Mortimer called her live 
 stock departments. None was large. All were money- 
 makers, she assured them, and rattled off her profits glibly. 
 She took their breaths away by the prices given and re- 
 ceived for pedigreed Persians, pedigreed Ohio Improved 
 Chesters, pedigreed Scotch collies, and pedigreed Jerseys. 
 For the milk of the last she also had a special private mar- 
 ket, receiving five cents more a quart than was fetched
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 337 
 
 by the best dairy milk. Billy was quick to point out the 
 difference between the look of her orchard and the look 
 of the orchard they had inspected the previous afternoon, 
 and Mrs. Mortimer showed him scores of other differences, 
 many of which he was compelled to accept on faith. 
 
 Then she told them of another industry, her home-made 
 jams and jellies, always contracted for in advance, and 
 at prices dizzyingly beyond the regular market. They sat 
 'in comfortable rattan chairs on the veranda, while she told 
 the story of how she had drummed up the jam and jelly 
 trade, dealing only with the one best restaurant and one 
 best club in San Jose. To the proprietor and the steward 
 she had gone with her samples, in long discussions beaten 
 down their opposition, overcome their reluctance, and per- 
 suaded the proprietor, in particular, to make a "special'* 
 of her wares, to boom them quietly with his patrons, and, 
 above all, to charge stiffly for dishes and courses in which 
 they appeared. 
 
 Throughout the recital Billy's eyes were moody with 
 dissatisfaction. Mrs. Mortimer saw, and waited. 
 
 "And now, begin at the beginning," Saxon begged. 
 
 But Mrs. Mortimer refused unless they agreed to stop 
 for supper. Saxon frowned Billy's reluctance away, and 
 accepted for both of them. 
 
 "Well, then," Mrs. Mortimer took up her tale, "in the 
 beginning I was a greenhorn, city born and bred. All I 
 knew of the country was that it was a place to go to for 
 vacations, and I always went to springs and mountain and 
 'seaside resorts. I had lived among books almost all my 
 life. I was head librarian of the Doncaster Library for 
 years. Then I married Mr. Mortimer. He was a book man, 
 a professor in San Miguel University. He had a long 
 sickness, and when he died there was nothing left. Even 
 his life insurance was eaten into before I could be free of 
 creditors. As for myself, I was worn out, on the verge 
 of nervous prostration, fit for nothing. I had five thou- 
 sand dollars left, however, and, without going into the de- 
 tails, I decided to go farming. I found this place, in a
 
 338 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 delightful climate, close to San Jose the end of the elec- 
 tric line is only a quarter of a mile on and I bought it 
 I paid two thousand cash, and gave a mortgage for two 
 thousand. It cost two hundred an acre, you see." 
 
 "Twenty acres!" Saxon cried. 
 
 "Wasn't that pretty small?" Billy ventured. 
 
 "Too large, oceans too large. I leased ten acres of it 
 the first thing. And it's still leased after all this time. 
 Even the ten I'd retained was much too large for a long, 
 long time. It 's only now that 1 7 m beginning to feel a tiny 
 mite crowded." 
 
 "And ten acres has supported you an' two hired men?" 
 Billy demanded, amazed. 
 
 Mrs. Mortimer clapped her hands delightedly. 
 
 "Listen. I had been a librarian. I knew my way 
 among books. First of all I'd read everything written on 
 the subject, and subscribed to some of the best farm maga- 
 zines and papers. And you ask if my ten acres have sup- 
 ported me and two hired men. Let me tell you. I have 
 four hired men. The ten acres certainly must support 
 them, as it supports Hannah she's a Swedish widow who 
 runs the house and who is a perfect Trojan during the jam 
 and jelly season and Hannah's daughter, who goes to 
 school and lends a hand, and my nephew whom I have 
 taken to raise and educate. Also, the ten acres have come 
 pretty close to paying for the whole twenty, as well as for 
 this house, and all the outbuildings, and all the pedigreed 
 stock." , 
 
 Saxon remembered what the young lineman had said 
 about the Portuguese. 
 
 "The ten acres didn't do a bit of it," she cried. "It 
 was your head that did it all, and you know it." 
 
 "And that's the point, my dear. It shows the right 
 kind of person can succeed in the country. Remember, 
 the soil is generous. But it must be treated generously, 
 and that is something the old style American farmer can't 
 get into his head. So it is head that counts. Even when 
 his starving acres have convinced him of the need for fer-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 339 
 
 tilizing, lie can't see the difference between cheap fertilizer 
 and good fertilizer." 
 
 "And that's something I want to know about," Saxon 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "And 111 tell you all I know, but, first, you must be 
 very tired. I noticed you were limping. Let me take you 
 in never mind your bundles; I'll send Chang for them." 
 
 To Saxon, with her innate love of beauty and charm in 
 all personal things, the interior of the bungalow was a 
 revelation. Never before had she been inside a middle 
 class home, and what she saw not only far exceeded any- 
 thing she had imagined, but was vastly different from her 
 imaginings. Mrs. Mortimer noted her sparkling glances 
 which took in everything, and went out of her way to 
 show Saxon around, doing it under the guise of gleeful 
 boastings, stating the costs of the different materials, 
 explaining how she had done things with her own hands, 
 such as staining the floors, weathering the bookcases, and 
 putting together the big Mission Morris chair. Billy 
 stepped gingerly behind, and though it never entered his 
 mind to ape to the manner born, he succeeded in escaping 
 conspicuous awkwardness, even at the table where he and 
 Saxon had the unique experience of being waited on in a 
 private house by a servant. 
 
 "If you'd only come along next year," Mrs. Mortimer 
 mourned; "then I should have had the spare room I had 
 planned " 
 
 ' ' That 's all right, ' ' Billy spoke up ; " thank you just the 
 'same. But we'll catch the electric cars into San Jose an* 
 get a room." 
 
 Mrs. Mortimer was still disturbed at her inability to put 
 them up for the night, and Saxon changed the conversa- 
 tion by pleading to be told more. 
 
 "You remember, I told you I'd paid only two thousand 
 down on the land, ' ' Mrs. Mortimer complied. ' ' That left 
 me three thousand to experiment with. Of course, all my 
 friends and relatives prophesied failure. And, of course, 
 I made my mistakes, plenty of them, but T. was saved
 
 340 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 from still more by the thorough study I had made and 
 continued to make." She indicated shelves of farm books 
 and files of farm magazines that lined the walls. "And I 
 continued to study. I was resolved to be up to date, and 
 I sent for all the experiment station reports. I went al- 
 most entirely on the basis that whatever the old type 
 farmer did was wrong, and, do you know, in doing that 
 I was not so far wrong myself. It's almost unthinkable, 
 
 the stupidity of the old-fashioned farmers. Oh, I 
 
 consulted with them, talked things over with them, chal- 
 lenged their stereotyped ways, demanded demonstration 
 of their dogmatic and prejudiced beliefs, and quite suc- 
 ceeded in convincing the last of them that I was a fool and 
 doomed to come to grief." 
 
 "But you didn't! You didn't!" 
 
 Mrs. Mortimer smiled gratefully. 
 
 "Sometimes, even now, I'm amazed that I didn't. But 
 I came of a hard-headed stock which had been away from 
 the soil long enough to gain a new perspective. When 
 a thing satisfied my judgment, I did it forthwith and down- 
 right, no matter how extravagant it seemed. Take the old 
 orchard. Worthless! Worse than worthless! Old Cal- 
 kins nearly died of heart disease when he saw the devas- 
 tation I had wreaked upon it. And look at it now. There 
 was an old rattletrap ruin where the bungalow now stands. 
 I put up with it, but I immediately pulled down the cow 
 barn, the pigsties, the chicken houses, everything made 
 a clean sweep. They shook their heads and groaned when 
 they saw such wanton waste by a widow struggling to make 
 a living. But worse was to come. They were paralyzed 
 when I told them the price of the three beautiful 0. I. C. 's 
 pigs, you know, Chesters which I bought, sixty dollars 
 for the three, and only just weaned. Then I hustled the 
 nondescript chickens to market, replacing them with the 
 White Leghorns. The two scrub cows that came with the 
 place I sold to the butcher for thirty dollars each, paying 
 two hundred and fifty for two blue-blooded Jersey heifers 
 . . and coined money on the exchange, while Calkins
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 341 
 
 and the rest went right on with their scrubs that couldn't 
 give enough milk to pay for their board." 
 
 Billy nodded approval. 
 
 "Remember what I told you about horses," he reiter- 
 ated to Saxon ; and, assisted by his hostess, he gave a very 
 creditable disquisition on horseflesh and its management 
 from a business point of view. 
 
 When he went out to smoke Mrs. Mortimer led Saxon 
 into talking about herself and Billy, and betrayed not the 
 slightest shock when she learned of his prizefighting and 
 scab-slugging proclivities. 
 
 "He's a splendid young man, and good," she assured 
 Saxon. "His face shows that. And, best of all, he loves 
 you and is proud of you. You can't imagine how I have 
 enjoyed watching the way he looks at you, especially when 
 you are talking. He respects your judgment. "Why, he 
 must, for here he is with you on this pilgrimage which is 
 wholly your idea." Mrs. Mortimer sighed. "You are very 
 fortunate, dear child, very fortunate. And you don't 
 yet know what a man's brain is. Wait till he is quite fired 
 with enthusiasm for your project. You will be astounded 
 by the way he takes hold. You will have to exert yourself 
 to keep up with him. In the meantime, you must lead. 
 Remember, he is city bred. It will be a struggle to wean 
 him from the only life he's known." 
 
 "Oh, but he's disgusted with the city, too " Saxon 
 
 began. 
 
 "But not as you are. Love is not the whole of man, as 
 j it is of woman. The city hurt you more than it hurt him. 
 ' It was you who lost the dear little babe. His interest, his 
 connection, was no more than casual and incidental com- 
 pared with the depth and vividness of yours." 
 
 Mrs. Mortimer turned her head to Billy, who was just 
 entering. 
 
 "Have you got the hang of what was bothering you?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "Pretty close to it," he answered, taking the indicated 
 big Morris chair. "It's this "
 
 342 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 \ 
 
 ''One moment," Mrs. Mortimer checked him. "That ia 
 a heautiful, big, strong chair, and so are you, at any rate 
 big and strong, and your little wife is very weary no, 
 no; sit down, it's your strength she needs. Yes, I insist. 
 Open your arms." 
 
 And to him she led Saxon, and into his arms placed her. 
 "Now, sir and you look delicious, the pair of you reg 
 ister your objections to my way of earning a living." 
 
 "It ain't your way," Billy repudiated quickly. "Your 
 way's all right. It's great. "What I'm trying to get at 
 is that your way don't fit us. "We couldn't make a go of 
 it your way. Why you had pull well-to-do acquaintances, 
 people that knew you'd ben a librarian an' your husband 
 a professor. An' you had . . ." Here he floundered 
 a moment, seeking definiteness for the idea he still vaguely 
 grasped. "Well, you had a way we couldn't have. You 
 were educated, an' . . . an' I don't know, I guess 
 you knew society ways an' business ways we couldn't 
 know." 
 
 "But, my dear boy, you could learn what was neces- 
 sary," she contended. 
 
 Billy shook his head. 
 
 "No. You don't quite get me. Let's take it this way. 
 Just suppose it's me, with jam an* jelly, a-wadin' into 
 that swell restaurant like you did to talk with the top 
 guy. Why, I'd be outa place the moment I stepped into 
 his office. Worse 'n that, I'd feel outa place. That'd 
 make me have a chip on my shoulder an' lookin' for 
 trouble, which is a poor way to do business. Then, too, 
 I'd be thinkin' he was thinkin' I was a whole lot of a 
 husky to be peddlin' jam. What'd happen? I'd be chesty 
 at the drop of the hat. I'd be thinkin' he was thinkin' I 
 was standin' on my foot, an' I'd beat him to it in tellin' 
 him he was standin' on his foot. Don't you see? It's 
 because I was raised that way. It'd be take it or leave 
 it with me, an' no jam sold." 
 
 "What you say is true," Mrs. Mortimer took op 
 brightly. "But there is your wife. Just look at her.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 343 
 
 She'd make an impression on any business man. He'd be 
 only too willing to listen to her." 
 
 Billy stiffened, a forbidding expression springing into 
 his eyes. 
 
 "What have I done now?" their hostess laughed. 
 "I ain't got around yet to tradin' on my wife's looks,' 5 
 he rumbled gruffly. 
 
 "Right you are. The only trouble is that you, both of 
 you, are fifty years behind the times. You're old Ameri- 
 can. How you ever got here in the thick of modern con- 
 ditions is a miracle. You're Rip Van Winkles. Who ever 
 heard, in these degenerate times, of a young man and 
 woman of the city putting their blankets on their backs 
 and starting out in search of land? Why, it's the old 
 Argonaut spirit. You're as like as peas in a pod to those 
 who yoked their oxen and held west to the lands beyond 
 the sunset. I '11 wager your fathers and mothers, or grand- 
 fathers and grandmothers, were that very stock." 
 
 Saxon's eyes were glistening, and Billy's were friendly 
 once more. Both nodded their heads. 
 
 "I'm of the old stock myself," Mrs. Mortimer went on 
 proudly. "My grandmother was one of the survivors of 
 the Donner Party. My grandfather, Jason Whitney, came 
 around the Horn and took part in the raising of the Bear 
 Flag at Sonoma. He was at Monterey when John Marshall 
 discovered gold in Sutter's mill-race. One of the streets in 
 San Francisco is named after him." 
 
 "I know it," Billy put in. "Whitney Street. It's near 
 Russian Hill. Saxon's mother walked across the Plains." 
 
 "And Billy's grandfather and grandmother were mas- 
 sacred by the Indians," Saxon contributed. "His father 
 was a little baby boy, and lived with the Indians, until 
 captured by the whites. He didn't even know his name 
 and was adopted by a Mr. Roberts." 
 
 "Why, you two dear children, we're almost like rela- 
 tives," Mrs. Mortimer beamed. "It's a breath of old 
 times, alas! all forgotten in these fly-away days. I am 
 especially interested, because I've catalogued and read
 
 344 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 everything covering those times. You " she indicated 
 
 Billy, "you are historical, or at least your father is. I 
 remember about him. The whole thing is in Bancroft's 
 History. It was the Modoc Indians. There were eighteen 
 wagons. Your father was the only survivor, a mere baby 
 at the time, with no knowledge of what happened. He 
 was adopted by the leader of the whites." 
 
 "That's right," said Billy. "It was the Modocs. His 
 train must have ben bound for Oregon. It was all wiped 
 out. I wonder if you know anything about Saxon's 
 mother. She used to write poetry in the early days. ' ' 
 
 ""Was any of it printed?" 
 
 "Yes," Saxon answered. "In the old San Jose papers." 
 
 "And do you know any of it?" 
 
 "Yes, there's one beginning: 
 
 " 'Sweet as the wind-lute '3 airy strains 
 
 Your gentle muse has learned to sing, 
 And California's boundless plains 
 Prolong the soft notes echoing.' ' 
 
 "It sounds familiar," Mrs. Mortimer said, pondering, 
 "And there was another I remember that began: 
 
 " 'I've stolen away from the crowd in the groves, 
 
 Where the nude statues stand, and the leaves point and shiver,'* 
 
 "And it run on like that. I don't understand it all. 
 It was written to my father " 
 
 ' ' A love poem ! ' ' Mrs. Mortimer broke in. "I remember 
 it. "Wait a minute . . . Da-da-dah, da-da-dah, da-da- 
 dah, da-da stands 
 
 " 'In the spray of a fountain, whose seed-amethysts 
 
 Tremble lightly a moment on bosom and hands, 
 
 Then drip in their basin from bosom and wrists. ' 
 
 "I've never forgotten the drip of the seed-amethysta, 
 though I don't remember your mother's name." 
 '''It was Daisy " Saxon began.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 345 
 
 "No; Dayelle," Mrs. Mortimer corrected with quicken- 
 ing recollection. 
 
 "Oh, but nobody called her that." 
 
 "But she signed it that way. What is the rest?" 
 
 "Daisy Wiley Brown." 
 
 Mrs. Mortimer went to the bookshelves and quickly re- 
 turned with a large, soberly-bound volume. 
 
 "It's 'The Story of the Files,' " she explained. "Among 
 other things, all the good fugitive verse was gathered here 
 from the old newspaper files." Her eyes running down 
 the index suddenly stopped. ' ' I was right. Dayelle Wiley 
 Brown. There it is. Ten of her poems, too : * The Viking's 
 Quest'; 'Days of Gold'; 'Constancy'; 'The Caballero'; 
 'Graves at Little Meadow " 
 
 "We fought off the Indians there," Saxon interrupted 
 in her excitement. "And mother, who was only a little 
 girl, went out and got water for the wounded. And the 
 Indians wouldn't shoot at her. Everybody said it was a 
 miracle." She sprang out of Billy's arms, reaching for 
 the book and crying: "Oh, let me see it! Let me see it! 
 It's all new to me. I don't know these poems. Can I 
 copy them? I'll learn them by heart. Just to think, my 
 mother's!'' 
 
 Mrs. Mortimer's glasses required repolishing; and for 
 half an hour she and Billy remained silent while Saxon 
 devoured her mother's lines. At the end, staring at the 
 book which she had closed on her finger, she could only 
 repeat in wondering awe: 
 
 "And I never knew, I never knew." 
 
 But during that half hour Mrs. Mortimer's mind had 
 not been idle. A little later, she broached her plan. She 
 believed in intensive dairying as well as intensive farm- 
 ing, and intended, as soon as the lease expired, to estab- 
 lish a Jersey dairy on the other ten acres. This, like every- 
 thing she had done, would be model, and it meant that 
 she would require more help. Billy and Saxon were just 
 the two. By next summer she could have them installed 
 in the cottage she intended building. In the meantime
 
 346 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 she could arrange, one way and another, to get work for 
 Billy through the winter. She would guarantee this work, 
 and she knew a small house they could rent just at the 
 end of the car-line. Under her supervision Billy could 
 take charge from the very beginning of the building. In 
 this way they would be earning money, preparing tb em- 
 selves for independent farming life, and have opportunity 
 to look about them. 
 
 But her persuasions were in vain. In the end Saxon suc- 
 cinctly epitomized their point of view. 
 
 "We can't stop at the first place, even if it is as beauti- 
 ful and kind as yours and as nice as this valley is. We 
 don't even know what we want. We've got to go farther, 
 and see all kinds of places and all kinds of ways, in order 
 to find out. We're not in a hurry to make up our minds. 
 We want to make, oh, so very sure ! And besides . . ." 
 She hesitated. "Besides, we don't like altogether flat laud. 
 Billy wants some hills in his. And so do I." 
 
 When they were ready to leave Mrs. Mortimer offered to 
 present Saxon with "The Story of the Files"; but Saxon 
 shook her head and got some money from Billy. 
 
 "It says it costs two dollars," she said. "Will you 
 buy me one, and keep it till we get settled? Then I'll 
 write, and you can send it to me." 
 
 "Oh, you Americans," Mrs. Mortimer chided, accepting 
 the money. "But you must promise to write from time 
 to time before you're settled." 
 
 She saw them to the county road. 
 
 "You are brave young things," she said at parting. 
 "I only wish I were going with you, my pack upon my 
 back. You're perfectly glorious, the pair of you. If ever 
 I can do anything for you, just let me know. You're 
 bound to succeed, and I want a hand in it myself. Let me 
 know how that government land turns out, though I warn 
 you I haven't much faith in its feasibility. It's sure to be 
 too far away from markets." 
 
 She shook hands with Billy. Saxon she caught into beg 
 arms and kissed.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 347 
 
 "Be brave,'* she said, with low earnestness, in Saxon's 
 ear. "You'll win. You are starting with the right ideas. 
 And you were right not to accept my proposition. But 
 remember, it, or better, will always be open to you. You 're 
 young yet, both of you. Don't be in a hurry. Any time 
 you stop anywhere for a while, let me know, and I'll 
 mail you heaps of agricultural reports and farm publica- 
 tions. Good-bye. Heaps and heaps and heaps of luck."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 BILLY sat motionless on the edge of the bed in theii 
 little room in San Jose that night, a musing expression 
 in his eyes. 
 
 "Well," he remarked at last, with a long-drawn breath, 
 "all I've got to say is there's some pretty nice people in 
 this world after all. Take Mrs. Mortimer. Now she's the 
 real goods regular old American." 
 
 "A fine, educated lady," Saxon agreed, "and not a bit 
 ashamed to work at farming herself. And she made it 
 go, too." 
 
 "On twenty acres no, ten ; and paid for 'em, an' all im- 
 provements, an' supported herself, four hired men, a 
 Swede woman an' daughter, an' her own nephew. It 
 gets me. Ten acres! "Why, my father never talked less'n 
 one hundred an' sixty acres. Even your brother Tom still 
 
 talks in quarter sections. An' she was only a woman, 
 
 too. We was lucky in meetin' her." 
 
 "Wasn't it an adventure!" Saxon cried. "That's what 
 eomes of traveling. You never know what 's going to hap- 
 pen next. It jumped right out at us, just when we were 
 tired and wondering how much farther to San Jose. We 
 weren't expecting it at all. And she didn't treat us as 
 if we were tramping. And that house so clean and beau- 
 tiful. You could eat off the floor. I never dreamed of 
 anything so sweet and lovely as the inside of that house." 
 
 "It smelt good," Billy supplied. 
 
 "That's the very thing. It's what the women's pages 
 call atmosphere. I didn't know what they meant before. 
 That house has beautiful, sweet atmosphere " 
 
 "Like all your nice underthings, " said Billy. 
 
 "And that's the next step after keeping your body
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 349 
 
 sweet and clean and beautiful. It's to have your house 
 sweet and clean and beautiful." 
 
 "But it can't be a rented one, Saxon. You've got to 
 own it. Landlord's don't build houses like that. Just the 
 same, one thing stuck out plain: that house was not ex- 
 pensive. It wasn't the cost. It was the way. The wood 
 was ordinary wood you can buy in any lumber yard. ( 
 Why, our house on Pine street was made out of the same 
 kind of wood. But the way it was made was different. 
 I can't explain, but you can see what I'm drivin' at." 
 
 Saxon, revisioning the little bungalow they had ji^st left, 
 repeated absently: "That's it the way." 
 
 The next morning they were early afoot, seeking through 
 the suburbs of San Jose the road to San Juan and Mon- 
 terey. Saxon's limp had increased. Beginning with a burst 
 blister, her heel was skinning rapidly. Billy remembered 
 his father's talks about care of the feet, and stopped at 
 a butcher shop to buy five cents' worth of mutton tal- 
 low. 
 
 "That's the stuff," he told Saxon. "Clean foot-gear 
 and the feet well greased. We'll put some on as soon 
 as we're clear of town. An' we might as well go easy for 
 a couple of days. Now, if I could get a little work so as 
 you could rest up several days it'd be just the thing. I'll 
 keep my eye peeled." 
 
 Almost on the outskirts of town he left Saxon on the 
 county road and went up a long driveway to what ap- 
 peared a large farm. He came back beaming. 
 
 "It's all hunkydory," he called as he approached. 
 "We'll just go down to that clump of trees by the creek 
 an' pitch camp. I start work in the mornin', two dollars 
 a day an' board myself. It'd been a dollar an' a half if 
 he furnished the board. I told 'm I liked the other way 
 best, an' that I had my camp with me. The weather's 
 fine, an' we can make out a few days till your foot's in 
 shape. Come on. We'll pitch a regular, decent camp." 
 
 "How did you get the job?" Saxon asked., as they cast 
 about, determining their camp-site.
 
 350 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Wait till we get fixed an' 111 tell you all aboiw it 
 It was a dream, a cinch." 
 
 Not until the bed was spread, the fire built, and a pot 
 of beans boiling did Billy throw down the last armful 
 of wood and begin. 
 
 "In the first place, Benson's no old-fashioned geezer. 
 You wouldn't think he was a farmer to look at 'm. He's 
 up to date, sharp as tacks, talks an' acts like a business 
 man. I could see that, just by lookin' at his place, be- 
 fore I seen him. He took about fifteen seconds to size me 
 up. 
 
 ' 'Can you plow?' says he. 
 
 " 'Sure thing,' I told 'm. 
 
 " 'Know horses?' 
 
 " 'I was hatched in a box-stall,' says I. 
 
 "An' just then you remember that four-horse load of 
 machinery that come in after me? just then it drove up. 
 
 " 'How about four horses?' he asks, casual-like. 
 
 " 'Right to home. I can drive 'm to a plow, a sewin* 
 machine, or a merry-go-round.' 
 
 " 'Jump up an' take them lines, then,' he says, quick 
 an' sharp, not wastin' seconds. 'See that shed. Go 'round 
 the barn to the right an' back in for unloadin'.' 
 
 "An' right here I wanta tell you it was some nifty 
 drivin' he was askin'. I could see by the tracks the 
 wagons 'd all ben goin' around the barn to the left. What 
 he was askin' was too close work for comfort a double 
 turn, like an S, between a corner of a paddock an' aroimd 
 the corner of the barn to the last swing. An', to eat into 
 the little room there was, there was piles of manure just 
 thrown outa the barn an' not hauled away yet. But I 
 wasn't lettin' on nothin'. The driver gave me the lines, 
 an' I could see he was grinnin', sure I'd make a mess of 
 it. I bet he couldn't a-done it himself. I never let on, 
 an' away we went, me not even knowin' the horses but, 
 say, if you'd seen me throw them leaders clean to the top 
 of the manure till the nigh horse was scrapin' the side 
 of the barn to make it. an' the off hind hub was cuttin' the
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 351 
 
 corner post of the paddock to miss by six inches. It was 
 the only way. An' them horses was sure beauts. The 
 leaders slacked back an' darn near sat down on their 
 singletrees when I threw the back into the wheelers an* 
 slammed on the brake an' stopped on the very precise 
 spot. 
 
 " 'You'll do,' Benson says. 'That was good work.' 
 
 " 'Aw, shucks,' I says, indifferent as hell. 'Gimme 
 something real hard.' 
 
 "He smiles an' understands. 
 
 1 'You done that well,' he says. 'An' I'm particular 
 about who handles my horses. The road ain't no place 
 for you. You must be a good man gone wrong. Just the 
 same you can plow with my horses, startin' in to-morrow 
 naornin'.' 
 
 "Which shows how wise he wasn't. I hadn't showed I 
 could plow." 
 
 When Saxon had served the beans, and Billy the coffee, 
 she stood still a moment and surveyed the spread meal on 
 the blankets the canister of sugar, the condensed milk 
 tin, the sliced corned beef, the lettuce salad and sliced to- 
 matoes, the slices of fresh French bread, and the steaming 
 plates of beans and mugs of coffee. 
 
 "What a difference from last night!" Saxon exclaimed, 
 clapping her hands. "It's like an adventure out of a 
 book. Oh, that boy I went fishing with! Think of that 
 beautiful table and that beautiful house last night, and 
 then look at this. Why, we could have lived a thousand 
 years on end in Oakland and never met a woman like Mrs. 
 Mortimer nor dreamed a house like hers existed. And, 
 Billy, just to think, we 've only just started. ' ' 
 
 Billy worked for three days, and while insisting that 
 he was doing very well, he freely admitted that there was 
 more in plowing than he had thought. Saxon experi- 
 enced quiet satisfaction when she learned he was enjoy- 
 ing it. 
 
 "I never thought I'd like plowin' much," he observed. 
 4 'But it's fine. It's good for the leg-muscles, too. They
 
 352 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 don't get exercise enough in teamin'. If ever I trained 
 for another fight, you bet I'd take a whack at plowin'. 
 An', you know, the ground has a regular good smell to 
 it, a-turnin' over an' turnin' over. Gosh, it's good enough 
 to eat, that smell. An' it just goes on, turnin' up an' over, 
 fresh- an* thick an' good, all day long. An' the horses 
 are Joe-dandies. They know their business as well as a 
 man. That's one thing, Benson ain't got a scrub horse 
 on the place." 
 
 The last day Billy worked, the sky clouded over, the air 
 grew damp, a strong wind began to blow from the south- 
 east, and all the signs were present of the first winter rain, 
 Billy came back in the evening with a small roll of old 
 canvas he had borrowed, which he proceeded to arrange 
 over their bed on a framework so as to shed rain. Several 
 times he complained about the little finger of his left hand. 
 It had been bothering him all day he told Saxon, for sev- 
 eral days slightly, in fact, and it was as tender as a boil 
 most likely a splinter, but he had been unable to locate 
 it. 
 
 He went ahead with storm preparations, elevating the 
 bed on old boards which he lugged from a disused barn 
 falling to decay on the opposite bank of the creek. Upon 
 the boards he heaped dry leaves for a mattress. He con- 
 cluded by reinforcing the canvas with additional guys 
 of odd pieces of rope and baling-wire. 
 
 When the first splashes of rain arrived Saxon was de* 
 lighted. Billy betrayed little interest. His finger was 
 hurting too much, he said. Neither he nor Saxon could 
 ^tnake anything of it, and both scoffed at the idea of a 
 'felon. 
 
 "It might be a run-around," Saxon hazarded. 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "I don't know. I remember Mrs. Cady had one once, 
 but I was too small. It was the little finger, too. She 
 poulticed it, I think. And I remember she dressed it 
 with some kind of salve. It got awful bad. and finished by 
 her losing the nail. After that it got well quick, and a
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 353 
 
 Dew nail grew out. Suppose I make a hot bread poultice 
 for yours." 
 
 Billy declined, being of the opinion that it would be 
 better in the morning. Saxon was troubled, and as she 
 dozed off she knew that he was lying restlessly wide 
 awake. A few minutes afterward, roused by a heavy blast 
 of wind and rain on the canvas, she heard Billy softly 
 groaning. She raised herself on her elbow and with her 
 free hand, in the way she knew, manipulating his forehead 
 and the surfaces around his eyes, soothed him off to sleep. 
 Again she slept. And again she was aroused, this time 
 not by the storm, but by Billy. She could not see, but 
 by feeling she ascertained his strange position. He was 
 outside the blankets and on his knees, his forehead resting 
 on the boards, his shoulders writhing with suppressed 
 anguish. 
 
 "She's pulsin' to beat the band," he said, when she 
 spoke. "It's worse 'n a thousand toothaches. But it ain't 
 nothin' ... if only the canvas don't blow down. 
 Think what our folks had to stand," he gritted out be- 
 tween groans. "Why, my father was out in the mountains, 
 an' the man with 'm got mauled by a grizzly clean clawed 
 to the bones all over. An' they was outa grub an' had to 
 travel. Two times outa three, when my father put 'm on 
 the horse, he'd faint away. Had to be tied on. An' that 
 lasted five weeks, an' he pulled through. Then there was 
 Jack Quigley. He blowed off his whole right hand with 
 >e burstin' of his shotgun, an' the hantin' dog pup he 
 had with 'm ate up three of the fingers. An' he was air 
 alone in the marsh, an' " 
 
 "But Saxon heard no more of the adventures of Jack 
 Quigley. A terrific blast of wind parted several of the 
 guys, collapsed the framework, and for a moment buried 
 them under the canvas. The next moment canvas, frame- 
 work, and trailing guys were whisked away into the dark- 
 ness, and Saxon and Billy were deluged with rain. 
 
 "Only one thing to do," he yelled in her ear. 
 '* Gather up the things an' get into that old barn."
 
 354 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 They accomplished this in the drenching darkness, mat 
 ing two trips across the stepping stones of the shallov 
 creek and soaking themselves to the knees. The old barn 
 leaked like a sieve, but they managed to find a dry space 
 on which to spread their anything but dry bedding. 
 Billy's pain was heart-rending to Saxon. An hour was 
 required to subdue him to a doze, and only by continu- 
 ously stroking his forehead could she keep him asleep. 
 Shivering and miserable, she accepted a night of wakeful- 
 ness gladly with the knowledge that she kept him from 
 knowing the worst of his pain. 
 
 At the time when she had decided it must be past mid- 
 night, there was an interruption. From the open doorway 
 came a flash of electric light, like a tiny searchlight, which 
 quested about the barn and came to rest on her and Billy,, 
 From the source of light a harsh voice said: 
 
 "Ah! ha! I've got you! Come out of that!" 
 
 Billy sat up, his eyes dazzled by the light. The voice 
 behind the light was approaching and reiterating its de- 
 mand that they come out of that. 
 
 "What's up?" Billy asked. 
 
 "Me," was the answer; "an' wide awake, you bet." 
 
 The voice was now beside them, scarcely a yard away, 
 yet they could see nothing on account of the light, which 
 was intermittent, frequently going out for an instant as 
 the operator's thumb tired on the switch. 
 
 "Come on, get a move on," the voice went on. "Roll 
 up your blankets an' trot along. I want you." 
 
 "Who in hell are you?" Billy demanded. 
 
 "I'm the constable. Come on." 
 
 "Well, what do you want?" 
 
 "You, of course, the pair of you." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "Vagrancy. Now hustle. I ain't goin' to loaf here all 
 night." 
 
 "Aw, chase yourself," Billy advised. "I ain't a vag. 
 I'm a workingman." 
 
 "Maybe you are an' maybe you ain't," said the COB*
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 355 
 
 Btable; "but you can tell all that to Judge Neusbaumer in 
 the mornin'." 
 
 "Why you . . . you stinkin', dirty cur, you think 
 you're goin' to pull me," Billy began. "Turn the light 
 on yourself. I want to see what kind of an ugly mug you 
 got. Pull me, eh? Pull me? For two cents I'd get up 
 there an' beat you to a jelly, you " 
 
 "No, no, Billy," Saxon pleaded. "Don't make trouble. 
 It would mean jail." 
 
 "That's right," the constable approved, "listen to your 
 woman. ' ' 
 
 "She's my wife, an' see you speak of her as such," 
 Billy warned. "Now get out, if you know what's good 
 for yourself." 
 
 "I've seen your kind before," the constable retorted. 
 "An' I've got my little persuader with me. Take a 
 squint." 
 
 The shaft of light shifted, and out of the darkness, illu- 
 minated with ghastly brilliance, they saw thrust a hand 
 holding a revolver. This hand seemed a thing apart, self- 
 existent, with no corporeal attachment, and it appeared 
 and disappeared like an apparition as the thumb-pressure 
 wavered on the switch. One moment they were staring 
 at the hand and revolver, the next moment at impenetrable 
 darkness, and the next moment again at the hand and 
 revolver. 
 
 "Now, I guess you'll come," the constable gloated. 
 
 "You got another guess comin'," Billy began. 
 
 But at that moment the light went out. They heard a 
 quick movement on the officer's part and the thud of the 
 light-stick on the ground. Both Billy and the constable 
 fumbled for it, but Billy found it and flashed it on the 
 other. They saw a gray-bearded man clad in streaming 
 oilskins. He was an old man, and reminded Saxon of 
 the sort she had been used to see in Grand Army proces- 
 sions on Decoration Day. 
 
 "Give me that stick," he ballied. 
 
 Billy sneered a refusal.
 
 356 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Then I'll put a hole through you, by criminy." 
 
 He leveled the revolver directly at Billy, whoss 
 thumb on the switch did not waver, and they could see 
 the gleaming bullet-tips in the chambers of the cylin- 
 der. 
 
 "Why, you whiskery old skunk, you ain't got the grit 
 to shoot sour apples," was Billy's answer. "I know your 
 [kind brave as lions when it comes to pullin' miserable, 
 'broken-spirited bindle stiffs, but as leary as a yellow dog 
 when you face a man. Pull that trigger ! Why, you pusil- 
 lanimous piece of dirt, you'd run with your tail between 
 your legs if I said boo ! ' ' 
 
 Suiting action to the word, Billy let out an explosive 
 '"BOO!" and Saxon giggled involuntarily at the startle it 
 caused in the constable. 
 
 "I'll give you a last chance," the latter grated through 
 his teeth. "Turn over that light-stick an' come along 
 peaceable, or I'll lay you out." 
 
 Saxon was frightened for Billy's sake, and yet only 
 half frightened. She had a faith that the man dared not 
 fire, and she felt the old familiar thrills of admiration for 
 Billy's courage. She could not see his face, but she knew 
 in all certitude that it was bleak and passionless in the 
 terrifying way she had seen it when he fought the three 
 Irishmen. 
 
 "You ain't the first man I killed," the constable 
 threatened. "I'm an old soldier, an' I ain't squeamish 
 
 over blood " 
 
 i "And you ought to be ashamed of yourself," Saxon 
 'oroke in, "trying to shame and disgrace peaceable people 
 who've done no wrong." 
 
 "You've done wrong sleepin' here," was his vindica- 
 tion. "This ain't your property. It's agin the law. An' 
 folks that go agin the law go to jail, as the two of you'll 
 go. I 've sent many a tramp up for thirty days for sleepin ' 
 in this very shack. Why, it's a regular trap for 'em. I 
 got a good glimpse of your faces an' could see you waa 
 tough characters." He turned on Billy. "I've fooled
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 357 
 
 enough with you. Are you goin' to give in an' come 
 peaceable?" 
 
 "I'm goin' to tell you a couple of things, old hoss," 
 Billy answered. "Number one: you ain't goin' to pull 
 us. Number two : we 're goin ' to sleep the night out here. ' ' 
 
 "Gimme that light-stick," the constable demanded per- 
 emptorily. 
 
 "G'wan, Whiskers. You're standin' on your foot. Beat 
 it. Pull your freight. As for your torch you'll find it 
 outside in the mud." 
 
 Billy shifted the light until it illuminated the doorway, 
 and then threw the stick as he would pitch a baseball. 
 They were now in total darkness, and they could hear the 
 intruder gritting his teeth in rage. 
 
 "Now start your shootin' an' see what '11 happen to 
 you," Billy advised menacingly. 
 
 Saxon felt for Billy's hand and squeezed it proudly. 
 The constable grumbled some threat. 
 
 "What's that?" Billy demanded sharply. "Ain't you 
 gone yet? Now listen to me, Whiskers. I've put up with 
 all your shenanigan I'm goin' to. Now get out or I'll 
 throw you out. An' if you come monkeyin' around here 
 again you'll get yours. Now get!" 
 
 So great was the roar of the storm that they could hear 
 nothing. Billy rolled a cigarette. When he lighted it, 
 they saw the barn was empty. Billy chuckled. 
 
 "Say, I was so mad I clean forgot my run-around. It's 
 only just beginnin' to tune up again." 
 
 Saxon made him lie down and receive her soothing min-' 
 istrations. 
 
 ' ' There is no use moving till morning, ' ' she said. ' ' Then, 
 just as soon as it's light, we'll catch a car into San Jose, 
 rent a room, get a hot breakfast, and go to a drug store 
 for the proper stuff for poulticing or whatever treatment's 
 needed." 
 
 "But Benson," Billy demurred. 
 
 "I'll telephone him from town. It will only cost five 
 cents. I saw he had a wire. And you couldn't plow on
 
 358 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 account of the rain, even if your finger was well. Be- 
 sides, we'll both be mending together. My heel will be 
 all right by the time it clears up and we can start travel- 
 ing."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 EARLY on Monday morning, three days later, Saxon and 
 Billy took an electric car to the end of the line, and 
 started a second time for San Juan. Puddles were stand- 
 ing in the road, but the sun shone from a blue sky, and 
 everywhere, on the ground, was a faint hint of budding 
 green. At Benson's Saxon waited while Billy went in to 
 get his six dollars for the three days' plowing. 
 
 "Kicked like a steer because I was quitting' ' he told hei 1 
 when he came back. "He wouldn't listen at first. Said 
 he'd put me to drivin' in a few days, an' that there 
 wasn't enough good four-horse men to let one go easily." 
 
 "And what did you say?" 
 
 "Oh, I just told 'm I had to be movin' along. An' 
 when he tried to argue I told 'm my wife was with me, 
 an' she was blamed anxious to get along." 
 
 "But so are you, Billy." 
 
 * ' Sure, Pete ; but just the same I wasn 't as keen as you. 
 Doggone it, I was gettin' to like that plowin'. I'll never 
 be scairt to ask for a job at it again. I've got to where 
 I savvy the burro, an' you bet I can plow against most of 
 'm right now." 
 
 An hour afterward, with a good three miles to their 
 credit, they edged to the side of the road at the sound of 
 an automobile behind them. But the machine did not 
 pass. Benson was alone in it, and he came to a stop 
 alongside. 
 
 "Where are you bound?" he inquired of Billy, with a 
 quick, measuring glance at Saxon. 
 
 "Monterey if you're goin' that far," Billy answered 
 with a chuckle. 
 
 "I can give you a lift as far as Watsonville- It would
 
 360 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 take you several days on shank's mare with those loads. 
 Climb in." He addressed Saxon directly. "Do you want 
 to ride in front?" 
 
 Saxon glanced to Billy. 
 
 "Go on," he approved. "It's fine in front. This is 
 
 my wife, Mr. Benson Mrs. Roberts." 
 
 "Oh, ho, so you're the one that took your husband away 
 from me," Benson accused good humoredly, as he tucked 
 the robe around her. 
 
 Saxon shouldered the responsibility and became ab- 
 sorbed in watching him start the car. 
 
 "I'd be a mighty poor farmer if I owned no more land 
 than you'd plowed before you came to me," Benson, with 
 a twinkling eye, jerked over his shoulder to Billy. 
 
 "I'd never had my hands on a plow but once before," 
 Billy confessed. "But a fellow has to learn some time." 
 
 "At two dollars a day!" 
 
 "If he can get some alfalfa artist to put up for it," 
 Billy met him complacently. 
 
 Benson laughed heartily. 
 
 "You're a quick learner," he complimented. "I could 
 see that you and plows weren't on speaking acquaintance. 
 But you took hold right. There isn't one man in ten I 
 could hire off the county road that could do as well as 
 you were doing on the third day. But your big asset is 
 that you know horses. It was half a joke when I told 
 you to take the lines that morning. You're a trained 
 horseman and a born horseman as well." 
 
 "He's very gentle with horses," Saxon said. 
 
 "But there's more than that to it," Benson took her 
 'up. "Your husband's got the way with him. It's hard 
 to explain. But that's what it is the way. It's an in- 
 stinct almost. Kindness is necessary, But grip is more 
 so. Your husband grips his horses. Take the test I gave 
 him with the four-horse load. It was too complicated and 
 severe. Kindness couldn't have done it. It took grip. 
 I could see it the moment he started. There wasn't any 
 doubt in his mind. There wasn't any doubt in the horses.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 361 
 
 They got the feel of him. They just knew the thing was 
 going to be done and that it was up to them to do it. 
 They didn't have any fear, but just the same they knew 
 the boss was in the seat. "When he took hold of those 
 lines, he took hold of the horses. He gripped them, don't 
 you see. He picked them up and put them where he 
 wanted them, swung them up and down and right and 
 left, made them pull, and slack, and back and they knewi 
 everything was going to come out right. Oh, horses may) 
 be stupid, but they're not altogether fools. They know 
 when the proper horseman has hold of them, though how 
 they know it so quickly is beyond me." 
 
