ter spot could be found than the
little cabin and broad fields of Crescimir the Illyrian, no lovelier
view of the rich Napa Valley could be had than from the hill where
Crescimir's cattle grazed and no happier home could have been found in
all the Californias than his, had he not been so alone, without a friend
and far from his native country.

On the very day which opens this story, one might have stood upon the
bridge and watched the lazy flowing of the river on whose dull green
surface all the spans and bars were shadowed, and on the buttress seen
the sunshine in ever changing, trembling glints of gold. Dead thistles
were on the bank rustling in the breeze and the long tules by the
water-side, some broken, others upright, waved gracefully, moved by both
wind and current. To the left hand on both sides of the arroyo which
here joined the river, one could have seen Crescimir's fields and the
vegetable garden with its whitey-green cabbages, the rich brown heaps of
manure and straw, and the beds of beets all crimson and green, then the
borders of oaks and the far, blue hills, while myriads of little
gray-winged moths hovered over the masses of tangled blackberry vines
and giant dock. To the southward rose, far away, the peak of glorious
Tamalpais, a dark blue dash without a shadow. There were the black,
ploughed fields, steaming in the sunshine, larks springing up from the
glittering leaves, and noisy squirrels in the bay tree laying away their
stores of nuts and maize in its hundred hollows. Leaning upon the rail
and watching the river, rippled in the centre but calm and glassy near
the banks, one could have seen the silver fish springing from the water
for the insects playing about the surface, and could have breathed the
rich perfume of growing onions and the sweet, fresh, green life.

On the hillside Crescimir had planted grape vines, but they were young
yet and bore no fruit, still, had they borne the heaviest of clusters
there was no one to eat them then for there were but few settlers in the
valley and Crescimir had no neighbours, but the Rancho Tulucay, nearer
than the little village three miles distant.

Thus Crescimir the Illyrian lived alone improving his lands and selling
vegetables to the Yankee traders who came up the river in their little
schooners; he was always busy ploughing and dressing the gardens or
clearing away the chaparral.

Two years had been spent here since he had left his fatherland, amid