e balky at times,
Professor, a trifle balky; but a clout alongside the jaw makes her as
meek and gentle as a lamb.'

"And another time he said: 'We've got to start all over and replenish
the earth and multiply. You're handicapped, Professor. You ain't got no
wife, and we're up against a regular Garden-of-Eden proposition. But I
ain't proud. I'll tell you what, Professor.' He pointed at their little
infant, barely a year old. 'There's your wife, though you'll have to
wait till she grows up. It's rich, ain't it? We're all equals here, and
I'm the biggest toad in the splash. But I ain't stuck up--not I. I do
you the honor, Professor Smith, the very great honor of betrothing to
you my and Vesta Van Warden's daughter. Ain't it cussed bad that Van
Warden ain't here to see?'"

VI

"I LIVED three weeks of infinite torment there in the Chauffeur's camp.
And then, one day, tiring of me, or of what to him was my bad effect
on Vesta, he told me that the year before, wandering through the Contra
Costa Hills to the Straits of Carquinez, across the Straits he had seen
a smoke. This meant that there were still other human beings, and that
for three weeks he had kept this inestimably precious information from
me. I departed at once, with my dogs and horses, and journeyed across
the Contra Costa Hills to the Straits. I saw no smoke on the other side,
but at Port Costa discovered a small steel barge on which I was able to
embark my animals. Old canvas which I found served me for a sail, and
a southerly breeze fanned me across the Straits and up to the ruins
of Vallejo. Here, on the outskirts of the city, I found evidences of a
recently occupied camp.

[Illustration: Found evidences of a recently occupied camp 169]

"Many clam-shells showed me why these humans had come to the shores of
the Bay. This was the Santa Rosa Tribe, and I followed its track along
the old railroad right of way across the salt marshes to Sonoma Valley.
Here, at the old brickyard at Glen Ellen, I came upon the camp. There
were eighteen souls all told. Two were old men, one of whom was Jones, a
banker. The other was Harrison, a retired pawnbroker, who had taken for
wife the matron of the State Hospital for the Insane at Napa. Of all the
persons of the city of Napa, and of all the other towns and villages
in that rich and populous valley, she had been the only-survivor. Next,
there were the three young men--Cardiff and Hale, who had been farmers,
and Wainwr