 Benson paused, half vexed at his volubility, and gazed 
 keenly at Saxon to see if she had followed him. What 
 he saw in her face and eyes satisfied him, and he added, 
 with a short laugh: 
 
 "Horseflesh is a hobby of mine. Don't think otherwise 
 because I am running a stink engine. I'd rather be 
 streaking along here behind a pair of fast-steppers. But 
 I'd lose time on them, and, worse than that, I'd be too 
 anxious about them all the time. As for this thing, why, it 
 has no nerves, no delicate joints nor tendons; it's a case 
 of let her rip." 
 
 The miles flew past and Saxon was soon deep in talk 
 with her host. Here again, she discerned immediately, was 
 a type of the new farmer. The knowledge she had picked 
 ap enabled her to talk to advantage, and when Benson 
 calked she was amazed that she could understand so much./ 
 [n response to his direct querying, she told him her and 
 Billy's plans, sketching the Oakland life vaguely, and 
 Iwelling on their future intentions. 
 
 Almost as in a dream, when they passed the nurseries at 
 Morgan Hill, she learned they had come twenty miles, 
 and realized that it was a longer stretch than they had 
 planned to walk that day. And still the machine hummed 
 on, eating up the distance as ever it flashed into view. 
 
 "I wondered what so good a man as your husband was 
 doing on the road," Benson told her.
 
 362 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Yes/' she smiled. "He said you said he must be a 
 good man gone wrong." 
 
 "But you see, I didn't know about you. Now I under- 
 stand. Though I must say it's extraordinary in these 
 days for a young couple like you to pack your blankets 
 in search of land. And, before I forget it, I want to tell 
 you one thing." He turned to Billy. "I am just telling 
 your wife that there's an all-the-year job waiting for you 
 on my ranch. And there's a tight little cottage of three 
 rooms the two of you can housekeep in. Don't forget." 
 
 Among other things Saxon discovered that Benson had 
 gone through the College of Agriculture at the University 
 of California a branch of learning she had not known 
 existed. He gave her small hope in her search for gov- 
 ernment land. 
 
 "The only government land left," he informed her, 
 "is what is not good enough to take up for one reason or 
 another. If it's good land down there whera you're going, 
 then the market is inaccessible. I know no railroads tap 
 in there." 
 
 "Wait till we strike Pajaro Valley," he said, when they 
 had passed Gilroy and were booming on toward Sargent's. 
 "I'll show you what can be done with the soil and not 
 by cow-college graduates but by uneducated foreigners 
 that the high and mighty American has always sneered at. 
 I'll show you. It's one of the most wonderful demonstra- 
 tions in the state." 
 
 At Sargent's he left them in the machine a few minutes 
 while he transacted business. 
 
 "Whew! It beats hikin'," Billy said. "The day's 
 young yet and when he drops us we'll be fresh for a 
 few miles on our own. Just the same, when we get settled 
 an' well off, I guess I'll stick by horses. They'll always 
 be good enough for me." 
 
 "A machine's only good to get somewhere in a hurry," 
 Saxon agreed. "Of course, if we got very, very rich " 
 
 "Say, Saxon," Billy broke in. suddenly struck with an 
 idea. "I've learned one thing. I ain't afraid any more
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 303 
 
 of not gettin' work in the country. I was at first, but I 
 didn't tell you. Just the same I was dead leary when 
 we pulled out on the San Leandro pike. An' here, already, 
 is two places open Mrs. Mortimer's an' Benson's; an' 
 steady jobs, too. Yep, a man can get work in the coun- 
 try." 
 
 "Ah," Saxon amended, with a proud little smile, "you 
 haven't said it right. Any good man can get work in 
 the country. The big farmers don't hire men out of 
 charity." 
 
 "Sure; they ain't in it for their health," he grinned. 
 
 "And they jump at you. That's because you are a 
 good man. They can see it with half an eye. Why, 
 Billy, take all the working tramps we've met on the road 
 already. There wasn't one to compare with you. I looked 
 them over. They're all weak weak in their bodies, weak 
 in their heads, weak both ways." 
 
 "Yep, they are a pretty measly bunch," Billy admitted 
 modestly. 
 
 "It's the wrong time of the year to see Pajaro Valley," 
 Benson said, when he again sat beside Saxon and Sargent's 
 was a thing of the past. "Just the same, it's worth seeing 
 any time. Think of it twelve thousand acres of apples! 
 Do you know what they call Pajaro Valley now? New 
 Dalmatia. We're being squeezed out. We Yankees 
 thought we were smart. Well, the Dalmatians came along 
 and showed they were smarter. They were miserable im- 
 migrants poorer than Job's turkey. First, they worked 
 at day's labor in the fruit harvest. Next they began, in 
 a small way, buying the apples on the trees. The more 
 money they made the bigger became their deals. Pretty 
 soon they were renting the orchards on long leases. And 
 now, they are beginning to buy the land. It won't be 
 long before they own the whole valley, and the last Ameri- 
 can will be gone. 
 
 "Oh, our smart Yankees! Why, those first ragged 
 Slavs in their first little deals with us only made some- 
 thing like two and three thousand per cent, profits. And
 
 364 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 now they're satisfied to make a hundred per cent. It's a 
 calamity if their profits sink to twenty-five or fifty per 
 cent." 
 
 "It's like San Leandro," Saxon said. "The original 
 owners of the land are about all gone already. It's inten- 
 sive cultivation." She liked that phrase. "It isn't a case 
 .of having a lot of acres, but of how much they can get 
 out of one acre." 
 
 "Yes, and more than that," Benson answered, nodding 
 his head emphatically. "Lots of them, like Luke Scurich, 
 are in it on a large scale. Several of them are worth a 
 quarter of a million already. I know ten of them who will 
 average one hundred and fifty thousand each. They have 
 a way with apples. It's almost a gift. They know trees 
 in much the same way your husband knows horses. Each 
 tree is just as much an individual to them as a horse is 
 to me. They know each tree, its whole history, everything 
 that ever happened to it, its every idiosyncrasy. They 
 have their fingers on its pulse. They can tell if it 's feeling 
 as well to-day as it felt yesterday. And if it isn't, they 
 know why and proceed to remedy matters for it. They 
 can look at a tree in bloom and tell how many boxes of 
 apples it will pack, and not only that they'll know what 
 the quality and grades of those apples are going to be. 
 Why, they know each individual apple, and they pick it 
 tenderly, with love, never hurting it, and pack it and ship 
 it tenderly and with love, and when it arrives at market, 
 it isn't bruised nor rotten, and it fetches top price. 
 
 "Yes, it's more than intensive. These Adriatic Slavs 
 are long-headed in business. Not only can they grow 
 apples, but they can sell apples. No market? What does 
 it matter? Make a market. That's their way, while our 
 kind let the crops rot knee-deep under the trees. Look at 
 Peter Mengol. Every year he goes to England, and he 
 takes a hundred carloads of yellow Newton pippins with 
 him. Why, those Dalmatians are showing Pajaro apples 
 on the South African market right now, and coining money 
 out of it hand over fist."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 365 
 
 "What do they do with all the money?" Saxon queried. 
 
 "Buy the Americans of Pajaro Valley out, of course, aa 
 they are already doing." 
 
 ' ' And then ? " she questioned. 
 
 Benson looked at her quickly. 
 
 "Then they'll start buying the Americans out of some 
 p other valley. And the Americans will spend the money 
 and by the second generation start rotting in the cities, 
 as you and your husband would have rotted if you hadn't 
 got out." 
 
 Saxon could not repress a shudder. As Mary had 
 
 rotted, she thought; as Bert and all the rest had rotted; 
 as Tom and all the rest Avere rotting. 
 
 "Oh, it's a great country," Benson was continuing. 
 "But we're not a great people. Kipling is right. We're 
 crowded out and sitting on the stoop. And the worst of 
 it is there's no reason we shouldn't know better. We're 
 teaching it in all our agricultural colleges, experiment sta- 
 tions, and demonstration trains. But the people won 't take 
 hold, and the immigrant, who has learned in a hard school, 
 beats them out. Why, after I graduated, and before my 
 father died he was of the old school and laughed at what 
 he called my theories I traveled for a couple of years. 
 J wanted to see how the old countries farmed. Oh, I 
 saw. 
 
 " We '11 soon enter the valley. You bet I saw. First 
 
 thing, in Japan, the terraced hillsides. Take a hill so" 
 steep you couldn't drive a horse up it. No bother to them. 
 They terraced it a stone wall, and good masonry, six 
 ^feet high, a level terrace six feet wide ; up and up, walls and 
 'terraces, the same thing all the way, straight into the air, 
 walls upon walls, terraces upon terraces, until I've seen 
 ten- foot walls built to make three-foot terraces, and twenty- 
 foot walls for four or five feet of soil they could grow 
 things on. And that soil, packed up the mountainsides in 
 baskets on their backs! 
 
 "Same thing everywhere I went, in Greece, in Ireland, 
 in Dalmatia I went there, too. They went around and
 
 866 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 gathered every bit of soil they could find, gleaned it and 
 even stole it by the shovelful or handful, and carried it 
 up the mountains on their backs and built farms built 
 them, made them, on the naked rock. Why, in France, 
 I've seen hill peasants mining their stream-beds for soil 
 as our fathers mined the streams of California for gold. 
 Only our gold's gone, and the peasants' soil remains, turn- 
 ing over and over, doing something, growing something, 
 all the time. Now, I guess I '11 hush. ' ' 
 
 "My God!" Billy muttered in awe-stricken tones. "Our 
 folks never done that. No wonder they lost out." 
 
 "There's the valley now," Benson said. "Look at those 
 trees! Look at those hillsides! That's New Dalmatia. 
 Look at it ! An apple paradise ! Look at that soil ! Look 
 at the way it's worked!" 
 
 It was not a large valley that Saxon saw. But every- 
 where, across the fiat-lands and up the low rolling hills, 
 the industry of the Dalmatians was evident. As she looked 
 she listened to Benson. 
 
 "Do you know what the old settlers did with this beau- 
 tiful soil? Planted the flats in grain and pastured cattle 
 on the hills. And now twelve thousand acres of it are 
 in apples. It 's a regular show place for the Eastern guests 
 at Del Monte, who run out here in their machines to see 
 the trees in bloom or fruit. Take Matteo Lettunich he's 
 one of the originals. Entered through Castle Garden and 
 became a dish-washer. When he laid eyes on this valley he 
 knew it was his Klondike. To-day he leases seven hundred 
 acres and owns a hundred and thirty of his own the fin- 
 est orchard in the valley, and he packs from forty to fifty 
 thousand boxes of export apples from it every year. And 
 he won't let a soul but a Dalmatian pick a single apple of 
 all those apples. One day, in a banter, I asked him what 
 he'd sell his hundred arid thirty acres for. He answered 
 seriously. He told me what it had netted him, year by 
 year, and struck an average. He told me to calculate the 
 principal from that at six per cent. I did. It came to 
 over three thousand dollars an acre."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 36t 
 
 "What are all the Chinks doin' in the Valley?" Billy 
 asked. "Growin' apples, too?" 
 
 Benson shook his head. 
 
 "But that's another point where we Americans lose 
 out. There isn't anything wasted in this valley, not a 
 core nor a paring; and it isn't the Americans who do the 
 saving. There are fifty-seven apple-evaporating furnaces, 
 to say nothing of the apple canneries and cider and vine- 
 gar factories. And Mr. John Chinaman owns them. They 
 ship fifteen thousand barrels of cider and vinegar each 
 year." 
 
 "It was our folks that made this country," Billy re- 
 flected. "Fought for it, opened it up, did everything " 
 
 "But develop it," Benson caught him up. "We did 
 our best to destroy it, as we destroyed the soil of New 
 England." He waved his hand, indicating some place 
 beyond the hills. "Salinas lies over that way. If you 
 went through there you'd think you were in Japan. And 
 more than one fat little fruit valley in California has been 
 taken over by the Japanese. Their method is somewhat 
 different from the Dalmatians'. First they drift in fruit- 
 picking at day's wages. They give better satisfaction than 
 the American fruit-pickers, too, and the Yankee grower ia 
 glad to get them. Next, as they get stronger, they form 
 in Japanese unions and proceed to run the American 
 labor out. Still the fruit-growers are satisfied. The next 
 step is when the Japs won't pick. The American labor 
 is gone. The fruit-grower is helpless. The crop perishes. 
 Then in step the Jap labor bosses. They're the masters 
 ilready. They contract for the crop. The fruit-growers 
 are at their mercy, you see. Pretty soon the Japs are 
 running the valley. The fruit-growers have become ab- 
 sentee landlords and are busy learning higher standards 
 of living in the cities or making trips to Europe. Ee- 
 mains only one more step. The Japs buy them out. 
 They've got to sell, for the Japs control the labor market 
 and could bankrupt them at will." 
 
 "But If this goes on, what is left for us?" asked Saxon.
 
 368 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "What is happening. Those of us who haven't any- 
 thing rot in the cities. Those of us who have land, sell it 
 and go to the cities. Some become larger capitalists ; some 
 go into the professions; the rest spend the money and 
 start rotting when it's gone, and if it lasts their life-time 
 their children do the rotting for them." 
 
 Their long ride was soon over, and at parting Benson 
 reminded Billy of the steady job that awaited him any/ 
 time he gave the word. 
 
 "I guess we'll take a peep at that government land 
 first," Billy answered. "Don't know what we'll settle 
 down to, but there's one thing sure we won't tackle." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "Start in apple-growin ' at three thousan' dollars an 
 acre." 
 
 Billy and Saxon, their packs upon their backs, trudged 
 along a hundred yards. He was the first to break silence. 
 
 "An* I tell you another thing, Saxon. We'll never be 
 goin' around smellin' out an' swipin' bits of soil an' 
 carryin' it up a hill in a basket. The United States is 
 big yet. I don't care what Benson or any of 'em says, 
 the United States ain't played out. There's millions 
 of acres untouched an' waitin', an' it's up to us to find 
 'em." 
 
 "And 111 tell you one thing," Saxon said. "We're 
 getting an education. Tom was raised on a ranch, yet 
 he doesn't know right now as much about farming condi- 
 tions as we do. And I'll tell you another thing. The, 
 more I think of it, the more it seems we are going to be 
 disappointed about that government land." 
 
 "Ain't no use believin' what everybody tells you," he 
 protested. 
 
 "Oh, it isn't that. It's what I think. I leave it to 
 you. If this land around here is worth three thousand an 
 acre, why is it that government land, if it's any good, is 
 waiting there, only a short way off, to be taken for the 
 
 Billy pondered this for a quarter cf & mile, but could
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 369 
 
 come to no conclusion. At last he cleared his throat and 
 
 remarked : 
 
 ''Well, we can wait till we see it first, can't we?" 
 "All right," Saxon agreed. "We'll wait till we see it'
 
 CHAPTER Vl 
 
 THEY had taken the direct county road across the hills 
 from Monterey, instead of the Seventeen Mile Drive 
 around by the coast, so that Carmel Bay came upon them 
 without any fore- glimmerings of its beauty. Dropping 
 down through the pungent pines, they passed woods-em- 
 bowered cottages, quaint and rustic, of artists and writers, 
 and went on across wind-blown rolling sandhills held t* 
 place by sturdy lupins and nodding with pale California 
 poppies. Saxon screamed in sudden wonder of delight, 
 then caught her breath and gazed at the amazing peacock- 
 blue of a breaker, shot through with golden sunlight, over- 
 falling in a mile-long sweep and thundering into white 
 ruin of foam on a crescent beach of sand scarcely less 
 white. 
 
 How long they stood and watched the stately procession 
 of breakers, rising from out the deep and wind-capped sea 
 to froth and thunder at their feet, Saxon did not know. 
 She was recalled to herself when Billy, laughing, tried 
 to remove the telescope basket from her shoulders. 
 
 "You kind of look as though you was goin' to stop a 
 while," he said. "So we might as well get comfortable." 
 
 "I never dreamed it, I never dreamed it," she repeated, 
 with passionately clasped hands. "I . . . I thought 
 the surf at the Cliff House was wonderful, but it gave no 
 
 idea of this. Oh! Look! LOOK! Did you ever see 
 
 such an unspeakable color? And the sunlight flashing 
 right through it ! Oh! Oh! Oh!" 
 
 At last she was able to take her eyes from the surf and 
 gaze at the sea-horizon of deepest peacock-blue and piled 
 with cloud-masses, at the curve of the beach south to the 
 jagged point of rocks, and at the rugged blue mountains 
 seen across soft low hills, landward, up Carmel Valley. 
 370,
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 371 
 
 "Might as well sit down an' take it easy," Billy in- 
 dulged her. "This is too good to want to run away from 
 all at once." 
 
 Saxon assented, but began immediately to unlace her 
 shoes. 
 
 "You ain't a-goin' to?" Billy asked in surprised de- 
 light, then began unlacing his own. 
 
 But before they were ready to run barefooted on the 
 perilous fringe of cream-wet sand where land and ocean 
 met, a new and wonderful thing attracted their attention. 
 Down from the dark pines and across the sandhills ran a 
 man, naked save for narrow trunks. He was smooth and 
 rosy-skinned, cherubic-faced, with a thatch of curly yellow 
 hair, but his body was hugely thewed as a Hercules'. 
 
 ' ' Gee ! must be Sandow, ' ' Billy muttered low to Saxon. 
 
 But she was thinking of the engraving in her mother's 
 scrapbook and of the Vikings on the wet sands of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 The runner passed them a dozen feet away, crossed the 
 wet sand, never pausing, till the froth wash was to his 
 knees while above him, ten feet at least, upreared a wall 
 of overtopping water. Huge and powerful as his body 
 had seemed, it was now white and fragile in the face of 
 that imminent, great-handed buffet of the sea. Saxon 
 gasped with anxiety, and she stole a look at Billy to note 
 that he was tense with watching. 
 
 But the stranger sprang to meet the blow, and, just when 
 it seemed he must be crushed, he dived into the face of 
 the breaker and disappeared. The mighty mass of water 
 fell in thunder on the beach, but beyond appeared a yellow 
 head, one arm out-reaching, and a portion of a shoulder. 
 Only a few strokes was he able to make ere he was com- 
 pelled to dive through another breaker. This was the bat- 
 tle to win seaward against the sweep of the shoreward- 
 hastening sea. Each time he dived and was lost to view 
 Saxon caught her breath and clenched her hands. Some- 
 times, after the passage of a breaker, they could not find 
 him, and when they did he would be scores of feet away,
 
 372 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 flung there like a chip by a smoke-bearded breaker. Often 
 it seemed he must fail and be thrown upon the beach, but 
 at the end of half an hour he was beyond the outer edge of 
 the surf and swimming strong, no longer diving, but top- 
 ping the waves. Soon he was so far away that only at 
 intervals could they find the speck of him. That, too, 
 vanished, and Saxon and Billy looked at each other, she, 
 with amazement at the swimmer's valor, Billy with blue* 
 eyes flashing. 
 
 "Some swimmer, that boy, some swimmer," he pr&ised. 
 
 "Nothing chicken-hearted about him. Say, I only 
 
 know tank-swimmin', an' bay-swimmin ', but now I'm goin' 
 to learn ocean-swimmin '. If I could do that I'd be so 
 proud you couldn't come within forty feet of me. Why, 
 Saxon, honest to God, I'd sooner do what he done than 
 own a thousan' farms. Oh, I can swim, too, I'm tellin' 
 you, like a fish I swum, one Sunday, from the Narrow 
 Gauge Pier to Sessions' Basin, an' that's miles but I 
 never seen anything like that guy in the swimmin' line. 
 An' I'm not goin' to leave this beach until he comes back. 
 
 All by his lonely out there in a mountain se&, think of 
 
 it! He's got his nerve all right, all right." 
 
 Saxon and Billy ran barefooted up and down the beach, 
 pursuing each other with brandished snakes of seaweed 
 and playing like children for an hour. It was not until 
 they were putting on their shoes that they sighted the 
 yellow head bearing shoreward. Billy was at the edge of 
 the surf to meet him, emerging, not white-skinned as he 
 had entered, but red from the pounding he had received 
 at the hands of the sea. 
 
 "You're a wonder, and I just got to hand it to you," 
 Billy greeted him in outspoken admiration. 
 
 "It was a big surf to-day," the young man replied, 
 with a nod of acknowledgment. 
 
 "It don't happen that you are a fignter I never heard 
 of?" Billy queried, striving to get some inkling of the 
 identity of the physical prodigy. 
 
 The other laughed and shook his head, and Billy could
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 373 
 
 not guess that he was an ex-captain of a 'Varsity Eleven, 
 and incidentally the father of a family and the author of 
 many books. He looked Billy over with an eye trained 
 in measuring freshmen aspirants for the gridiron. 
 
 "You're some body of a man," he appreciated. "You'd 
 strip with the best of them. Am I right in guessing that 
 you know your way about in the ring?" 
 
 Billy nodded. "My name's Roberts." 
 
 The swimmer scowled with a futile effort at recollec- 
 tion. 
 
 "Bill Bill Roberts," Billy supplemented. 
 
 "Oh, ho ! Not Big Bill Roberts? Why, I saw you fight, 
 before the earthquake, in the Mechanic's Pavilion. It 
 was a preliminary to Eddie Hanlon and some other fel- 
 low. You're a two-handed fighter, I remember that, with 
 an awful wallop, but slow. Yes, I remember, you were 
 slow that night, but you got your man." He put out a 
 wet hand. "My name's Hazard Jim Hazard." 
 
 "An' if you're the football coach that was, a couple of 
 years ago, I've read about you in the papers. Am I 
 right?" 
 
 They shook hands heartily, and Saxon was introduced. 
 She felt very small beside the two young giants, and very 
 proud, withal, that she belonged to the race that gave 
 them birth. She could only listen to them talk. 
 
 "I'd like to put on the gloves with you every day for 
 half an hour," Hazard said. "You could teach me a lot. 
 Are you going to stay around here?" 
 
 "No. We're goin' on down the coast, lookin' for land. 
 'Just the same, I could teach you a few, and there's one 
 'thing you could teach me surf swimmin'." 
 
 "I'll swap lessons with you any time," Hazard offered. 
 He turned to Saxon. "Why don't you stop in Garmel 
 for a while? It isn't so bad." 
 
 "It's beautiful," she acknowledged, with a grateful 
 
 smile, "but " She turned and pointed to their packs 
 
 on the edge of the lupins. "We're on the tramp, and 
 lookin' for government land."
 
 374 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "If you're looking down past the Sur for it, it will 
 keep," he laughed. "Well, I've got to run along and 
 get some clothes on. If you come back this way, look me 
 up. Anybody will tell you where I live. So long." 
 
 And, as he had first arrived, he departed, crossing the 
 sandhills on the run. 
 
 Billy followed him with admiring eyes. 
 
 "Some boy, some boy," he murmured. "Why, Saxon, 
 he's famous. If I've seen his face in the papers once, 
 I've seen it a thousand times. An' he ain't a bit stuck on 
 
 himself. Just man to man. Say! I'm beginnin' to 
 
 have faith in the old stock again." 
 
 They turned their backs on the beach and in the tiny 
 main street bought meat, vegetables, and half a dozen 
 eggs. Billy had to drag Saxon away from the window of 
 a fascinating shop where were iridescent pearls of abalone, 
 set and unset. 
 
 "Abalones grow here, all along the coast," Billy as- 
 sured her; "an' I'll get you all you want. Low tide's the 
 time." 
 
 "My father had a set of cuff-buttons made of abalone 
 shell," she said. "They were set in pure, soft gold. I 
 haven't thought about them for years, and I wonder who 
 has them now." 
 
 They turned south. Everywhere from among the pines 
 peeped the quaint pretty houses of the artist folk, and 
 they were not prepared, where the road dipped to Carmel 
 River, for the building that met their eyes. 
 
 "I know what it is," Saxon almost whispered. "It's an 
 old Spanish Mission. It's the Carmel Mission, of course. 
 That's the way the Spaniards came up from Mexico, build- 
 ing missions as they came and converting the In- 
 dians " 
 
 "Until we chased them out, Spaniards an' Indians, 
 whole kit an' caboodle," Billy observed with calm satis- 
 faction. 
 
 "Just the same, it's wonderful," Saxon mused, gazing 
 at the big, half-ruined adobe structure. "There is the
 
 THE VALLEY OF TEE MOON 375 
 
 Mission Dolores, in San Francisco, but it's smaller thas 
 this and not as old." 
 
 Hidden from the sea by low hillocks, forsaken by hu- 
 man being and human habitation, the church of sun-baked 
 clay and straw and chalk-rock stood hushed and breathless 
 in the midst of the adobe ruins which once had housed its 
 worshiping thousands. The spirit of the place descended 
 upon Saxon and Billy, and they walked softly, speaking in 
 whispers, almost afraid to go in through the open portal. 
 There was neither priest nor worshiper, yet they found 
 all the evidences of use, by a congregation which Billy 
 judged must be small from the number of the benches. 
 Later they climbed the earthquake-cracked belfry, noting 
 the hand-hewn timbers ; and in the gallery, discovering the 
 pure quality of their voices, Saxon, trembling at her own 
 temerity, softly sang the opening bars of " Jesus Lover of 
 My Soul." Delighted with the result, she leaned over 
 the railing, gradually increasing her voice to its full 
 strength as she sang: 
 
 "Jesus, Lover of my soul, 
 
 Let me to Thy bosom fly, 
 While the nearer waters roll, 
 
 While the tempest still is nigh. 
 Hide me, O my Saviour, hide, 
 
 Till the storm of life is past; 
 Safe into the haven guide 
 
 And receive my soul at last." 
 
 Billy leaned against the ancient wall and loved her with 
 his eyes, and, when she had finished, he murmured, al- 
 most in a whisper: 
 
 "That was beautiful just beautiful. An' you ought to 
 a-seen your face when you sang. It was as beautiful as 
 
 your voice. Ain't it funny? 1 never think of religion 
 
 except when I think of you." 
 
 They camped in the willow bottom, cooked dinner, and 
 spent the afternoon on the point of low rocks north of 
 the mouth of the river. They had not intended to spend
 
 376 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 the afternoon, but found themselves too fascinated to turn 
 away from the breakers bursting upon the rocks and from 
 the many kinds of colorful sea life starfish, crabs, mus- 
 sels, sea anemones, and, once, in a rock-pool, a small devil- 
 fish that -chilled their blood when it cast the hooded net 
 of its body around the small crabs they tossed to it. As 
 the tide grew lower, they gathered a mess of mussels 
 huge fellows, five and six inches long and bearded like 
 patriarchs. Then, while Billy wandered in a vain search 
 for abalones, Saxon lay and dabbled in the crystal-clear 
 water of a rock-pool, dipping up handfuls of glistening 
 jewels ground bits of shell and pebble of flashing rose 
 and blue and green and violet. Billy came back and lay 
 beside her, lazying in the sea-cool sunshine, and together 
 they watched the sun sink into the horizon where the 
 ocean was deepest peacock-blue. 
 
 She reached out her hand to Billy's and sighed with 
 sheer repletion of content. It seemed she had never lived 
 such a wonderful day. It was as if all old dreams were 
 coming true. Such beauty of the world she had never 
 guessed in her fondest imagining. Billy pressed her hand 
 tenderly. 
 
 "What was you thinkin' of?" he asked, as they &TOSS 
 finally to go. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know, Billy. Perhaps that it was better, 
 one day like this, than ten thousand years in Oakland.'"
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THEY left Cannel River and Carmel Valley behind, and 
 with a rising sun went south across the hills between 
 the mountains and the sea. The road was badly washed 
 and gullied and showed little sign of travel. 
 
 "It peters out altogether farther down," Billy said. 
 "From there on it's only horse trails. But I don't see 
 much signs of timber, an' this soil's none so good. It's 
 only used for pasture no farmin' to speak of." 
 
 The hills were bare and grassy. Only the canyons were 
 wooded, while the higher and more distant hills were 
 furry with chaparral. Once they saw a coyote slide into 
 the brush, and once Billy wished for a gun when a large 
 wildcat stared at them malignantly and declined to run 
 until routed by a clod of earth that burst about its ears 
 like shrapnel. 
 
 Several miles along Saxon complained of thirst. Where 
 the road dipped nearly at sea level to cross a small gulch 
 Billy looked for water. The bed of the gulch was damp 
 with hill-drip, and he left her to rest while he sought a 
 spring. 
 
 "Say," he hailed a few minutes afterward. "Come 
 on down. You just gotta see this. It'll 'most take your 
 breath away." 
 
 < Saxon followed the faint path that led steeply down 
 'through the thicket. Midway along, where a barbed wire 
 fence was strung high across the mouth of the gulch and 
 weighted down with big rocks, she caught her first glimpse 
 of the tiny beach. Only from the sea could one guess its 
 existence, so completely was it tucked away on three preci- 
 pitous sides by the land, and screened by the thicket. Fur- 
 thermore, the beach was the head of a narrow rock cove, a 
 quarter of a mile long, up which pent way the sea roared
 
 378 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 and was subdued at the last to a gentle pulse of surf. 
 Beyond the mouth many detached rocks, meeting the fuD 
 force of the breakers, spouted foam and spray high in 
 the air. The knees of these rocks, seen between the 
 surges, were black with mussels. On their tops sprawled 
 huge sea-lions tawny-wet and roaring in the sun, whilfi 
 overhead, uttering shrill cries, darted and wheeled a mul- 
 titude of sea birds. 
 
 The last of the descent, from the barbed wire fence, was 
 a sliding fall of a dozen feet, and Saxon arrived on the 
 soft dry sand in a sitting posture. 
 
 "Oh, I tell you it's just great," Billy bubbled. "Look 
 at it for a camping spot. In among the trees there is the 
 prettiest spring you ever saw. An' look at all the good 
 firewood, an' . . ." He gazed about and seaward with 
 eyes that saw what no rush of words could compass. 
 ". . . An', an' everything. We could live here. Look 
 at the mussels out there. An' I bet you we could catch 
 fish. What d'ye say we stop a few days? It's vaca- 
 tion anyway an' I could go back to Carmel for hooks an* 
 lines." 
 
 Saxon, keenly appraising his glowing face, realized that 
 he was indeed being won from the city. 
 
 "An' there ain't no wind here," he was recommending. 
 "Not a breath. An' look how wild it is. Just as if we was 
 a thousand miles from anywhere." 
 
 The wind, which had been fresh and raw across the 
 bare hills, gained no entrance to the cove; and the beach 
 was warm and balmy, the air sweetly pungent with the 
 thicket odors. Here and there, in the midst of the thicket, 
 were small oak trees and other small trees of which Saxon 
 did not know the names. Her enthusiasm now vied with 
 Billy's, tod, hand in hand, they started to explore. 
 
 "Here's where we can play real Robinson Crusoe/* 
 Billy cried, as they crossed the hard sand from high- 
 water mark to the edge of the water. "Come on, Robin- 
 son. Let's stop over. Of course, I'm your Man Friday, 
 an' what you say goes."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 379 
 
 "But what shall we do with Man Saturday!" She 
 pointed in mock consternation to a fresh footprint in the 
 sand. ' ' He may be a savage cannibal, you know. ' ' 
 
 "No chance. It's not a bare foot but a tennis shoe." 
 
 "But a savage could get a tennis shoe from a drowned 
 or eaten sailor, couldn't he?" she contended. 
 
 "But sailors don't wear tennis shoes," was Billy's 
 prompt refutation. 
 
 "You know too much for Man Friday," she chided; 
 "but, just the same, if you'll fetch the packs we'll make 
 camp. Besides, it mightn't have been a sailor that was 
 eaten. It might have been a passenger." 
 
 By the end of an hour a snug camp was completed. 
 The blankets were spread, a supply of firewood was 
 chopped from the seasoned driftwood, and over a fire the 
 coffee pot had begun to sing. Saxon called to Billy, who 
 was improvising a table from a wave-washed plank. She 
 pointed seaward. On the far point of rocks, naked ex- 
 cept for swimming trunks, stood a man. He was gazing 
 toward them, and they could see his long mop of dark 
 hair blown by the wind. As he started to climb the rocks 
 landward Billy called Saxon's attention to the fact that 
 the stranger wore tennis shoes. In a few minutes he 
 dropped down from the rock to the beach and walked up 
 to them. 
 
 * ' Gosh ! ' ' Billy whispered to Saxon. ' ' He 's lean enough, 
 but look at his muscles. Everybody down here seems to 
 go in for physical culture." 
 
 As the newcomer approached, Saxon glimpsed sufficient 
 of his face to be reminded of the old pioneers and of a 
 certain type of face seen frequently among the old soldiers. 
 Young though he was not more than thirty, she decided 
 this man had the same long and narrow face, with the 
 high cheekbones, high and slender forehead, and nose high, 
 lean, and almost beaked. The lips were thin and sensitive ; 
 but the eyes were different from any she had ever seen 
 in pioneer or veteran or any man. They were so dark a 
 gray that they seemed brown, and there were a farness and
 
 380 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 alertness of vision in them as of bright questing through 
 profounds of space. In a misty way Saxon felt that she 
 had seen him before. 
 
 "Hello," he greeted. "You ought to be comfortable 
 here." He threw down a partly filled sack. "Mussels. 
 All I could get. The tide's not low enough yet." 
 ' Saxon heard Billy muffle an ejaculation, and saw painted 
 on his face the extremest astonishment. 
 
 "Well, honest to God, it does me proud to meet you," 
 he blurted out. "Shake hands. I always said if I laid 
 eyes on you I'd shake. Say!" 
 
 But Billy's feelings mastered him, and, beginning with 
 a choking giggle, he roared into helpless mirth. 
 
 The stranger looked at him curiously across their clasped 
 hands, and glanced inquiringly to Saxon. 
 
 "You gotta excuse me," Billy gurgled, pumping the 
 ether's hand up and down. "But I just gotta laugh. 
 Why, honest to God, I've woke up nights an' laughed an' 
 gone to sleep again. Don't you recognize 'm, Saxon? 
 He's the same identical dude say, friend, you're some 
 punkins at a hundred yards dash, ain 't you ? ' ' 
 
 And then, in a sudden rush, Saxon placed him. He it 
 was who had stood with Roy Blanchard 'alongside the 
 automobile on the day she had wandered, sick and unwit- 
 ting, into strange neighborhoods. Nor had that day been 
 the first time she had seen him. 
 
 "Remember the Bricklayers' Picnic at Weasel Park?" 
 Billy was asking. "An' the foot race? Why, I'd know 
 that nose of yours anywhere among a million. You was 
 tfie guy that stuck your cane between Timothy McManus's 
 legs an' started the grandest roughhouse Weasel Park or 
 any other park ever seen." 
 
 The visitor now commenced to laugh. He stood on one 
 leg as he laughed harder, then stood on the other leg. 
 Finally he sat down on a log of driftwood. 
 
 "And you were there," he managed to gasp to Billy at 
 last. "You saw it. You saw it." He turned to Saxon. 
 And you?"
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 381 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Say," Billy began again, as their laughter eased down, 
 ''what I wanta know is what'd you wanta do it for. Say, 
 vhat'd you wanta do it for? I've ben askin' that to 
 tnyself ever since." 
 
 "So have I," was the answer. 
 
 "You didn't know Timothy McManus, did you?" 
 
 "No; I'd never seen him before, and I've never seen 
 i.-m since." 
 
 "But what'd you wanta do it for?" Billy persisted. 
 
 The young man laughed, then controlled himself. 
 
 "To save my life, I don't know. I have one friend, a 
 irost intelligent chap that writes sober, scientific books, 
 and he's always aching to throw an egg into an electric 
 fan to see what will happen. Perhaps that's the way it 
 was with me, except that there was no aching. When I 
 saw those legs flying past, I merely stuck my stick in 
 between. I didn't know I was going to do it. I just did 
 it. Timothy McManus was no more surprised than I 
 was." 
 
 "Did they catch you?" Billy asked. 
 
 "Do I look as if they did? I was never so scared in 
 my life. Timothy McManus himself couldn't have caught 
 me that day. But what happened afterward? I heard 
 they had a fearful roughhouse, but I couldn't stop to 
 see." 
 
 It was not until a quarter of an hour had passed, during 
 which Billy described the fight, that introductions took 
 place. Mark Hall was their visitor's name, and he lived 
 in a bungalow among the Carmel pines. 
 
 "But how did you ever find your way to Bierce's Cove?" 
 he was curious to know. "Nobody ever dreams of it from 
 the road." 
 
 "So that's its name?" Saxon said. 
 
 "It's the name we gave it. One of our crowd camped 
 here one summer, and we named it after him. Ill take 
 
 a cup of that coffee, if you don't mind." This to 
 
 Saxon. "And then I'll show your husband around. We're
 
 382 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 pretty proud of this cove. Nobody ever comes here but 
 ourselves." 
 
 "You didn't get all that muscle from bein' chased by 
 McManus," Billy observed over the coffee. 
 
 "Massage under tension," was the cryptic reply. 
 
 "Yes," Billy said, pondering vacantly. "Do you eat it 
 with a spoon?" 
 
 Hall laughed. 
 
 "I'll show you. Take any muscle you want, tense it, 
 then manipulate it with your fingers, so, and so." 
 
 "An' that done all that?" Billy asked skeptically. 
 
 "All that!" the other scorned proudly. "For one mus- 
 cle you see, there's five tucked away but under command. 
 Touch your finger to any part of me and see." 
 
 Billy complied, touching the right breast. 
 
 "You know something about anatomy, picking a muscle- 
 less spot," scolded Hall. 
 
 Billy grinned triumphantly, then, to his amazement, saw 
 a muscle grow up under his finger. He prodded it, and 
 found it hard and honest. 
 
 ' ' Massage under tension ! ' ' Hall exulted. ' ' Go on any- 
 where you want." 
 
 And anywhere and everywhere Billy touched, muscles 
 large and small rose up, quivered, and sank down, till the 
 whole body was a ripple of willed quick. 
 
 "Never saw anything like it," Billy marveled at the 
 end; "an' I've seen some few good men stripped in my 
 time. Why, you're all living silk." 
 
 "Massage under tension did it, my friend. The doctors 
 gave me up. My friends called me the sick rat, and the 
 mangy poet, and all that. Then I quit the city, came down 
 to Carmel, and went in for the open air and massage 
 under tension." 
 
 "Jim Hazard didn't get his muscles that way," Billy 
 challenged. 
 
 "Certainly not, the lucky skunk; he was born with them. 
 Mine's made. That's the difference. I'm a work of art. 
 He 's a cave bear. Come along. I '11 show you around now.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 383 
 
 You 'd better get your clothes off. Keep on only your shoes 
 and pants, unless you've got a pair of trunks." 
 
 "My mother was a poet," Saxon said, while Billy was 
 getting himself ready in the thicket. She had noted HalPs 
 reference to himself. 
 
 He seemed incurious, and she ventured further. 
 
 ''Some of it was printed." 
 
 "What was her name?" he asked idly. 
 
 "Dayelle Wiley Brown. She wrote: 'The Viking's 
 Quest'; 'Days of Gold'; 'Constancy'; 'The Caballero'; 
 'Graves at Little Meadow'; and a lot more. Ten of them 
 are in 'The Story of the Files.' " 
 
 "I've the book at home," he remarked, for the first 
 time showing real interest. ' ' She was a pioneer, of course 
 before my time. I'll look her up when I get back to 
 the house. My people were pioneers. They came by 
 Panama, in the Fifties, from Long Island. My father 
 was a doctor, but he went into business in San Francisco 
 and robbed his fellow men out of enough to keep me and 
 
 the rest of a large family going ever since. Say, 
 
 where are you and your husband bound?" 
 
 When Saxon had told him of their attempt to get away 
 from Oakland and of their quest for land, he sympathized 
 with the first and shook his head over the second. 
 
 "It's beautiful down beyond the Sur," he told her. 
 "I've been all over those redwood canyons, and the place 
 is alive with game. The government land is there, too. 
 But you'd be foolish to settle. It's too remote. And it 
 isn't good farming land, except in patches in the canyons. 
 I know a Mexican there who is wild to sell his five hundred 
 acres for fifteen hundred dollars. Three dollars an acre! 
 And what does that mean? That it isn't worth more. 
 That it isn 't worth so much ; because he can find no takers. 
 Land, you know, is worth what they buy and sell it 
 for." 
 
 Billy, emerging from the thicket, only in shoes and in 
 pants rolled to the knees, put an end to the conversation; 
 and Saxon watched the two men, physically so dissimilar.
 
 384 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 climb the rocks and start out the south side of the cove. 
 At first her eyes followed them lazily, but soon she grew 
 interested and worried. Hall was leading Billy up what 
 seemed a perpendicular wall in order to gain the backbone 
 of the rock. Billy went slowly, displaying extreme cau- 
 tion; but twice she saw him slip, the weather-eaten stone 
 crumbling away in his hand and rattling beneath him into 
 the cove. "When Hall reached the top, a hundred feet 
 above the sea, she saw him stand upright and sway easily 
 on the knife-edge which she knew fell away as abruptly 
 on the other side. Billy, once on top, contented himself 
 with crouching on hands and knees. The leader went on, 
 upright, walking as easily as on a level floor. Billy aban- 
 doned the hands and knees position, but crouched closely 
 and often helped himself with his hands. 
 
 The knife-edge backbone was deeply serrated, and into 
 one of the notches both men disappeared. Saxon could 
 not keep down her anxiety, and climbed out on the north 
 side of the cove, which was less rugged and far less diffi- 
 cult to travel. Even so, the unaccustomed height, the 
 crumbling surface, and the fierce buffets of the wind tried 
 her nerve. Soon she was opposite the men. They had 
 leaped a narrow chasm and were scaling another tooth. 
 Already Billy was going more nimbly, but his leader often 
 paused and waited for him. The way grew severer, and 
 several times the clefts they essayed extended down to the 
 ocean level and spouted spray from the growling breakers 
 that burst through. At other times, standing erect, they 
 would fall forward across deep and narrow clefts until 
 their palms met the opposing side; then, clinging with 
 their fingers, their bodies would be drawn across and up. 
 
 Near the end, Hall and Billy went out of sight over the 
 south side of the backbone, and when Saxon saw them 
 again they were rounding the extreme point of rock and 
 coming back on the cove side. Here the way seemed 
 barred. A wide fissure, with hopelessly vertical sides, 
 yawned skywards from a foam-white vortex where the 
 mad waters shot their level a dozen feet upward and
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 385 
 
 dropped it as abruptly to the black depths of battered 
 rock and writhing weed. 
 
 Clinging precariously, the men descended their side till 
 the spray was flying about them. Here they paused. 
 Saxon could see Hall pointing down across the fissure 
 and imagined he was showing some curious thing to 
 Billy. She was not prepared for what followed. The 
 surf-level sucked and sank away, and across and down 
 Hall jumped to a narrow foothold where the wash had 
 roared yards deep the moment before. Without pause, 
 as the returning sea rushed up, he was around the sharp 
 corner and clawing upward hand and foot to escape be- 
 ing caught. Billy was now left alone. He could not even 
 see Hall, much less be further advised by him, and so 
 tensely did Saxon watch, that the pain in her finger-tips, 
 crushed to the rock by which she held, warned her to re- 
 lax. Billy waited his chance, twice made tentative prepa- 
 rations to leap and sank back, then leaped across and down 
 to the momentarily exposed foothold, doubled the corner, 
 and as he clawed up to join Hall was washed to the waist 
 but not torn away. 
 
 Saxon did not breathe easily till they rejoined her at 
 the fire. One glance at Billy told her that he was ex- 
 ceedingly disgusted with himself. 
 
 "You'll do, for a beginner," Hall cried, slapping him 
 jovially on the bare shoulder. "That climb is a stunt of 
 mine. Many's the brave lad that's started with me and 
 broken down before we were half way out. I've had a 
 dozen balk at that big jump. Only the athletes make it." 
 
 "I ain't ashamed of admittin' I was scairt, " Billy 
 growled. "You're a regular goat, an' you sure got my 
 goat half a dozen times. But I'm mad now. It's mostly 
 trainin', an' I'm goin' to camp right here an' train till 
 I can challenge you to a race out an' around an' back to 
 the beach." 
 
 "Done," said Hall, putting out his hand in ratification. 
 "And some time, when we get together in San Francisco, 
 I '11 lead you up against Bierce the one this cove is named
 
 386 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 after. His favorite stunt, when he isn't collecting rattle- 
 snakes, is to wait for a forty-mile-an-hour breeze, and then 
 get up and walk on the parapet of a skyscraper on the lee 
 side, mind you, so that if he blows off there's nothing to 
 f ele/i him up but the street. He sprang that on me once. ' ' 
 
 "Did you do it?" Billy asked eagerly. 
 
 ' ' I wouldn 't have if I hadn 't been on. I 'd been practic- 
 'ing it secretly for a week. And I got twenty dollars out 
 of him on the bet." 
 
 The tide was now low enough for mussel gathering and 
 Saxon accompanied the men out the north wall. Hall had 
 several sacks to fill. A rig was coming for him in the 
 afternoon, he explained, to cart the mussels back to Car- 
 mel. When the sacks were full they ventured further 
 among the rock crevices and were rewarded with three 
 abalones, among the shells of which Saxon found one 
 coveted blister-pearl. Hall initiated them into the myster- 
 ies of pounding and preparing the abalone meat for cook- 
 ing. 
 
 By this time it seemed to Saxon that they had known 
 him a long time. It reminded her of the old times when 
 Bert had been with them, singing his songs or ranting 
 about the last of the Mohicans. 
 
 "Now, listen; I'm going to teach you something," Hall 
 commanded, a large round rock poised in his hand above 
 the abalone meat. "You must never, never pound aba- 
 lone without singing this song. Nor must you sing this 
 song at any other time. It would be the rankest sacrilege. 
 Abalone is the food of the gods. Its preparation is a relig- 
 ious function. Now listen, and follow, and remember that 
 it is a very solemn occasion." 
 
 The stone came down with a thump on the white meat, 
 and thereafter arose and fell in a sort of tom-tom accom 
 paniment to the poet's song: 
 
 "Oh! some folks boast of quail on toast, 
 
 Because they think it's tony; 
 But I'm content to owe my rent 
 And live on abalone.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 387 
 
 "Oh! Mission Point's a friendly joint 
 
 Where every crab's a crony, 
 And true and kind you'll ever find 
 The clinging abalone. 
 
 "He wanders free beside the sea 
 Where'er the ecast is stony; 
 He flaps his wings and madly sings 
 The plaintive abalone. 
 
 "Some stick to biz, some flirt with Liz 
 
 Down on the sands of Coney; 
 But we, by hell, stay in Carmel, 
 And whang the abalone." 
 
 He paused with his mouth open and stone upraised. 
 There was a rattle of wheels and a voice calling from 
 above where the sacks of mussels had been carried. He 
 brought the stone down with a final thump and stood up. 
 
 "There's a thousand more verses like those," he said. 
 "Sorry I hadn't time to teach you them." He held out 
 his hand, palm downward. "And now, children, bless you, 
 you are now members of the clan of Abalone Eaters, and I 
 solemnly enjoin you, never, no matter what the circum- 
 stances, pound abalone meat without chanting the sacred 
 words I have revealed unto you." 
 
 "But we can't remember the words from only one 
 hearing," Saxon expostulated. 
 
 "That shall be attended to. Next Sunday the Tribe of 
 Abalone Eaters will descend upon you here in Bierce's 
 Cove, and you will be able to see the rites, the writers and 
 writeresses, down even to the Iron Man with the basilisk 
 eyes, vulgarly known as the King of the Sacerdotal Liz- 
 ards." 
 
 "Will Jim Hazard come?" Billy called, as Hall disap- 
 peared into the thicket. 
 
 "He will certainly come. Is he not the Cave-Bear Pot- 
 Walloper and Gridironer, the most fearsome, and, next to 
 me, the most exalted, of all the Abalone Eaters ? ' ' 
 
 Saxon and Billy could only look at each other till they 
 heard the wheels rattle away.
 
 388 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Well, I'll be doggoned," Billy let out. "He's some 
 boy, that. Nothing stuck up about him. Just like Jim 
 Hazard, comes along and makes himself at home, you 're as 
 good as he is an' he's as good as you, an' we're all friends 
 together, just like that, right off the bat." 
 
 "He's old stock, too," Saxon said. "He told me while 
 you were undressing. His folks came by Panama before 
 the railroad was built, and from what he said I guess 
 he's got plenty of money." 
 
 "He sure don't act like it." 
 
 "And isn't he full of fun!" Saxon cried. 
 
 "A regular josher. An' him! a poet!" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know, Billy. I've heard that plenty of 
 poets are odd." 
 
 "That's right, come to think of it. There's Joaquin 
 Miller, lives out in the hills back of Fruitvale. He's cer- 
 tainly odd. It's right near his place where I proposed 
 to you. Just the same I thought poets wore whiskers and 
 eyeglasses, an' never tripped up foot-racers at Sunday pic- 
 nics, nor run around with as few clothes on as the law 
 allows, gatherin' mussels an' climbin' like goats." 
 
 That night, under the blankets, Saxon lay awake, look- 
 ing at the stars, pleasuring in the balmy thicket-scents, 
 and listening to the dull rumble of the outer surf and 
 the whispering ripples on the sheltered beach a few feet 
 away. Billy stirred, and she knew he was not yet asleep. 
 
 "Glad you left Oakland, Billy?" she snuggled. 
 
 "Huh!" came his answer. "Is a clam happy?"
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 EVERY half tide Billy raced out the south wall over the 
 dangerous course he and Hall had traveled, and each trial 1 
 found him doing it in faster time. 
 
 "Wait till Sunday," he said to Saxon. "I'll give that 
 poet a run for his money. Why, they ain't a place that 
 bothers me now. I've got the head confidence. I run 
 where I went on hands an' knees. I figured it out this 
 way: Suppose you had a foot to fall on each side, an' it 
 was soft hay. They'd be nothing to stop you. You 
 wouldn't fall. You'd go like a streak. Then it's just the 
 same if it's a mile down on each side. That ain't your 
 concern. Your concern is to stay on top and go like a 
 streak. An', d'ye know, Saxon, when I went at it that 
 way it never bothered me at all. "Wait till he comes with 
 his crowd Sunday. I'm ready for him." 
 
 "I wonder what the crowd will be like," Saxon specu- 
 lated. 
 
 "Like him, of course. Birds of a feather flock together. 
 They won't be stuck up, any of them, you'll see." 
 
 Hall had sent out fish-lines and a swimming suit by a 
 Mexican cowboy bound south to his ranch, and from the 
 latter they learned much of the government land and how 
 to get it. The week flew by ; each day Saxon sighed a fare- 
 well of happiness to the sun; each morning they greeted 
 its return with laughter of joy in that another happy day 
 had begun. They made no plans, but fished, gathered 
 mussels and abalones. and climbed among the rocks as 
 the moment moved them. The abalone meat they pounded 
 religiously to a verse of doggerel improvised by Saxon. 
 Billy prospered. Saxon had never seen him at so keen 
 a pitch of health. As for herself, she scarcely needed the
 
 390 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 little hand-mirror to know* that never, since she was a 
 young girl, had there been such color in her cheeks, such 
 spontaneity of vivacity. 
 
 "It's the first time in my life I ever had real play," 
 Billy said. "An' you an' me never played at all all the 
 time we was married. This beats bein' any kind of a 
 millionaire. ' ' 
 
 "No seven o'clock whistle," Saxon exulted. "I'd lie 
 abed in the mornings on purpose, only everything is too 
 good not to be up. And now you just play at chopping 
 some firewood and catching a nice big perch, Man Friday, 
 if you expect to get any dinner." 
 
 Billy got up, hatchet in hand, from where he had been 
 lying prone, digging holes in the sand with his bare toes. 
 
 "But it ain't goin' to last," he said, with a deep sigh 
 of regret. "The rains '11 come any time now. Tius good 
 weather's hangin' on something wonderful." 
 
 On Saturday morning, returning from his run out the 
 south wall, he missed Saxon. After halloing for her with- 
 out result, he climbed to the road. Half a mile away, he 
 saw her astride an unsaddled, unbridled horse that moved 
 unwillingly, at a slow walk, across the pasture. 
 
 "Lucky for you it was an old mare that had been used to 
 ridin' see them saddle marks," he grumbled, when she 
 at last drew to a halt beside him and allowed him to help 
 her down. 
 
 "Oh, Billy," she sparkled, "I was never on a horse 
 before. It was glorious! I felt so helpless, too, and so 
 brave." 
 
 "I'm proud of you, just the same," he said, in more 
 grumbling tones than before. " 'Tain't every married 
 woman 'd tackle a strange horse that way, especially if 
 she'd never ben on one. An' I ain't forgot that you're 
 goin' to have a saddle animal all to yourself some day 
 a regular Joe dandy." 
 
 The Abalone Eaters, in two rigs and on a number of 
 horses, descended in force on Bierce's Cove. There were
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 391 
 
 half a score of men and almost as many women. All were 
 young, between the ages of twenty-five and forty, and all 
 seemed good friends. Most of them were married. They 
 arrived in a roar of good spirits, tripping one another 
 clown the slippery trail and engulfing Saxon and Billy in 
 a comradeship as artless and warm as the sunshine itself. 
 Saxon was appropriated by the girls she could not real- 
 ize them women; and they made much of her, praising 
 her camping and traveling equipment and insisting on 
 hearing some of her tale. They were experienced camp- 
 ers themselves, as she quickly discovered when she saw 
 the pots and pans and clothes-boilers for the mussels which 
 they had brought. 
 
 In the meantime Billy and the men had undressed and 
 scattered out after mussels and abalones. The girls lighted 
 on Saxon's ukulele and nothing would do but she must 
 play and sing. Several of them had been to Honolulu, 
 and knew the instrument, confirming Mercedes' definition 
 of ukulele as "jumping flea." Also, they knew Hawaiian 
 songs she had learned from Mercedes, and soon, to her 
 accompaniment, all were singing: " Aloha Oe," "Hono- 
 lulu Tomboy," and "Sweet Lei Lehua." Saxon was gen- 
 uinely shocked when some of them, even the more matron- 
 ly, danced hulas on the sand. 
 
 "When the men returned, burdened with sacks of shell- 
 fish, Mark Hall, as high priest, commanded the due and 
 solemn rite of the tribe. At a wave of his hand, the many 
 poised stones came down in unison on the white meat, and 
 all voices were uplifted in the Hymn to the Abalone. Old 
 verses all sang, occasionally some one sang a fresh verse 
 alone, whereupon it was repeated in chorus. Billy be- 
 trayed Saxon by begging her in an undertone to sing the 
 verse she had made, and her pretty voice was timidly 
 raised in: 
 
 "We sit around and gaily pound, 
 
 And bear no acrimony, 
 Because ovr ob ject is a gob 
 Of sizzling abalone. "
 
 392 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Great!" cried the poet, who had winced at ob ject. 
 "She speaks the language of the tribe! Come on, chil- 
 dren now ! ' ' 
 
 And all chanted Saxon's lines. Then Jim Hazard had 
 a new verse, and one of the girls, and the Iron Man with 
 the basilisk eyes of greenish-gray, whom Saxon recognized 
 from Hall's description. To her it seemed he had the 
 face of a priest. 
 
 "Oh! some like ham and some like lamb, 
 
 And some like macaroni; 
 But bring me in a pail of gin 
 And a tub of abalone. 
 
 "Oh! some drink rain and some champagne 
 
 Or brandy by the pony; 
 
 But I will try a little rye 
 
 With a dash of abalone. 
 
 "Some live on hope and some on dope, 
 
 And some on alimony; 
 But our tom-cat, he lives on fat 
 And tender abalone." 
 
 A black-haired, black-eyed man with the roguish face of 
 a satyr, who, Saxon learned, was an artist who sold his 
 paintings at five hundred apiece, brought on himself uni- 
 versal execration and acclamation by singing: 
 
 "The more we take, the more they make 
 
 In deep-sea matrimony; 
 Race-suicide cannot bettdf 
 The fertile abalone." 
 
 And so it went, verses new and old, verses without end, 
 all in glorification of the succulent shellfish of Carmel. 
 Saxon's enjoyment was keen, almost ecstatic, and she had 
 difficulty in convincing herself of the reality o it all. 
 It seemed like some fairy tale or book story come tri?^ 
 Again, it seemed more like a stage, and these the actors, she 
 and Billy having blundered into the scene in some in- 
 comprehensible way. Much of wit she sensed which she
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 393 
 
 did not understand. Much she did understand. And she 
 was aware that brains were playing as she had never 
 seen brains play before. The puritan streak in her training 
 was astonished and shocked by some of the broadness; 
 but she refused to sit in judgment. They seemed good' 
 these light-hearted young people ; they certainly were not 
 rough or gross as were many of the crowds she had been 
 with on Sunday picnics. None of the men got drunk, al- 
 though there were cocktails in vacuum bottles and red 
 wine in a huge demijohn. 
 
 "What impressed Saxon most was their excessive jollity, 
 their childlike joy, and the childlike things they did. This 
 effect was heightened by the fact that they were novsiists 
 and painters, poets and critics, sculptors and musicians. 
 One man, with a refined and delicate face a dramatic 
 critic on a great San Francisco daily, she was told in- 
 troduced a feat which all the men tried and failed at 
 most ludicrously. On the beach, at regular intervals, 
 planks were placed as obstacles. Then the dramatic critic, 
 on all fours, galloped along the sand for all the world like 
 a horse, and for all the world like a horse taking hurdles 
 he jumped the planks to the end of the course. 
 
 Quoits had been brought along, and for a while these 
 were pitched with zest. Then jumping was started, and 
 game slid into game. Billy took part in everything, but 
 did not win first place as often as he had expected. An 
 English writer beat him a dozen feet at tossing the caber. 
 Jim Hazard beat him in putting the heavy "rock." Mark 
 Hall out-jumped him standing and running. But at the 
 standing high back-jump Billy did come first. Despite the 
 handicap of his weight, this victory was due to his 
 splendid back and abdominal lifting muscles. Im- 
 mediately after this, however, he was brought to grief 
 by Mark Hall's sister, a strapping young amazon in cross- 
 saddle riding costume, who three times tumbled him 
 ignominiously heels over head in a bout of Indian wrest- 
 ling. 
 
 "You're easy," jeered the Iron Man, whose name they
 
 394 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 had learned was Pete Bideaux. "I can put you down 
 myself, catch-as-catch-can. ' ' 
 
 Billy accepted the challenge, and found in all truth 
 that the other was rightly nicknamed. In the training 
 camps Billy had sparred and clinched with giant cham- 
 pions like Jim Jeffries and Jack Johnson, and met the 
 weight of their strength, but never had he encountered 
 strength like this of the Iron Man. Do what he could, 
 Billy was powerless, and twice his shoulders were ground 
 into the sand in defeat. 
 
 "You'll get a chance back at him," Hazard whispered 
 to Billy, off at one side. "I've brought the gloves along. 
 Of course, you had no chance with him at his own 
 game. He's wrestled in the music halls in London with 
 Haekenschmidt. Now you keep quiet, and we'll lead 
 up to it in a casual sort of way. He doesn't know about 
 you." 
 
 Soon, the Englishman who had tossed the caber was 
 sparring with the dramatic critic, Hazard and Hall boxed 
 in fantastic burlesque, then, gloves in hand, looked for 
 the next appropriately matched couple. The choice of 
 Bideaux amd Billy was obvious. 
 
 "He's liable to get nasty if he's hurt," Hazard warned 
 Billy, as he tied on the gloves for him. "He's old Amer- 
 ican French, and he's got a devil of a temper. But just 
 keep your head and tap him whatever you do, keep tap- 
 ping him." 
 
 "Easy sparring now"; "No roughhouse, Bideaux"; 
 "Just light tapping, you know," were admonitions va- 
 riously addressed to the Iron Man. 
 
 "Hold on a second," he said to Billy, dropping his 
 hands. ' ' When I get rapped I do get a bit hot. But don 't 
 mind me. I can't help it, you know. It's only for the 
 moment, and I don't mean it." 
 
 Saxon felt very nervous, visions of Billy's bloody fights 
 and all the scabs he had slugged rising in her brain ; but 
 she had never seen her husband box, and but few seconds 
 were required to put her at ease. The Iron Man had
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 395 
 
 no chance. Billy was too completely the master, guard- 
 ing every blow, himself continually and almost at will tap- 
 ping the other's face and body. There was no weight in 
 Billy's blows, only a light and snappy tingle; but their 
 incessant iteration told on the Iron Man's temper. In vain 
 the onlookers warned him to go easy. His face purpled 
 with anger, and his blows became savage. But Billy went 
 on, tap, tap, tap, calmly, gently, imperturbably. The Iron 
 Man lost control, and rushed and plunged, delivering 
 great swings and upper-cuts of man-killing quality. Billy 
 ducked, side-stepped, blocked, stalled, and escaped all dam- 
 age. In the clinches, which were unavoidable, he locked the 
 Iron Man's arms, and in the clinches the Iron Man in- 
 variably laughed and apologized, only to lose his head with 
 the first tap the instant they separated and be more in- 
 furiated than ever. 
 
 And when it was over and Billy's identity had been 
 divulged, the Iron Man accepted the joke on himself with 
 the best of humor. It had been a splendid exhibition on 
 Billy's part. His mastery of the sport, coupled with his 
 self-control, had most favorably impressed the crowd, and 
 Saxon, very proud of her man boy, could not but see the 
 admiration all had for him. 
 
 Nor did she prove in any way a social failure. When 
 the tired and sweating players lay down in the dry sand 
 to cool off, she was persuaded into accompanying their 
 nonsense songs with the ukulele. Nor was it long, catching 
 their spirit, ere she was singing to them and teaching 
 I them quaint songs of early days which she had herself 
 learned as a little girl from Cady Cady, the saloonkeeper, 
 pioneer, and ex-cavalryman, who had been a bull-whacker 
 on the Salt Lake Trail in the days before the railroad. 
 One song which became an immediate favorite was: 
 
 "Oh! times on Bitter Creek, they never can be beat, 
 Root hog or die is on every wagon sheet; 
 The sand within your throat, the dust within jour eye, 
 Bend your back and stand it root hog or die."
 
 396 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 After the dozen verses of "Root Hog or Die," Mark Hall 
 claimed to be especially infatuated with: 
 
 "Obadier, he dreampt a dream, 
 Dreampt he was drivin' a ten-mule team, 
 But when he woke he heaved a sigh, 
 The lead-mule kicked e-o-wt the swing-mule's eye." 
 
 It was Mark Hall who brought up the matter of Billy's 
 challenge to race out the south wall of the cove, though he 
 referred to the test as lying somewhere in the future. 
 Billy surprised him by saying he was ready at any time. 
 Forthwith the crowd clamored for the race. Hall offered 
 to bet on himself, but there were no takers. He offered 
 two to one to Jim Hazard, who shook his head and said 
 he would accept three to one as a sporting proposition. 
 Billy heard and gritted his teeth. 
 
 "Ill take you for five dollars," he said to Hall, "but 
 lot at those odds. I'll back myself even." 
 
 "It isn't your money I want; it's Hazard's," Hall 
 demurred. "Though I'll give either of you three to 
 >ne." 
 
 "Even or nothing," Billy held out obstinately. 
 
 Hall finally closed both bets even with Billy, and three 
 to one with Hazard. 
 
 The path along the knife-edge was so narrow that it 
 was impossible for runners to pass each other, so it was 
 arranged to time the men, Hall to go first and Billy to 
 follow after an interval of half a minute. 
 
 Hall toed the mark and at the word was off with 
 the form of a sprinter. Saxon's heart sank. She knew 
 Billy had never crossed the stretch of sand at that speed. 
 Billy darted forward thirty seconds later, and reached the 
 foot of the rock when Hall was half way up. When 
 both were on top and racing from notch to notch, the Iron 
 Man announced that they had scaled the wall in the same 
 time to a second. 
 
 "My money still looks good," Hazard remarked, "though 
 X hope neither of them breaks a neck. I wouldn't take
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 397 
 
 that run that way for all the gold that would fill the 
 cove." 
 
 "But you'll take bigger chances swimming in a storm 
 on Carmel Beach," his wife chided. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," he retorted. "You haven't so 
 far to fall when swimming." 
 
 Billy and Hall had disappeared and were making the 
 circle around the end. Those on the beach were certain 
 that the poet had gained in the dizzy spurts of flight along 
 the knife-edge. Even Hazard admitted it. 
 
 "What price for my money now?" he cried excitedly, 
 dancing up and down. 
 
 Hall had reappeared, the great jump accomplished, and 
 was running shoreward. But there was no gap. Billy 
 was on his heels, and on his heels he stayed, in to shore, 
 down the wall, and to the mark on the beach. Billy had 
 won by half a minute. 
 
 "Only by the watch," he panted. "Hall was over half 
 a minute ahead of me out to the end. I 'm not slower than 
 I thought, but he's faster. He's a wooz of a sprinter. He 
 could beat me ten times outa ten, except for accident. He 
 was hung up at the jump by a big sea. That's where I 
 caught 'm. I jumped right after 'm on the same sea, then 
 he set the pace home, and all I had to do was take it." 
 
 "That's all right," said Hall. "You did better than 
 beat me. That's the first time in the history of Bierce's 
 Cove that two men made that jump on the same sea. And 
 all the risk was yours, coming last." 
 
 "It was a fluke," Billy insisted. 
 
 And at that point Saxon settled the dispute of modesty 
 and raised a general laugh by rippling chords on the 
 smilele and parodying an old hymn in negro minstrel 
 
 *'De Lswd move in er mischievous way 
 His blunders to perform." 
 
 In the afternoon Jim Hazard and Hall dived mt& *^ 
 breakers and swam to the outlying rocks, routing the prc-
 
 398 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 testing sea-lions and taking possession of their surf -battered 
 stronghold. Billy followed the swimmers with his eyes, 
 yearning after them so undisguisedly that Mrs. Hazard 
 said to him: 
 
 "Why don't you stop in Carmel this winter? Jim will 
 teach you all he knows about the surf. And he's wild to 
 box with you. He works long hours at his desk, and he 
 really needs exercise." 
 
 Not until sunset did the merry crowd carry their pots 
 and pans and trove of mussels up to the road and depart. 
 Saxon and Billy watched them disappear, on horses and 
 behind horses, over the top of the first hill, and then de- 
 scended hand in hand through the thicket to the camp 
 Billy threw himself on the sand and stretched out. 
 
 "I don't know when I've been so tired," he yawned. 
 "An' there's one thing sure: I never had such a day. 
 It's worth livin' twenty years for an' then some." 
 
 He reached out his hand to Saxon, who lay beside him. 
 
 "And, oh, I was so proud of you, Billy," she said. "I 
 never saw you box before. I didn't know it was like that. 
 The Iron Man was at your mercy all the time, and you 
 kept it from being violent or terrible. Everybody could 
 look on and enjoy and they did, too." 
 
 "Huh, I want to say you was goin' some yourself. They 
 just took to you. Why, honest to God, Saxon, in the 
 singin' you was the whole show, along with the ukulele. 
 All the women liked you, too, an' that's what counts." 
 
 It was their first social triumph, and the taste of it 
 was sweet: 
 
 "Mr. Hall said he'd looked up the 'Story of the Files,' " 
 Saxon recounted. "And he said mother was a true poet. 
 He said it was astonishing the fine stock that had crossed 
 the Plains. He told me a lot about those times and the 
 people I didn't know. And he's read all about the fight at 
 Little Meadow. He says he's got it in a book at home, 
 and if we come back to Cannel he'll show it to me." 
 
 "He wants us to come back all right. D'ye know what
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 399 
 
 he said to me, Saxon? He gave me a letter to some guy 
 that's down on the government land some poet that's 
 holdin' down a quarter of a section so we'll be able to 
 stop there, which '11 come in handy if the big rains catch us. 
 An' Oh! that's what I was drivin' at. He said he had 
 a little shack he lived in while the house was buildin'. 
 The Iron Man's livin' in it now, but he's goin' away to 
 some Catholic college to study to be a priest, an' Hall 
 said the shack 'd be ours as long as we wanted to use it. 
 An' he said I could do what the Iron Man was doin' to 
 make a livin'. Hall was kind of bashful when he was 
 offerin' me work. Said it'd be only odd jobs, but that we'd 
 make out. I could help'm plant potatoes, he said; an' he 
 got half savage when he said I couldn't chop wood. That 
 was his job, he said; an' you could see he was actually 
 jealous over it." 
 
 "And Mrs. Hall said just about the same to me, Billy. 
 Carmel wouldn't be so bad to pass the rainy season in. 
 And then, too, you couid go swimming with Mr. Hazard." 
 
 "Seems as if we could settle down wherever we've a 
 mind to." Billy assented. "Carmel's the third place now 
 that 's offered. Well, after this, no man need be afraid of 
 makin' a go in the country." 
 
 "No good man," Saxon corrected. 
 
 "I guess you're right." Billy thought for a moment. 
 "Just the same a dub, too, has a better chance in the 
 country than in the city." 
 
 "Who'd have ever thought that such fine people ex- 
 isted?" Saxon pondered. "It's just wonderful, when you 
 come to think of it." 
 
 "It's only what you'd expect from a rich poet that'd 
 trip up a foot-racer at an Irish picnic," Billy exposited. 
 "The only crowd such a guy'd run with would be like 
 himself, or he'd make a crowd that was. I wouldn't won- 
 der that he'd make this crowd. Say, he's got some 
 
 sister, if anybody 'd ride up on a sea-lion an' ask you. 
 She's got that Indian wrestlin' down pat, an' she's built 
 for it. An' say, ain't his wife a beaut?"
 
 400 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 'A little longer they lay in the warm sand. It was Billy 
 who broke the silence, and what he said seemed to pro- 
 ceed out of profound meditation. 
 
 "Say, Saxon, d'ye know I don't care if I never see 
 movin' pictures again."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 SAXON and Billy were gone weeks on the trip south, but 
 in the end they came back to Carmel. They had stopped 
 with Hafler, the poet, in the Marble House, which he 
 had built with his own hands. This queer dwelling was 
 all in one room, built almost entirely of white marble. 
 Hafler cooked, as over a campfire, in the huge marble fire- 
 place, which he used in all ways as a kitchen. There were 
 divers shelves of books, and the massive furniture he had 
 made from redwood, as he had made the shakes for the 
 roof. A blanket, stretched across a corner, gave Saxon 
 privacy. The poet was on the verge of departing for San 
 Francisco and New York, but remained a day over with 
 them to explain the country and run over the government 
 land with Billy. Saxon had wanted to go along that morn- 
 ing, 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. He frankly acknow- 
 ledged that Hafler had walked him into the ground, and 
 that his tongue had been hanging out from the first hour. 
 Hafler estimated that they had covered fifty-five miles. 
 
 "But such miles!" Billy enlarged. "Half the time 
 Itip or down, an' 'most all the time without trails. An* 
 such a pace. He was dead right about your short legs, 
 Saxon. You wouldn't a-lasted the first mile. An' such 
 country! "We ain't seen anything like it yet." 
 
 Hafler left the next day to catch the train at Monterey. 
 He gave them the freedom of the Marble House, and told 
 them to stay the whole winter if they wanted. Billy elected 
 to 'loaf around and rest up that day. He was stiff and 
 sore. Moreover, he was stunned by the exhibition of 
 walking prowess on the part of the poet.
 
 402 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Everybody can do something top-notch down in this 
 country," he marveled. "Now take that Hafler. He's a 
 bigger man than me, an' a heavier. An' weight's against 
 walkin', too. But not with him. He's done eighty miles 
 inside twenty-four hours, he told me, an' once a hundred 
 an' seventy in three days. Why, he made a show outa me. 
 I felt ashamed as a little kid." 
 
 "Remember, Billy," Saxon soothed him, "every man to! 
 his own game. And down here you're a top-notcher at 
 your own game. There isn't one you're not the master 
 of with the gloves." 
 
 "I guess that's right," he conceded. "But just the 
 same it goes against the grain to be walked off my legs 
 by a poet by a poet, mind you." 
 
 They spent days in going over the government land, and 
 in the end reluctantly decided against taking it up. The 
 redwood canyons and great cliffs of the Santa Lucia Moun- 
 tains fascinated Saxon; but she remembered what Hafler 
 had told her of the summer fogs which hid the sun some- 
 times 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 teamster 
 judgment, admitted that for heavy hauling it was any- 
 thing but a picnic. There was the quarry of perfect mar- 
 ble on Hafler 's quarter section. He had said that it would 
 be worth a fortune if near a railroad ; but, as it was, he 'd 
 make them a present of it if they wanted it. 
 
 Billy visioned the grassy slopes pastured with his horses 
 and cattle, and found it hard to turn his back; but he 
 listened with 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, he agreed, what they wanted 
 was an all-around farm, and an all-around farm they 
 would have if they hiked forty years to find it. 
 
 "But it must have redwoods on it." Saxon hastened to 
 stipulate. "I've fallen in love with them. And we can
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 403 
 
 get along without fog. And there must he good wagon- 
 roads, and a railroad not more than a thousand miles 
 away." 
 
 Heavy winter rains held them prisoners for two weeks 
 in the Marble House. Saxon browsed among Hafler's 
 books, though most of them were depressingly beyond her, 
 while Billy hunted with Hafler's guns. But he was a 
 poor shot and a worse hunter. His only success was with 
 rabbits, 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 him- 
 self, Saxon could see the keen joy he was taking. This 
 belated arousal of the hunting instinct seemed to make 
 almost another man of him. He was out early and late, 
 compassing prodigious climbs and tramps once reach- 
 ing as far as the gold mines Tom had spoken of, and 
 being away two days. 
 
 "Talk about pluggin' away at a job in the city, an' 
 goin' to movin' pictures and Sunday picnics for amuse- 
 ment!" he would burst out. "I can't see what was eatin' 
 me that I ever put up with such truck. Here's where I 
 oughta ben all the time, or some place like it." 
 
 He was filled with this new mode of life, and was 
 continually recalling old hunting tales of his father and 
 telling them to Saxon. 
 
 "Say, I don't get stiffened any more after an all-day 
 tramp," he exulted. "I'm broke in. An' some day, if 
 I meet up with that Hafler, I'll challenge 'm to a tramp 
 that'll break his heart." 
 
 "Foolish boy, always wanting to play everybody's game 
 and beat them at it," Saxon laughed delightedly. 
 
 "Aw, I guess you're right," he growled. "Hafler can 
 always out-walk me. He's made that way. But some 
 day, just the same, if I ever see 'm again, I'll invite 'm 
 to put on the gloves . . - though I won't be mean 
 enough to make 'm as sore as he made me."
 
 404 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 After they left Post's on the way back to Carmel, the 
 condition of the road proved the wisdom of their rejec- 
 tion of the government land. They passed a rancher's 
 wagon overturned, a second wagon with a broken axle, 
 and the stage a hundred yards down the mountain- 
 side, where it had fallen, passengers, horses, road, and 
 all. 
 
 "I guess they just about quit tryin' to use this road 
 in the winter," Billy said. "It's horse-killin' an' man-' 
 killin', an' I can just see 'm freightin' that marble out 
 over it I don't think." 
 
 Settling down at Carmel was an easy matter. The Iron 
 Man had already departed to his Catholic college, and the 
 "shack" turned out to be a three-roomed house comfort- 
 ably furnished for housekeeping. Hall put Billy to work 
 on the potato patch a matter of three acres which the 
 poet farmed erratically to 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 
 after that was set to staining the shingled roof of the bun- 
 galow. Hall climbed to the ridge-pole to repeat his warn- 
 ing that Billy must keep away from his wood-pile. One 
 morning Hall came over and watched Billy chopping wood 
 for Saxon. The poet looked on covetously as long as he 
 could restrain himself. 
 
 "It's plain you don't know how to use an axe," he 
 sneered. "Here, let me show you." 
 
 He worked away for an hour, all the while delivering 
 an exposition on the art of chopping wood. 
 
 "Here," Billy expostulated at last, taking hold of the 
 axe. "I'll have to chop a cord of yours now in order to 
 make this up to you." 
 
 Hall surrendered the axe reluctantly. 
 
 "Don't let me catch you around my wood-pile, that's
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 405 
 
 all," he threatened. "My wood-pile is my castle, and 
 you've got to understand that." 
 
 From a financial standpoint, Saxon and Billy were put- 
 ting aside much money. They paid no rent, their simple 
 living was cheap, and Billy had all the work he cared 
 to accept. The various members of the crowd seemed in 
 ja conspiracy to keep him busy. It was all odd jobs, but he 
 preferred it so, for it enabled him to suit his time to 
 Jim Hazard's. Each day they boxed and took a long 
 swim through the surf. When Hazard finished his morn- 
 ing'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 t&ch othw 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 met for a few miles' run over the hills. 
 Training was a matter of habit to both men. Hazard, 
 when he had finished with seven years of football, know- 
 ing the dire death that awaits the big-muscled athlete 
 who ceases training abruptly, had been compelled to keep 
 it up. Not only was it a necessity, but he had grown to 
 like it. Billy also liked it, for he took great delight in 
 the silk of his body. 
 
 Often, in the early morning, gun in hand, he was off 
 with Mark Hall, who taught him to shoot and hunt. Hall 
 had dragged a shotgun around from the days when he 
 wore knee pants, and his keen observing eyes and knowl- 
 edge of the habits of wild life were a revelation to Billy. 
 This part of the country was too settled for large game, 
 i 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 California style of sixteen minutes in a hot oven. As 
 he became expert with shotgun and rifle, he began to re- 
 gret the deer and the mountain lion he had missed down 
 below the Sur ; and to the requirements of the -farm he 
 and Saxon sought he added plenty of game.
 
 406 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 But it was not all play in Carmel. That portion of the 
 community which Saxon and Billy came to know, "the 
 crowd," was hard-working. Some worked regularly, in 
 the morning or late at night. Others worked spasmodi- 
 cally, like the wild Irish playwright, who would shut him- 
 self up for a week at a time, then emerge, pale and drawn, 
 to play like a madman against the time of his next re- 
 tirement. The pale and youthful father of a family, with 1 
 the face of Shelley, who wrote vaudeville turns for a liv- 
 ing 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 turn- 
 ing a lever, the whole structure spouted water upon the 
 impending intruder. But in the main, they respected each 
 other's work-time. They drifted into one another's houses 
 as the spirit prompted, but if they found a man at work 
 they went their way. This obtained to all except Mark 
 Hall, who did not have to work for a living; and he 
 climbed trees to get away from popularity and compose 
 in peace. 
 
 The crowd was unique in its democracy and solidarity. 
 It had little intercourse with the sober and conventional 
 part of Carmel. This section constituted the aristocracy 
 of art and letters, and was sneered at as bourgeois. In 
 return, it looked askance at the crowd with its rampant 
 bohemianism. The taboo extended to Billy and Saxon. 
 Billy took up the attitude of the clan and sought no work 
 from the other camp. Nor was work offered him. 
 
 Hall kept open house. The big living room, with its 
 huge fireplace, divans, shelves and tables of books and 
 magazines, was the center of things. Here, Billy and 
 Saxon were expected to be, and in truth found them- 
 selves 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 cut-throat pedro, horrible 
 fives, bridge, and pinochle. Saxon, a favorite of the young 
 women, sewed with them, teaching them pretties and be- 
 ing taught in fair measure in return.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 407 
 
 It was Billy, before they had been in Carmel a week f 
 who said shyly to Saxon: 
 
 "Say, you can't guess how I'm missin' all your nice 
 things. What's the matter with writin' Tom to express 'm 
 down? When we start trampin' again, we'll express 'n? 
 back." 
 
 Saxon wrote the letter, and all that day her heart was 
 singing. Her man was still her lover. And there were in 
 his eyes all the old lights which had been blotted out dur- 
 ing the nightmare period of the strike. 
 
 "Some pretty nifty skirts around here, but you've got 
 'em all beat, or I'm no judge," he told her. And again: 
 "Oh, I love you to death anyway. But if them things 
 ain't shipped down there'll be a funeral." 
 
 Hall and his wife owned a pair of saddle horses which 
 were kept at the livery stable, and here Billy naturally 
 gravitated. The stable operated the stage and carried the 
 mails between Carmel and Monterey. Also, 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 became an extra man at the 
 stable. He received three dollars a day at such times, 
 and drove many parties around the Seventeen Mile Drive, 
 up Carmel Valley, and down the coast to the various points 
 and beaches. 
 
 "But they're a pretty uppish sort, most of 'em," he 
 said to Saxon, referring to the persons he drove. "Al- 
 ways Mister Roberts this, an' Mister Roberts that all 
 kinds of ceremony so as to make me not forget they con- 
 sider themselves better 'n me. You see, I ain't exactly a 
 servant, an' yet I ain't good 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, always, you make me up my own lunch. I won't
 
 408 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 be beholdin' to 'em for nothin', the damned geezers. An 1 
 you'd a-died to seen one of 'em try to give me a tip. 
 I didn't say nothin'. I just looked at 'm like I didn't see 
 'm, an' turned away casual-like after a moment, leavin' him 
 as embarrassed as hell." 
 
 Nevertheless, Billy enjoyed the driving, never more so 
 than when he held the reins, not of four plodding work- 
 horses, but of four fast driving animals, his foot on the 
 powerful brake, and swung around curves and along dizzy 
 cliff-rims to a frightened chorus of women passengers. 
 And when it came to fyorse judgment and treatment of 
 sick and injured horses even the owner of the stable 
 yielded place to Billy. 
 
 "I could get a regular job there any time," he boasted 
 quietly to Saxon. "Why, the country's just sproutin" 
 with jobs for any so-so sort of a fellow. I bet anything, 
 right now, if I said to the boss that I'd take 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 drive six on 
 some of the stages up in Lake County. If we ever get 
 there, I'll get thick with some driver, just to get the reins 
 of six in my hands. An' I'll have you on the box beside 
 me. Some goin' that; Some goin'!" 
 
 Billy took little interest in the many discussions waged 
 in Hall's big living room. "Wind-chewin'," was his term 
 for it. To him it was so 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, de- 
 lighted in the logomachy, though little enough she under- 
 stood of it, following mainly by feeling, and once in a 
 while catching a high light. 
 
 But what she could never comprehend was the pessi- 
 mism that so often cropped up. The wild Irish playwright 
 had terrible spells of depression. Shelley, who wrote 
 vaudeville turns in the concrete cell, was a chronic pessi- 
 mist. St. John, a young magazine writer, was an anarchic
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 409 
 
 disciple of Nietzsche. Masson, a painter, held to a doc- 
 trine of eternal recurrence that was petrifying. And Hall, 
 usually so merry, could outfoot them all when he once got 
 started on the cosmic pathos of religion and the gibbering 
 anthropomorphisms of those who loved not to die. At 
 such times Saxon was oppressed by these sad children of 
 art. It was inconceivable that they, of all people, should 
 be so forlorn. 
 
 One night Hall turned suddenly upon Billy, who had 
 been following dimly and who only comprehended that to 
 them everything in life was rotten and wrong. 
 
 "Here, you pagan, you, you stolid and flesh-fettered 
 ox, you monstrosity of over-weening and perennial health 
 and joy, what do you think of it?" Hall demanded. 
 
 "Oh, I've had my troubles," Billy answered, speaking 
 in his wonted slow way. "I've had my hard times, an* 
 fought a losin' strike, an' soaked my watch, an' ben un- 
 able to 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 hog fattenin' for market an' nothin' worryin', than 
 to be a guy sick to his stomach from not sawyin' how 
 the world is made or from wonderin' what's the good of 
 anything." 
 
 ' ' That 's good, that prize hog, ' ' the poet laughed. ' ' Least 
 irritation, least effort a compromise of Nirvana and life. 
 Least irritation, least effort, the ideal existence: a jelly- 
 fish floating in a tideless, tepid, twilight sea." 
 
 "But you're missin' all the good things," Billy ob- 
 jected. 
 
 "Name them," came the challenge. 
 
 Billy was silent a moment. To him life seemed a large 
 and generous thing. He felt as if his arms ached from 
 inability to compass it all, and he began, haltingly at 
 first, to put his feeling into speech. 
 
 "If you'd ever stood up in the ring an' out-gamed an' 
 out-fought a man as good as yourself for twenty rounds, 
 you'd get what I'm drivin' at. Jim Hazard an' I get
 
 410 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 it when we swim out through the surf an' laugh in the 
 teeth of the biggest breakers that ever pounded the beach, 
 an' when we come out from the shower, rubbed down 
 and dressed, our skin an' muscles like silk, our bodies 
 an' brains all a'tinglin' like silk. . . ." 
 
 He paused and gave up from sheer inability to express 
 ideas that were nebulous at best and that in reality were 
 remembered sensations. 
 
 ' ' Silk of the body, can you beat it ? " he concluded lame- 
 ly, feeling that he had failed to make his point, embar- 
 rassed by the. circle of listeners. 
 
 "We know all that," Hall retorted. "The lies of the 
 flesh. Afterward come rheumatism and diabetes. The 
 wine of life is heady, but all too quickly it turns to " 
 
 "Uric acid," interpolated the wild Irish playwright. 
 
 "They's plenty more of the good things," Billy took 
 up with a sudden rush of words. "Good things all the 
 way up from juicy porterhouse and the kind 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. Just take a look at Saxon 
 there with the ukulele in her lap. There's where I got 
 the jellyfish in the dishwater an' the prize hog skinned 
 to death." 
 
 A shout of applause and great hand-clapping went up 
 from the girls, and Billy looked painfully uncomfortable. 
 
 "But suppose the silk goes out of your body till you 
 creak like a rusty wheelbarrow?" Hall pursued. "Sup- 
 pose, just suppose, Saxon went away with another man.' 
 "What then?"' 
 
 Billy considered a space. 
 
 "Then it'd be me for the dishwater an' the jellyfish, 
 I guess." He straightened up in his chair and threw 
 back his shoulders unconsciously as he ran a hand over 
 his biceps and swelled it. Then he took another look at 
 Saxon. "But thank the Lord I still got a wallop in both 
 my arms an' a wife to fill 'em with love." 
 
 Again the girls applauded, and Mrs. Hall cried:
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 411 
 
 1 ' Look at Saxon ! She blushing ! What have you to 
 
 say for yourself?" 
 
 "That no woman could be happier," she stammered, 
 "and no queen as proud. And that " 
 
 She completed the thought by strumming on the uku- 
 lele and singing: 
 
 "De Lawd move in er mischievous way 
 His blunders to perform." 
 
 "I give you best," Hall grinned to Billy. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," Billy disclaimed modestly. 
 "You've read so much I guess you know more about every- 
 thing than I do." 
 
 "Oh! Oh!" "Traitor!" "Taking it all back!" tke 
 girls cried variously. 
 
 Billy took heart of courage, reassured them with a slow 
 smile, and said: 
 
 "Just the same I'd sooner be myself than have book 
 indigestion. An' as for Saxon, why, one kiss of her lips 
 is wrth more'n all the libraries in the world."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 "THERE must be hills and valleys, and rich land, and 
 streams of clear water, good wagon roads and a railroad 
 not too far away, plenty of sunshine, and cold enough 
 at night to need blankets, and not only pines but plenty 
 of other kinds of trees, with open spaces to pasture Billy's 
 horses and cattle, and deer and rabbits for him to shoot, 
 and lots and lots of redwood trees, and . . . and 
 .... well, and no fog," Saxon concluded the descrip- 
 tion of the farm she and Billy sought. 
 
 Mark Hall laughed delightedly. 
 
 "And nightingales roosting in all the trees," he cried; 
 "flowers that neither fail nor fade, bees without stings, 
 honey dew every morning, showers of manna between- 
 whiles, fountains of youth and quarries of philosopher's 
 stones why, I know the very place. Let me show you." 
 
 She waited while he pored over road-maps of the state. 
 Failing in them, he got out a big atlas, and, though all 
 the countries of the world were in it, he could not find 
 what he was after. 
 
 "Never mind," he said. "Come over to-night and I'll 
 be able to show you." 
 
 That evening he led her out on the veranda to the tele- 
 scope, and she found herself looking through it at the full 
 moon. 
 
 "Somewhere up there in some valley you'll find that 
 farm," he teased. 
 
 Mrs. Hall looked inquiringly at them as they returned 
 inside. 
 
 "I've been showing her a valley in the moon where she 
 expects to go farming," he laughed. 
 
 "We started out prepared to go any distance," Saxon 
 said. "And if it's to the moon, I expect we can make it."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 413 
 
 "But my dear child, you can't expect to find such a 
 paradise on the earth," Hall continued. "For instance, 
 you can't have redwoods without fog. They go together. 
 The redwoods grow only in the fog belt." 
 
 Saxon debated a while. 
 
 "Well, we could put up with a little fog," she con- 
 ceded, " almost anything to have redwoods. I don't 
 
 know what a quarry of philosopher's stones is like, but 
 if it's anything like Mr. Hafler's marble quarry, and 
 there's a railroad handy, I guess we could manage to 
 Worry along. And you don't have to go to the moon for 
 honey dew. They scrape it off of the leaves of the bushes 
 up in Nevada County. I know that for a fact, because 
 my father told my mother about it, and she told me." 
 
 A little later in the evening, the subject of farming 
 having remained uppermost, Hall swept off into a dia- 
 tribe against the "gambler's paradise," which was his 
 epithet for the United States. 
 
 ""When you think of the glorious chance," he said. "A 
 new country, bounded by the oceans, situated just right in 
 latitude, with the richest land and vastest natural re- 
 sources of any country in the world, settled by immigrants 
 who had thrown off all the leading strings of the Old 
 "World and were in the humor for democracy. There was 
 only one thing to stop them from perfecting the democ- 
 racy they started, and that thing was greediness. 
 
 "They started gobbling everything in sight like a lot 
 of swine, and while they gobbled democracy went to smash. 
 Gobbling became gambling. It was a nation of tin 
 horns. Whenever a man lost his stake, all he had to do 
 was to chase the frontier west a few miles and get another 
 stake. They moved over the face of the land like so many 
 locusts. They destroyed everything the Indians, the 
 soil, the forests, just as they destroyed the buffalo and the 
 passenger pigeon. Their morality in business and poli- 
 tics was gambler morality. Their laws were gambling 
 laws how to play the game. Everybody played. There- 
 fore, hurrah for the game. Nobody objected, because no-
 
 414 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 body was unable to play. As I said, the losers chased the 
 frontier for fresh stakes. The winner of to-day, broke 
 to-morrow, on the day following might be riding his luck 
 to royal flushes on five-card draws. 
 
 ' ' So they gobbled and gambled from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific, until they'd swined a whole continent. When 
 they'd finished with the lands and forests and mines, they 
 turned back, gambling for any little stakes they'd over- 
 looked, gambling for franchises and monopolies, using 
 politics to protect their crooked deals and brace games. 
 And democracy gone clean to smash. 
 
 "And then was the funniest time of all. The losers 
 couldn't get any more stakes, while the winners went on 
 gambling among themselves. The losers could only stand 
 around with their hands in their pockets and look on. 
 "When they got hungry, they went, hat in hand, and begged 
 the successful gamblers for a job. The losers went to 
 work for the winners, and they've been working for them 
 ever since, and democracy side-tracked up Salt Creek. 
 You, Billy Roberts, have never had a hand in the game 
 in your life. That's because your people were among the 
 also-rans." 
 
 "How about yourself?" Billy asked. "I ain't seen you 
 holdin' any hands." 
 
 "I don't have to. I don't count. I am a parasite." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "A flea, a woodtick, anything that gets something for 
 nothing. I batten on the mangy hides of the working- 
 men. I don't have to gamble. I don't have to work. My 
 
 father left me enough of his winnings. Oh, don't 
 
 preen yourself, my boy. Your folks were just as bad as 
 mine. But yours lost, and mine won, and so you plow in 
 my potato patch." 
 
 "I don't see it," Billy contended stoutly. "A man 
 with gumption can win out to-day " 
 
 "On government land?" Hall asked quickly. 
 
 Billy swallowed and acknowledged the stab. 
 
 "Just the same he can win out," he reiterated
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 415 
 
 "Surely he can win a job from some other fellow? A 
 young husky with a good head like yours can win jobs 
 anywhere. But think of the handicaps on the fellows who 
 lose. How many tramps have you met along the road who 
 could get a job driving four horses for the Carmel Livery 
 Stable? And some of them were as husky as you when 
 they were young. And on top of it all you've got no 
 shout coming. It's a mighty big come-down from gamb- 
 ling for a continent to gambling for a job." 
 
 "Just the same " Billy recommenced. 
 
 "Oh, you've got it in your blood," Hall cut him off 
 cavalierly. "And why not? Everybody in this country 
 has been gambling for generations. It was in the air when 
 you were born. You've breathed it all your life. You, 
 who've never had a white chip in the game, still go on 
 shouting for it and capping for it." 
 
 ' ' But what are all of us losers to do ? " Saxon inquired. 
 
 "Call in the police and stop the game," Hall recom- 
 mended. "It's crooked." 
 
 Saxon frowned. 
 
 "Do what your forefathers didn't do," he amplified. 
 "Go ahead and perfect democracy." 
 
 She remembered a remark of Mercedes. 
 
 "A friend of mine says that democracy is an enchant- 
 ment." 
 
 "It is in a gambling joint. There are a million boys 
 in our public schools right now swallowing the gump of 
 canal boy to President, and millions of worthy citizens 
 who sleep sound every night in the belief that they have 
 a say in running the country." 
 
 "You talk like my brother Tom," Saxon said, failing 
 to comprehend. "If we all get into politics and work 
 hard for something better maybe we'll get it after a thou- 
 sand years or so. But I want it now." She clenched 
 her hands passionately. "I can't wait; I want it now." 
 
 "But that is just what I've been telling you, my dear 
 girl. That's what's the trouble with all the losers. They 
 can't wait. They want it now a stack of chips and a
 
 116 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 fling at the game. Well, they won't get it now. That's 
 what's the matter with you, chasing a valley in the moon. 
 That's what's the matter with Billy, aching right now 
 for a chance to win ten cents from me at pedro and cuss- 
 ing wind-chewing under his "breath." 
 
 "Gee! you'd make a good soap-boxer," commented 
 
 .Billy. 
 
 "And I'd be a soap-boxer if I didn't have the spending 
 of my father ' ill-gotten gains. It's none of my affair. 
 Let them rot. They'd be just as bad if they were on top. 
 It's all a mess blind bats, hungry swine, and filthy buz- 
 zards " 
 
 Here Mrs. Hall interfered. 
 
 "Now, Mark, you stop that, or you'll be getting the 
 blues." 
 
 He tossed his mop of hair and laughed with an effort. 
 
 "No I won't," he denied. "I'm going to get ten cents 
 from Billy at a game of pedro. He won't have a look in." 
 
 Saxon and Billy flourished in the genial human atmos- 
 phere of Carmel. They appreciated in their own estima- 
 tion. Saxon felt that she was something more than a 
 laundry girl and the wife of a union teamster. She was 
 no longer pent in the narrow working class environment 
 of a Pine street neighborhood. Life had grown opulent. 
 They fared better physically, materially, and spiritually; 
 and all this was reflected in their features, in the car- 
 riage of their bodies. She knew Billy had never been 
 handsomer nor in more splendid bodily condition. He 
 swore he had a harem, and that she was his second wife - 
 twice as beautiful as the first one he had married. And 
 she demurely confessed to him that Mrs. Hall and sev- 
 eral others of the matrons had enthusiastically admired 
 her form one day when in for a cold dip in Carmel river. 
 They had got around her, and called her Venus, and made 
 her crouch and assume different poses. 
 
 Billy understood the Venus reference; for a marble 
 one, with broken arms, stood in Hall's living room, and
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 417 
 
 the poet had told him the world worshiped it as the per- 
 fection of female form. 
 
 "I always said you had Annette Kellerman beat a mile," 
 Billy said; and so proud was his air of possession that 
 Saxon blushed and trembled, and hid her hot face against 
 his breast. 
 
 The men in the crowd were open in their admiration 
 of Saxon, in an above-board manner. But she made no 
 mistake. She did not lose her head. There was no chance 
 of that, for her love for Billy beat more strongly than 
 ever. Nor was she guilty of over-appraisal. She knew 
 him for what he was, and loved him with open eyes. 
 He had no book learning, no art, like the other men. His 
 grammar was bad; she knew that, just as she knew that 
 he would never mend it. Yet she would not have exchanged 
 him for any of the others, not even for Mark Hall with 
 the princely heart whom she loved much in the same 
 way that she loved his wife. 
 
 For that matter, she found in Billy a certain health and 
 Tightness, a certain essential integrity, which she prized 
 more highly than all book learning and bank accounts. 
 It was by virtue of this health, and Tightness, and in- 
 tegrity, that he had beaten Hall in argument the night the 
 poet was on the pessimistic rampage. Billy had beaten 
 him, not with the weapons of learning, but just by being 
 himself and by speaking out the truth that was in him. 
 Best of all, he had not even known that he had beaten, and 
 had taken the applause as good-natured banter. But 
 Saxon knew, though she could scarcely tell why; and 
 $he would always remember how the wife of Shelley had 
 whispered to her afterward with shining eyes: "Oh, 
 Saxon, you must be so happy." 
 
 Were Saxon driven to speech to attempt to express 
 what Billy meant to her, she would have done it with 
 the simple word "man." Always he was that to her. Al- 
 ways in glowing splendor, that was his connotation 
 MAN. Sometimes, by herself, she would all but weep with 
 joy at recollection of his way of informing some trucu-
 
 418 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 lent male that lie was standing on his foot. " Get off 
 
 your foot. You're standin' on it." It was Billy! It 
 was magnificently Billy. And it was this Billy who loved 
 her. She knew it. She knew it by the pulse that only 
 a woman knows how to gauge. He loved her less wildly, 
 it was true; but more fondly, more maturely. It was 
 the love that lasted if only they did not go back tc the 
 city where the beautiful things of the spirit perished and 
 the beast bared its fangs. 
 
 In the early spring, Mark Hall and his wife went to 
 New York, the two Japanese servants of the bungalow 
 were dismissed, and Saxon and Billy were installed as 
 caretakers. Jim Hazard, too, departed on his yearly visit 
 to Paris; and though Billy missed him, he continued his 
 long swims out through the breakers. Hall's two saddle 
 horses had been left in hi? charge, and Saxon made herself 
 a pretty cross-saddle riding costume of tawny-brown 
 corduroy that matched the glints in her hair. Billy no 
 longer worked at odd jobs. As extra driver at the stable 
 he earned more than they spent, and, in preference to 
 cash, he taught Saxon to ride, and was out and away with 
 her over the country on all-day trips. A favorite ride was 
 around by the coast to Monterey, where he taught her to 
 swim in the big Del Monte tank. They would come home 
 in the evening across the hills. Also, she took to follow- 
 ing him on his early morning hunts, and life seemed one 
 long vacation. 
 
 "I'll tell you one thing," he said to Saxon, one day, 
 'a* they drew their horses to a halt and gazed down into 
 Carmel Valley. "I ain't never going to work steady for 
 another man for wages as long as I live." 
 
 "Work isn't everything," she acknowledged. 
 
 "I should guess not. Why, look here, Saxon, what'd it 
 mean if I worked teamin' in Oakland for a million dollars 
 a day for a million years and just had to go on stayin* 
 there an' livin' the way we used to? It'd mean work 
 all day, three squares, an' movin' pictures for recreation.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 419 
 
 Movin' pictures! Huh! We're livin' movin' pictures 
 these days. I'd sooner have one year like what we're 
 bavin' here in Carmel and then die, than a thousan' mil- 
 lion years like on Pine street." 
 
 Saxon had warned the Halls by letter that she and 
 Billy intended starting on their search for the valley in 
 the moon as soon as the first of summer arrived. Fortu- 
 nately, the poet was put to no inconvenience, for Bideaux, 
 the Iron Man with the basilisk eyes, had abandoned his 
 dreams of priesthood and decided to become an actor. 
 He arrived at Carmel from the Catholic college in time 
 to take charge of the bungalow. 
 
 Much to Saxon's gratification, the crowd was loth to 
 see them depart. The owner of the Carmel stable offered 
 to put Billy in charge at ninety dollars a month. Also, 
 he received a similar offer from the stable in Pacific <jrove= 
 
 ' ' Whither away ? ' ' the wild Irish playwright hailed them 
 on the station platform at Monterey. He was just return- 
 ing from New York. 
 
 "To a valley in the moon," Saxon answered gaily. 
 
 He regarded their business-like packs. 
 
 ' ' By George ! " he cried. " 1 11 do it i By George ! Let 
 me come along." Then his face fell. "And I've signed 
 
 the contract, " he groaned. "Three acts! Say, you're 
 
 Sacky. And this time of year, too."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ""WE hiked into Monterey last winter, but we're ridin 1 
 OYit now, b'gosh!" Billy said as the train pulled out and 
 they leaned back in their seats. 
 
 They had decided against retracing their steps over 
 the ground already traveled, and took the train to San 
 Francisco. They had been warned by Mark Hall of the 
 enervation of the south, and were bound north for their 
 blanket climate. Their intention was to cross the Bay 
 to Sausalito and wander up through the coast counties. 
 Here, Hall had told them, they would find the true home 
 of the redwood. But Billy, in the smoking car for a 
 cigarette, seated himself beside a man who was destined to 
 deflect them from their course. H was a keen-faced, 
 dark-eyed man, undoubtedly a Jew; and Billy, remem- 
 bering Saxon's admonition always to ask questions, 
 watched his opportunity and started a conversation. It 
 took but a little while to learn that Gunston was a com- 
 mission merchant, and to realize that the content of his 
 talk was too valuable for Saxon to lose. Promptly, when 
 he saw that the other's cigar was finished, Billy invited 
 him into the next car to meet Saxon. Billy would have 
 been incapable of such an act prior to his sojourn in 
 Carmel. That much at least he had acquired of social 
 facility. 
 
 "He's just ben tellin' me about the potato kings, and 
 I wanted him to tell you," Billy explained to Saxon after 
 the introduction. " Go on and tell her, Mr. Gunston, about 
 that fan tan sucker that made nineteen thousan' last year 
 in celery an' asparagus." 
 
 "I was just telling your husband about the way the 
 Chinese make things go up the San Joaquin river. It
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 421 
 
 would be worth your while to go up there and look around. 
 It's the good season now too early for mosquitoes. You 
 ?an get off the train at Black Diamond or Antioeh and 
 ^travel around among the big farming islands on the steam- 
 ers and launches. The fares are cheap, and you'll find 
 some of those big gasoline boats, like the Duchess and 
 Princess, more like big steamboats." 
 
 ''Tell her about Chow Lam," Billy urged. 
 
 The commission merchant leaned back and laughed, i 
 
 "Chow Lam, several years ago, was a broken-down fan 
 tan player. He hadn't a cent, and his health was going 
 back on him. He had worn out his back with twenty years' 
 work in the gold mines, washing over the tailings of the 
 early miners. And whatever he'd made he'd lost at gam- 
 bling. Also, he was in debt three hundred dollars to the 
 Six Companies you know, they're Chinese affairs. And, 
 remember, this was only seven years ago health break- 
 ing down, three hundred in debt, and no trade. Chow 
 Lam blew into Stockton and got a job on the peat landa 
 at day's wages. It was a Chinese company, down on 
 Middle Eiver, that farmed celery and asparagus. This 
 was when he got onto himself and took stock of himself. 
 A quarter of a century in the United States, back not 
 so strong as it used to was, and not a penny laid by 
 for his return to China. He saw how the Chinese in the 
 company had done it saved their wages and bought 
 a share. 
 
 "He saved his wages for two years, and bought one 
 share in a thirty-share company. That was only five years 
 ago. They leased three hundred acres of peat land from 
 a white man who preferred traveling in Europe. Out of 
 the profits of that one share in the first year, he bought 
 two shares in another company. And in a year more, out 
 of the three shares, he organized a company of his own. 
 One year of this, with bad luck, and he just broke even. 
 That brings it up to three years ago. The following year, 
 bumper crops, he netted four thousand. The next year it 
 was five thousand. And last year he cleaned up nineteen
 
 422 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 thousand dollars. Pretty good, eh, for old broken-down 
 Chow Lam?" 
 
 "My!" was all Saxon could say. 
 
 Her eager interest, however, incited the commission mer- 
 chant to go on. 
 
 , "Look at Sing Kee the Potato King of Stockton. 1 
 know him well. I've had more large deals with him and 
 made less money than with any man I know. He was only 
 a coolie, and he smuggled himself into the United States 
 twenty years ago. Started at day's wages, then peddled 
 vegetables in a couple of baskets slung on a stick, and 
 after that opened up a store in Chinatown in San Fran- 
 cisco. But he had a head on him, and he was soon onto 
 the curves of the Chinese farmers that dealt at his store 
 The store couldn't make money fast enough to suit him, 
 He headed up the San Joaquin. Didn't do much for 
 a couple of years except keep his eyes peeled. Then he 
 jumped in and leased twelve hundred acres at seven dollars 
 an acre " 
 
 "My God!" Billy said in an awe-struck voice. "Eight 
 thousan', four hundred dollars just for rent the first year. 
 I know five hundred acres I can buy for three dollars an 
 acre. ' ' 
 
 "Will it grow potatoes?" Gunston asked. 
 
 Billy shook his head. "Nor nothin' else, I guess." 
 
 All three laughed heartily and the commission mer- 
 chant resumed: 
 
 "That seven dollars was only for the land. Possibly 
 ,you know what it costs to plow twelve hundred acres 7" 1 
 
 Billy nodded solemnly. 
 
 "And he got a hundred and sixty sacks to the acre that 
 year," Gunston continued. "Potatoes were selling at fifty 
 cents. My father was at the head of our concern at the 
 time, so I know for a fact. And Sing Kee could have 
 sold at fifty cents and made money. But did he? Trust 
 a Chinaman to know the market. They can skin the com- 
 mission merchants at it. Sing Kee held on. When 'most 
 everybody else had sold, potatoes began to climb. He
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 423 
 
 laughed at our buyers when we offered him sixty cents, 
 seventy cents, a dollar. Do you want to know what he 
 finally did sell for? One dollar and sixty-five a sack. 
 Suppose they actually cost him forty cents. A hundred 
 and sixty times twelve hundred ... let me see 
 , . . twelve times nought is nought and twelve times 
 sixteen is a hundred and ninety-two ... a hundred 
 and ninety-two thousand sacks at a dollar and a quarter 
 net . . . four into a hundred and ninety-two is forty- 
 eight, plus, is two hundred and forty there you are, 
 two hundred and forty thousand dollars clear profit oa 
 that year's deal." 
 
 * 'An' him a Chink," Billy mourned disconsolately. He 
 turned to Saxon. "They ought to be some new country 
 
 for us white folks to go to. Gosh! we're settin' on 
 
 the stoop all right, all right." 
 
 "But, of course, that was unusual," Gunston hastened 
 to qualify. "There was a failure of potatoes in other 
 districts, and a corner, and in some strange way Sing Kee 
 was dead on. He never made profits like that again. But 
 he goes ahead steadily. Last year he had four thousand 
 acres in potatoes, a thousand in asparagus, five hundred 
 in celery and five hundred in beans. And he's running 
 six hundred acres in seeds. No matter what happens to 
 one or two crops, he can't lose on all of them." 
 
 "I've seen twelve thousand acres of apple trees," Saxon 
 said. "And I'd like to see four thousand acres in po- 
 tatoes." 
 
 "And we will," Billy rejoined with great positiveness. 
 'It's us for the San Joaquin. "We don't know what's in 
 our country. No wonder we're out on the stoop." 
 
 "You'll find lots of kings up there," Gunston related. 
 "Yep Hong Lee they call him 'Big Jim,' and Ah Pock, 
 and Ah Whang, and then there's Shima, the Japanese 
 potato king. He's worth several millions. Lives like a 
 prince. ' ' 
 
 "Why don't Americans succeed like that?" asked Saxon. 
 
 "Because they won't, I guess. There's nothing to stop
 
 424 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 them except themselves. I'll tell you one thing, though- 
 give me the Chinese to deal with. He's honest. His word 
 is as good as his bond. If he says he'll do a thing, he'll 
 do it. And, anyway, the white man doesn't know how to 
 farm. Even the up-to-date white farmer is content with 
 one crop at a time and rotation of crops. Mr. John China- 
 man goes him one better, and grows two crops at one time 
 on the same soil. I've seen it radishes and carrots, two 
 crops, sown at one time." 
 
 ' ' Which don 't stand to reason, ' ' Billy objected. ' ' They 'd 
 be only a half crop of each." 
 
 "Another guess coming," Gunston jeered. "Carrots 
 have to be thinned when they're so far along. So do 
 radishes. But carrots grow slow. Radishes grow fast. 
 The slow-going carrots serve the purpose of thinning the 
 radishes. And when the radishes are pulled, ready for 
 market, that thins the carrots, which come along later. 
 You can't beat the Chink." 
 
 "Don't see why a white man can't do what a Chink 
 can," protested Billy. 
 
 "That sounds all right," Gunston replied. "The only 
 objection is that the white man doesn't. The Chink is 
 busy all the time, and he keeps the ground just as busy. 
 He has organization, system. Who ever heard of white 
 farmers keeping books? The Chink does. No guess 
 work with him. He knows just where he stands, to 
 a cent, on any crop at any moment. And he knows the 
 market. He plays both ends. How he does it is beyond 
 me, but he knows the market better than we commission 
 merchants. 
 
 "Then, again, he's patient but not stubborn. Suppose 
 he does make a mistake, and gets in a crop, and then 
 finds the market is wrong. In such a situation the white 
 man gets stubborn and hangs on like a bulldog. But not 
 the Chink. He's going to minimize the losses of that mis- 
 take. That land has got to work, and make money. With- 
 out a quiver or a regret, the moment he's learned his 
 error, he puts his plows into that crop, turns it under,
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 425 
 
 and plants something else. He has the savve. He can 
 look at a sprout, just poked up out of the ground, 
 and tell how it's going to turn out whether it will head 
 up or won't head up; or if it's going to head up good, 
 medium, or bad. That's one end. Take the other end. 
 He controls his crop. He forces it or holds it back, 
 with an eye on the market. And when the market isj 
 just right, there's his crop, ready to deliver, timed to the 
 minute. ' ' 
 
 The conversation with Gunston lasted hours, and the 
 more he talked of the Chinese and their farming ways the 
 more Saxon became aware of a growing dissatisfaction. 
 She did not question the facts. The trouble was that 
 they were not alluring. Somehow, she could not find place 
 for them in her valley of the moon. It was not until the 
 genial Jew left the train that Billy gave definite statement 
 to what was vaguely bothering her. 
 
 "Huh! We ain't Chinks. We're white folks. Does a 
 Chink ever want to ride a horse, hell-bent for election an' 
 havin ' a good time of it ? Did you ever see a Chink go swim- 
 
 min' out through the breakers at Carmel? or boxin', 
 
 wrestlin', runnin' an' jumpin' for the sport of it? Did you 
 ever see a Chink take a shotgun on his arm, tramp six 
 miles, an ' come back happy with one measly rabbit ? What 
 does a Chink do? Work his damned head off. That's all 
 he's good for. To hell with work, if that's the whole 
 of the game an' I've done my share of work, an' I can 
 work alongside of any of 'em. But what's the good? If 
 they's one thing I've learned solid since you an' me hit c 
 the road, Saxon, it is that work's the least part of life., 
 
 God I if it was all of life I couldn't cut my throat 
 
 quick enough to get away from it. I want shotguns an' 
 rifles, an' a horse between my legs. I don't want to be 
 so tired aU the time I can't love my wife. Who wants to 
 be rich an' clear two hundred an' forty thousand on a 
 potato deal! Look at Rockefeller. Has to live on milk. 
 I want porterhouse and a stomach that can bite sole- 
 leather. An' I want you, an' plenty of time along with
 
 426 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 you, an' fun for both of us. "What's the good of life if 
 they ain't no fun?" 
 
 "Oh, Billy!" Saxon cried. "It's just what I've been 
 trying to get straightened out in my head. It's been wor- 
 rying me for ever so long. I was afraid there was some- 
 thing wrong with me that I wasn't made for the country 
 after all. All the time I didn't envy the San Leandro 
 Portuguese. I didn't want to be one, nor a Pajaro Val- 
 ley Dalmatian, nor even a Mrs. Mortimer. And you didn't 
 either. "What we want is a valley of the moon, with not too 
 much work, and all the fun we want. And well just keep 
 on looking until we find it. And if we don't find it, we'll 
 go on having the fun just as we have ever since we left 
 Oakland. And, Billy . . . we're never, never going 
 to work our damned heads off, are we?" 
 
 "Not on your life," Billy growled in fierce affirmation. 
 
 They walked into Black Diamond with their packs on 
 their backs. It was a scattered village of shabby little 
 cottages, with a main street that was a wallow of black 
 mud from the last late spring rain. . The sidewalks bumped 
 up and down in uneven steps and landings. Everything 
 seemed un-American. The names on the strange ding}' 
 shops were unspeakably foreign. The one dingy hotel 
 was run by a Greek. Greeks were everywhere swarthy 
 men in sea-boots and tam-o'-shanters, hatless women in 
 bright colors, hordes of sturdy children, and all speaking 
 in outlandish voices, crying shrilly and vivaciously witt 
 the volubility of the Mediterranean. 
 
 "Huh! this ain't the United States," Billy mut- 
 tered. 
 
 Down on the water front they found a fish cannery and 
 an asparagus cannery in the height of the busy season, 
 where they looked in vain among the toilers for familiar 
 American faces. Billy picked out the bookkeepers and 
 foremen for Americans. All the rest were Greeks, Ital- 
 ians, and Chinese. 
 
 At the steamboat wharf, they watched the bright-painted
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 427 
 
 Greek boats arriving, discharging their loads of glorious 
 salmon, and departing. New York Cut-Off, as the slough 
 was called, curved to the west and north and flowed into 
 a vast body of water which was the united Sacramento 
 and San Joaquin rivers. 
 
 Beyond the steamboat wharf, the fishing wharves dwuv 
 died to stages for the drying of nets; and here, away 
 from the noise and clatter of the alien town, Saxon and 
 Billy took off their packs and rested. The tall, rustling 
 tules grew out of the deep water close to the dilapidated 
 boat-landing where they sat. Opposite the town lay a 
 long flat island, on which a row of ragged poplars leaned 
 against the sky. 
 
 "Just like in that Dutch windmill picture Mark Hall 
 has," Saxon said. 
 
 Billy pointed out the mouth of the slough and across 
 the broad reach of water to a cluster of tiny white build- 
 ings, behind which, like a glimmering mirage, rolled the 
 low Montezuina Hills. 
 
 ' ' Those houses is Collinsville, ' ' he informed her. ' ' The 
 Sacramento river comes in there, and you go up it to 
 Rio Vista an' Isleton, and Walnut Grove, and all those 
 places Mr. Gunston was tellin' us about. It's all islands 
 and sloughs, connectin' clear across an' back to the San 
 Joaquin. ' ' 
 
 "Isn't the sun good," Saxon yawned. "And how quiet 
 it is here, so short a distance away from those strange 
 
 foreigners. And to think! in the cities, right now, 
 
 men are beating and killing each other for jobs." 
 
 Now and again an overland passenger train rushed by 
 in the distance, echoing along the background of foot- 
 hills of Mt. Diablo, which bulked, twin-peaked, green- 
 crinkled, against the sky. Then the slumbrous quiet would 
 fall, to be broken by the far call of a foreign tongue or by 
 a gasoline fishing boat chugging in through the mouth 
 of the slough. 
 
 Not a hundred feet away, anchored close in the tules, 
 lay a beautiful white yacht. Despite its tininess, it looked
 
 428 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 broad and comfortable. Smoke was rising for'ard from 
 its stovepipe. On its stern, in gold letters, they read 
 Roamer. On top of the cabin, basking in the sunshine, 
 lay a man and woman, the latter with a pink scarf around 
 her head. The man was reading aloud from a book, while 
 she sewed. Beside them sprawled a fox terrier. 
 
 "Gosh! they don't have to stick around cities to 
 
 be happy," Billy commented. 
 
 A Japanese came on deck from the cabin, sat down 
 for'ard, and began picking a chicken. The feathers float- 
 ed away in a long line toward the mouth of the slough. 
 
 ' ' Oh ! Look ! ' ' Saxon pointed in her excitement. ' ' He 'a 
 fishing! And the line is fast to his toe!" 
 
 The man had dropped the book face-downward on the 
 cabin and reached for the line, while the woman looked up 
 from her sewing, and the terrier began to bark. In came 
 the line, hand under hand, and at the end a big catfish. 
 When this was removed, and the line rebaited and dropped 
 overboard, the man took a turn around his toe and went 
 on reading. 
 
 A Japanese came down on the landing-stage beside 
 Saxon and Billy, and hailed the yacht. He carried par- 
 cels of meat and vegetables ; one coat pocket bulged with 
 letters, the other with morning papers. In response to 
 his hail, the Japanese on the yacht stood up with the part- 
 plucked chicken. The man said something to him, put 
 aside the book, got into the white skiff lying astern, and 
 rowed to the landing. As he came alongside the stage, 
 he pulled in his oars, caught hold, and said good morning 
 genially. 
 
 "Why, I know you," Saxon said impulsively, to Billy's 
 amazement. "You are. . . ." 
 
 Here she broke off in confusion. 
 
 "Go on," the man said, smiling reassurance. 
 
 "You are Jack Hastings, I'm sure of it. I used to see 
 your photograph in the papers all the time you were war 
 correspondent in the Japanese-Russian War. You've 
 written lots of books, though I've never read them."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 429 
 
 "Right you are," he ratified. "And what's your 
 name?" 
 
 Saxon introduced herself and Billy, and, when she noted 
 the writer's observant eye on their packs, she sketched the 
 pilgrimage they were on. The farm in the valley of the 
 moon evidently caught his fancy, and, though the Japanese 
 and his parcels were safely in the skiff, Hastings still lin- 
 gered. When Saxon spoke of Cannel, he seemed to know 
 everybody in Hall's crowd, and when he heard they were 
 intending to go to Rio Vista, his invitation was immediate. 
 
 "Why, we're going that way ourselves, inside an hour, 
 as soon as slack water comes," he exclaimed. "It's just 
 the thing. Come on on board. We'll be there by four 
 this afternoon if there's any wind at all. Come on. My 
 wife's on board, and Mrs. Hall is one of her best chums. 
 We've been away to South America just got back; or 
 you'd have seen us in Carmel. Hal wrote to us about the 
 pair of you." 
 
 It was the second time in her life that Saxon had been 
 in a small boat, and the Roamer was the first yacht she had 
 ever been on board. The writer's wife, whom he called 
 Clara, welcomed them heartily, and Saxon lost no time 
 in falling in love with her and in being fallen in love with 
 in return. So strikingly did they resemble each other, that 
 Hastings was not many minutes in calling attention to 
 it. He made them stand side by side, studied their eyes 
 and mouths and ears, compared their hands, their hair, 
 their ankles, and swore that his fondest dream was shat- 
 tered namely, that when Clara had been made the mold 
 was broken. 
 
 On Clara's suggestion that it might have been pretty 
 much the same mold, they compared histories. Both were 
 of the pioneer stock. Clara's mother, like Saxon's, had 
 crossed the Plains with ox-teams, and, like Saxon's, had 
 wintered in Salt Lake City in fact, had, with her sisters, 
 opened the first Gentile school in that Mormon strong- 
 hold. And, if Saxon's father had helped raise the Bear 
 Flag rebellion at Sonoma, it was at Sonoma that Clara's
 
 430 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 father had mustered in for the War of the Rebellion and 
 ridden as far east with his troop as Salt Lake City, of 
 which place he had been provost marshal when the Mor- 
 mon trouble flared up. To complete it all, Clara fetched 
 from the cabin an ukulele of koa wood that was the twin 
 to Saxon's, and together they sang ''Honolulu Tomboy." 
 
 Hastings decided to eat dinner he called the midday 
 meal by its old-fashioned name before sailing ; and down 
 oelow Saxon was surprised and delighted by the measure 
 of comfort in so tiny a cabin. There was just room for 
 Billy to stand upright. A centerboard-case divided the 
 room in half longitudinally, and to this was attached the 
 hinged table from which they ate. Low bunks that ran 
 the full cabin length, upholstered in cheerful green, served 
 as seats. A curtain, easily attached by hooks between the. 
 centerboard-case and the roof, at night screened Mrs. Hast- 
 ings' sleeping quarters. On the opposite side the two Jap- 
 anese bunked, while for'ard, under the deck, was the 
 galley. So small was it that there was just room beside it 
 for the cook, who was compelled by the low deck to squat 
 on his hams. The other Japanese, who had brought the 
 parcels on board, waited on the table. 
 
 "They are looking for a ranch in the valley of the 
 moon," Hastings concluded his explanation of the pil- 
 grimage to Clara. 
 
 "Oh! don't you know " she cried; but was 
 
 silenced by her husband. 
 
 "Hush," he said peremptorily, then turned to their 
 guests. "Listen. There's something in that valley of 
 the moon idea, but I won't tell you what. It is a secret. 
 Now we've a ranch \n Sonoma Valley about eight miles 
 from the very town of Sonoma where you two girls' fathers 
 took up soldiering; and if you ever come to our ranch 
 you'll learn the secret. Oh, believe me, it's connected with 
 your valley of the moon. Isn't it, Mate?" 
 
 This last was the mutual name he and Clara had for 
 each other. 
 
 She smiled and laughed and nodded her head.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 431 
 
 "You might find our valley the very one you are look- 
 ing for," she said. 
 
 But Hastings shook his head at her to cheek further 
 speech. She turned to the fox terrier and made it speak 
 for a piece of meat. 
 
 "Her name's Peggy," she told Saxon. "We had two 
 Irish terriers down in the South Seas, brother and sister, 
 but they died. We called them Peggy and Possum. So 
 she's named after the original Peggy." 
 
 Billy was impressed by the ease with which the Eoamer 
 was operated. While they lingered at table, at a word 
 from Hastings the two Japanese had gone on deck. Billy 
 could hear them throwing down the halyards, casting off 
 gaskets, and heaving the anchor short on the tiny winch. 
 In several minutes one called down that everything was 
 ready, and all went on deck. Hoisting mainsail and jig- 
 ger was a matter of minutes. Then the cook and cabin-boy 
 broke out anchor, and, while one hove it up, the other 
 hoisted the jib. Hastings, at the wheel, trimmed the sheet. 
 The Roamer paid off, filled her sails, slightly heeling, and 
 slid across the smooth water and out the mouth of New 
 York Slough. The Japanese coiled the halyards and went 
 below for their own dinner. 
 
 "The flood is just beginning to make," said Hastings, 
 pointing to a striped spar-buoy that was slightly tipping 
 up-stream on the edge of the channel. 
 
 The tiny white houses of Collinsville, which they were 
 nearing, disappeared behind a low island, though the Mon- 
 itezuma Hills, with their long, low, restful lines, slunv 
 "bered on the horizon apparently as far away as ever. 
 
 As the Roamer passed the mouth of Montezuma Slough 
 and entered the Sacramento, they came upon Collinsville 
 close at hand. Saxon clapped her hands. 
 
 "It's like a lot of toy houses," she said, "cut out of 
 cardboard. And those hilly fields are just painted up 
 behind." 
 
 They passed many arks and houseboats of fishermen 
 moored among the tules, and the women and children, like
 
 432 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 the men in the boats, were dark-skinned, black-eyed, for- 
 eign. As they proceeded up the river, they began to en- 
 counter dredgers at work, biting out mouthfuls of the 
 sandy river bottom and heaping it on top of the huge 
 levees. Great mats of willow brush, hundreds of yards in 
 length, were laid on top of the river-slope of the levees 
 and held in place by steel cables and thousands of cubes 
 of cement. The willows soon sprouted, Hastings told them, 
 and by the time the mats were rotted away the sand was 
 held in place by the roots of the trees. 
 
 ''It must, cost like Sam Hill," Billy observed. 
 
 "But the land is worth it," Hastings explained "This 
 island land is the most productive in the world. This 
 section of California is like Holland. You wouldn't think 
 it, but this water we're sailing on is higher than the sur- 
 face of the islands. They're like leaky boats calking, 
 patching, pumping, night and day and all the time. But 
 it pays. It pays." 
 
 Except for the dredgers, the fresh-piled .sand, the dense 
 willow thickets, and always Mt. Diablo to the south, noth- 
 ing was to be seen. Occasionally a river steamboat passed, 
 and blue herons flew into the trees. 
 
 "It must be very lonely," Saxon remarked. 
 
 Hastings laughed and told her she would change her 
 mind later. Much he related to them of the river lands, 
 and after a while he got on the subject of tenant farm- 
 ing. Saxon had started him by speaking of the land- 
 hungry Anglo-Saxons. 
 
 "Land-hogs," he snapped. "That's our record in this 
 country. As one old Reuben told a professor of an agri- 
 cultural experiment station: 'They ain't no sense in try- 
 in' to teach me farmin'. I know all about it. Ain't I 
 worked out three farms?' It was his kind that destroyed 
 New England. Back there great sections are relapsing to 
 wilderness. In one state, at least, the deer have increased 
 until they are a nuisance. There are abandoned farms by 
 the tens of thousands. I've gone over the lists of them 
 farms in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connect!-
 
 THE VALLEY OP THE MOON 433 
 
 cut. Offered for sale on easy payment. The prices asked 
 wouldn't pay for the improvements, while the land, of 
 course, is thrown in for nothing. 
 
 "And the same thing is going on, in one way or an- 
 other, the same land-robbing and hogging, over the rest of 
 the country down in Texas, in Missouri, and Kansas, out 
 here in California. Take tenant farming. I know a ranch 
 in my county where the land was worth a hundred and 
 twenty-five an acre. And it gave its return at that valua- 
 tion. When the old man died, the son leased it to a Portu- 
 guese and went to live in the city. In five years the Portu- 
 guese skimmed the cream and dried up the udder. The 
 second lease; with another Portuguese for three years, 
 gave one-quarter the former return. No third Portuguese 
 appeared to offer to lease it. There wasn't anything left. 
 That ranch was worth fifty thousand when the old man 
 died. In the end the son got eleven thousand for it. 
 Why, I Ve seen land that paid twelve per cent., that, after 
 the skimming of a five-years' lease, paid only one and a 
 quarter per cent." 
 
 "It's the same in our valley," Mrs. Hastings supple- 
 mented. ' ' All the old farms are dropping into ruin. Take 
 the Ebell Place, Mate." Her husband nodded emphatic 
 indorsement. "When we used to know it, it was a per- 
 fect paradise of a farm. There were dams and lakes, 
 beautiful meadows, lush hayfields, red hills of grape-lands, 
 hundreds of acres of good pasture, heavenly groves of 
 pines and oaks, a stone winery, stone barns, grounds gh, 
 I couldn't describe it in hours. When Mrs. Bell died, the 
 family scattered, and the leasing began. It's a ruin to-day. 
 The trees have been cut and sold for firewood. There's 
 only a little bit of the vineyard that isn't abandoned 
 j-ust enough to make wine for the present Italian lessees, 
 who are running a poverty-stricken milk ranch on the 
 leavings of the soil. I rode over it last year, and cried. 
 The beautiful orchard is a horror. The grounds have gone 
 back to the wild. Just because they didn't keep the gut- 
 ters cleaned out, the rain trickled down and dry-rotteo*
 
 434 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 the timbers, and the big stone barn is caved in. The same 
 with part of the winery the other part is used for stabling 
 the cows. And the house! words can't describe!" 
 
 "It's become a profession," Hastings went on. "The 
 'movers.' They lease, clean out and gut a place in sev- 
 eral years, and then move on. They're not like the for- 
 eigners, the Chinese, and Japanese, and the rest. In the 
 main they're a lazy, vagabond, poor- white sort, who do 
 nothing else but skin the soil and move, skin the soil and 
 move. Now take the Portuguese and Italians in our coun- 
 try. They are different. They arrive in the country with- 
 out a penny and work for others of their countrymen until 
 they've learned the language and their way about. Now 
 they're not movers. What they are after is land of their 
 own, which they will love and care for and conserve. But, 
 in the meantime, how to get it? Saving wages is slow. 
 There is a quicker way. They lease. In three years they 
 can gut enough out of somebody else's land to set them- 
 selves up for life. It is sacrilege, a veritable rape of the 
 land; but what of it? It's the way of the United States." 
 
 He turned suddenly on Billy. 
 
 "Look here, Roberts. You and your wife are looking 
 for your bit of land. You want it bad. Now take my 
 advice. It's cold, hard advice. Become a tenant farmer. 
 Lease some place, where the old folks have died and the 
 country isn't good enough for the sons and daughters. 
 Then gut it. Wring the last dollar out of the soil, repair 
 nothing, and in three years you'll have your own place 
 paid for. Then turn over a new leaf, and love your 
 soil. Nourish it. Every dollar you feed it will return you 
 two. And have nothing scrub about the place. If it's a 
 hoi-se, a cow, a pig, a chicken, or a blackberry vine, see 
 that it's thoroughbred." 
 
 "But it's wicked!" Saxon wrung out. "It's wicked 
 advice." 
 
 "We live in a wicked age," Hastings countered, smiling 
 grimly. "This wholesale land-skinning is the national 
 crime of the United States to-day. Nor would I give your
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 435 
 
 husband such advice if I weren't absolutely certain that 
 the land he skins would be skinned by some Portuguese or 
 Italian if he refused. As fast as they arrive and settle 
 down, they send for their sisters and their cousins and 
 their aunts. If you were thirsty, if a warehouse were 
 burning and beautiful Rhine wine were running to waste, 
 ) would you stay your hand from scooping a drink? Well, 
 the national warehouse is afire in many places, and no end 
 of the good things are running to waste. Help yourself, 
 If you don't, the immigrants will." 
 
 "Oh, you don't know him," Mrs. Hastings hurried to 
 explain. "He spends all his time on the ranch in con- 
 serving the soil. There are over a thousand acres of 
 woods alone, and, though he thins and forests like a sur- 
 geon, he won't let a tree be chopped without his permission. 
 He's even planted a hundred thousand trees. He's always 
 draining and ditching to stop erosion, and experiment- 
 ing with pasture grasses. And every little while he buys 
 some exhausted adjoining ranch and starts building up 
 the soil." 
 
 "Wherefore I know what I'm talking about," Hastings 
 broke in. "And my advice holds. I love the soil, yet to- 
 morrow, things being as they are and if I were poor, I'd 
 gut five hundred acres in order to buy twenty-five for 
 myself. When you get into Sonoma Valley, look me up, 
 and 111 put you onto the whole game, and both ends of 
 it. I'll show you construction as well as destruction. 
 When you find a farm doomed to be gutted anyway, why 
 jump in and do it yourself." 
 
 "Yes, and he mortgaged himself to the eyes," laughed 
 Mrs. Hastings, "to keep five hundred acres of woods out 
 of the hands of the charcoal burners. ' ' 
 
 Ahead, on the left bank of the Sacramento, just at the 
 fading end of the Montezuma Hills, Rio Vista appeared. 
 The Roamer slipped through the smooth water, past steam^ 
 boat wharves, landing stages, and warehouses. The two 
 Japanese went for'ard on deck. At command of Hast- 
 ings, the jib ran down, and he shot the Roamer into the
 
 436 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 wind, losing way, until he called, "Let go the hook!" The 
 anchor went down, and the yacht swung to it, so close to 
 hore that the skiff lay under overhanging willows. 
 
 "Farther up the river we tie to the hank," Mrs. Hast- 
 ings said, ' ' so that when you wake in the morning you find 
 the branches of trees sticking down into the cabin." 
 
 "Ooh!" Saxon murmured, pointing to a lump on hei- 
 wrist. "Look at that. A mosquito." 
 
 "Pretty early for them," Hastings said. "But later 
 on they're terrible. I've seen them so thick I couldn't back 
 the jib against them." 
 
 Saxon was not nautical enough to appreciate his hyper- 
 bole, though Billy grinned. 
 
 "There are no mosquitoes in the valley of the moon," 
 she said. 
 
 "No, never," said Mrs. Hastings, whose husband began 
 immediately to regret the smallness of the cabin which 
 prevented him from offering sleeping accommodations. 
 
 An automobile bumped along on top of the levee, and 
 the young boys and girls in it cried, "Oh, you kid!" to 
 Saxon and Billy, and Hastings, who was rowing them 
 ashore in the skiff. Hastings called, "Oh, you kid!" back 
 to them; and Saxon, pleasuring in the boyishness of his 
 sunburned face, was reminded of the boyishness of Mark 
 Hall and his Carmel crowd.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 the Sacramento on an old-fashioned ferry 4 
 short distance above Rio Vista, Saxon and Billy entered 
 the river country. From the top of the levee she got her 
 revelation. Beneath, lower than the river, stretched broad, 
 flat land, far as the eye could see. Koads ran in every 
 direction, and she saw countless farmhouses of which she 
 had never dreamed when sailing on the lonely river a few 
 feet the other side of the willow fringe. 
 
 Three weeks they spent among the rich farm islands, 
 which heaped up levees and pumped day and night to 
 keep afloat. It was a monotonous land, with an unvarying 
 richness of soil and with only one landmark Mt. Diablo, 
 ever to be seen, sleeping in the midday azure, limning its 
 crinkled mass against the sunset sky, or forming like a 
 dream out of the silver dawn. Sometimes on foot, often 
 by launch, they criss-crossed and threaded the river region 
 as far as the peat lands of the Middle River, down the 
 San Joaquin to Antioch, and up Georgiana Slough to "Wal- 
 nut Grove on the Sacramento. And it proved a foreign 
 land. The workers of the soil teemed by thousands, yet 
 Saxon and Billy knew what it was to go a whole day with- 
 out finding any one who spoke English. They encountered 
 sometimes in whole villages Chinese, Japanese, Italians, 
 'Portuguese, Swiss, Hindus, Koreans, Norwegians, Danes, 
 French, Armenians, Slavs, almost every nationality sava 
 American. One American they found on the lower reaches 
 of Georgiana who eked an illicit existence by fishing with 
 traps. Another American, who spouted blood and destruc- 
 tion on all political subjects, was an itinerant bee-farmer. 
 At Walnut Grove, bustling with life, the few Americans 
 consisted of the storekeeper, the saloonkeeper, the butcher, 
 ,437^
 
 438 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 the keeper of the drawbridge, and the ferryman. Yet two 
 thriving towns were in "Walnut Grove, one Chinese, one 
 Japanese. Most of the land was owned by Americans, who 
 lived away from it and were continually selling it to the 
 foreigners. 
 
 A riot, or a merry-making they could not tell which 
 ^-was taking place in the Japanese town, as Saxon and 
 Billy steamed out on the Apache, bound for Sacra- 
 mento. 
 
 "We're settin' on the stoop," Billy railed. "Pretty 
 soon they'll crowd us off of that." 
 
 "There won't be any stoop in the valley of the moon,'* 
 Saxon cheered him. 
 
 But he was inconsolable, remarking bitterly: 
 
 "An' they ain't one of them damn foreigners that can 
 handle four horses like me. 
 
 "But they can everlastingly farm," he added. 
 
 And Saxon, looking at his moody face, was suddenly 
 reminded of a lithograph she had seen in her childhood. 
 It was of a Plains Indian, in paint and feathers, astride 
 his horse and gazing with wondering eye at a railroad 
 train rushing along a fresh-made track. The Indian had 
 passed, she remembered, before the tide of new life that 
 brought the railroad. And were Billy and his kind doomed 
 to pass, she pondered, before this new tide of life, amaz- 
 ingly industrious, that was flooding in from Asia and 
 Europe? 
 
 At Sacramento they stopped two weeks, where Billy 
 drove team and earned the money to put them along on 
 their travels. Also, life in Oakland and Carmel, close 
 to the salt edge of the coast, had spoiled them for the 
 interior. Too warm, was their verdict of Sacramento, 
 and they followed the railroad west, through a region of 
 swamp-land, to Davisville. Here they were lured aside 
 and to the north to pretty "Woodland, where Billy drove 
 team for a fruit farm, and where Saxon wrung from 
 him a reluctant consent for her to work a few days in 
 the fruit harvest. She made an important and mystify-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 439 
 
 ing secret of what she intended doing with her earnings, 
 and Billy teased her about it until the matter passed from 
 his mind. Nor did she tell him of a money order inclosed 
 with a certain blue slip of paper in a letter to Bud Stroth- 
 ers. 
 
 They began to suffer from the heat. Billy declared they 
 had strayed out of the blanket climate. 
 
 ''There are no redwoods here," Saxon said. "We must 
 go west toward the coast. It is there we'll find the valley 
 of the moon." 
 
 From Woodland they swung west and south along the 
 county roads to the fruit paradise of Vacaville. Here Billy 
 picked fruit, then drove team; and here Saxon received 
 a letter and a tiny express package from Bud Strothers. 
 When Billy came into camp from the day's work, she bade 
 him stand still and shut his eyes. For a few seconds she 
 fumbled and did something to the breast of his cotton 
 work-shirt. Once, he felt a slight prick, as of a pin point, 
 and grunted, while she laughed and bullied him to con- 
 tinue keeping his eyes shut. 
 
 "Close your eyes and give me a kiss," she sang, "and 
 then I'll show you what iss." 
 
 She kissed him and when he looked down he saw, pinned 
 to his shirt, the gold medals he had pawned the day they 
 had gone to the moving picture show and received their 
 inspiration to return to the land. 
 
 "You darned kid!" he exclaimed, as he caught her to 
 him. "So that's what you blew your fruit money in on? 
 An ' I never guessed ! Come here to you. ' ' 
 
 And thereupon she suffered the pleasant mastery of his 
 brawn, and was hugged and wrestled with until the cof- 
 fee pot boiled over and she darted from him to the 
 rescue. 
 
 "I kinda always 've ben a mite proud of 'em," he con- 
 fessed, as he rolled his after-supper cigarette. ' ' They take 
 me back to my kid days when I amateured it to beat the 
 band. I was some kid in them days, believe nnia - -But 
 say, d 'ye know, they 'd clean slipped my recollection. Oak-
 
 440 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 land's a thousan' years away from you an' me, an* ten 
 thousan' miles." 
 
 "Then this will bring you back to it," Saxon said, 
 opening Bud's letter and reading it aloud. 
 
 Bud had taken it for granted that Billy knew the wind- 
 up of the strike; so he devoted himself to the details as 
 to which men had got back their jobs, and which had been 
 blacklisted. To his own amazement he had been taken 
 back, and was now driving Billy 's horses. Still more amaz- 
 ing was the further information he had to impart. The 
 old foreman of the "West Oakland stables had died, and 
 since then two other foremen had done nothing but make 
 messes of everything. The point of all which was that 
 the Boss had spoken that day to Bud, regretting the dis- 
 appearance of Billy. 
 
 "Don't make no mistake," Bud wrote. "The Boss is 
 onto all your curves. I bet he knows every scab you 
 slugged. Just the same he says to me Strothers, if you 
 ain't at liberty to give me his address, just write yourself 
 and tell him for me to come a running. I'll give him a 
 hundred and twenty-five a month to take hold the stables. ' ' 
 
 Saxon waited with well-concealed anxiety when the let- 
 ter was finished. Billy, stretched out, leaning on one el- 
 bow, blew a meditative ring of smoke. His cheap work- 
 shirt, incongruously brilliant with the gold of the medals 
 that flashed in the firelight, was open in front, showing the 
 smooth skin and splendid swell of chest. He glanced 
 around at the blankets bowered in a green screen and 
 waiting, at the campfire and the blackened, battered cof- 
 fee pot, at the well-worn hatchet, half buried in a tree 
 trunk, and lastly at Saxon. His eyes embraced her; then 
 Into them came a slow expression of inquiry. But she 
 offered no help. 
 
 "Well," he uttered finally, "all you .gotta 'do is write 
 Bud Strothers, an' tell 'm not on the Boss's ugly tintype. 
 
 An' while you're about it, I'll send 'm the money to 
 
 get my watch out. You work out the interest. The over- 
 coat can stay there an' rot."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 441 
 
 But they did not prosper in the interior heat. They lost 
 weight. The resilience went out of their minds and bodies. 
 As Billy expressed it, their silk was frazzled. So they 
 shouldered their packs and headed west across the wild 
 mountains. In the Berryessa Valley, the shimmering heat 
 waves made their eyes ache, and their heads ; so that they 
 traveled on in the early morning and late afternoon. Still 
 west they headed, over more mountains, to beautiful Napa 
 Valley. The next valley beyond was Sonoma, where Hast- 
 ings had invited them to his ranch. And here they would 
 have gone, had not Billy chanced upon a newspaper item 
 which told of the writer's departure to cover some revolu- 
 tion that was breaking out somewhere in Mexico. 
 
 "We'll see 'm later on," Billy said, as they turned 
 northwest, through the vineyards and orchards of Napa 
 Valley. "We're like that millionaire Bert used to sing 
 about, except it 's time that we 've got to burn. Any direc- 
 tion is as good as any other, only west is best." 
 
 Three times in the Napa Valley Billy refused work. 
 Past St. Helena, Saxon hailed with joy the unmistakable 
 redwoods they could see growing up the small canyons that 
 penetrated the western wall of the valley. At Calistoga, 
 at the end of the railroad, they saw the six-horse stage? 
 leaving for Middletown and Lower Lake. They debated 
 their route. That way led to Lake County and not toward 
 the coast, so Saxon and Billy swung west through the 
 mountains to the valley of the Russian River, coming out 
 at Healdsburg. They lingered in the hop-fields on the 
 rich bottoms, where Billy scorned to pick hops alongside 
 of Indians, Japanese, and Chinese. 
 
 "I couldn't work alongside of 'em an hour before I'd 
 be knockin' their blocks off," he explained. "Besides, this 
 Russian River's some nifty. Let's pitch camp and go 
 swimmin'." 
 
 So they idled their way north up the broad, fertile valley, 
 so happy that they forgot that work was ever necessary, 
 while the valley of the moon was a golden dream, remote, 
 but wre, some day of realization. At Cloverdale, Billy
 
 442 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 fell into luck. A combination of sickness and misehanoe 
 found the stage stables short a driver. Each day the 
 train disgorged passengers for the Geysers, and Billy, as if 
 accustomed to it all his life, took the reins of six horses 
 and drove a full load over the mountains in stage time. 
 The second trip he had Saxon beside him on the high box- 
 seat. By the end of two weeks the regular driver was 
 back. Billy declined a stable-job, took his wages, and con- 
 tinued north. 
 
 Saxon had adopted a fox terrier puppy and named him 
 Possum, after the dog Mrs. Hastings had told them about. 
 So young was he that he quickly became footsore, and she 
 carried him until Billy perched him on top of his pack and 
 grumbled that Possum was chewing his back hair to a 
 frazzle. 
 
 They passed through the painted vineyards of Asti at 
 the end of the grape-picking, and entered Ukiah drenched 
 to the skin by the first winter rain. 
 
 "Say," Billy said, "you remember the way the Roamer 
 just skated along. "Well, this summer's done the same 
 thing gone by on wheels. An' now it's up to us to find 
 some place to winter. This Ukiah looks like a pretty good 
 burg. "Well get a room to-night an' dry out. An' to-mor- 
 row I'll hustle around to the stables, an' if I locate any- 
 thing we can rent a shack an' have all winter to think 
 about where well go next year."
 
 CHAPTER Xlli 
 
 I'HE winter proved much less exciting than the one spent 
 in Carmel, and keenly as Saxon had appreciated the Car- 
 mel folk, she now appreciated them more keenly than 
 ever. In Ukiah she formed nothing more than superficial 
 acquaintances. Here people were more like those of the 
 working class she had known in Oakland, or else they were 
 merely wealthy and herded together in automobiles. There 
 was no democratic artist-colony that pursued fellowship 
 disregardful of the caste of wealth. 
 
 Yet it was a more enjoyable winter than any she had 
 spent in Oakland. Billy had failed to get regular em- 
 ployment; so she saw much of him, and they lived a 
 prosperous and happy hand-to-mouth existence in the 
 tiny cottage they rented. As extra man at the biggest 
 livery stable, Billy's spare time was so great that he 
 drifted into horse-trading. It was hazardous, and more 
 than once he was broke, but the table never wanted for 
 the best of steak and coffee, nor did they stint themselves 
 for clothes. 
 
 ''Them blamed farmers I gotta pass it to 'em," Billy 
 grinned one day, when he had been particularly bested in 
 a horse deal. "They won't tear under the wings, the sons 
 of guns. In the summer they take in boarders, an' in the 
 winter they make a good livin' doin' each other up at 
 tradin ' horses. An ' I just want to tell you, Saxon, they 've 
 sure shown me a few. An' I'm gettin' tough under the 
 wings myself. I'll never tear again so as you can notice 
 it. Which means one more trade learned for yours truly. 
 I can make a livin' anywhere now tradin' horses." 
 
 Often Billy had Saxon out on spare saddle horses from 
 the stable, and his horse deals took them on many trips
 
 444 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 into the surrounding country. Likewise she was with him 
 when he was driving horses to sell on commission; and 
 in both their minds, independently, arose a new idea con- 
 cerning their pilgrimage. Billy was the first to broach it. 
 
 "I run into an outfit the other day, that's stored in 
 town," he said, "an* it's kept me thinkin' ever since. 
 Ain't no use tryin' to get you to guess it, because you 
 can't. I'll tell you the sweilest wagon-campin ' outfit 
 anybody ever heard of. First of all, the wagon's a peach- 
 erino. Strong as they make 'em. It was made to order, 
 upon Puget Sound, an' it was tested out all the way down 
 here. No load an' no road can strain it. The guy had 
 consumption that had it built. A doctor an "ook trav- 
 eled with 'm till ne passed in hi< checks here in Ukiah 
 two years ago. But say if yoi c~uld see it. Every kind 
 of a contrivance a place for everything a regular home 
 on wheels. Now, if we could get that, aa ' a couple of 
 plugs, we could travel like kings an' laugh at the weather." 
 
 "Oh! Billy! it's just what I've been dreamin' all 
 
 winter. It would be ideal. And . . . well, sometimes 
 on the road I 'm sure you can 't help forgetting what a nice 
 little wife you've got . . . and with a wagon I could 
 have all kinds of pretty clothes along." 
 
 Billy's blue eyes glowed a caress, cloudy and warm, 
 as he said quietly: 
 
 "I've ben thinkin' about that." 
 
 "And you can carry a rifle and shotgun and fishing 
 poles and everything," she rushed along. "And a good 
 big axe, man-size, instead of that hatchet you're always 
 complaining about. And Possum can lift up his legs and 
 rest. And but suppose you can't buy it? How much 
 do they want?" 
 
 "One hundred an' fifty big bucks," he answered. "But 
 dirt cheap at that. It's givin' it away. I tell you that rig 
 wasn't built for a cent less than four hundred, an' I know 
 wagon-work in the dark. Now, if I can put through that 
 dicker with Caswell's six horses say, I just got onto that 
 horse-buyer to-day. If he buys 'em, who d'ye think he'll
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 445 
 
 ship 'em to? To the Boss, right to the West Oakland 
 stables. I'm goin' to get you to write to him. Traveling 
 as we're goin' to, I can pick up bargains. An' if the 
 Boss '11 talk, I can make the regular horse-buyer's commis- 
 sions. He'll have to trust me with a lot of money, though, 
 which most likely he won't, knowin' all his scabs I beat 
 up." 
 
 "If he could trust you to run his stable, I guess he isn't 
 afraid to let you handle his money," Saxon said. 
 
 Billy shrugged his shoulders in modest dubiousness. 
 
 ""Well, anyway, as I was sayin' if I can sell Caswell's 
 six horses, why, we can stand off this month's bills an' 
 buy the wagon." 
 
 "But horses?" Saxon queried anxiously. 
 
 "They'll come later if I have to take a regular job 
 for two or three months. The only trouble with that 'd be 
 that it'd run us pretty well along into summer before we 
 could pull out. But come on down town an' I'll show 
 you the outfit right now." 
 
 Saxon saw the wagon and was so infatuated with it that 
 she lost a night's sleep from sheer insomnia of anticipa- 
 tion. Then Caswell's six horses were sold, the month's 
 bills held over, and the wagon became theirs. One rainy 
 morning, two weeks later, Billy had scarcely left the house, 
 to be gone on an all-day trip into the country after horses, 
 when he was back again. 
 
 "Come on!" he called to Saxon from the street. "Get 
 your things on an' come along. I want to show you some- 
 thing. ' ' 
 
 He drove down town to a board stable, and took hei 
 through to a large, roofed inclosure in the rear. There he 
 led to her a span of sturdy dappled chestnuts, with cream- 
 colored manes and tails. 
 
 "Oh, the beauties! the beauties!" Saxon cried, resting 
 her cheek against the velvet muzzle of one, while the other 
 roguishly nozzled for a share. 
 
 "Ain't they, though?" Billy reveled, leading them up 
 and down before her admiring gaze. "Thirteen hundred
 
 446 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON * 
 
 an' fifty each, an' they don't look the weight, they're that 
 slick put together. I couldn't believe it myself, till I put 
 'em on the scales. Twenty-seven hundred an' seven 
 pounds, the two of 'em. An' I tried 'em out that was 
 two days ago. Good dispositions, no faults, an' true-pul- 
 lers, automobile broke an' all the rest. I'd back 'em to 
 
 out-pull any team of their weight I ever seen. Say, 
 
 how'd they look hooked up to that wagon of ourn?" 
 
 Saxon visioned the picture, and shook her head slowly 
 in a reaction of regret. 
 
 "Three hundred spot cash buys 'em," Billy went on. 
 "An' that's bed-rock. The owner wants the money so bad 
 he's droolin' for it. Just gotta sell, an' sell quick. An' 
 Saxon, honest to God, that pair'd fetch five hundred at 
 suction down in the city. Both mares, full sisters, five 
 an' six years old, registered Belgian sire, out of a heavy 
 standard-bred mare that I know. Three hundred takes 
 'em, an' I got the refusal for three days." 
 
 Saxon 's regret changed to indignation. 
 
 "Oh, why did you show them to me? We haven't any 
 three hundred, and you know it. All I 've got in the house 
 is six dollars, and you haven't that much." 
 
 "Maybe you think that's all I brought you down town 
 for," he replied enigmatically. "Well, it ain't." 
 
 He paused, licked his lips, and shifted his weight un- 
 easily from one leg to the other. 
 
 "Now you listen till I get all done before you say any- 
 ithing. Ready?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Won't open your mouth?" 
 
 This time she obediently shook her head. 
 
 "Well, it's this way," he began haltingly. "They's a 
 youngster come up from Frisco, Young Sandow they call 
 'm, an' the Pride of Telegraph Hill. He's the real goods 
 of a heavyweight, an' he was to fight Montana Red Sat- 
 urday night, only Montana Red, just in a little trainin' 
 bout, snapped his forearm yesterday. The managers has 
 kept it quiet. Now here's the proposition. Lots of tickets
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 447 
 
 sold, an' they'll be a big crowd Saturday night. At the 
 last moment, so as not to disappoint 'em, they'll spring me 
 to take Montana's place. I'm the dark horse. Nobody 
 knows me not even Young Sandow. He's come up since 
 my time. I'll be a rube fighter. I can fight as Horse 
 Koberts. 
 
 ' ' Now, wait a minute. The winner '11 pull down three 
 
 hundred big round iron dollars. Wait, I'm tellin' 
 
 you! It's a lead-pipe cinch. It's like robbin' a corpse. 
 Sandow 's got all the heart in the world regular knoek- 
 down-an '-drag-out-an '-hang-on fighter. I've followed 'm 
 in the papers. But he ain't clever. I'm slow, all right, 
 all right, but I'm clever, an' I got a hay-maker in each 
 arm. I got Sandow 's number an' I know it. 
 
 "Now, you got the say-so in this. If you say yes, the 
 nags is ourn. If you say no, then it's all bets off, an' 
 everything all right, an' I'll take to harness- washin' at the 
 stable so as to buy a couple of plugs. Remember, they'll 
 only be plugs, though. But don't look at me while you're 
 makin' up your mind. Keep your lamps on the horses." 
 
 It was with painful indecision that she looked at the 
 beautiful animals. 
 
 "Their names is Hazel an' Hattie," Billy put in a sly 
 wedge. "If we get 'em we could call it the 'Double H' 
 outfit." 
 
 But Saxon forgot the team and could only see Billy's 
 frightfully bruised body the night he fought the Chicago 
 Terror. She was about to speak, when Billy, who had 
 been hanging on her lips, broke in: 
 
 "Just hitch 'em up to our wagon in your mind an' look 
 at the outfit. You got to go some to beat it." 
 
 "But you're not in training, Billy," she said suddenly 
 and without having intended to say it. 
 
 "Huh!" he snorted. "I've ben in half trainin' for 
 the last year. My legs is like iron. They'll hold me up 
 as long as I've got a punch left in my arms, and I always 
 have that. Besides, I won't let 'm make a long fight. 
 He's a man-eater, an' man-eaters is my meat. I eat 'm
 
 448 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 alive. It's the clever boys with the stamina an' endurance 
 that "i can't put away. But this young Sandow's my meat. 
 I '11 get 'm maybe in the third or fourth round you know, 
 time 'm in a rush an' hand it to 'm just as easy. It's a 
 lead-pipe cinch, I tell you. Honest to God, Saxon, it's a 
 shame to take the money." 
 
 "But I hate to think of you all battered up," she tern 
 porized. "If I didn't love you so, it might be differentc 
 And then, too, you might get hurt." 
 
 Billy laughed in contemptuous pride of youth and 
 brawn. 
 
 "You won't know I've ben in a fight, except that we'll 
 own Hazel an' Hattie there. An' besides, Saxon, I just 
 gotta stick my fist in somebody's face once in a while. 
 You know I can go for months peaceable an' gentle as a 
 lamb, an' then my knuckles actually begin to itch to land 
 on something. Now, it's a whole lot sensibler to land on 
 Young Sandow an' get three hundred for it, than to land 
 on some hayseed an' get hauled up an' fined before some 
 justice of the peace. Now take another squint at Hazel 
 an' Hattie. They're regular farm furniture, good to 
 breed from when we get to that valley of the moon. An* 
 they're heavy enough to turn right into the plowin', too." 
 
 The evening of the fight at quarter past eight, Saxon 
 parted from Billy. At quarter past nine, with hot water, 
 ice, and everything ready in anticipation, she heard the 
 gate click and Billy's step come up the porch. She had 
 agreed to the fight much against her better judgment, 
 and had regretted her consent every minute of the hour 
 she had just waited ; so that, as she opened the front door, 
 she was expectant of any sort of a terrible husband- wreck. 
 But the Billy she saw was precisely the Billy she had 
 parted from. 
 
 "There was no fight?" she cried, in so evident disap- 
 pointment that he laughed. 
 
 "They was all yellin' 'Fake! Fake!' when I left, an* 
 wantin' their money back."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 449 
 
 "Well, I've got you," she laughed, leading him in, 
 though secretly she sighed farewell to Hazel and Hattie. 
 
 "I stopped by the way to get something for you that 
 you 've ben wantin ' some time, ' ' Billy said casually. * ' Shut 
 your eyes an' open your hand; an' when you open your 
 eyes you'll find it grand,'' he chanted. 
 
 Into her hand something was laid that was very heavy 
 and very cold, and when her eyes opened she saw it was 
 a stack of fifteen twenty-dollar gold pieces. 
 
 "I told you it was like takin' money from a corpse," 
 he exulted, as he emerged grinning from the whirlwind of 
 punches, whacks, and hugs in which she had enveloped 
 him. "They wasn't no fight at all. D'ye want to know 
 how long it lasted ? Just twenty-seven seconds less'n half 
 a minute. An ' how many blows struck ? One. An' it was 
 
 me that done it. Here, I '11 show you. It was just like 
 
 this a regular scream." 
 
 Billy had taken his place in the middle of the room, 
 slightly crouching, chin tucked against the sheltering left 
 shoulder, fists closed, elbows in so as to guard left side 
 and abdomen, and forearms close to the body. 
 
 "It's the first round," he pictured. "Gong's sounded, 
 an' we've shook hands. Of course, seein' as it's a long 
 fight an' we've never seen each other in action, we ain't 
 in no rush. We're just feelin' each other out an' fiddlin* 
 around. Seventeen seconds like that. Not a blow struck. 
 Nothin'. An' then it's all off with the big Swede. It 
 takes some time to tell it, but it happened in a jiffy, in 
 less'n a tenth of a second. I wasn't expectin' it myself. 
 We're awful close together. His left glove ain't a foot 
 from my jaw, an' my left glove ain't a foot from hisn. 
 He feints- with his right, an' I know it's a feint, an' just 
 hunch up my left shoulder a bit an' feint with my right. 
 That draws his guard over just about an inch, an' I see 
 my openin'. My left ain't got a foot to travel. I don't 
 draw it back none. I start it from where it is, corkscrewin* 
 around his right guard an' pivotin' at the waist to put 
 the weight of my shoulder into the punch. An' it con-
 
 450 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 nec t s ? Square on the point of the chin, sideways. He 
 
 drops deado. I walk back to my corner, an', honest to 
 God, Saxon, I can't help gigglin' a little, it was that easy. 
 The referee stands over 'm an' counts 'm out. He never 
 quivers. The audience don't know what to make of it an* 
 sits paralyzed. His seconds carry 'm to his corner an' set 
 'm on the stool. But they gotta hold 'm up. Five minutes 
 afterward he opens his eyes but he ain't seein' nothing, 
 They're glassy. Five minutes more, an' he stands up. 
 They got to help hold 'm, his legs givin' under 'm like 
 they was sausages. An' the seconds has to help 'm through 
 the ropes, an' they go down the aisle to his dressin' room 
 a-helpin' 'm. An' the crowd beginning to yell fake an* 
 want its money back. Twenty-seven seconds one punch 
 an' a spankin' pair of horses for the best wife Billy Rob- 
 erts ever had in his long experience." 
 
 All of Saxon's old physical worship of her husband re- 
 vived and doubled on itself many times. He was in all 
 truth a hero, worthy to be of that wing-helmeted company 
 leaping from the beaked boats upon the bloody English 
 sands. The next morning he was awakened by her lips 
 pressed on his left hand. 
 
 "Hey! what are you doin'?" he demanded. 
 
 "Kissing Hazel End Hattie good morning," she an- 
 swered demurely. "And now I'm going to kiss you good 
 morning. . . . And just where did your punch land? 
 Show me." 
 
 Billy complied, touching the point of her chin with his 
 knuckles. With both her hands on his arm, she shoved 
 it back and tried to draw it forward sharply in similitude 
 of a punch. But Billy withstrained her. 
 
 "Wait," he said. "You don't want to knock your jaw 
 off. 1 11 show you. A quarter of an inch will do." 
 
 And at a distance of a quarter of an inch from her chin, 
 he administered the slightest flick of a tap. 
 
 On the instant Saxon's brain snapped with a white 
 flash of light, while her whole body relaxed, numb and 
 weak, volitionless, and her vision reeled and blurred. The
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 451 
 
 next instant she was herself again, in her eyes terror and 
 understanding. 
 
 "And it was at a foot that you struck him," she mur- 
 mured in a voice of awe. 
 
 "Yes, and with the weight of my shoulders behind it," 
 
 Billy laughed. "Oh, that's nothing. Here, let me 
 
 show you something else." 
 
 He searched out her solar plexus, and did no more than 
 snap his middle finger against it. This time she experi- 
 enced a simple paralysis, accompanied by a stoppage of 
 breath, but with a brain and vision that remained per- 
 fectly clear. In a moment, however, all the unwonted sen- 
 sations were gone. 
 
 "Solar plexus," Billy elucidated. "Imagine what it's 
 like when the other fellow lifts a wallop to it all the way 
 from his knees. That's the punch that won the champion- 
 ship of the world for Bob Fitzsinunons. " 
 
 Saxon shuddered, then resigned herself to Billy's play- 
 ful demonstration of the weak points in the human anat- 
 omy. He pressed the tip of a finger into the middle of 
 her forearm, and she knew excruciating agony. On either 
 side of her neck, at the base, he dented gently with his 
 thumbs, and she felt herself quickly growing unconscious. 
 
 "That's one of the death touches of the Japs," he told 
 her, and went on, accompanying grips and holds with a 
 running exposition. "Here's the toe-hold that Gotch de- 
 feated Hackenschmidt with. I learned it from Farmer 
 
 Burns. An ' here 's a half -Nelson. An ' here 's you 
 
 makin' roughhouse at a dance, an' I'm the floor manager, 
 an' I gotta put you out." 
 
 One hand grasped her wrist, the other hand passed 
 around and under her forearm and grasped his own wrist. 
 And at the first hint of pressure she felt that her arm 
 was a pipe-stem about to break. 
 
 "That's called the 'come along.' An' here's the 
 
 strong arm. A boy can down a man with it. An' if 
 
 you ever get into a scrap an' the other fellow gets your 
 nose between his teeth you don't want to lose your nose,
 
 452 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 do you ? Well, this is what you do, quick as a flask. " 
 
 Involuntarily she closed her eyes as Billy's thumb-ends 
 pressed into them. She could feel the fore-running ache 
 of a dull and terrible hurt. 
 
 "If he don't let go, you just press real hard, an' out 
 pop his eyes, an' he's blind as a bat for the rest of his 
 ijife. Oh, he'll let go all right all right." 
 
 He released her and lay back laughing. 
 
 "How d'ye feel?" he asked. "Those ain't boxin' tricks, 
 but they're all in the game of a roughhouse." 
 
 "I feel like revenge," she said, trying to apply the 
 "come along" to his arm. 
 
 When she exerted the pressure she cried out with pain, 
 for she had succeeded only in hurting herself. Billy 
 grinned at her futility. She dug her thumbs into his neck 
 in imitation of the Japanese death touch, then gazed rue- 
 fully at the bent ends of her nails. She punched him 
 smartly on the point of the chin, and again cried out, this 
 time to the bruise of her knuckles. 
 
 "Well, this can't hurt me," she gritted through her 
 teeth, as she assailed his solar plexus with her doubled 
 fists. 
 
 By this time he was in a roar of laughter. Under the 
 sheaths of muscles that were as armor, the fatal nerve cen- 
 ter remained impervious. 
 
 "Go on, do it some more," he urged, when she had given 
 up, breathing heavily. "It feels fine, like you was ticklin' 
 me with a feather." 
 
 "All right, Mister Man," she threatened balefully. 
 'You can talk about your grips and death touches and 
 all the rest, but that's all man's game. I know something 
 that will beat them all, that will make a strong man as 
 helpless as a baby. Wait a minute till I get it. There. 
 Shut your eyes. Ready? I won't be a second." 
 
 He waited with closed eyes, and then, softly as rose 
 petals fluttering down, he felt her lips on his mouth. 
 
 "You win," he said in solemn ecstasy, and passed hia 
 arms around her.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IN the morning Billy went down town to pay for Haze,, 
 and Hattie. It was due to Saxon's impatient desire to see 
 them, that he seemed to lake a remarkably long time about 
 so simple a transaction. But she forgave him when he 
 arrived with the two horses hitched to the camping wagon. 
 
 "Had to borrow the harness," he said. "Pass Possum 
 up and climb in, an' I'll show you the Double H Outfit, 
 which is some outfit, I'm tellin' you." 
 
 Saxon's delight was unbounded and almost speechless 
 as they drove out into the country behind the dappled 
 chestnuts with the cream-colored tails and manes. The 
 seat was upholstered, high-backed, and comfortable; and 
 Billy raved about the wonders of the efficient brake. He 
 trotted the team along the hard county road to show the 
 standard-going in them, and put them up a steep earth- 
 road, almost hub-deep with mud, to prove that the light 
 Belgian sire was not wanting in their make-up. 
 
 When Saxon at last lapsed into complete silence, he 
 studied her anxiously, with quick sidelong glances. She 
 sighed and asked: 
 
 "When do you think we'll be able to start?" 
 
 "Maybe in two weeks . . . or, maybe in two or three 
 months." He sighed with solemn deliberation. "We're 
 like the Irishman with the trunk an' nothin' to put in it. 
 [Here's the wagon, here's the horses, an' nothin' to pull. 
 I know a peach of a shotgun I can get, second-hand, 
 eighteen dollars; but look at the bills we owe. Then 
 there's a new '22 Automatic rifle I want for you. An' a 
 30-30 I've had my eye on for deer. An' you want 
 a good .jointed pole as well as me. An' tackle costs like 
 Sam Hill. An' harness like I want will cost fifty bucks 
 gold. AfC the wagon ought to be painted. Then there's 
 453
 
 454 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 pasture ropes, an' nose-bags, an' a harness punch, an' all 
 such things. An' Hazel an' Hattie eatin' their heads off 
 all the time we're waitin'. An' I'm just itchin' to be 
 started myself." 
 
 He stopped abruptly and confusedly. 
 
 "Now, Billy, what have you got up your sleeve? I 
 can see it in your eyes," Saxon demanded and indicted in 
 mixed metaphors. 
 
 "Well, Saxon, you see, it's like this. Sandow ain't sat- 
 isfied. He's madder 'n a hatter. Never got one punch at 
 me. Never had a chance to make a showin', an' he wants 
 a return match. He's blattin' around town that he can 
 lick me with one hand tied behind 'm, an' all that kind of 
 hot air. "Which ain't the point. The point is, the fight- 
 fans is wild to see a return-match. They didn't get a run 
 for their money last time. They '11 fill the house. The man- 
 agers has seen me already. That was why I was so long. 
 They's three hundred more waitin' on the tree for me 
 to pick two weeks from last night if you'll say the word. 
 It's just the same as I told you before. He's my meat. 
 He still thinks I'm a rube, an' that it was a fluke punch.'* 
 
 "But, Billy, you told me long ago that fighting took the 
 silk out of you. That was why you'd quit it and stayed 
 by teaming." 
 
 "Not this kind of nghtin'," he answered. "I got this 
 one all doped out. I'll let 'm last till about the seventh. 
 Not that it 11 be necessary, but just to give the audience 
 a run for its money. Of course, I'll get a lump or two, 
 an' lose some skin. Then I'll time 'm to that glass jaw 
 of his an' drop 'm for the count. An' we'll be all packed 
 up, an' next mornin' we'll pull out. What d'ye say? Aw, 
 come on." 
 
 Saturday night, two weeks later, Saxon ran to the door 
 when the gate clicked. Billy looked tired. His hair was 
 wet, his nose swollen, one cheek was puffed, there was skin 
 missing from his ears, and both eyes were slightly blood- 
 &U&.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 455 
 
 "I'm darned if that boy didn't fool me," he said, as 
 he placed the roll of gold pieces in her hand and sat down 
 with her on his knees. "He's some boy when he geta 
 extended. Instead of stoppin' 'm at the seventh, he kept 
 me hustlin' till the fourteenth. Then I got 'm the way I 
 said. It's too bad he's got a glass jaw. He's quicker 'n I 
 thought, an' he's got a wallop that made me mighty re- 
 spectful from the second round an' the prettiest little 
 chop an' come-again I ever saw. But that glass jaw! 
 He kept it in cotton wool till the fourteenth an' then I 
 connected. 
 
 " An', say. I'm mighty glad it did last fourteen 
 
 rounds. I still got all my silk. I could see that easy. I 
 wasn't breathin' much, an' every round was fast. An' my 
 legs was like iron. I could a-fought forty rounds. You 
 see, I never said iiothin', but I've ben suspicious all the 
 time after that beatin' the Chicago Terror gave me." 
 
 ' ' Nonsense ! you would have known it long before 
 now," Saxon cried. "Look at all your boxing, and wrest- 
 ling, and running at Carmel." 
 
 "Nope." Billy shook his head with the conviction of 
 itter knowledge. ' ' That 's different. It don 't take it outa 
 you. You gotta be up against the real thing, fightin' for 
 life, round after round, with a husky you know ain't lost 
 a thread of his silk yet then, if you don't blow up, if 
 your legs is steady, an' your heart ain't burstin', an' 
 you ain't wobbly at all, an' no signs of queer street in 
 your head why, then you know you still got all your silk. 
 An' I got it, I got all mine, d'ye hear me, an' I ain't goin' 
 to risk it on no more fights. That's straight. Easy 
 money 's hardest in the end. From now on it 's horse-buyin ' 
 on commish, an' you an' me on the road till we find that 
 valley of the moon." 
 
 Next morning, early, they drove out of Ukiah. Possum 
 sat on the seat between them, his rosy mouth agape with 
 excitement. They had originally planned to cross over 
 to the coast from Ukiah, but it was too early in the sea-
 
 456 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 son for the soft earth-roads to be in shape after the win- 
 ter rains; so they turned east, for Lake County, their 
 route to extend north through the upper Sacramento Val- 
 ley and across the mountains into Oregon. Then they 
 would circle west to the coast, where the roads by that 
 time would be in condition, and come down its length to 
 the Golden Gate. 
 
 All the land was green and flower-sprinkled, and each 
 tiny valley, as they entered the hills, was a garden. 
 
 "Huh!" Billy remarked scornfully to the general land- 
 scape. "They say a rollin' stone gathers no moss. Just 
 the same this looks like some outfit we've gathered. Never 
 had so much actual property in my life at one time an' 
 them was the days when I wasn't rollin'. Hell even the 
 furniture wasn.'t ourn. Only the clothes we stood up in, 
 an' some old socks an' things." 
 
 Saxon reached out and touched his hand, and he knew 
 that it was a hand that loved his hand. 
 
 "I've only one regret," she said. "You've earned it 
 all yourself. I've had nothing to do with it." 
 
 "Huh! you've had everything to do with it. You'r* 
 like my second in a fight. You keep me happy an' in 
 condition. A man can't fight without a good second to 
 
 take care of him. Hell, I wouldn't a-ben here if it 
 
 wasn't for you. You made me pull up stakes an' head 
 out. Why, if it hadn't ben for you I'd a-drunk myself 
 dead an' rotten by this time, or had my neck stretched at 
 San Quentin over hittin' some scab too hard or something 
 /or other. An' look at me now. Look at that roll of green- 
 | backs" he tapped his breast "to buy the Boss some 
 horses. Why, we're takin' an unendin' vacation, an' 
 makin' a good livin' at the same time. An' one more 
 trade I got horse-buyin ' for Oakland. If I show I've got 
 the savve, an' I have, all the Frisco firms 11 be after me 
 to buy for them. An' it's all your fault. You're my 
 Tonic Kid all right, all right, an' if Possum wasn't 
 lookin', I'd well, who cares if he does look?" 
 
 And Billy leaned toward her sidewise and kissed her.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 457 
 
 The way grew hard and rocky as they began to climb, 
 but the divide was an easy one, and they soon dropped 
 clown the canyon of the Blue Lakes among lush fields of 
 golden poppies. In the bottom of the canyon lay a wan- 
 dering sheet of water of intensest blue. Ahead, the folds 
 of hills interlaced the distance, with a remote blue moun- 
 tain rising in the center of the picture. 
 
 They asked questions of a handsome, black-eyed mail 
 with curly gray hair, who talked to them in a German 
 accent, while a cheery-faced woman smiled down at them 
 out of a trellised high window of the Swiss cottage perched 
 on the bank. Billy watered the horses at a pretty hotel 
 farther on, where the proprietor came out and talked and 
 told him he had built it himself, according to the plans 
 of the black-eyed man with the curly gray hair, who was 
 a San Francisco architect. 
 
 "Goin' up, goin' up," Billy chortled, as they drove on 
 through the winding hills past another lake of intensest 
 blue. "D'ye notice the difference in our treatment al- 
 ready between ridin' an' walkin' with packs on our backs? 
 With Hazel an' Hattie an' Saxon an' Possum, an' yours 
 truly, an' this high-toned wagon, folks most likely take 
 us for millionaires out on a lark." 
 
 The way widened. Broad, oak-studded pastures with 
 grazing livestock lay on either hand. Then Clear Lake 
 opened before them like an inland sea, flecked with little 
 squalls and flaws of wind from the high mountains on 
 the northern slopes of which still glistened white snow 
 patches. 
 
 "I've heard Mrs. Hazard rave about Lake Geneva," 
 Saxon recalled; "but I wonder if it is more beautiful 
 than this." 
 
 "That architect fellow called this the California Alps, 
 you remember," Billy confirmed. "An' if I don't mis- 
 take, that's Lakeport showin' up ahead. An,' all wild 
 country, an ' no railroads. ' ' 
 
 "And no moon valleys here," Saxon criticized. "But it 
 is beautiful, oh, so beautiful."
 
 458 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 " Hotter 'n hell in the dead of summer, I'll bet," was 
 Billy's opinion. "Nope, the country we're lookin' for lies 
 nearer the coast. Just the same it is beautiful . . . 
 like a picture on the wall. What d'ye say we stop off an' 
 go for a swim this afternoon?" 
 
 Ten days later they drove into "Williams, in Colusa 
 County, and for the first time again encountered a rail- 
 road. Billy was looking for it, for the reason that at the 
 rear of the wagon walked two magnificent work-horses 
 which he had picked up for shipment to Oakland. 
 
 "Too hot," was Saxon's verdict, as she gazed across the 
 shimmering level of the vast Sacramento Valley. "No 
 redwoods. No hills. No forests. No manzanita. No ma- 
 dronos. Lonely, and sad " 
 
 "An' like the river islands," Billy interpolated. 
 " Richer 'n hell, but looks too much like hard work. It'll 
 do for those that's stuck on hard work God knows, they 'a 
 nothin' here to induce a fellow to knock off ever for a bit 
 of play. No fishin', no huntin', nothin' but work. I'd 
 work myself, if I had to live here." 
 
 North they drove, through days of heat and dust, across 
 the California plains, and everywhere was manifest the 
 "new" farming great irrigation ditches, dug and being 
 dug, the land threaded by power-lines from the mountains, 
 and many new farmhouses on small holdings newly fenced. 
 The bonanza farms were being broken up. However, many 
 of the great estates remained, five to ten thousand acres in 
 extent, running from the Sacramento bank to the horizon 
 dancing in the heat waves, and studded with great valley 
 oaks. 
 
 "It takes rich soil to make trees like those," a ten-acre 
 farmer told them. 
 
 They had driven off the road a hundred feet to his tiny 
 barn in order to water Hazel and Hattie. A sturdy 
 young orchard covered most of his ten acres, though a 
 goodly portion was devoted to whitewashed henhouses
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 459 
 
 and wired runways wherein hundreds of chickens were 
 to be seen. He had just begun work on a small frame 
 dwelling. 
 
 ''I took a vacation when I bought," he explained, "and 
 planted the trees. Then I went back to work an' stayed 
 with it till the place was cleared. Now I 'm here for keeps, 
 an' soon as the house is finished I'll send for the wife. 
 She's not very well, and it will do her good. "We've been 
 planning and working for years to get away from the 
 city." He stopped in order to give a happy sigh. "And 
 now we're free." 
 
 The water in the trough was warm from the sun. 
 
 "Hold on," the man said. "Don't let them drink that. 
 I'll give it to them cool." 
 
 Stepping into a small shed, he turned an electric switch, 
 and a motor the size of a fruit box hummed into action. 
 A five-inch stream of sparkling water splashed into the 
 shallow main ditch of his irrigation system and flowed away 
 across the orchard through many laterals. 
 
 "Isn't it beautiful, eh? beautiful! beautiful!" the man 
 chanted in an ecstasy. "It's bud and fruit. It's blood 
 and life. Look at it! It makes a gold mine laughable, 
 and a saloon a nightmare. I know. I ... I used to 
 be a barkeeper. In fact, I've been a barkeeper most of 
 my life. That's how I paid for this place. And I've 
 hated the business all the time. I was a farm boy, and 
 all my life I've been wanting to get back to it. And 
 here I am at last." 
 
 He wiped his glasses the better to behold his beloved 
 water, then seized a hoe and strode down the main ditch 
 to open more laterals. 
 
 "He's the funniest barkeeper I ever seen," Billy com- 
 mented. "I took him for a business man of some sort. 
 Must a-ben in some kind of a qu?et hotel." 
 
 "Don't drive on right away," Saxon requested. "I 
 want to talk with him." 
 
 He came back, polishing his glasses, his face beaming, 
 watching the water as if fascinated by it It required no
 
 460 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 more exertion on Saxon's part to start him than had been 
 required on his part to start the motor. 
 
 "The pioneers settled all thi? ^ *l--t, early fifties," he 
 said. "The Mexicans never got this far, so it was govern- 
 ment land. Everybody got a hundred and sixty acres. 
 And such acres! The stories they tell about how much 
 wheat they got to the acre are almost unbelievable. Then 
 several things happened. The sharpest and steadiest of 
 the pioneers held what they had and added to it from the 
 other fellows. It takes a great many quarter sections to 
 make a bonanza farm. It wasn't long before it was 'most 
 all bonanza farms." 
 
 "They were the successful gamblers," Saxon put in, 
 remembering Mark Hall's words. 
 
 The man nodded appreciatively and continued. 
 
 "The old folks schemed and gathered and added the 
 land into the big holdings, and built tb*? great barns and 
 mansions, and planted the house orchards and flower gar- 
 dens. The young folks were spoiled by so much wealth 
 and went away to the cities to spend it. And old folks and 
 young united in one thing: in impoverishing the soil. 
 Year after year they scratched it and took out bonanza 
 crops. They put nothing back. All they left was plow- 
 sole and exhausted land. Why, there's big sections they 
 exhausted and left almost desert. 
 
 "The bonanza farmers are all gone now, thank the Lord, 
 and here's where we small farmers come into our own. 
 It won't be many years before the whole valley will be 
 farmed in patches like mine. Look at what we're doing! 
 Worked-out land that had ceased to grow wheat, and we 
 turn the water on, treat the soil decently, and see our 
 orchards ! 
 
 "We've got the water from the mountains, and from 
 under the ground. I was reading an account the other 
 day. All life depends on food. All food depends on water. 
 It takes a thousand pounds of water to produce one pound 
 of food; ten thousand pounds to produce one pound of 
 meat. How much water do you drink in a year? About a
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 461 
 
 ton. But you eat about two hundred pounds of vegetables 
 and two hundred pounds of meat a year which means you 
 consume one hundred tons of water in the vegetables and 
 one thousand tons in the meat which means that it takes 
 eleven hundred and one tons of water each year to keep 
 a small woman like you going." 
 
 "Gee!" was all Billy could say. 
 
 "You see how population depends upon water," the 
 ex-barkeeper went on. "Well, we've got the water, im- 
 mense subterranean supplies, and in not many years this 
 valley will be populated as thick as Belgium." 
 
 Fascinated by the five-inch stream, sluiced out of the 
 earth and back to the earth by the droning motor, he for- 
 got his discourse and stood and gazed, rapt and unheeding, 
 while his visitors drove on. 
 
 "An' him a drink-slinger ! " Billy marveled. "He can 
 sure sling the temperance dope if anybody should ask 
 you." 
 
 "It's lovely to think about all that water, and all the 
 happy people that will come here to live " 
 
 "But it ain't the valley of the moon!" Billy laughed. 
 
 "No," she responded. "They don't have to irrigate 
 in the valley of the moon, unless for alfalfa and such crops. 
 What we want is the water bubbling naturally from the 
 ground, and crossing the farm in little brooks, and on 
 the boundary a fine big creek " 
 
 "With trout in it!" Billy took her up. "An* willows 
 
 and trees of all kinds growing along the edges, and here 
 
 a riffle where you can flip out trout, and there a deep pool 
 
 where you can swim and high-dive. An' kingfishers, an' 
 
 ' rabbits comin' down to drink, an', maybe, a deer." 
 
 "And meadowlarks in the pasture," Saxon added. "And 
 mourning doves in the trees. We must have mourning 
 doves and the big, gray tree-squirrels." 
 
 "Gee! that valley of the moon's goin' to be some val- 
 ley," Billy meditated, flicking a fly away with his whip 
 from Hattie's side. "Think we'll ever find it?" 
 
 Saxon nodded her head with great certitude.
 
 462 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Just as the Jews found the promised land, and the 
 Mormons Utah, and the Pioneers California. You remem- 
 ber the last advice we got when we left Oakland? * 'Tis 
 them that looks that finds.' "
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 EVER north, through a fat and nourishing rejuvenated 
 land, stopping at the towns of Willows, Bed Bluff and 
 Bedding, crossing the counties of Colusa, Glenn, Tehama, 
 and Shasta, went the spruce wagon drawn by the dappled 
 chestnuts with cream-colored manes and tails. Billy 
 picked up only three horses for shipment, although he 
 visited many farms; and Saxon talked with the women 
 while he looked over the stock with the men. And Saxon 
 grew the more convinced that the valley she sought lay not 
 there. 
 
 At Bedding they crossed the Sacramento on a cable 
 ferry, and made a day's scorching traverse through roll- 
 ing foot-hills and flat tablelands. The heat grew more 
 insupportable, and the trees and shrubs were blasted and 
 dead. Then they came again to the Sacramento, where 
 the great smelters of Kennett explained the destruction 
 of the vegetation. 
 
 They climbed out of the smelting town, where eyrie 
 houses perched insecurely on a precipitous landscape. It 
 was a broad, well-engineered road that took them up a 
 grade miles long and plunged down into the Canyon of 
 the Sacramento. The road, rock-surfaced and easy-graded, 
 hewn out of the canyon wall, grew so narrow that Billy 
 worried for fear of meeting opposite-bound teams. Far 
 below, the river frothed and flowed over pebbly shallows, 
 or broke tumultuously over boulders and cascades, in its 
 race for the great valley they had left behind. 
 
 Sometimes, on the wider stretches of road, Saxon drove 
 and Billy walked to lighten the load. She insisted on tak- 
 ing her turns at walking, and when he breathed the pant- 
 ing mares on the steep, and Saxon stood by their heads 
 463
 
 464 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 caressing them and cheering them, Billy's joy was too 
 deep for any turn of speech as he gazed at his beautiful 
 horses and his glowing girl, trim and colorful in her 
 golden brown corduroy, the brown corduroy calves swell- 
 ing sweetly under the abbreviated slim skirt. And when 
 her answering look of happiness came to him a sudden 
 dimness in her straight gray eyes he was overmastered 
 by the knowledge that he must say something or burst. 
 
 "0, you kid!" he cried. 
 
 And with radiant face she answered, ' ' 0, you kid ! ' ' 
 
 They camped one night in a deep dent in the canyon, 
 where was snuggled a box-factory village, and where a 
 toothless ancient, gazing with faded eyes at their travel- 
 ing outfit, asked : "Be you showin ' ? " 
 
 They passed Castle Crags, mighty-bastioned and glow- 
 ing red against the palpitating blue sky. They caught 
 their first glimpse of Mt. Shasta, a rose-tinted snow-peak 
 rising, a sunset dream, between and beyond green inter- 
 lacing walls of canyon a landmark destined to be with 
 them for many days. At unexpected turns, after mount- 
 ing some steep grade, Shasta would appear again, still 
 distant, now showing two peaks and glacial fields of shim- 
 mering white. Miles and miles and days and days they 
 climbed, with Shasta ever developing new forms and 
 phases in her summer snows. 
 
 "A moving picture in the sky," said Billy at last. 
 
 "Oh, it is all so beautiful," sighed Saxon. "But there 
 are no moon- valleys here." 
 
 They encountered a plague of butterflies, and for days 
 drove through untold millions of the fluttering beauties 
 that covered the road with uniform velvet-brown. And 
 ever the road seemed to rise under the noses of the snort- 
 ing mares, filling the air with noiseless flight, drifting 
 down the breeze in clouds of brown and yellow soft-flaked 
 as snow, and piling in mounds against the fences, even 
 driven to float helplessly on the irrigation ditches along 
 the roadside. Hazel and Hattie soon grew used to them, 
 though Possum never ceased being made frantic.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 465 
 
 "Huh! who ever heard of butterfly-broke horses?" 
 Billy chaffed. "That's worth fifty bucks more on their 
 price." 
 
 "Wait till you get across the Oregon line into the Rogue 
 River Valley," they were told. "There's God's Paradise 
 climate, scenery, and fruit-farming; fruit ranches that 
 /ield two hundred per cent, on a valuation of five hundred 
 dollars an acre." 
 
 ' ' Gee ! ' ' Billy said, when he had driven on out of hear- 
 ing; "that's too rich for our digestion." 
 
 And Saxon said, "I don't know about apples in the 
 valley of the moon, but I do know that the yield is ten 
 thousand per cent, of happiness on a valuation of one 
 Billy, one Saxon, a Hazel, a Hattie. and a Possum." 
 
 Through Siskiyou County and across high mountains, 
 they came to Ashland and Medford and camped beside 
 the wild Rogue River. 
 
 "This is wonderful and glorious," pronounced Saxon; 
 "but it is not the valley of the moon." 
 
 "Nope, it ain't the valley of the moon," agreed Billy, 
 and he said it on the evening of the day he hooked a mon- 
 ster steelhead, standing to his neck in the ice-cold water 
 of the Rogue and fighting for forty minutes, with scream- 
 ing reel, ere he drew his finny prize to the bank and with 
 the scalp-yell of a Comanche jumped and clutched it by 
 the gills. 
 
 " 'Them that looks finds,' " predicted Saxon, as they 
 drew north out of Grant's Pass, and held north across 
 the mountains and fruitful Oregon valleys. 
 
 One day, in camp by the Umpqua River, Billy bent over 
 to begin skinning the first deer he had ever shot. He 
 raised his eyes to Saxon and remarked : 
 
 "If I didn't know California, I guess Oregon 'd suit me 
 from the ground up." 
 
 In the evening, replete with deer meat, resting on 
 his elbow and smoking his after-supper cigarette, he 
 sairt .- 
 
 "Maybe they ain't no valley of the moon. An' if they
 
 466 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 ain't, what of it? We could keep on this way forever. 
 I don't ask nothing better." 
 
 "There is a valley of the moon," Saxon answered so- 
 berly. ' ' And we are going to find it. We 've got to. Why, 
 Billy, it would never do, never to settle down. There 
 would be no little Hazels and little Hatties, nor little 
 , . . Billies " 
 
 "Nor little Saxons," Billy interjected. 
 
 "Nor little Possums," she hurried on, nodding her head 
 and reaching out a caressing hand to where the fox terrier 
 was ecstatically gnawing a deer-rib. A vicious snarl and 
 a wicked snap that barely missed her fingers were her 
 reward. 
 
 "Possum!" she cried in sharp reproof, again extending 
 Ker hand. 
 
 "Don't," Billy warned. "He can't help it, and he's 
 likely to get you next time." 
 
 Even more compelling was the menacing threat that 
 Possum growled, his jaws close-guarding the bone, eyes 
 blazing insanely, the hair rising stiffly on his neck. 
 
 "It's a good dog that sticks up for its bone," Billy 
 championed. "I wouldn't care to own one that didn't." 
 
 "But it's my Possum," Saxon protested. "And he 
 loves me. Besides, he must love me more than an old 
 
 bone. And he must mind me. Here, you, Possum, 
 
 give me that bone! Give me that bone, sir!" 
 
 Her hand went out gingerly, and the growl rose in 
 volume and key till it culminated in a snap. 
 
 "I tell you it's instinct," Billy repeated. "He does 
 love you, but he just can't help doin' it." 
 
 "He's got a right to defend his bones from strangers, 
 but not from his mother," Saxon argued. "I shall make 
 Mm give up that bone to mo." 
 
 ' ' Fox terriers is awful highstrung, Saxon. You '11 likely 
 get him hysterical." 
 
 But she was obstinately set in her purpose. She picked 
 up a short stick of firewood. 
 
 "Now, sir, give me that bone."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 467 
 
 She threatened with the stick, and the dog's growling 
 became ferocious. Again he snapped, then crouched back 
 over his bone. Saxon raised the stick as if to strike 
 him, and he suddenly abandoned the bone, rolled over on 
 his back at her feet, four legs in the air, his ears lying 
 meekly back, his eyes swimming and eloquent with sub- 
 mission and appeal. 
 
 "My God!" Billy breathed in solemn awe. "Look at 
 it! presenting his solar plexus to you, his vitals an' his 
 life, all defense down, as much as sayin': 'Here I am. 
 Stamp on me. Kick the life outa me. I love you, I am 
 your slave, but I just can't help defendin' my bone. My 
 instinct's stronger 'n me. Kill me, but I can't help it." 
 
 Saxon was melted. Tears were in her eyes as she 
 stooped and gathered the mite of an animal in her arms. 
 Possum was in a frenzy of agitation, whining, trembling, 
 writhing, twisting, licking her face, all for forgiveness. 
 
 "Heart of gold with a rose in his mouth," Saxon 
 crooned, burying her face in the soft and quivering bundle 
 of sensibilities. "Mother is sorry. She'll never bother 
 you again that way. There, there, little love. See? 
 There's your bone. Take it." 
 
 She put him down, but he hesitated between her and the 
 bone, patently looking to her for surety of permission, 
 yet continuing to tremble in the terrible struggle between 
 duty and desire that seemed tearing him asunder. Not 
 until she repeated that it was all right and nodded her 
 v head consentingly did he go to the bone. And once, a 
 minute later, he raised his head with a sudden startle 
 and gazed inquiringly at her. She nodded and smiled, and 
 Possum, with a happy sigh of satisfaction, dropped his 
 head down to the precious deer-rib. 
 
 "That Mercedes was right when she said men fought 
 over jobs like dogs over bones," Billy enunciated slowly. 
 "It's instinct. Why, I couldn't no more help reaching 
 my fist to the point of a scab's jaw than could Possum from 
 snappin' at you. They's no explainin' it. What a man has 
 to, he has to. The fact that he does a thing shows he had to
 
 468 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 do it whether he can explain it or not. You remember Hall 
 couldn't explain why he stuck that stick between Timothy 
 McManus's legs in the foot race. What a man has to, he has 
 to. That's all I know about it. I never had no earthly rea- 
 son to beat up that lodger we had, Jimmy Harmon. He was 
 a good guy, square an' all right. But I just had to, with the*, 
 strike goin' to smash, an' everything so bitter inside me*^ 
 that I could taste it. I never told you, but I saw 'm once; 
 after I got out when my arms was mendin'. I went* 
 down to the roundhouse an' waited for 'm to come in off 
 a run, an' apologized to 'm. Now why did I apologize? 
 I don't know, except for the same reason I punched 'm I 
 just had to." 
 
 And so Billy expounded the why of like in terms of 
 realism, in the camp by the Umpqua River, while Possum 
 expounded it, in similar terms of fang and appetite^ on 
 the rib of deer.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WITH Possum on the seat beside her, Saxon drove into 
 the town of Roseburg. She drove at a walk. At the back 
 of the wagon were tied two heavy young work-horses. 
 Behind, half a dozen more marched free, and the rear 
 was brought up by Billy, astride a ninth horse. All these 
 he shipped from Roseburg to the West Oakland stables. 
 
 It was in the Umpqua Valley that they heard the parable 
 of the white sparrow. The farmer who told it was elderly 
 and nourishing. His farm was a model of orderliness and 
 system. Afterwards, Billy heard neighbors estimate his 
 wealth at a quarter of a million. 
 
 "You've heard the story of the farmer and the white 
 sparrow?" he asked Billy, at dinner. 
 
 "Never heard of a white sparrow even," Billy an- 
 swered. 
 
 "I must say they're pretty rare," the farmer owned. 
 "But here's the story: Once there was a farmer who 
 wasn't making much of a success. Things just didn't 
 seem to go right, till at last, one day, he heard about the 
 wonderful white sparrow. It seems that the white spar- 
 row comes out only just at daybreak with the first light 
 of dawn, and that it brings all kinds of good luck to 
 the farmer that is fortunate enough to catch it. Next 
 morning our farmer was up at daybreak, and before, look- 
 'ing for it. And, do you know, he sought for it continu- 
 ally, for months and months, and never caught even a 
 glimpse of it. ' ' Their host shook his head. ' ' No ; he 
 never found it, but h* found so many things about the 
 farm needing attention, and which he attended to before 
 breakfast, that before he knew it the farm was prospering, 
 and it wasn't long before the mortgage was paid off and 
 he was starting a bank account."
 
 470 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 That afternoon, as they drove along, Billy was plunged 
 in a deep reverie. 
 
 "Oh, I got the point all right," he said finally. "An* 
 jet I ain't satisfied. Of course, they wasn't a white spar- 
 row, but by getting up early an' attendin' to things he'd 
 ben slack about before oh. I got it all right. An' yet, 
 Saxon, if that's what a farmer's life means, I don't want 
 to find no nioon valley. Life ain't hard work. Daylight 
 to dark, hard at it might just as well be in the city. 
 What's the difference? All the time you've got to yourself 
 js for sleepin', an' when you're sleepin' you're not en- 
 joyin' yourself. An' what's it matter where you sleep, 
 you're deado. Might as well be dead an' done with it 
 as work your head off that way. I'd sooner stick to the 
 road, an' shoot a deer an' catch a trout once in a while, 
 an' lie on my back in the shade, an' laugh with you an' 
 have fun with you, an' . . . an' go swimmin'. An' I'm 
 a willin' worker, too. But they's all the difference in the 
 world between a decent amount of work an' workin' your 
 head off." 
 
 Saxon was in full accord. She looked back on her years 
 of toil and contrasted them with the joyous life she had 
 lived on the road. 
 
 ""We don't want to be rich," she said. "Let them 
 hunt their white sparrows in the Sacramento islands and 
 the irrigation valleys. When we get up early in the val- 
 ley of the moon, it will be to hear the birds sing and 
 sing with them. And if we work hard at times, it will 
 be only so that we'll have more time to play. And when 
 you go swimming I'm going with you. And we'll play 
 so hard that we'll be glad to work for relaxation." 
 
 "I'm gettin' plumb dried out," Billy announced, mop- 
 ping the sweat from his sunburned forehead. "What d'ye 
 say we head for the coast?" 
 
 West they turned, dropping down wild mountain gorges 
 from the height of land of the interior valleys. So fear- 
 f 1 *! was the road, that, on one stretch of seven miles, they
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 471 
 
 passed ten broken-down automobiles. Billy would not 
 force the mares and promptly camped beside a brawling 
 stream from which he whipped two trout at a time. Here, 
 Saxon caught her first big trout. She had been accustomed 
 to landing them up to nine and ten inches, and the screech 
 of the reel when the big one was hooked caused her to cry 
 out in startled surprise. Billy came up the riffle to her 
 and gave counsel. Several minutes later, cheeks flushed 
 and eyes dancing with excitement, Saxon dragged the big 
 fellow carefully from the water's edge into the dry sand. 
 Here it threw the hook out and flopped tremendously until 
 she fell upon it and captured it in her hands. 
 
 "Sixteen inches," Billy said, as she held it up proudly 
 
 for inspection. " Hey! what are you goin' to 
 
 do?" 
 
 "Wash off the sand, of course," was her answer. 
 
 "Better put it in the basket," he advised, then closed 
 his mouth and grimly watched. 
 
 She stooped by the side of the stream and dipped in 
 the splendid fish. It flopped, there was a convulsive move- 
 ment on her part, and it was gone. 
 
 "Oh!" Saxon cried in chagrin. 
 
 "Them that finds should hold," quoth Billy. 
 
 "I don't care," she replied. "It was a bigger one than 
 you ever caught anyway." 
 
 "Oh, I'm not denyin' you're a peach at fishin'," he 
 drawled. "You caught me, didn't you?" 
 
 "I don't know about that," she retorted. "Maybe it 
 was like the man who was arrested for catching trout out 
 of season. His defense was self defense." 
 
 Billy pondered, but did not see. 
 
 "The trout attacked him," she explained. 
 
 Billy grinned. Fifteen minutes later he said: 
 
 "You sure handed me a hot one." 
 
 The sky was overcast, and, as they drove along the bank 
 
 of the Coquille River, the fog suddenly enveloped them. 
 
 "Whoof !" Billy exhaled joyfully. "Ain't it great! I
 
 472 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 can feel myself moppin' it up like a dry sponge. I never 
 appreciated fog before." 
 
 Saxon held out her arms to receive it, making motions 
 as if she were bathing in the gray mist. 
 
 "I never thought I'd grow tired of the sun," she said; 
 "but we've had more than our share the last few weeks." 
 
 "Ever since we hit the Sacramento Valley," Billy af- 
 firmed. "Too much sun ain't good. I've worked that 
 out. Sunshine is like liquor. Did you ever notice how 
 good you felt when the sun come out after a week of cloudy 
 weather? Well, that sunshine was just like a jolt of whis- 
 key. Had the same effect. Made you feel good all over. 
 Now, when you're swimmin', an' come out an' lay in the 
 sun, how good you feel. That's because you're lappin' 
 up a sun-cocktail. But suppose you lay there in the sand 
 a couple of hours. You don't feel so good. You're so 
 slow-movin' it takes you a long time to dress. You go 
 home draggin' your legs an' feelin' rotten, with all the 
 life sapped outa you. What's that? It's the katzenjam- 
 mer. You've ben soused to the ears in sunshine, like so 
 much whiskey, an' now you're payin' for it. That's 
 straight. That's why fog in the climate is best." 
 
 "Then we've been drunk for months," Saxon said. 
 "And now we're going to sober up." 
 
 "You bet. Why, Saxon, I can do two days' work in 
 
 one in this climate. Look at the mares. Blame me 
 
 if they ain't perkin' up a 'ready." 
 
 Vainly Saxon's eye roved the pine forest in search of 
 her beloved redwoods. They would find them down in 
 California, they were told in the town of Bandon. 
 
 "Then we're too far north," said Saxon. "We must 
 go south to find our valley of the moon." 
 
 And south they went, along roads that steadily grew 
 worse, through the dairy country of Langlois and through 
 thick pine forests to Port Orford. where Saxon picked 
 jeweled agates on the beach while Billy caught enormous 
 rockcod. No railroads had yet penetrated this wild region, 
 and the way south grew wilder and wilder. At Gold
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 473 
 
 Beach they encountered their old friend, the Rogue River, 
 which they ferried across where it entered the Pacific. 
 Still wilder became the country, still more terrible the 
 road, still farther apart the isolated farms and clearings. 
 
 And here were neither Asiatics nor Europeans. The 
 scant population consisted of the original settlers and their 
 descendants. More than one old man or woman Saxon 
 talked with, who could remember the trip across the 
 Plains with the plodding oxen. West they had fared until 
 the Pacific itself had stopped them, and here they had 
 made their clearings, built their rude houses, and settled. 
 In them Farthest West had been reached. Old customs 
 had changed little. There were no railways. No automo- 
 bile as yet had ventured their perilous roads. Eastward, 
 between them and the populous interior valleys, lay the 
 wilderness of the Coast Range a game paradise, Billy 
 heard; though he declared that the very road he traveled 
 was game paradise enough for bin. Had he not halted 
 the horses, turned the reins over to Saxon, and shot an 
 eight-pronged buck from the wagon-seat? 
 
 South of Gold Beach, climbing a narrow road through 
 the virgin forest, they heard from far above the jingle of 
 bells. A hundred yards farther on Billy found a place 
 wide enough to turn out. Here he waited, while the 
 merry bells, descending the mountain, rapidly came near. 
 They heard the grind of brakes, the soft thud of horses' 
 hoofs, once a sharp cry of the driver, and once a woman's 
 laughter. 
 
 "Some driver, some driver," Billy muttered. "I take 
 my hat off to 'm whoever he is, hittin' a pace like that 
 on a road like this. Listen to that! He's got pow- 
 erful brakes. Zooie! That was a chuck-hole! Some 
 
 springs, Saxon, some springs!" 
 
 Where the road zigzagged above, they glimpsed through 
 the trees four sorrel horses trotting swiftly, and the fly- 
 ing wheels of a small, tan-painted trap. 
 
 At the bend of the road the leaders appeared again, 
 swinging wide on the curve, the wheelers flashed into view,
 
 474 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 and the light two-seated rig ; then the whole affair straigkt- 
 ened ut and thundered down upon them across a narrow 
 plank-bridge. In the front seat were a man and woman; 
 in the rear seat a Japanese was squeezed in among suit 
 cases, rods, guns, saddles, and a typewriter case, while 
 above him and all about him, fastened most intricately, 
 sprouted a prodigious crop of deer- and elk-horns. 
 
 "It's Mr. and Mrs. Hastings," Saxon cried. 
 
 "Whoa!" Hastings yelled, putting on the brake and 
 gathering his horses in to a stop alongside. Greetings 
 flew back and forth, in which the Japanese, whom they 
 had last seen on the Roamer at Rio Vista, gave and re- 
 ceived his share. 
 
 "Different from the Sacramento islands, eh?" Hastings 
 said to Saxon. "Nothing but old American stock in these 
 mountains. And they haven 't changed any. As John Fox, 
 Jr., said, they're our contemporary ancestors. Our old 
 folks were just like them." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hastings, between them, told of their 
 long drive. They were out two months then, and intended 
 to continue north through Oregon and Washington to the 
 Canadian boundary. 
 
 "Then we'll ship our horses and come home by train," 
 concluded Hastings. 
 
 "But the way you drive you oughta be a whole lot 
 further along than this," Billy criticized. 
 
 "But we keep stopping off everywhere," Mrs. Hastings 
 explained. 
 
 "We went in to the Hoopa Reservation," said Mr. 
 Hastings, "and canoed down the Trinity and Klamath 
 Rivers to the ocean. And just now we've come out from 
 two weeks in the real wilds of Curry County." 
 
 "You must go in," Hastings advised. "You'll get to 
 Mountain Ranch to-night. And you can turn in from 
 there. No roads, though. You '11 have to pack your horses. 
 But it's full of game. I shot five mountain lions and two 
 bear, to say nothing of deer. And there are small herds 
 of elk, too. No; I didn't shoot any. They're pro-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 475 
 
 tected. These horns I got from the old hunters. I'll tell 
 you all about it." 
 
 And while the men talked, Saxon and Mrs. Hastings were 
 not idle. 
 
 "Found your valley of the moon yet?" the writer's wife 
 asked, as they were saying good-by. 
 
 Saxon shook her head. 
 
 "You will find it if yua go far enough; and be sure 
 you go as far as Sonoma Valley and our ranch. Then, 
 if you haven't found it yet, we'll see what we can do." 
 
 Three weeks later, with a bigger record of mountain lions 
 and bear than Hastings' to his credit, Billy emerged from 
 Curry County and drove across the line into California. 
 At once Saxon found herself among the redwoods. But 
 they were redwoods unbelievable. Billy stopped the 
 wagon, got out, and paced around one. 
 
 "Forty-five feet," he announced. "That's fifteen in 
 
 diameter, And they're all like it only bigger. No; 
 
 there's a runt. It's only about nine feet through. An' 
 they're hundreds of feet tall." 
 
 "When I die, Billy, you must bury me in a redwood 
 grove," Saxon adjured. 
 
 "I ain't goin' to let you die before I do," he assured 
 her. "An* then we'll leave it in our wills for us both tc 
 be buried that way."
 
 CHAPTER XVH 
 
 SOUTH they held along the coast, hunting, fishing, swim- 
 ming, and horse-buying. Billy shipped his purchases on 
 the coasting steamers. Through Del Norte and Humboldt 
 counties they went, and through Mendoeino into Sonoma 
 counties larger than Eastern states threading the giant 
 woods, whipping innumerable trout-streams, and crossing 
 countless rich valleys. Ever Saxon sought the valley of 
 the moon. Sometimes, when all seemed fair, the lack was 
 a railroad, sometimes madrono and manzanita trees, and. 
 usually, there was too much fog. 
 
 "We do want a sun-cocktail once in a while," she told 
 Billy. 
 
 "Yep," was his answer. "Too much fog might make 
 us soggy. What we're after is betwixt an' between, an' 
 we'll have to get back from the coast a ways to find it." 
 
 This was in the fall of the year, and they turned their 
 backs on the Pacific at old Fort Ross and entered the 
 Russian River Valley, far below Ukiah, by way of Caza- 
 dero and Guerneville. At Santa Rosa Billy was delayed 
 with the shipping of several horses, so that it was not 
 until afternoon that he drove south and east for Sonoma 
 Valley. 
 
 "I guess we'll no more than make Sonoma Valley wh en- 
 it '11 be time to camp," he said, measuring the sun with his| 
 eye. "This is called Bennett Valley. You cross a divide- 
 from it and come out at Glen Ellen. Now this is a mighty 
 pretty valley, if anybody should ask you. An' that's some 
 nifty mountain over there. ' ' 
 
 "The mountain is all right," Saxon adjudged. "But all 
 the rest of the hills are too bare. And I don't see any 
 big trees. It takes rich soil to make big trees."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 477 
 
 ' ' Oh, I ain 't sayin ' it 's the valley of the moon by a long 
 ways. All the same, Saxon, that's some mountain. Look 
 at the timber on it. I bet they's deer there." 
 
 "I wonder where we'll spend this winter," Saxon re- 
 marked. 
 
 "D'ye know, I've just ben thinkin' the same thing. 
 Let's winter at Carmel. Mark Hall's back, an' so is Jim 
 Hazard. What d'ye say?" 
 
 Saxon nodded. 
 
 "Only you won't be the odd-job man this time." 
 
 "Nope. We can make trips in good weather horse- 
 buyin'," Billy confirmed, his face beaming with self-sat- 
 isfaction. "An' if that walkin' poet of the Marble House 
 is around, I'll sure get the gloves on with 'm just in mem- 
 ory of the time he walked me off my legs " 
 
 "Oh! Oh!" Saxon cried. "Look, Billy! Look!" 
 
 Around a bend in the road came a man in a sulky, driv- 
 ing a heavy stallion. The animal was a bright chestnut- 
 sorrel, with cream-colored mane and tail. The tail almost 
 swept the ground, while the mane was so thick that it 
 crested out of the neck and flowed down, long and wavy. 
 He scented the mares and stopped short, head flung up 
 and armfuls of creamy mane tossing in the breeze. He 
 bent his head until flaring nostrils brushed impatient 
 knees, and between the fine-pointed ears could be seen a 
 mighty and incredible curve of neck. Again he tossed 
 his head, fretting against the bit as the driver turned 
 widely aside for safety in passing. They could see the 
 blue glaze like a sheen on the surface of the horse 's bright, 
 wild eyes, and Billy closed a wary thumb on his reins 
 and himself turned widely. He held up his hand in signal, 
 and the driver of the stallion stopped when well past, and 
 over his shoulder talked draught-horses with Billy. 
 
 Among other things, Billy learned that the stallion's 
 name was Barbarossa, that the driver was the owner, and 
 that Santa Rosa was his headquarters. 
 
 ' ' There are two ways to Sonoma Valley from here, ' ' the 
 man directed. "When you come to the crossroads the turn
 
 478 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 to the left will take you to Glen Ellen by Bennett Peak 
 that's it there." 
 
 Kising from rolling stubble fields, Bennett Peak towered 
 hot in the sun, a row of bastion hills leaning against its 
 base. But hills and mountains on that side showed bare 
 and heated, though beautiful with the sunburnt tawniness 
 of California. 
 
 "The turn to the right will take you to Glen Ellen, 
 too, only it's longer and steeper grades. But your mares 
 don't look as though it'd bother them." 
 
 "Which is the prettiest way?" Saxon asked. 
 
 ' ' Oh, the right hand road, by all means, ' ' said the man. 
 "That's Sonoma Mountain there, and the road skirts it 
 pretty well up, and goes through Cooper's Grove." 
 
 Billy did not start immediately after they had said 
 good-by, and he and Saxon, heads over shoulders, watched 
 the roused Barbarossa plunging mutinously on toward 
 Santa Rosa. 
 
 "Gee!" Billy said. "I'd like to be up here next 
 spring. ' ' 
 
 At the crossroads Billy hesitated and looked at Saxon. 
 
 "What if it is longer?" she said. "Look how beautiful 
 it is all covered with green woods ; and I just know those 
 are redwoods in the canyons. You never can tell. The 
 valley of the moon might be right up there somewhere. . 
 And it would never do to miss it just in order to save 
 half an hour." 
 
 They took the turn to the right and began crossing a 
 series of steep foothills. As they approached the moun- 
 tain there were signs of a greater abundance of water. 
 They drove beside a running stream, and, though the vine- 
 yards on the hills were summer-dry, the farmhouses in 
 the hollows and on the levels were grouped about with 
 splendid trees. 
 
 "Maybe it sounds funny," Saxon observed; "but I'm 
 beginning to love that mountain already. It almost seems 
 as if I'd seen it before, somehow, it's so all-around satisfy- 
 ingoh!"
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 479 
 
 Crossing a bridge and rounding a sharp turn, they were 
 suddenly enveloped in a mysterious coolness and gloom. 
 All about them arose stately trunks of redwood. The for- 
 est floor was a rosy carpet of autumn fronds. Occasional 
 shafts of sunlight, penetrating the deep shade, warmed the 
 somberness of the grove. Alluring paths led off among the 
 trees and into cozy nooks made by circles of red columns 
 growing around the dust of vanished ancestors witness- 
 ing the titanic dimensions of those ancestors by the girth 
 of the circles in which they stood. 
 
 Out of the grove they pulled to the steep divide, which 
 was no more than a buttress of Sonoma Mountain. The 
 way led on through rolling uplands and across small dips 
 and canyons, all well wooded and a-drip with water. In 
 places the road was muddy from wayside springs. 
 
 "The mountain's a sponge," said Billy. "Here it is, 
 the tail-end of dry summer, an' the ground's just leakin' 
 everywhere. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I know I 've never been here before, ' ' Saxon communed 
 aloud. "But it's all so familiar! So I must have dreamed 
 
 it. And there's madronos! a whole grove! And 
 
 manzanita! Why, I feel just as if I was coming home. 
 . . . Oh, Billy, if it should turn out to be our val- 
 ley." 
 
 ' ' Plastered against the side of a mountain ? " he queried, 
 with a skeptical laugh. 
 
 "No; I don't mean that. I mean on the way to our 
 valley. Because the way all ways to our valley must 
 be beautiful. And this; I've seen it all before, dreamed 
 it." 
 
 "It's great," he said sympathetically. "I wouldn't 
 trade a square mile of this kind of country for the whole 
 Sacramento Valley, with the river islands thrown in and 
 Middle River for good measure. If they ain't deer up 
 there, I miss my guess. An' where they's springs they's 
 streams, an' streams means trout." 
 
 They passed a large and comfortable farmhouse, sur- 
 rounded by wandering barns and cow-sheds, went on under
 
 480 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 forest arches, and emerged beside a field with which Saxon 
 was instantly enchanted. It flowed in a gentle concave 
 from the road up the mountain, its farther boundary an 
 unbroken line of timber. The field glowed like rough 
 gold in the approaching sunset, and near the middle of it 
 stood a solitary great redwood, with blasted top suggesting 
 a nesting eyrie for eagles. The timber beyond clothed the 
 mountain in solid green to what they took to be the top. 
 But, as they drove on, Saxon, looking back upon what she 
 called her field, saw the real summit of Sonoma towering 
 beyond, the mountain behind her field a mere spur upon 
 the side of the larger mass. 
 
 Ahead and toward the right, across sheer ridges of the 
 mountains, separated by deep green canyons and broaden- 
 ing lower down into rolling orchards and vineyards, they 
 caught their first sight of Sonoma Valley and the wild 
 mountains that rimmed its eastern side. To the left they 
 gazed across a golden land of small hills and valleys. Be- 
 yond, to the north, they glimpsed another portion of the 
 valley, and, still beyond, the opposing wall of the valley 
 a range of mountains, the highest of which reared its red 
 and battered ancient crater against a rosy and mellowing 
 sky. From north to southeast, the mountain rim curved 
 in the brightness of the sun, while Saxon and Billy were 
 already in the shadow of evening. He looked at Saxon, 
 noted the ravished ecstasy of her face, and stopped the 
 horses. All the eastern sky was blushing to rose, which 
 descended upon the mountains, touching them with wine 
 and ruby. Sonoma Valley began to fill with a purple flood, 
 laving the mountain bases, rising, inundating, drowning 
 them in its purple. Saxon pointed in silence, indicating 
 that the purple flood was the sunset shadow of Sonoma 
 Mountain. Billy nodded, then chirruped to the mares, 
 and the descent began through a warm and colorful twi- 
 light. 
 
 On the elevated sections of the road they felt the cool, 
 delicious breeze from the Pacific forty miles away ; while 
 from each little dip and hollow came warm breaths of
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 481 
 
 autumn earth, spicy with sunburnt grass and fallen leaves 
 and passing flowers. 
 
 They came to the rim of a deep canyon that seemed to 
 penetrate to the heart of Sonoma Mountain. Again, with 
 no word spoken, merely from watching Saxon, Billy 
 stopped the wagon. The canyon was wildly beautiful. 
 Tall redwoods lined its entire length. On its farther rim 
 stood three rugged knolls covered with dense woods of 
 spruce and oak. From between the knolls, a feeder to the 
 main canyon and likewise fringed with redwoods, emerged 
 a smaller canyon. Billy pointed to a stubble field that 
 lay at the feet of the knolls. 
 
 " It 's in fields like that I 've seen my mares a-pasturing, ' ' 
 he said. 
 
 They dropped down into the canyon, the road follow- 
 ing a stream that sang under maples and alders. The 
 sunset fires, refracted from the cloud-driftage of the au- 
 tumn sky, bathed the canyon with crimson, in which ruddy- 
 limbed madronos and wine-wooded manzanitas burned and 
 smoldered. The air was aromatic with laurel. Wild grape 
 vines bridged the stream from tree to tree. Oaks of many 
 sorts were veiled in lacy Spanish moss. Ferns and brakes 
 grew lush beside the stream. From somewhere came the 
 plaint of a mourning dove. Fifty feet above the ground, 
 almost over their heads, a Douglas squirrel crossed the 
 road a flash of gray between two trees; and they marked 
 the continuance of its aerial passage by the bending of the 
 boughs. 
 
 ''I've got a hunch," said Billy. 
 
 "Let me say it first," Saxon begged. 
 
 He waited, his eyes on her face as she gazed about hei 
 in rapture. 
 
 "We've found our valley," she whispered. "Was that 
 it?" 
 
 He nodded, but checked speech at sight of a small boy 
 driving a cow up the road, a preposterously big shotgun 
 in one hand, in the other as preposterously big a jack- 
 rabbit.
 
 482 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "How far to Glen Ellen?" Billy asked. 
 
 "Mile an' a half," was the answer. 
 
 "What creek is this?" inquired Saxon. 
 
 "Wild Water. It empties into Sonoma Creek half a 
 mile down." 
 
 "Trout?" this from Billy. 
 
 "If you know how to catch 'em," grinned the boy. 
 
 "Deer up the mountain?" 
 
 "It ain't open season," the boy evaded. 
 
 1 ' I guess you never shot a deer, ' ' Billy slyly baited, and 
 was rewarded with: 
 
 "I got the horns to show." 
 
 "Deer shed their horns," Billy teased on. "Anybody 
 can find 'em." 
 
 "I got the meat on mine. It ain't dry yet " 
 
 The boy broke off, gazing with shocked eyes into the pit 
 Billy had dug for him. 
 
 "It's all right, sonny," Billy laughed, as he drove on. 
 "I ain't the game warden. I'm buyin' horses." 
 
 More leaping tree squirrels, more ruddy madronos and 
 majestic oaks, more fairy circles of redwoods, and, still 
 beside the singing stream, they passed a gate by the 
 roadside. Before it stood a rural mail box, on which was 
 lettered ' ' Edmund Hale. ' ' Standing under the rustic arch, 
 leaning upon the gate, a man and woman composed a pic- 
 ture so arresting and beautiful that Saxon caught her 
 breath. They were side by side, the delicate hand of the 
 woman curled in the hand of the man, which looked as if 
 made to confer benedictions. His face bore out this im- 
 pression a beautiful-browed countenance, with large, be- 
 nevolent gray eyes under a wealth of white hair that shone 
 like spun glass. He was fair and large ; the little woman 
 beside him was daintily wrought. She was saffron-brown, 
 as a woman of the white race can well be, with smiling 
 eyes of bluest blue. In quaint sage-green draperies, she 
 seemed a flower, with her small vivid face irresistibly re- 
 minding Saxon of a springtime wake-robin. 
 
 Perhaps the picture made by Saxon and Billy was
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 483 
 
 equally arresting and beautiful, as they drove down 
 through the golden end of day. The two couples had eyes 
 only for each other. The little woman beamed joyously. 
 The man's face glowed into the benediction that had 
 trembled there. To Saxon, like the field up the mountain, 
 like the mountain itself, it seemed that she had always 
 known this adorable pair. She knew that she loved them. 
 
 "How d'ye do," said Billy. 
 
 "You blessed children," said the man. "I wonder if 
 yon know how dear you look sitting there." 
 
 That was all. The wagon had passed by, rustling down 
 the road, which was carpeted with fallen leaves of maple, 
 oak, and alder. Then they came to the meeting of the 
 two creeks. 
 
 "Oh, what a place for a home," Saxon cried, pointing 
 across "Wild "Water. "See, Billy, on that bench there 
 above the meadow." 
 
 "It's a rich bottom, Saxon; and so is the bench rich. 
 Look at the big trees on it. An' they's sure to be springs." 
 
 "Drive over," she said. 
 
 Forsaking the main road, they crossed Wild Water on 
 a narrow bridge and continued along an ancient, rutted 
 road that ran beside an equally ancient worm-fence of 
 split redwood rails. They came to a gate, open and off 
 its hinges, through which the road led out on the bench. 
 
 "This is it I know it," Saxon said with conviction. 
 "Drive in, Billy." 
 
 A small, whitewashed farmhouse with broken windows . 
 showed through the trees. 
 
 "Talk about your madronos " 
 
 Billy pointed to the father of all madronos, six feet in 
 diameter at its base, sturdy and sound, which stood be- 
 fore the house. 
 
 They spoke in low tones as they passed around the 
 house under great oak trees and came to a stop before 
 a small barn. They did not wait to unharness. Tying 
 the horses, they started to explore. The pitch from the 
 bench to the meadow was steep yet thickly wooded witb
 
 484 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 oaks and manzanita. As they crashed through the under* 
 brush they startled a score of quail into flight. 
 
 "How about game?" Saxon queried. 
 
 Billy grinned, and fell to examining a spring which 
 bubbled a clear stream into the meadow. Here the ground 
 was sunbaked and wide open in a multitude of cracks. 
 
 Disappointment leaped into Saxon's face, but Billy, 
 crumbling a clod between his fingers, had not made up 
 his mind. 
 
 "It's rich," he pronounced; " the cream of the soil 
 that's ben washin' down from the hills for ten thousan' 
 years. But " 
 
 He broke off, stared all about, studying the configura- 
 tion of the meadow, crossed it to the redwood trees be- 
 yond, then came back. 
 
 "It's no good as it is," he said. "But it's the best ever 
 if it's handled right. All it needs is a little common sense 
 an' a lot of drainage. This meadow's a natural basin not 
 yet filled level. They's a sharp slope through the red- 
 woods to the creek. Come on, I'll show you." 
 
 They went through the redwoods and came out on So^ 
 noma Creek. At this spot was no singing. The stream 
 poured into a quiet pool. The willows on their side 
 brushed the water. The opposite side was a steep bank. 
 Billy measured the height of the bank with his eye, the 
 depth of the water with a driftwood pole. 
 
 "Fifteen feet," he announced. "That allows all kinds 
 of high-divin' from the bank. An' it's a hundred yards 
 of a swim up an' down." 
 
 They followed down the pool. It emptied in a rime, 
 across exposed bedrock, into another pool. As they looked, 
 a trout flashed into the air and back, leaving a widening 
 ripple on the quiet surface. 
 
 "I guess we won't winter in Carmel," Billy said. "This 
 place was specially manufactured for us. In the morning 
 I'll find out who owns it." 
 
 Half an hour later, feeding the horses, he called Saxon's 
 attention to a locomotive whistle.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 485 
 
 "You've got ymvr railroad," he said. "That's a train 
 pulling into Glen Ellen, an' it's only a mile from here." 
 
 Saxon was dozing off to sleep under the blankets wheit 
 Billy aroused her. 
 
 "Suppose the guy that owns it won't sell?" 
 
 "There isn't the slightest doubt," Saxon answered with 
 Unruffled certainty. "This is our place. I know it."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THEY were awakened by Possum, who was indignantly 
 reproaching a tree squirrel for not coming down to be 
 killed. The squirrel chattered garrulous remarks that 
 drove Possum into a mad attempt to climb the tree. Billy 
 and Saxon giggled and hugged each other at the terrier's 
 frenzy. 
 
 "If this is goin' to be our place, they'll be no shootin' 
 of tree squirrels," Billy said. 
 
 Saxon pressed his hand and sat up. From beneath the 
 bench came the cry of a meadow lark. 
 
 "There isn't anything left to be desired," she sighed 
 happily. 
 
 "Except the deed," Billy corrected. 
 
 After a hasty breakfast, they started to explore, run- 
 ning the irregular boundaries of the place and repeatedly 
 crossing it from rail fence to creek and back again. Seven 
 springs they found along the foot of the bench on the 
 edge of the meadow. 
 
 "There's your water supply," Billy said. "Drain the 
 meadow, work the soil up, and with fertilizer and all 
 that water you can grow crops the year round. There 
 must be five acres of it, an' I wouldn't trade it for Mrs. 
 Mortimer's." 
 
 They were standing in the old orchard, on the bench, 
 where they had counted twenty-seven trees, neglected, but 
 of generous girth. 
 
 "And on top the bench, back of the house, we can grow 
 berries." Saxon paused, considering a new thought. "If 
 
 only Mrs. Mortimer would come up and advise us ! Do 
 
 you think she would, Billy?" 
 
 "Sure she would. It ain't more'n four hours' run from
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 487 
 
 San Jose. But first we'll get our hooks into the place. 
 Then you can write to her." 
 
 Sonoma Creek gave the long boundary to the little farm, 
 two sides were worm fenced, and the fourth side was "Wild 
 Water. 
 
 "Why, we'll have that beautiful man and woman for 
 neighbors," Saxon recollected. "Wild Water will be the 
 dividing line between their place and ours." 
 
 "It ain't ours yet," Billy commented. "Let's go and 
 call on 'em. They'll be able to tell us all about it." 
 
 "It's just as good as," she replied. "The big thing 
 has been the finding. And whoever owns it doesn't care 
 much for it. It hasn't been lived in for a long time. And 
 Oh, Billy are you satisfied?" 
 
 "With every bit of it," he answered frankly, "as far 
 as it goes. But the trouble is, it don't go far enough." 
 
 The disappointment in her face spurred him to renun- 
 ciation of his particular dream. 
 
 "We'll buy it that's settled," he said. "But outside 
 the meadow, they's so much wdods that they's little pas- 
 ture not more'n enough for a couple of horses an' a 
 cow. But I don't care. We can't have everything, an' 
 what they is is almighty good." 
 
 "Let us call it a starter," she consoled. "Later on we 
 can add to it maybe the land alongside that runs up the 
 Wild Water to the three knolls we saw yesterday " 
 
 "Where I seen my horses pasturin'," he remembered, 
 with a flash of eye. "Why not? So much has come true- 
 since we hit the road, maybe that'll come true, too." 
 
 "We'll work for it, Billy." 
 
 "We'll work like hell for it," he said grimly. 
 
 They passed through the rustic gate and along a path 
 that wound through wild woods. There was no sign of 
 the house until they came abruptly upon it, bowered 
 among the trees. It was eight-sided, and so justly propor- 
 tioned that its two stories made no show of height. The 
 house belonged there. It might have sprung from the
 
 488 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 soil just as the trees had. There were no formal grounds. 
 The wild grew to the doors. The low porch of the main 
 entrance was raised only a step from the ground. 
 "Trillium Covert," they read, in quaint carved letters 
 under the eave of the porch. 
 
 "Come right upstairs, you dears," a voice called from 
 above, in response to Saxon's knock. 
 
 Stepping back and looking up, she beheld the little lady 
 smiling down from a sleeping-porch. Clad in a rosy-tis- 
 sued and flowing house gown, she again reminded Saxon of 
 a flower. 
 
 "Just push the front door open and find your way," 
 was the direction. 
 
 Saxon led, with Billy at her heels. They came into 
 a room bright with windows, where a big log smoldered 
 in a rough-stone fireplace. On the stone slab above stood 
 a huge Mexican jar, filled with autumn branches and trail- 
 ing fluffy smoke-vine. The walls were finished in warm 
 natural woods, stained but without polish. The air was 
 aromatic with clean wood odors. A walnut organ loomed 
 in a shallow corner of the room. All corners were shallow 
 in this octagonal dwelling. In another corner were many 
 rows of books. Through the windows, across a low couch 
 indubitably made for use, could be seen a restful picture 
 of autumn trees and yellow grasses, threaded by well- 
 worn paths that ran here and there over the tiny estate. 
 A delightful little stairway wound past more windows 
 to the upper story. Here the little lady greeted them am 
 led them into what Saxon knew at once was her room. 
 The two octagonal sides of the house which showed in this 
 wide room were given wholly to windows. Under the long 
 sill, to the floor, were shelves of books. Books lay here 
 and there, in the disorder of use, on work table, couch, 
 and desk. On a sill by an open window, a jar of autumn 
 leaves breathed the charm of the sweet brown wife, who 
 seated herself in a tiny rattan chair, enameled a cheery 
 red, such as children delight to rock in. 
 
 "A queer house," Mrs. Hale laughed girlishly and con-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 489 
 
 tantedly. "But we love it. Edmund made it with his 
 own hands even to the plumbing, though he did have a 
 terrible time with that before he succeeded." 
 
 "How about that hardwood floor downstairs? an' 
 
 the fireplace?" Billy inquired. 
 
 "All, all," she replied proudly. "And half the furni- 
 ture. That cedar desk there, the table with his own 
 hands. ' ' 
 
 ' ' They are such gentle hands, ' ' Saxon was moved to say. 
 
 Mrs. Hale looked at her quickly, her vivid face alive with 
 a grateful light. 
 
 ' ' They are gentle, the gentlest hands I have ever known, ' ' 
 she said softly. "And you are a dear to have noticed it, 
 for you only saw them yesterday in passing." 
 
 "I couldn't help it," Saxon said simply. 
 
 Her gaze slipped past Mrs. Hale, attracted by the wall 
 beyond, which was done in a bewitching honeycomb pat- 
 tern dotted with golden bees. The walls were hung with 
 a few, a very few, framed pictures. 
 
 "They are all of people," Saxon said, remembering the 
 beautiful paintings in Mark Hall's bungalow. 
 
 "My windows frame my landscape paintings," Mrs. 
 Hale answered, pointing out of doors. "Inside I want 
 only the faces of my dear ones whom I cannot have with 
 me always. Some of them are dreadful rovers. ' ' 
 
 "Oh!" Saxon was on her feet and looking at a pho- 
 tograph. "You know Clara Hastings!" 
 
 ' ; I ought to. I did everything but nurse her at my 
 breast. She came to me when she was a little baby. Her 
 mother was my sister. Do you know how greatly you 
 resemble her? I remarked it to Edmund yesterday. He 
 had already seen it. It wasn't a bit strange that his heart 
 leaped out to you two as you came driving down behind 
 those beautiful horses." 
 
 So Mrs. Hale was Clara's aunt old stock that had 
 crossed the Plains. Saxon knew now why she had re- 
 minded her so strongly of her own mother. 
 
 The talk whipped quite away from Billy, who could
 
 490 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 only admire the detailed work of the cedar desk while h^ 
 listened. Saxon told of meeting Clara and Jack Hastings 
 on their yacht and on their driving trip in Oregon. They 
 were off again, Mrs. Hale said, having shipped their horses 
 home from Vancouver and taken the Canadian Pacific on 
 their way to England. Mrs. Hale knew Saxon's mother, 
 or, rather, her poems ; and produced, not only ' ' The Story 
 of the Files," but a ponderous scraphook which contained 
 many of her mother's poems which Saxon had never seen. 
 A sweet singer, Mrs. Hale said; but so many had sung 
 in the days of gold and been forgotten. There had been 
 no army of magazines then, and the poems had perished 
 in local newspapers. 
 
 Jack Hastings had fallen in love with Clara, the talk 
 ran on ; then, visiting at Trillium Covert, he had fallen in 
 love with Sonoma Valley and bought a magnificent home 
 ranch, though little enough he saw of it, being away over 
 the world so much of the time. Mrs. Hale talked of her 
 own journey across the Plains, a little girl, in the late 
 Fifties, and, like Mrs. Mortimer, knew all about the fight 
 at Little Meadow, and the tale of the massacre of the emi- 
 grant train of which Billy's father had been the sole 
 survivor. 
 
 "And so," Saxon concluded, an hour later, "we've been 
 three years searching for our valley of the moon, and now 
 we've found it." 
 
 "Valley of the Moon?" Mrs. Hale queried. "Then you 
 knew about it all the time. What kept you so long?" 
 
 "No; we didn't know. We just started on a blind 
 search for it. Mark Hall called it a pilgrimage, and was 
 always teasing us to carry long staffs. He said when 
 we found the spot we 'd know, because then the staffs would 
 burst into blossom. He laughed at all the good things 
 we wanted in our valley, and one night he took me out and 
 showed me the moon through a telescope. He said that was 
 the only place we could find such a wonderful valley. He 
 meant it was moonshine, but we adopted the name and 
 went on looking for it."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 491 
 
 "What a coincidence!" Mrs. Hale exclaimed. "For 
 this is the Valley of the Moon." 
 
 "I know it," Saxon said with quiet confidence. "It 
 has everything we wanted." 
 
 "But you don't understand, my dear. This is the Val- 
 ley of the Moon. This is Sonoma Valley. Sonoma is an 
 Indian word, and means the Valley of the Moon. That 
 was what the Indians called it for untold ages before the 
 first white men came. We, who love it, still so call it." 
 
 And then Saxon recalled the mysterious references Jack 
 Hastings and his wife had made to it, and the talk tripped 
 along until Billy grew restless. He cleared his throat 
 significantly and interrupted. 
 
 "We want to find out about that ranch acrost the 
 creek who owns it, if they'll sell, where we'll find 'em, 
 an' such things." 
 
 Mrs. Hale stood up. 
 
 "We'll go and see Edmund," she said, catching Saxon 
 by the hand and leading the way. 
 
 "My!" Billy ejaculated, towering above her. "I used 
 to think Saxon was small. But she'd make two of you." 
 
 "And you're pretty big," the little woman smiled; "but 
 Edmund is taller than you, and broader-shouldered." 
 
 They crossed a bright hall, and found the big beautiful 
 husband lying back reading in a huge Mission rocker. 
 Beside it was another tiny child's chair of red-enameled 
 rattan. Along the length of his thigh, the head on his 
 knee and directed toward a smoldering log in a fireplace, 
 clung an incredibly large striped cat. Like its master, 
 it turned its head to greet the newcomers. Again Saxon 
 felt the loving benediction that abided in his face, his 
 eyes, his hands toward which she involuntarily dropped 
 her eyes. Again she was impressed by the gentleness of 
 them. They were hands of love. They were the hands 
 of a type of man she had never dreamed existed. No one 
 in that merry crowd of Carmel had prefigured him. They 
 were artists. This was the scholar, the philosopher. In 
 place of the passion of youth and all youth's mad revolt,
 
 492 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 was the benignance of wisdom. Those gentle hands had 
 passed all the bitter by and plucked only the sweet of life. 
 Dearly as she loved them, she shuddered to think what 
 some of those Carmelites would be like when they were 
 as old as he especially the dramatic critic and the Iron 
 Man. 
 
 ' ' Here are the dear children, Edmund, ' ' Mrs. Hale said. 
 "What do you think! They want to buy the Madrono 
 Ranch. They've been three years searching for it I for- 
 got to tell them we had searched ten years for Trillium 
 Covert. Tell them all about it. Surely Mr. Naismitii is 
 still of a mind to sell!" 
 
 They seated themselves in simple massive chairs, and 
 Mrs. Hale took the tiny rattan beside the big Mission 
 rocker, her slender hand curled like a tendril in Edmund's. 
 And while Saxon listened to the talk, her eyes took in 
 the grave rooms lined with books. She began to realize 
 how a mere structure of wood and stone may express the 
 spirit of him who conceives and makes it. Those gentle 
 hands had made all this the very furniture, she guessed, 
 as her eyes roved from desk to chair, from work table to 
 reading stand beside the bed in the other room, where 
 stood a green-shaded lamp and orderly piles of magazines 
 and books. 
 
 As for the matter of Madrono Ranch, it was easy enough, 
 he was saying. Naismith would sell. Had desired to 
 sell for the past five years, ever since he had engaged in 
 the enterprise of bottling mineral water at the springs 
 lower down the valley. It was fortunate that he was the 
 owner, for about all the rest of the surrounding land was 
 owned by a Frenchman an early settler. He would not 
 part with a foot of it. He was a peasant, with all the 
 peasant's love of the soil, which, in him, had become an 
 obsession, a disease. He was a land-miser. With no busi- 
 ness capacity, old and opinionated, he was land poor, and 
 it was an open question which would arrive first, his deatli 
 or bankruptcy. 
 
 As for Madroiio Ranch, Naismith owned it and had
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 493 
 
 set the price at fifty dollars an acre. That would be one 
 thousand dollars, for there were twenty acres. As a farm- 
 ing investment, using old-fashioned methods, it was not 
 worth it. As a business investment, yes; for the virtues 
 of the valley were on the eve of being discovered by the 
 outside world, and no better location for a summer home 
 could be found. As a happiness investment in joy of 
 beauty and climate, it was worth a thousand times the 
 price asked. And he knew Naismith would allow time on 
 most of the amount. Edmund's suggestion was that they 
 take a two years' lease, with option to buy, the rent to 
 apply to the purchase if they took it up. Naismith had 
 done that once with a Swiss, who had paid a monthly 
 rental of ten dollars. But the man's wife had died, and 
 he had gone away. 
 
 Edmund soon divined Billy's renunciation, though not 
 the nature of it; and several questions brought it forth 
 the old pioneer dream of land spaciousness; of cattle on 
 a hundred hills; one hundred and sixty acres of land the 
 smallest thinkable division. 
 
 "But you don't need all that land, dear lad," Edmund 
 said softly. "I see you understand intensive farming. 
 Have you thought about intensive horse-raising?" 
 
 Billy's jaw dropped at the smashing newness of the 
 idea. He considered it, but could see no similarity in 
 the two processes. Unbelief leaped into his eyes. 
 
 "You gotta show me!" he cried. 
 
 The elder man smiled gently. 
 
 "Let us see. In the first place, you don't need those 
 twenty acres except for beauty. There are five acres in 
 the meadow. You don't need more than two of them to 
 make your living at selling vegetables. In fact, you ana. 
 your wife, working from daylight to dark, cannot properly 
 farm those two acres. Remains three acres. You have 
 plenty of water for it from the springs. Don't be satisfied 
 with one crop a year, like the rest of the old-fashioned 
 farmers in this valley. Farm it like your vegetable plot, 
 intensively, all the year, in crops that make horse-feed, ir
 
 494 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 rigating, fertilizing, rotating your crops. Those three acres 
 will feed as many horses as heaven knows how huge an 
 area of unseeded, uncared for, wasted pasture would feed. 
 Think it over. I'll lend you books on the subject. I don't 
 know how large your crops will be, nor do I know how 
 much a horse eats; that's your business. But I am cer- 
 tain, with a hired man to take your place helping your 
 wife on her two acres of vegetables, that by the time you 
 own the horses your three acres will feed, you will have 
 all you can attend to. Then it will be time to get more 
 land, for more horses, for more riches, if that way hap- 
 piness lie." 
 
 Billy understood. In his enthusiasm he dashed out: 
 
 "You're some farmer." 
 
 Edmund smiled and glanced toward his wife. 
 
 "Give him your opinion of that, Annette." 
 
 Her blue eyes twinkled as she complied. 
 
 "Why, the dear, he never farms. He has never farmed. 
 But he knows." She waved her hand about the book- 
 lined walls. "He is a student of good. He studies all 
 good things done by good men under the sun. His pleasure 
 is in books and wood- working. " 
 
 "Don't forget Dulcie," Edmund gently protested. 
 
 "Yes, and Dulcie." Annette laughed. "Dulcie is our 
 cow. It is a great question with Jack Hastings whether 
 Edmund dotes more on Dulcie, or Dulcie dotes more on 
 Edmund. When he goes to San Francisco Duleie is mis- 
 erable. So is Edmund, until he hastens back. Oh, Dulcie 
 has given me no few jealous pangs. But I have to con- 
 fess he understands her as no one else does." 
 
 "That is the one practical subject I know by experience, ' ' 
 Edmund confirmed. "I am an authority on Jersey cows. 
 Call upon me any time for counsel. ' ' 
 
 He stood up and went toward his book-shelves ; and they 
 saw how magnificently large a man he was. He paused, 
 a book in his hand, to answer a question from Saxon. 
 No ; there were no mosquitoes, although, one summer when 
 the south wind blew for ten days an unprecedented
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 495 
 
 thing a few mosquitoes had been carried up from San 
 Pablo Bay. As for fog, it was the making of the valley. 
 And where they were situated, sheltered behind Sonoma 
 Mountain, the fogs were almost invariably high fogs. 
 Sweeping in from the ocean forty miles away, they were 
 deflected by Sonoma Mountain and shunted high into the 
 air. Another thing, Trillium Covert and Madrono Ranch 
 were happily situated in a narrow thermal belt, so that in 
 the frosty mornings of winter the temperature was always 
 several degrees higher than in the rest of the valley. In 
 fact, frost was very rare in the thermal belt, as was proved 
 by the successful cultivation of certain orange and lemon 
 trees. 
 
 Edmund continued reading titles and selecting books un- 
 til he had drawn out quite a number. He opened the 
 top one, Bolton Hall's "Three Acres and Liberty," and 
 read to them of a man who walked six hundred and fifty 
 miles a year in cultivating, by old-fashioned methods, 
 twenty acres, from which he harvested three thousand 
 bushels of poor potatoes; and of another man, a "new" 
 farmer, who cultivated only five acres, walked two hun- 
 dred miles, and produced three thousand bushels of po- 
 tatoes, early and choice, which he sold at many times the 
 price received by the first man. 
 
 Saxon received the books from Edmund, and, as she 
 heaped them in Billy's arms, read the titles. They were: 
 Wickson's "California Fruits," Wickson's "California 
 Vegetables," Brooks' "Fertilizers," Watson's "Farm 
 Poultry," King's "Irrigation and Di-ainage," "Kropot- 
 kin's "Fields, Factories and Workshops," and Farmer's 
 Bulletin Na 22 on "The Feeding of Farm Animals." 
 
 ' ' Come for more any time you want them, ' ' Edmund in- 
 vited. "I have hundreds of volumes on farming, and all 
 the Agricultural Bulletins. . . . And you must come 
 and get acquainted with Dulcie your first spare time,'* 
 he called after them out the door.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 MBS. MORTIMER arrived with seed catalogs and farm 
 books, to find Saxon immersed in the farm books bor- 
 rowed from Edmund. Saxon shoAved her around, and she 
 was delighted with everything, including the terms of 
 the lease and its option to buy. 
 
 ''And now," she said. "What is to be done? Sit down, 
 both of you. This is a council of war, and I am the one 
 person in the world to tell you what to do. I ought to be. 
 Anybody who has reorganized and recatalogued a great 
 city library should be able to start you young people off 
 in short order. Now, where shall we begin?" 
 
 She paused for breath of consideration. 
 
 ' ' First, Madrono Ranch is a bargain. I know soil, I know 
 beauty, I know climate. Madrono Ranch is a gold mine. 
 There is a fortune in that meadow. Tilth I'll tell you 
 about that later. First, here's the land. Second, what 
 are you going to do with it ? Make a living f Yes. Vege- 
 tables? Of course. What are you going to do with them 
 
 after you have grown them? Sell. Where? Now 
 
 listen. You must do as I did. Cut out the middle man. 
 Sell directly to the consumer. Drum up your own mar- 
 ket. Do you know what I saw from the car windows, 
 coming up the valley, only several miles from here? Ho- 
 tels, springs, summer resorts, winter resorts population, 
 mouths, market. How is that market supplied ? I looked 
 in vain for truck gardens. Billy, harness up your 
 horses and be ready directly after dinner to take Saxon 
 and me driving. Never mind everything else. Let things 
 stand. What's the use of starting for a place of which 
 you haven't the address. We'll look for the address this 
 
 afternoon. Then we'll know where we are at." Thg 
 
 last syllable a smiling concession to Billy.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 497 
 
 But Saxon did not accompany them. There was too 
 much to be done in cleaning the long-abandoned house 
 and in preparing an arrangement for Mrs. Mortimer tc 
 sleep. And it was long after supper time when Airs. Mor- 
 timer and Billy returned. 
 
 "You lucky, lucky children," she began immediately. 
 "This valley is just waking up. Here's your market. 
 There isn't a competitor in the valley. I thought those 
 resorts looked new Caliente, Boyes Hot Springs, El Ve- 
 rano, and all along the line. Then there are three little 
 'hotels in Glen Ellen, right next door. Oh, I've talked 
 with all the owners and managers." 
 
 "She's a wooz," Billy admired. "She'd brace up to 
 God on a business proposition. You oughta seen her." 
 
 Mrs. Mortimer acknowledged the compliment and dashed 
 on. 
 
 "And where do all the vegetables come from? Wagons 
 drive down twelve to fifteen miles from Santa Rosa, and 
 up from Sonoma. Those are the nearest truck farms, and 
 when they fail, as they often do, I am told, to supply the 
 increasing needs, the managers have to express vegetables 
 all the way from San Francisco. I've introduced Billy. 
 They've agreed to patronize home industry. Besides, it 
 is better for them. You'll deliver just as good vegetables 
 just as cheap; you will make it a point to deliver better, 
 fresher vegetables; and don't forget that delivery for 
 you will be cheaper by virtue of the shorter haul. 
 
 "No day-old egg stunt here. No jams nor jellies. But 
 you've got lots of space up on the bench here on which 
 you can't grow vegetables. To-morrow morning 111 help 
 you lay out the chicken runs and houses. Besides, there 
 is the matter of capons for the San Francisco market. 
 You'll start small. It will be a side line at first. I'll 
 tell you all about that, too, and send you the literature. 
 You must use your head. Let others do the work. You 
 must understand that thoroughly. The wages of super- 
 intendence are always larger than the wages of the la- 
 borers. You must keep books. You must know where
 
 498 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 you stand. You must know what pays and what doesn't, 
 and what pays best. Your books will tell that. I'll show 
 you all in good time." 
 
 "An' think of it all that on two acres!" Billy mur- 
 mured. 
 
 Mrs. Mortimer looked at him sharply. 
 
 "Two acres your granny," she said with asperity. 
 ''Five acres. And then you won't be able to supply your 
 market. And you, my boy, as soon as the first rains come, 
 will have your hands full and your horses weary draining 
 that meadow. We'll work those plans out to-morrow. 
 Also, there is the matter of berries on the bench here and 
 trellised table grapes, the choicest. They bring the fancy 
 prices. There will be blackberries Burbank's, he lives 
 at Santa Rosa Loganberries, Mammoth berries. But don 't 
 fool with strawberries. That's a whole occupation in 
 itself. They're not vines, you know. I've examined the 
 orchard. It 's a good foundation. We '11 settle the pruning 
 and grafts later." 
 
 "But Billy wanted three acres of the meadow," Saxon 
 explained at the first chance. 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "To grow hay and other kinds of food for the horses 
 he's going to raise." 
 
 "Buy it out of a portion of the profits from those three 
 acres," Mrs. Mortimer decided on the instant. 
 
 Billy swallowed, and again achieved renunciation. 
 
 "All right," he said, with a brave show of cheerful- 
 ness. "Let her go. Us for the greens." 
 
 During the several days of Mrs. Mortimer's visit, Billy 
 let the two women settle things for themselves. Oakland 
 had entered upon a boom, and from the West Oakland 
 stables had come an urgent letter for more horses. So 
 Billy was out, early and late, scouring the surrounding 
 country for young work animals. In this way, at the 
 start, he learned his valley thoroughly. There was also 
 a clearing out at the West Oakland stables of mares 
 whose feet had been knocked out on the hard city pave-
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 499 
 
 ments, and he was offered first choice at bargain prices. 
 They were good animals. He knew what they were be- 
 cause he knew them of old time. The soft earth of the 
 country, with a preliminary rest in pasture with their 
 shoes pulled off, would put them in shape. They would 
 never do again on hard-paved streets, but there were years 
 of farm work in them. And then there was the breeding. 
 But he could not undertake to buy them. He fought out 
 the battle in secret and said nothing to Saxon. 
 
 At night, he would sit in the kitchen and smoke, listen- 
 ing to all that the two women had done and planned in 
 the day. The right kind of horses was hard to buy, and, 
 as he put it, it was like pulling a tooth to get a farmer 
 to part with one, despite the fact that he had been author- 
 ized to increase the buying sum by as much as fifty dollars. 
 Despite the coming of the automobile, the price of heavy 
 draught animals continued to rise. From as early as 
 Billy could remember, the price of the big work horses 
 had increased steadily. After the great earthquake, the 
 price had jumped; yet it had never gone back. 
 
 "Billy, you make more money as a horse-buyer than 
 a common laborer, don't you?" Mrs. Mortimer asked. 
 "Very well, then. You won't have to drain the meadow, 
 or plow it, or anything. You keep right on buying horses. 
 Work with your head. But out of what you make you 
 will please pay the wages of one laborer for Saxon's vege- 
 tables. It will be a good investment, with quick returns." 
 
 "Sure," he agreed. "That's all anybody hires any- 
 body for to make money outa'm. But how Saxon an' 
 one man are goin' to work them five acres, when Mr. Hale 
 says two of us couldn't do what's needed on two acres, 
 is beyond me." 
 
 "Saxon isn't going to work," Mrs. Mortimer retorted. 
 "Did you see me working at San Jose? Saxon is going 
 to use her head. It's about time you woke up to that. 
 A dollar and a half a day is what is earned by persons 
 who don't use their heads. And she isn't going to be 
 satisfied with a dollar and a half a day. Now listen. I
 
 500 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 had a long talk with Mr. Hale this afternoon. He says 
 there are practically no efficient laborers to be hired in 
 the valley." 
 
 "I know that," Billy interjected. "All the good men 
 go to the cities. It's only the leavin's that's left. The 
 good ones that stay behind ain't workin' for wages." 
 
 "Which is perfectly true, every word. Now listen, chil- 
 dren. I knew about it, and I spoke to Mr. Hale. He is 
 prepared to make the arrangements for you. He knows 
 all about it himself, and is in touch with the "Warden. 
 In short, you will parole two good-conduct prisoners from 
 San Quentin; and they will be gardeners. There are 
 plenty of Chinese and Italians there, and they are the best 
 truck-farmers. You kill two birds with one stone. You 
 serve the poor convicts, and you serve yourselves." 
 
 Saxon hesitated, shocked; while Billy gravely consid- 
 ered the question. 
 
 ' ' You know John, ' ' Mrs. Mortimer went on, ' ' Mr. Hale 'a 
 man about the place ? How do you like him ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I was wishing only to-day that we could find some- 
 body like him," Saxon said eagerly. "He's such a dear, 
 faithful soul. Mrs. Hale told me a lot of fine things about 
 him." 
 
 "There's one thing she didn't tell you," smiled Mrs. 
 Mortimer. "John is a paroled convict. Twenty-eight 
 years ago, in hot blood, he killed a man in a quarrel over 
 sixty- five cents. He's been out of prison with the Hales 
 three years now. You remember Louis, the old French- 
 man, on my place? He's another. So that's settled. 
 When your two come of course you will pay them fair' 
 wages and we'll make sure they're the same nationality, 
 either Chinese or Italians well, when they come, John, 
 with their help, and under Mr. Hale's guidance, will knock 
 together a small cabin for them to live in. We'll select 
 the spot. Even so, when your farm is in full swing you'll 
 have to have more outside help. So keep your eyes open, 
 Billy, while you're gallivanting over the valley." 
 
 The next night Billy failed to return, and at nine o'clock
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 503 
 
 a Glen Ellen boy on horseback delivered a telegram. Billy 
 had sent it from Lake County. He was after horses for 
 Oakland. 
 
 Not until the third night did he arrive home, tired to 
 exhaustion, but with an ill concealed air of pride. 
 
 "Now what have you been doing these three days?" 
 Mrs. Mortimer demanded. 
 
 "Usin' my head," he boasted quietly. "Killin' two 
 birds with one stone; an', take it from me, I killed a 
 whole flock. Huh! I got word of it at Lawndale, an' I 
 wanta tell you Hazel an' Hattie was some tired when I 
 stabled 'm at Calistoga an' pulled out on the stage over 
 St. Helena. I was Johnny-on-the-spot, an' I nailed 'm 
 eight whoppers the whole outfit of a mountain teamster. 
 Young animals, sound as a dollar, and the lightest of 
 'em over fifteen hundred. I shipped 'm last night from 
 Calistoga. An', well, that ain't all. 
 
 "Before that, first day, at Lawndale, I seen the fellow 
 with the teamin' contract for the pavin '-stone quarry. 
 Sell horses! He wanted to buy 'em. He wanted to buy 
 'em bad. He'd even rent 'em, he said." 
 
 ' ' And you sent him the eight you bought ! ' ' Saxon broke 
 in. 
 
 "Guess again. I bought them eight with Oakland 
 money, an' they was shipped to Oakland. But I got the 
 Lawndale contractor on long distance, and he agreed to 
 pay me half a dollar a day rent for every work horse up 
 to half a dozen. Then I telegraphed the Boss, tellin' him 
 to ship me six sore-footed mares, Bud Strothers to make 
 the choice, an' to charge to my commission. Bud knows 
 what I'm after. Soon as they come, off go their shoes, 
 Two weeks in pasture, an' then they go to Lawndale, 
 They can do the work. It 's a down-hill haul to the railroad 
 on a dirt road. Half a dollar rent each that's three 
 dollars a day they'll bring me six days a week. I don't 
 feed 'em, shoe 'm, or nothin', an' I keep an eye on 'm to 
 see they're treated right. Three bucks a day, eh! Well, 
 I guess that'll keep a couple of dollar-an '-a-half men goin'
 
 502 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 for Saxon, unless she works 'em Sundays. Huh! The 
 Valley of the Moon! Why, we'll be wearin' diamonds 
 before long. Gosh! A fellow could live in the city a 
 thousan' years an' not get such chances. It beats China 
 lottery." 
 
 He stood up. 
 
 "I'm goin' out to water Hazel an' Hattie, feed 'm, an' 
 feed 'm down. I'll eat soon as I come back/' 
 
 The two women were regarding each other with shining 
 eyes, each on the verge of speech when Billy returned 
 to the door and stuck his head in. 
 
 "They's one thing maybe you ain't got," he said. "I 
 pull down them three dollars every day ; but the six mares 
 is mine, too. I own 'm. They'remwe. Are you onf"
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 "I'M not done with you children," ha<l been Mrs. Mor- 
 timer 's parting words ; and several times that winter she 
 ran up to advise, and to teach Saxon how to calculate her 
 crops for the small immediate market, for the increasing 
 spring market, and for the height of summer, at which 
 time she would be able to sell all she could possibly grow 
 and then not supply the demand. In the meantime, Hazel 
 and Hattie were used every odd moment in hauling manure 
 from Glen Ellen, whose barnyards had never known such 
 a thorough cleaning. Also there were loads of commercial 
 fertilizer from the railroad station, bought under Mrs. 
 Mortimer 's instructions. 
 
 The convicts paroled were Chinese. Both had served 
 long in prison, and were old men; but the day's work 
 they were habitually capable of won Mrs. Mortimer's ap- 
 proval. Gow Yum, twenty years before, had had charge 
 of the vegetable garden of one of the great Menlo Park es- 
 tates. His disaster had come in the form of a fight over 
 a game of fan tan in the Chinese quarter at Redwood 
 City. His companion, Chan Chi, had been a hatchet-man 
 of note, in the old fighting days of the San Francisco 
 . tongs. But a quarter of century of discipline in the prison 
 vegetable gardens had cooled his blood and turned his 
 hand from hatchet to hoe. These two assistants had ar- 
 rived in Glen Ellen like precious goods in bond and been 
 receipted for by the local deputy sheriff, who, in addition, 
 reported on them to the prison authorities each month. 
 Saxon, too, made out a monthly report and sent it in. 
 
 As for the danger of their cutting her throat, she quickly 
 got over the idea of it. The mailed hand of the State 
 hovered over them. The taking of a single drink of liquor 
 503
 
 504 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 would provoke that hand to close down and jerk them back 
 to prison-cells. Nor had they freedom of movement. When 
 old Gow Yum needed to go to San Francisco to sign cer- 
 tain papers before the Chinese Consul, permission had first 
 to be obtained from San Quentin. Then, too, neither 
 man was nasty tempered. Saxon had been apprehensive 
 of the task of bossing two desperate convicts; but when 
 they came she found it a pleasure to work with them. 
 She could tell them what to do, but it was they who knew 
 how to do. From them she learned all the ten thousand 
 tricks and quirks of artful gardening, and she was not 
 long in realizing how helpless she would have been had she 
 depended on local labor. 
 
 Still further, she had no fear, because she was not alone. 
 She had been using her head. It was quickly apparent to 
 her that she could not adequately oversee the outside 
 work and at the same time do the house work. She wrote 
 to Ukiah to the energetic widow who had lived in the 
 adjoining house and taken in washing. She had promptly 
 closed with Saxon's offer. Mrs. Paul was forty, short in 
 stature, and weighed two hundred pounds, but never wear- 
 ied on her feet. Also she was devoid of fear, and, ac- 
 cording to Billy, could settle the hash of both Chinese 
 with one of her mighty arms. Mrs. Paul arrived with 
 her son, a country lad of sixteen who knew horses and 
 could milk Hilda, the pretty Jersey which had success- 
 fully passed Edmund's expert eye. Though Mrs. Paul 
 ably handled the house, there was one thing Saxon in- 
 sisted on doing namely, washing her own pretty flimsies. 
 
 "When I'm no longer able to do that," she told Billy, 
 "you can take a spade to that clump of redwoods beside 
 Wild Water and dig a hole. It will be time to bury me." 
 
 It was early in the days of Madrono Ranch, at the 
 time of Mrs. Mortimer's second visit, that Billy drove in 
 with a load of pipe; and house, chicken yards, and barn 
 were piped from the second-hand tank he installed below 
 the house-spring. 
 
 ' ' Huh ! I guess I can use my head, ' ' he said. I watched
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 505 
 
 a woman over on the other side of the valley, packin' 
 water two hundred feet from the spring to the house; 
 an' I did some figurin'. I put it at three trips a day and 
 on wash days a whole lot more ; an ' you can 't guess what 
 I made out she traveled a year packin' water. One hun- 
 dred an ' twenty-two miles. D 'ye get that ? One hundred 
 and twenty-two miles! I asked her how long she'd ben 
 there. Thirty-one years. Multiply it for yourself. Three 
 thousan', seven hundred an' eighty- two miles all for the 
 sake of two hundred feet of pipe. Wouldn't that jar 
 you! 
 
 "Oh, I ain't done yet. They's a bath-tub an' stationary 
 
 tubs a-comin' soon as I can see my way. An', say, 
 
 Saxon, you know that little clear flat just where Wild 
 Water runs into Sonoma. They's all of an acre of it. 
 An' it's mine! Got that? An' no walkin' on the grass 
 for you. It'll be my grass. I'm goin' up stream a ways 
 an' put in a ram. I got a big second-hand one staked out 
 that I can get for ten dollars, an' it'll pump more water 'n 
 I need. An' you'll see alfafa growin' that'll make your 
 mouth water. I gotta have another horse to travel around 
 on. You're usin' Hazel an' Hattie too much to give me 
 a chance; an' I'll never see 'm as soon as you start de- 
 liverin' vegetables. I guess that alfafa '11 help some to 
 keep another horse goin'." 
 
 But Billy was destined for a time to forget his alfalfa 
 in the excitement of bigger ventures. First, came trou- 
 ble. The several hundred dollars he had arrived with 
 'in Sonoma Valley, and all his own commissions since 
 earned, had gone into improvements and living. The eigh- 
 teen dollars a week rental for his six horses at Lawndale 
 went to pay wages. And he was unable to buy the needed 
 saddle-horse for his horse-buying expeditions. This, how- 
 ever, he had got around by again using his head and kill- 
 ing two birds with one stone. He began breaking colts 
 to drive, and in the driving drove them wherever he sought 
 horses. 
 
 So far all was well. But a new administration in San
 
 506 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 Francisco, pledged to economy, had stopped all street work. 
 This meant the shutting down of the Lawndale quarry, 
 which was one of the sources of supply for paving blocks. 
 The six horses would not only be back on his hands, 
 but he would have to feed them. How Mrs. Paul, Gow 
 Yum, and Chan Chi were to be paid was beyond him. 
 
 "I guess we've bit off more'n we could chew," he ad- 
 mitted to Saxon. 
 
 That night he was late in coming home, but brought 
 with him a radiant face. Saxon was no less radiant. 
 
 "It's all right," she greeted him, coming out to the 
 barn where he was unhitching a tired but fractious colt. 
 "I've talked with all three. They see the situation, and 
 are perfectly willing to let their wages stand a while. 
 By another week I start Hazel and Hattie delivering vege- 
 tables. Then the money will pour in from the hotels and 
 my books won't look so lopsided. And oh, Billy you'd 
 never guess. Old Gow Yum has a bank account. He 
 came to me afterward I guess he was thinking it over 
 and offered to lend me four hundred dollars. What do 
 you think of that?" 
 
 "That I ain't goin' to be too proud to borrow it off 'm, 
 if he is a Chink. He's a white one, an' maybe I'll need 
 it. Because, you see well, you can't guess what I've ben 
 up to since I seen you this mornin'. I've ben so busy I 
 ain't had a bite to eat." 
 
 "Using your head?" She laughed. 
 
 "You can call it that, ' ' he joined in her laughter. " I Ve 
 ben spendin' money like water." 
 
 "But you haven't got any to spend," she objected. 
 
 "I've got credit in this valley, I'll let you know," he 
 replied. "An' I sure strained it some this afternoon. 
 Now guess." 
 
 "A saddle-horse?" 
 
 He roared with laughter, startling the colt, which tried 
 to bolt and lifted him half off the ground by his grip on 
 its frightened nose and neck. 
 
 "Oh, I mean real guessin'," he urged, when the animal
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 507 
 
 had dropped back to earth and stood regarding him with 
 trembling suspicion. 
 ' ' Two saddle-horses ? ' ' 
 
 "Aw, you ain't got imagination. I'll tell you. You 
 know Thiercroft. I bought his big wagon from 'm for 
 sixty dollars. I bought a wagon from the Kenw r ood black- 
 smith so-so, but it'll do for forty-five dollars. An' I 
 bought Ping's wagon a peach for sixty-five dollars. I 
 could a-got it for fifty if he hadn't seen I wanted it bad." 
 
 "But the money?" Saxon questioned faintly. "You 
 hadn't a hundred dollars left." 
 
 "Didn't I tell you I had credit? Well, I have. I stood 
 'm off for them wagons. I ain't spent a cent of cash 
 money to-day except for a couple of long-distance switches. 
 Then I bought three sets of work-harness they're chain 
 harness an' second-hand for twenty dollars a set. 1 
 bought 'm from the fellow that's doin' the haulin' for 
 the quarry. He don't need 'm any more. An' I rented 
 four wagons from 'm, an' four span of horses, too, at half 
 a dollar a day for each horse, an' half a dollar a day 
 for each wagon that's six dollars a day rent I gotta pay 
 'm. The three sets of spare harness is for my six horses. 
 Then . . . lemme see ... yep, I rented two 
 barns in Glen Ellen, an' I ordered fifty tons of hay an* 
 a carload of bran an' barley from the store in Kenwood 
 you see, I gotta feed all them fourteen horses, an' shoe 
 'm, an' everything. 
 
 "Oh, sure Pete, I've went some. I hired seven men 
 to go drivin' for me at two dollars a day, an 5 ouch! 
 Jehosaphat ! What you doin ' ! " 
 
 "No," Saxon said gravely, having pinched him, "you're 
 not dreaming." She felt his pulse and forehead. "Not 
 a sign of fever." She sniffed his breath. "And you've 
 not been drinking. Go on, tell me the rest of this 
 . . . whatever it is." 
 
 "Ain't you satisfied?" 
 
 "No. I want more. I want all." 
 
 " 411 right. But I just want you to know, first, that
 
 508 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 thei)oss I used to work for in Oakland ain't got nothin' 
 on me. I'm some man of affairs, if anybody should ride 
 up on a vegetable wagon an' ask you. Now, I'm goin' to 
 tell you, though I can't see why the Glen Ellen folks didn't 
 beat me to it. I guess they was asleep. Nobody 'd a-over- 
 looked a thing like it in the city. You see, it was like 
 this: you know that fancy brickyard they're gettin' ready 
 to start for makin' extra special fire brick for inside walls? 
 Well, here was I worryin' about the six horses comin' back 
 on my hands, earnin' me nothin' an' eatin' me into the 
 poorhouse. I had to get 'm work somehow, an' I remem- 
 bered the brickyard. I drove the colt down an ' talked with 
 that Jap chemist who 's ben doin ' the experimentin '. Gee ! 
 They was foremen lookin' over the ground an' every- 
 thing gettin' ready to hum. I looked over the lay an' 
 studied it. Then I drove up to where they're openin' 
 the clay pit you know, that fine, white chalky stuff we 
 saw 'em borin' out just outside the hundred an' forty 
 acres with the three knolls. It's a down-hill haul, a mile, 
 an' two horses can do it easy. In fact, their hardest 
 job '11 be haulin' the empty wagons up to the pit. Then 
 I tied the colt an' went to figurin'. 
 
 ' ' The Jap professor 'd told me the manager an ' the other 
 big guns of the company was comin' up on the mornin' 
 train. I wasn't shoutin' things out to anybody, but I just 
 made myself into a committee of welcome ; an ', when the 
 train pulled in, there I was, extendin' the glad hand of 
 the burg likewise the glad hand of a guy you used to 
 know in Oakland once, a third-rate dub prizefighter by 
 the name of lemme see yep, I got it right Big Bill 
 Roberts was the name he used to sport, but now he's 
 known as Williams Roberts, E. S. Q. 
 
 "Well, as I was sayin', I gave 'm the glad hand, an' 
 trailed along with 'em to the brickyard, an' from the talk I 
 could see things was doin'. Then I watched my chance 
 an' sprung my proposition. I was scared stiff all the 
 time for maybe the teamin' was already arranged. But 
 I knew it wasn't when they asked for my figures. I had
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 509 
 
 'm by heart, an' I rattled 'm off, and the top-guy took 
 'm down in his note-book. 
 
 ' 'We're goin' into this big, an' at once,' he says, look- 
 in' at me sharp. 'What kind of an outfit you got, Mr. 
 Roberts?' 
 
 "Me! with only Hazel an' Hattie, an' them too small 
 ; for heavy teamin'. 
 
 ' 'I can slap fourteen horses an' seven wagons onto 
 the job at the jump,' says I. 'An' if you want more, I'll 
 get 'm, that's all.' 
 
 " 'Give us fifteen minutes to consider, Mr. Roberts/ 
 he says. 
 
 ' ' Sure, ' says I, important as all hell ahem me ! ' but 
 a couple of other things first. I want a two year contract, 
 an' them figures all depends on one thing. Otherwise they 
 don't go.' 
 
 " 'What's that?' he says. 
 
 : 'The dump,' says I. 'Here we are on the ground, an' 
 I might as well show you.' 
 
 "An' I did. I showed 'm where I'd lose out if they 
 stuck to their plan, on account of the dip down an' pull 
 up to the dump. 'All you gotta do,' I says, 'is to build 
 the bunkers fifty feet over, throw the road around the 
 rim of the hill, an' make about seventy or eighty feet 
 of elevated bridge.' 
 
 "Say, Saxon, that kind of talk got 'em. It was straight. 
 Only they'd ben thinkin' about bricks, while I was only 
 thinkin' of teamin'. 
 
 "I guess they was all of half an hour considering an* 
 I was almost as miserable waitin' as when I waited for you 
 to say yes after I asked you. I went over the figures, 
 calculatin ' what I could throw off if I had to. You see, I 'd 
 given it to 'em stiff regular city prices; an' I was pre- 
 pared to trim down. Then they come back. 
 
 " 'Prices oughta be lower in the country,' says the 
 top-guy. 
 
 " 'Nope,' I says. 'This is a wine-grape valley. It don't 
 raise enough hay an' feed for its own animals. It has to
 
 510 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 be shipped in from the San Joaquin Valley. Why, I can 
 buy hay an' feed cheaper in San Francisco, laid down, 
 than I can here an' haul it myself.' 
 
 "An' that struck 'm hard. It was true, an' they knew 
 it. But say! If they'd asked about wages for drivers, 
 an' about horse-shoein' prices, I'd a-had to come down: 
 because, you see, they ain't no teamsters' union in the 
 country, an' no horseshoers' union, an' rent is low, an' 
 them two items come a whole lot cheaper. Huh ! This 
 afternoon I got a word bargain with the blacksmith across 
 from the post office; an' he takes my whole bunch an' 
 throws off twenty-five cents on each shoein', though it's 
 on the Q. T. But they didn't think to ask, bein' too full 
 of bricks." 
 
 Billy felt in his breast pocket, drew out a legal-looking 
 document, and handed it to Saxon. 
 
 "There it is," he said," "the contract, full of all the 
 agreements, prices, an' penalties. I saw Mr. Hale down 
 town an' showed it to 'm. He says it's O.K. An' say, 
 then I lit out. All over town, Kenwood, Lawndale, every- 
 where, everybody, everything. The quarry teamin' fin- 
 ishes Friday of this week. An' I take the whole outfit 
 an' start "Wednesday of next week haulin' lumber for 
 the buildin's, an' bricks for the kilns, an' all the rest. 
 An' when they're ready for the clay I'm the boy that'll 
 give it to them. 
 
 "But I ain't told you the best yet. I couldn't get the 
 switch right away from Kenwood to Lawndale, and while 
 1 waited I went over my figures again. You couldn't 
 guess it in a million years. I 'd made a mistake in addition 
 somewhere, an' soaked 'm ten per cent, more'n I'd ex- 
 pected. Talk about findin' money! Any time you want 
 them couple of extra men to help out with the vegetables, 
 say the word. Though we're goin' to have to pinch the 
 next couple of months. An' go ahead an' borrow that 
 four hundred from Gow Yum. An' tell him you'll pay 
 eight per cent, interest, an' that we won't want it rnore'u 
 three or four months."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 511 
 
 When Billy got away from Saxon 's arms, he started lead- 
 ing the colt up and down to cool it off. He stopped so 
 abruptly that his back collided with the colt's nose, and 
 there was a lively minute of rearing and plunging. Saxon 
 waited, for she knew a fresh idea had struck Billy. 
 
 ' ' Say, ' ' he said, ' ' do you knciv scything about bank 
 accounts an' drawin' checks?"
 
 (CHAPTER XXI 
 
 IT was on a bright June morning that Billy told Saxon 
 to put on her riding clothes to try out a saddle-horse. 
 
 "Not until after ten o'clock," she said. ''By that 
 time I'll have the wagon off on the second trip." 
 
 Despite the extent of the business she had developed, her 
 executive ability and system gave her much spare time. 
 She could call on the Hales, which was ever a delight, 
 especially now that the Hastings were back and that Clara 
 was often at her aunt's. In this congenial atmosphere 
 Saxon burgeoned. She had begun to read to read with 
 understanding; and she had time for her books, for work 
 on her pretties, and for Billy, whom she accompanied on 
 many expeditions. 
 
 Billy was even busier than she, his work being more 
 scattered and diverse. And, as well, he kept his eye on 
 the home barn and horses which Saxon used. In truth 
 he had become a man of affairs, though Mrs. Mortimer had 
 gone over his accounts, with an eagle eye on the expense 
 column, discovering several minor leaks, and finally, aided 
 by Saxon, bullied him into keeping books. Each night, af- 
 ter supper, he and Saxon posted their books. Afterward, 
 in the big morris chair he had insisted on buying early 
 in the days of his brickyard contract, Saxon would creep 
 into his arms and strum on the ukulele; or they would 
 talk long about what they were doing and planning to do. 
 Now it would be: 
 
 "I'm mixin' up in politics, Saxon. It pays. You bet 
 it pays. If by next spring I ain't got half a dozen teams 
 workin' on the roads an' pullin' down the county money, 
 it's me back to Oakland an askin' the Boss for a job." 
 
 Or, Saxon: "They're really starting that new hotel 
 .512
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 513 
 
 between Caliente and Eldridge. And there's some talk of a 
 big sanitarium back in the hills." 
 
 Or, it would be: "Billy, now that you've piped that 
 acre, you've just got to let me have it for my vegetables. 
 I'll rent it from you. I'll take your own estimate for 
 all the alfalfa you can raise on it, and pay you full market ( 
 price less the cost of growing it." 
 
 "It's all right, take it." Billy suppressed a sigh. 
 "Besides, I'm too busy to fool with it now." 
 
 Which prevarication was bare-faced, by virtue of his 
 having just installed the ram and piped the land. 
 
 "It will be the wisest, Billy," she soothed, for she knew 
 his dream of land-spaciousness was stronger than ever. 
 "You don't want to fool with an acre. There's that hun- 
 dred and forty. "We'll buy it yet if old Chavon ever 
 dies. Besides, it really belongs to Madrono Eanch. The 
 two together were the original quarter section." 
 
 "I don't wish no man's death," Billy grumbled. "But 
 he ain't gettin' no good out of it, over-pasturin' it with 
 a lot of scrub animals. I've sized it up every inch of it. 
 They's at least forty acres in the three cleared fields, 
 with water in the hills behind to beat the band. The 
 horse feed I could raise on it'd take your breath away. 
 Then they's at least fifty acres I could run my brood 
 mares on, pasture mixed up with trees and steep places and 
 such. The other fifty's just thick woods, an' pretty places, 
 an' wild game. An ' that old adobe barn 's all right. With 
 a new roof it'd shelter any amount of animals in bad 
 weather. Look at me now, rentin' that measly pasture 
 back of Ping's just to run my restin' animals. They could 
 run in the hundred an' forty if I only had it. I wonder 
 if Chavon would lease it." 
 
 Or, less ambitious, Billy would say: "I gotta skin 
 over to Petaluma to-morrow, Saxon. They's an auction 
 on the Atkinson Ranch an' maybe I can pick up some 
 bargains. ' ' 
 
 "More horses!" 
 
 "Ain't I got two teams haulin' lumber for the new win-
 
 514 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 ery ? An ' Barney 's got a bad shoulder-sprain. He '11 have 
 to lay off a long time if he's to get it in shape. An' Bridget 
 ain't ever goin' to do a tap of work again. I can see that 
 stickin' out. I've doctored her an' doctored her. She's 
 fooled the vet, too. An' some of the other horses has 
 gotta take a rest. That span of grays is showin' the hard 
 work. An' the big roan's goin' loco. Everybody thought 
 it was his teeth, but it ain't. It's straight loco. It's 
 money in pocket to take care of your animals, an' horses 
 is the delicatest things on four legs. Some time, if I can 
 ever see my way to it, I'm goin' to ship a carload of mules 
 from Colusa County big, heavy ones, you know. They'd 
 sell like hot cakes in the valley here them I didn't want 
 for myself." 
 
 Or, in lighter vein, Billy : ' ' By the way, Saxon, talkin ' 
 of accounts, what d 'you think Hazel an' Hattie is worth? 
 fair market price?" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I'm askin' you." 
 
 "Well, say, what you paid for them three hundred 
 dollars." 
 
 "Hum." Billy considered deeply. "They're worth a 
 whole lot more, but let it go at that. An' now, gettin* 
 back to accounts, suppose you write me a check for three 
 hundred dollars." 
 
 "Oh! Robber!" 
 
 "You can't show me. Why, Saxon, when I let you 
 have grain' an' hay from my carloads, don't you give me 
 a check for it? An' you know how you're stuck on keepin 1 
 your accounts down to the penny," he teased. "If you're 
 any kind of a business woman you just gotta charge your 
 business with them two horses. I ain't had the use of 
 'em since I don't know when." 
 
 "But the colts will be yours," she argued. "Besides, 
 I can't afford brood mares in my business. In almost 
 no time, now, Hazel and Hattie will have to be taken 
 off from the wagon they're too good for it anyway. 
 And you keep your eyes open for a pair to take their
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 515 
 
 place. Ill give you a check for that pair, but no com- 
 mission. ' ' 
 
 "All right," Billy conceded. "Hazel an' Hattie come 
 back to me; but you can pay me rent for the time you 
 did use 'em." 
 
 "If you make me, I'll charge you board," she threat- 
 ened. 
 
 "An' if you charge me board, I'll charge you interest 
 for the money I've stuck into this shebang." 
 
 "You can't," Saxon laughed. "It's community prop- 
 erty." 
 
 He grunted spasmodically, as if the breath had been 
 knocked out of him. 
 
 "Straight on the solar plexus," he said, "an' me down 
 for the count. But say, them's sweet words, ain't they? 
 community property." He rolled them over and off his 
 tongue with keen relish. "An' when we got married the 
 top of our ambition was a steady job an' some rags an' 
 sticks of furniture all paid up an' half- worn out. We 
 wouldn't have had any community property only for 
 you. ' ' 
 
 "What nonsense! What could I have done by myself? 
 You know very well that you earned all the money that 
 started us here. You paid the wages of Gow Yum and 
 Chan Chi, and old Hughie, and Mrs. Paul, and why, 
 you've done it all." 
 
 She drew her two hands caressingly across his shoul- 
 ders and down along his great biceps muscles. 
 
 "That's what did it, Billy." 
 
 ' ' Aw hell ! It 's your head that done it. What was my 
 
 muscles good for with no head to run 'em? sluggin' 
 
 scabs, beatin' up lodgers, an' crookin' the elbow over a 
 bar. The only sensible thing my head ever done was when 
 it run me into you. Honest to God, Saxon, you've ben 
 the makin' of me." 
 
 "Aw hell, Billy," she mimicked in the way that de- 
 lighted him, "where would I have been if you hadn't 
 taken me out of the laundry? I couldn't take myself
 
 516 THE VALLEY OF THE MO ON 
 
 out. I was just a helpless girl. I'd have been there yet 
 if it hadn't been for you. Mrs. Mortimer had five thou- 
 sand dollars; but I had you." 
 
 "A woman ain't got the chance to help herself that 
 a man has, ' ' he generalized. " I '11 tell you what : It took 
 the two of us. It's ben team-work. We've run in span. 
 If we'd a-run single, you might still be in the laundry; 
 an', if I was lucky, I'd be still drivin' team by the day an* 
 sportin' around to cheap dances." 
 
 Saxon stood under the father of all madronos, watch- 
 ing Hazel and Hattie go out the gate, the full vegetable 
 wagon behind them, when she saw Billy ride in, leading 
 a sorrel mare from whose silken coat the sun flashed golden 
 lights. 
 
 "Four-year-old, high-life, a handful, but no vicious 
 tricks," Billy chanted, as he stopped beside Saxon. "Skin 
 like tissue paper, mouth like silk, but kill the toughest 
 broncho ever foaled look at them lungs an' nostrils. 
 They call her Ramona some Spanish name: sired by 
 Morellita outa genuine Morgan stock." 
 
 "And they will sell her?" Saxon gasped, standing with 
 hands clasped in inarticulate delight. 
 
 "That's what I brought her to show you for." 
 
 ' ' But how much must they want for her ? ' ' was Saxon 's 
 next question, so impossible did it seem that such an 
 amazement of horse-flesh could ever be hers. 
 
 "That ain't your business," Billy answered brusquely. 
 "The brickyard's payin' for her, not the vegetable ranch. 
 She's yourn at the word. "What d'ye say?" 
 
 "I'll tell you in a minute." 
 
 Saxon was trying to mount, but the animal danced 
 nervously away. 
 
 ' ' Hold on till I tie, ' ' Billy said. ' ' She ain 't skirt-broke, 
 that's the trouble." 
 
 Saxon tightly gripped reins and mane, stepped with 
 spurred foot on Billy's hand, and was lifted lightly into 
 the saddle.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 517 
 
 "She's used to spurs," Billy called after. "Spanish 
 broke, so don't check her quick. Come in gentle. An' 
 talk to her. She's high-life, you know." 
 
 Saxon nodded, dashed out the gate and down the road, 
 waved a hand to Clara Hastings as she passed the gate 
 of Trillium Covert, and continued up Wild Water canyon. 
 
 When she came back, Ramona in a pleasant lather, 
 Saxon rode to the rear of the house, past the chicken 
 houses and the flourishing berry-rows, to join Billy on 
 the rim of the bench, where he sat on his horse in the 
 shade, smoking a cigarette. Together they looked down 
 through an opening among the trees to the meadow which 
 was a meadow no longer. With mathematical accuracy 
 it was divided into squares, oblongs, and narrow strips, 
 which displayed sharply the thousand hues of green of a 
 truck garden. Grow Yum and Chan Chi, under enormous 
 Chinese grass hats, were planting green onions. Old 
 Hughie, hoe in hand, plodded along the main artery of 
 running water, opening certain laterals, closing others. 
 From the work-shed beyond the barn the strokes of a 
 hammer told Saxon that Carlsen was wire-binding vege- 
 table boxes. Mrs. Paul 's cheery soprano, lifted in a hymn, 
 floated through the trees, accompanied by the whirr of an 
 egg-beater. A sharp barking told where Possum still 
 waged hysterical and baffled war on the Douglass squir- 
 rels. Billy took a long draw from his cigarette, exhaled 
 the smoke, and continued to look down at the meadow. 
 Saxon divined trouble in his manner. His rein-hand was 
 ; on the pommel, and her free hand went out and softly 
 rested on his. Billy turned his slow gaze upon her mare's 
 lather, seeming not to note it, and continued on to Saxon's 
 face. 
 
 "Huh!" he equivocated, as if waking up. "Them San 
 Leandro Porchugeeze ain't got nothin' on us when it 
 comes to intensive farmin'. Look at that water runnin'. 
 You know, it seems so good to me that sometimes I just 
 wanta get down on hands an' knees an' lap it all up 
 myself. ' '
 
 518 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "Oh, to have all the water you want in a climate like 
 this! " Saxon exclaimed. 
 
 "An' don't be scared of it ever goin' back on you. If 
 the rains fooled you, there's Sonoma Creek alongside. 
 All we gotta do is install a gasolene pump." 
 
 "But we'll never have to, Billy. I was talking with 
 
 Redwood' Thompson. He's lived in the valley since 
 
 Fifty-three, and he says there's never been a failure of 
 
 crops on account of drought. We always get our rain." 
 
 "Come on, let's go for a ride," he said abruptly. 
 "You've got the time." 
 
 "All right, if you'll tell me what's bothering you." 
 
 He looked at her quickly. 
 
 " Nothin'," he grunted. " Yes, there is, too. What's the 
 difference ? You'd know it sooner or later. You ought to 
 see old Chavon. His face is that long he can't walk with- 
 out bumpin' his knee on his chin. His gold-mine's peterin' 
 out." 
 
 " Gold mine ! " 
 
 " His clay pit. It's the same thing. He's gettin' twenty 
 cents a yard for it from the brickyard." 
 
 "And that means the end of your teaming contract." 
 Saxon saw the disaster in all its hugeness. " What about 
 the brickyard people ? " 
 
 "Worried to death, though they've kept secret about 
 it. They've had men out punchin' holes all over the 
 hills for a week, an' that Jap chemist settin' up nights 
 analyzin* the rubbish they've brought in. It's peculiar 
 stuff, that elay, for what they want it for, an' you don't 
 find it everywhere. Them experts that reported on Chav- 
 on 's pit made one hell of a mistake. Maybe they was 
 lazy with their borin's. Anyway, they slipped up on the 
 amount of clay they was in it. Now don't get to botherin'. 
 It'll come out somehow. You can't do nothin'." 
 
 ' ' But I can, ' ' Saxon insisted. ' ' We won 't buy Bamona. ' ' 
 
 "You ain't got a thing to do with that," he answered. 
 "I'm buyin' her, an' her price don't cut any figure along- 
 side the big game I'm play in'. Of course, I can always
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 51& 
 
 sell my horses. But that puts a stop to their makin* 
 money, an' that brickyard contract was fat." 
 
 "But if you get some of them in on the road work for 
 the county ? " she suggested. 
 
 " Oh, I got that in mind. An' I'm keepin' my eyes 
 open. They's a chance the quarry will start again, an' 
 the fellow that did that teamin' has gone to Puget Sound. 
 An' what if I have to sell out most of the horses ? Here's 
 you and the vegetable business. That's solid. We just 
 don't go ahead so fast for a time, that's all. I ain't scared 
 of the country any more. I sized things up as we went 
 along. They ain't a jerk burg we hit all the time on 
 the road that I couldn't jump into an' make a go. An* 
 now where d'you want to ride?"
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THEY cantered out the gate, thundered across the bridge, 
 and passed Trillium Covert before they pulled in on the 
 grade of "Wild "Water Canyon. Saxon had chosen her 
 field on the big spur of Sonoma Mountains as the objec- 
 tive of their ride. 
 
 "Say, I bumped into something big this mornin' when 
 I was goin' to fetch Ramona," Billy said, the clay pit 
 trouble banished for the time. "You know the hundred 
 an' forty. I passed young Chavon along the road, an' I 
 don't know why just for ducks, I guess I up an' asked 
 'm if he thought the old man would lease the hundred 
 an' forty to me. An' what d'you think! He said the 
 old man didn't own it. Was just leasin' it himself. That's 
 how we was always seein' his cattle on it. It's a gouge 
 into his land, for he owns everything on three sides of it. 
 
 "Next I met Ping. He said Hilyard owned it an' was 
 willin' to sell, only Chavon didn't have the price. Then, 
 comin' back, I looked in on Payne. He's quit black- 
 smithin' his back's hurtin' 'm from a kick an' just 
 startin' in for real estate. Sure, he said, Hilyard would 
 sell, an' had already listed the land with 'm. Chavon 's 
 over-pastured it, an' Hilyard won't give 'm another lease." 
 
 "When they had climbed out of "Wild Water Canyon., 
 they turned their horses about and halted on the rim,' 
 where they could look across at the three densely wooded 
 knolls in the midst of the desired hundred and forty. 
 
 "We'll get it yet," Saxon said. 
 
 "Sure we will," Billy agreed with careless certitude. 
 "I've ben lookin' over the big adobe barn again. Just 
 the thing for a raft of horses, an' a new roof '11 be cheaper 'n 
 I thought. Though neither Chavon or me '11 be in the mar- 
 ket to buy it right away, with the clay pinchin' out."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 521 
 
 When they reached Saxon's field, which they had learned 
 was the property of Redwood Thompson, they tied the 
 horses and entered it on foot. The hay, just cut, was 
 being raked by Thompson, w r ho hallo 'd a greeting to them. 
 It was a cloudless, windless day, and they sought refuge 
 from the sun in the woods beyond. They encountered a 
 dim trail. 
 
 "It's a cow trail," Billy declared. "I bet they's a 
 teeny pasture tucked away somewhere in them trees. Let 's 
 follow it." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, several hundred feet up 
 the side of the spur, they emerged on an open, grassy 
 space of bare hillside. Most of the hundred and forty, 
 two miles away, lay beneath them, while they were level 
 with the tops of the three knolls. Billy paused to gaze 
 upon the much-desired land, and Saxon joined him. 
 
 "What is that?" she asked, pointing toward the knolls. 
 "Up the little canyon, to the left of it, there on the far- 
 thest knoll, right under that spruce that's leaning over." 
 
 What Billy saw was a white scar on the canyon wall. 
 
 " It 's one on me, ' ' he said, studying the scar. ' ' I thought 
 I knew every inch of that land, but I never seen that 
 before. Why, I was right in there at the head of the 
 canyon the first part of the winter. It 's awful wild. Walls 
 of the canyon like the sides of a steeple an' covered with 
 thick woods." 
 
 "What is it?" she asked. "A slide?" 
 
 "Must be brought down by the heavy rains. If I 
 
 'don't miss my guess " Billy broke off, forgetting in 
 
 the intensity with which he continued to look. 
 
 "Hilyard'll sell for thirty an acre," he began again, 
 disconnectedly. "Good land, bad land, an' all, just as it 
 runs, thirty an acre. That's forty-two hundred. Payne's 
 new at real estate, an' I'll make'm split his commission 
 an' get the easiest terms ever. We can re-borrow that four 
 hundred from Gow Yum, an' I can borrow money on my 
 horses an' wagons " 
 
 "Are you going to buy it to-day?" Saxon teased.
 
 522 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 She scarcely touched the edge of his thought. He looked 
 at her, as if he had heard, then forgot her the next moment. 
 
 "Head work," he mumbled. "Head work. If I don't 
 put over a hot one " 
 
 He started back down the cow trail, recollected Saxon, 
 and called over his shoulder: 
 
 "Come on. Let's hustle. I wanta ride over an' look at 
 that." 
 
 So rapidly did he go down the trail and across the field, 
 that Saxon had no time for questions. She was almost 
 breathless from her effort to keep up with him. 
 
 "What is it?" she begged, as he lifted her to the saddle. 
 
 "Maybe it's all a joke I'll tell you about it afterward," 
 he put her off. 
 
 They galloped on the levels, trotted down the gentler 
 slopes of road, and not until on the steep descent of Wild 
 Water canyon did they rein to a walk. Billy's preoccu- 
 pation was gone, and Saxon took advantage to broach a 
 subject which had been on her mind for some time. 
 
 "Clara Hastings told me the other day that they're go- 
 ing to have a house party. The Hazards are to be there. 
 and the Halls, and Roy Blanchard. . . ." 
 
 c5he looked at Billy anxiously. At the mention of 
 Elanchard his head had tossed up as to a bugle call. Slow- 
 ly a whimsical twinkle began to glint up through the 
 cloudy blue of his eyes. 
 
 " It's a long time since you told any man he was stand- 
 ing on his foot," she ventured slyly. 
 
 Billy began to grin sheepishly. 
 
 ''Aw, that's all right," he said in mock-lordly ft^shion. 
 "Roy Blanchard can come. I'll let 'm. All that was 
 a long time ago. Besides, I'm too busy to fool with such 
 things." 
 
 He urged his horse on at a faster walk, and as soon as 
 the slope lessened broke into a trot. At Trillium Covert 
 they were galloping. 
 
 "You'll have to stop for dinner first'," Saxon said, as 
 Hhey neared the gate of Madrono Ranch.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 523 
 
 "You stop," he answered. "I don't want no din- 
 ner." 
 
 "But I want to go with you," she pleaded. "What 
 is it?" 
 
 "I don't dast tell you. You go on in an' get your 
 , dinner. ' ' 
 
 "Not after that," she said. "Nothing can keep me 
 from coming along now." 
 
 Half a mile farther on, they left the highway, passed 
 through a patent gate which Billy had installed, and 
 crossed the fields on a road which was coated thick with 
 chalky dust. This was the road that led to Chavon's clay 
 pit. The hundred and forty lay to the west. Two wagons, 
 in a cloud of dust, came into sight. 
 
 "Your teams, Billy," cried Saxon. "Think of it! Just 
 by the use of the head, earning your money while you're 
 riding around with me." 
 
 "Makes me ashamed to think how much cash money 
 each one of them teams is bringin' me in every day," ha 
 acknowledged. 
 
 They were turning off from the road toward the bars 
 which gave entrance to the one hundred and forty, when 
 the driver of the foremost wagon hallo 'd and waved his 
 hand. They drew in their horses and waited. 
 
 "The big roan's broke loose," the driver said, as he 
 stopped beside them. "Clean crazy loco bitin', squeal- 
 in', strikin', kickin'. Kicked clean out of the harness like 
 it was paper. Bit a chunk out of Baldy the size of a 
 saucer, an' wound up by breakin' his own hind leg. Live- 
 liest fifteen minutes I ever seen." 
 
 "Sure it's broke?" Billy demanded sharply. 
 
 "Sure thing." 
 
 "Well, after you unload, drive around by the other 
 barn and get Ben. He's in the corral. Tell Matthews to 
 be easy with 'm. An ' get a gun. Sammy 's got one. You '11 
 
 have to see to the big roan. I ain 't got time now. Why 
 
 couldn't Matthews a-come along with you for Ben? You'd 
 save time."
 
 524 THE VALLEY OP THE MOON 
 
 "Oh, he's just stickin' around waitin'," the driver an- 
 swered. "He reckoned I could get Ben." 
 
 "An' lose time, eh? Well, get a move on." 
 
 "That's the way of it," Billy growled to Saxon as they 
 rode on. ' ' No sawe. No head. One man settln ' down an ' 
 holdin' his hands while another team drives outa its 
 way doin' what he oughta done. That's the trouble with 
 two-dollar-a-day men." 
 
 "With two-dollar-a-day heads," Saxon said quickly. 
 "What kind of heads do you expect for two dollars?" 
 
 "That's right, too," Billy acknowledged the hit. "If 
 they had better heads they'd be in the cities like all the 
 rest of the better men. An' the better men are a lot of 
 dummies, too. They don't knew the big chances in the 
 country, or you couldn't hold 'm from it." 
 
 Billy dismounted, took the three bars down, led his 
 horse through, then put up the bars. 
 
 "When I get this place, there'll be a gate here," he 
 announced. "Pay for itself in no time. It's the thousan' 
 an' one little things like this that count up big when you 
 put 'm together." He sighed contentedly. "I never used 
 to think about such things, but when we shook Oakland I 
 began to wise up. It was them San Leandro Porchu- 
 geeze that gave me my first eye-opener. I'd ben asleep 
 before that." 
 
 They skirted the lower of the three fields, where the 
 ripe hay stood uncut. Billy pointed with eloquent dis- 
 gust to a break in the fence, slovenly repaired, and on to 
 the standing grain much-trampled by cattle. 
 
 "Them's the things," he criticized. "Old style. An* 
 look how thin that crop is, an ' the shallow plowin '. Scrub 
 cattle, scrub seed, scrub farmin'. Chavon's worked it for 
 eight years now, an' never rested it once, never put any- 
 thing in for what he took out, except the cattle into the 
 stubble the minute the hay was off." 
 
 In a pasture glade, farther on, they came upon a bunch 
 of cattle. 
 
 "Look at that bull, Saxon. Scrub's no name for it.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 525 
 
 Thsy oughta be a state law against lettin' such animals 
 exist. No wonder Chavon's that land poor he's had to 
 sink all his clay-pit earnin's into taxes an' interest. He 
 can't make his land pay. Take this hundred an' forty. 
 Anybody with the savve can just rake silver dollars off en 
 it. I'll show 'm." 
 
 They passed the big adobe barn in the distance. 
 
 "A few dollars at the right time would a-saved hun- 
 dreds on that roof," Billy commented. "Well, anyway,' 
 I won't be payin' for any improvements when I buy. An' 
 I'll tell you another thing. This ranch is full of water, 
 and if Glen Ellen ever grows they'll have to come to see 
 me for their water supply." 
 
 Billy knew the ranch thoroughly, and took short-cuts 
 through the woods by way of cattle paths. Once, he reined 
 in abruptly, and both stopped. Confronting them, a dozen 
 paces away, was a half-grown red fox. For half a minute, 
 with beady eyes, the wild thing studied them, with twitch- 
 ing sensitive nose reading the messages of the air. Then, 
 velvet-footed, it leapt aside and was gone among the trees. 
 
 "The son-of-a-gun ! " Billy ejaculated. 
 
 As they approached Wild Water, they rode out into 
 a long narrow meadow. In the middle was a pond. 
 
 "Natural reservoir, when Glen Ellen begins to buy 
 water," Billy said. "See, down at the lower end there? 
 
 wouldn't cost anything hardly to throw a dam across. 
 
 An' I can pipe in all kinds of hill-drip. An' water's 
 goin' to be money in this valley not a thousan' years from, 
 now. An' all the ginks, an' boobs, an' dubs, an' gaza- 
 bos poundin' their ear deado an' not seein' it eomin' 1 
 
 An' surveyors workin' up the valley for an electric 
 
 road from Sausalito with a branch up Napa Valley." 
 
 They came to the rim of Wild Water canyon. Leaning 
 far back in their saddles, they slid the horses down a 
 steep declivity, through big spruce woods, to an ancient 
 and all but obliterated trail. 
 
 "They cut this trail 'way back in the Fifties," Billy 
 explained. "I only found it by accident. Then I asked
 
 526 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 Poppe yesterday. He was born in the valley. He said 
 it was a fake minin' rush across from Petaluma. The 
 gamblers got it up, an 7 they must a-drawn a thousan' 
 suckers. You see that flat there, an' the old stumps. 
 That's where the camp was. They set the tables up under 
 the trees. The flat used to be bigger, but the creek's eaten 
 into it. Poppe said they was a couple of killin's an' one 
 jlynchin'." 
 
 Lying low against their horses' necks, they scrambled 
 up a steep cattle trail out of the canyon, and began to 
 work across rough country toward the knolls. 
 
 "Say, Saxon, you're always lookin' for something pretty. 
 I'll show you what '11 make your hair stand up . . . 
 soon as we get through this manzanita." 
 
 Never, in all their travels, had Saxon seen so lovely 
 a vista as the one that greeted them when they emerged. 
 The dim trail lay like a rambling red shadow cast on the 
 soft forest floor by the great redwoods and over-arching 
 oaks. It seemed as if all local varieties of trees and vines 
 bad conspired to weave the leafy roof maples, big ma- 
 dronos and laurels, and lofty tan-bark oaks, scaled and 
 wrapped and interwound with wild grape and flaming 
 poison oak. Saxon drew Billy's eyes to a mossy bank of 
 five-finger ferns. All slopes seemed to meet to form this 
 basin and colossal forest bower. Underfoot the floor was 
 spongy with water. An invisible streamlet whispered un- 
 der broad-fronded brakes. On every hand opened tiny 
 vistas of enchantment, where young redwoods grouped 
 still and stately about fallen giants, shoulder-high to the 
 horses, moss-covered and dissolving inta mold. 
 
 At last, after another quarter of an ho^r, they tied their 
 horses on the rim of the narrow canyon t that penetrated 
 the wilderness of the knolls. Through a rift in the trees 
 Billy pointed to the top of the leanin spruce. 
 
 "It's right under that," he said. *' AV11 have to fol- 
 low up the bed of the creek. They ai 't no trail, though 
 you'll see plenty of deer paths crossin' the creek. You'll 
 get your feet wet."
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 527 
 
 Saxon laughed her joy and held on close to his heels, 
 splashing through pools, crawling hand and foot up the 
 slippery faces of water-worn rocks, and worming under 
 trunks of old fallen trees. 
 
 "They ain't no real bed-rock in the whole mountain," 
 Billy elucidated, "so the stream cuts deeper 'n deeper, 
 an' that keeps the sides eavin' in. They're as steep as 
 they can be without fallin' down. A little farther up, the 
 'canyon ain't much rnore'n a crack in the ground but a 
 mighty deep one if anybody should ask you. You can 
 spit acrost it an' break your neck in it." 
 
 The climbing grew more difficult, and they were finally 
 halted, in a narrow cleft, by a drift-jam. 
 
 "You wait here," Billy directed, and, lying flat, 
 squirmed on through crashing brush. 
 
 Saxon waited till all sound had died away. She waited 
 ten minutes longer, then followed by the way Billy had 
 broken. Where the bed of the canyon became impossible, 
 she came upon what she was sure was a deer path that 
 skirted the steep side and was a tunnel through the close 
 greenery. She caught a glimpse of the overhanging spruce, 
 almost above her head on the opposite side, and emerged 
 on a pool of clear water in a clay-like basin. This basin 
 was of recent origin, having been formed by a slide of 
 earth and trees. Across the pool arose an almost sheer 
 wall of white. She recognized it for what it was, and 
 looked about for Billy. She heard him whistle, and looked 
 up. Two hundred feet above, at the perilous top of the 
 white wall, he was holding on to a tree trunk. The over- 
 hanging spruce was nearby. 
 
 "I can see t 3 little pasture back of your field," he 
 called down. ' No wonder nobody ever piped this off. 
 The only place tl'oy could see it from is that speck of pas- 
 ture. An' you s$w it first. "Wait till I come down and 
 tell you all abouAt. I didn't dast before." 
 
 It required no '.'shrewdness to guess the truth. Saxon 
 knew this was the precious clay required by the brick- 
 yard. Billy circled wide of the slide and came down the
 
 528 THE VALLEY OP THE MOON 
 
 eanyon-wall, from tree to tree, as descending a ladder. 
 
 " Ain't it a peach?" he exulted, as he dropped beside 
 her. "Just look at it hidden away under four feet of 
 soil where nobody could see it, an' just waitin' for us to 
 hit the Valley of the Moon. Then it up an' slides a piece 
 of the skin off so as we can see it." 
 
 "Is it the real clay?" Saxon asked anxiously. 
 
 "You bet your sweet life. I've handled too much o 
 it not to know it in the dark. Just rub a piece between 
 
 your fingers, Like that. Why, I could tell by the 
 
 taste of it. I've eaten enough of the dust of the teams. 
 Here's where our fun begins. Why, you know we've ben 
 workin' our heads off since we hit this valley. Now we're 
 on Easy street." 
 
 "But you don't own it," Saxon objected. 
 
 "Well, you won't be a hundred years old before I do. 
 Straight from here I hike to Payne an* bind the bargain 
 an option, you know, while title's searchin' an' I'm rais- 
 in' money. Well borrow that four hundred back again 
 from Gow Yum, an ' I '11 borrow all I can get on my horses 
 an' wagons, an' Hazel and Hattie, an' everything that's 
 worth a cent. An' then I get the deed with a mortgage on 
 it to Hilyard for the balance. An* then it's takin' candy 
 from a baby I'll contract with the brickyard for twenty 
 cents a yard maybe more. They'll be crazy with joy 
 when they see it. Don't need any borin's. They's nearly 
 two hundred feet of it exposed up an' down. The whole 
 knoll's clay, with a skin of soil over it." 
 
 "But you'll spoil all the beautiful canyon hauling out 
 the clay," Saxon cried with alarm. 
 
 "Nope; only the knoll. The road '11 come in from the 
 other side. It'll be only half a mile to Chacon's pit. I'll 
 build the road an' charge steeper teamin', or the brick- 
 yard can build it an' I'll team for the same rate as before. 
 An' twenty cents a yard pourin' in, all profit, from the 
 jump. I '11 sure have to buy more horses to do the work. ' ' 
 
 They sat hand in hand beside the pool and talked over 
 the details.
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 529 
 
 "Say, Saxon," Billy said, after a pause had fallen, ''sing 
 'Harvest Days,' won't you?" 
 
 And, when she had complied : ' ' The first time you sung 
 that song for me was eomin' home from the picnic on the 
 train " 
 
 "The Tery first day we met each other," she broke in. 
 'What did you think about me that day?" 
 
 "Why, what I've thought ever since that you was made 
 tlor me. I thought that right at the jump, in the first 
 .waltz. An* what'd you think of me?" 
 
 "Oh, I wondered, and before the first waltz, too, when 
 we were introduced and shook hands I wondered if you 
 were the man. Those were the very words that flashed 
 into my mind. Is he the man?" 
 
 "An' I kinda looked a little some good to you?" he 
 queried. 
 
 "/ thought so, and my eyesight has always been 
 good." 
 
 "Say!" Billy went off at a tangent. "By next winter, 
 with everything hummjn' an' shipshape, what's the mat- 
 ter with us makin' a visit to Carmel? It'll be slack time 
 for you with the vegetables, an' I'll be able to afford a 
 foreman. ' ' 
 
 Saxon's lack of enthusiasm surprised him. 
 
 "What's wrong?" he demanded quickly. 
 
 With downcast demurest eyes and hesitating speech. 
 Saxon said: 
 
 "I did something yesterday without asking your ad- 
 ,vice, Billy." 
 
 He waited. 
 
 "I wrote to Tom," she added, with an air of timid con* 
 fession. 
 
 Still he waited for he knew not what. 
 
 "I asked him to ship up the old chest of drawers my 
 mother's, you remember that we stored with him." 
 
 "Huh! I don't see anything outa the way about that/' 
 Billy said with relief. "We need the chest, don't we? 
 An' we can afford to pay the freight on it, can't we?"
 
 530 THE VALLEY OF THE MOON 
 
 "You are a dear stupid man, that's what you are* 
 Don't you know what is in the chest?" 
 
 He shook his head, and what she added was so soft that 
 it was almost a whisper: 
 
 "The baby clothes." 
 
 "No!" he exclaimed. 
 
 "True." 
 
 "Sure?" 
 
 She nodded her head, her cheeks flooding with qtiick 
 color. 
 
 "It's what I wanted, Saxon, more'n anything else in 
 the world. I've ben thinkin' a whole lot about it lately, 
 ever since we hit the valley," ae went on, brokenly, and 
 for the first time she saw tears unmistakable in his eyes. 
 "But after all I'd done, an' the hell I'd raised, an' every- 
 thing, J ... I never urged you, or said a word about 
 it. But I wanted it ... oh, I wanted it like . . . 
 like I want you now." 
 
 His open arms received her, and the pool in the heart of 
 the canyon knew a tender silence. 
 
 Saxon felt Billy's finger laid warningly on her lips. 
 Guided by his hand, she turned her head back, and to- 
 gether they gazed far up the side of the knoll where a doe 
 and a spotted fawn looked down upon them from a tiny 
 open space between the trees.
 
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