eldest son married your aunt, Hare-Lip, who was the third daughter of
Vesta and the Chauffeur. Johnson was a strong man, with a will of his
own. And it was because of this that he seceded from the Santa Rosans
and formed the Utah Tribe at San Jose. It is a small tribe--there are
only nine in it; but, though he is dead, such was his influence and the
strength of his breed, that it will grow into a strong tribe and play a
leading part in the recivilization of the planet.

"There are only two other tribes that we know of--the Los Angelitos
and the Carmelitos. The latter started from one man and woman. He was
called Lopez, and he was descended from the ancient Mexicans and was
very black. He was a cowherd in the ranges beyond Carmel, and his wife
was a maidservant in the great Del Monte Hotel. It was seven years
before we first got in touch with the Los Ange-litos. They have a
good country down there, but it is too warm. I estimate the present
population of the world at between three hundred and fifty and four
hundred--provided, of course, that there are no scattered little tribes
elsewhere in the world. If there be such, we have not heard from them.
Since Johnson crossed the desert from Utah, no word nor sign has come
from the East or anywhere else. The great world which I knew in my
boyhood and early manhood is gone. It has ceased to be. I am the last
man who was alive in the days of the plague and who knows the wonders of
that far-off time. We, who mastered the planet--its earth, and sea, and
sky--and who were as very gods, now live in primitive savagery along the
water courses of this California country.

"But we are increasing rapidly--your sister, Hare-Lip, already has four
children. We are increasing rapidly and making ready for a new climb
toward civilization. In time, pressure of population will compel us
to spread out, and a hundred generations from now we may expect our
descendants to start across the Sierras, oozing slowly along, generation
by generation, over the great continent to the colonization of the
East--a new Aryan drift around the world.

"But it will be slow, very slow; we have so far to climb. We fell so
hopelessly far. If only one physicist or one chemist had survived!
But it was not to be, and we have forgotten everything. The Chauffeur
started working in iron. He made the forge which we use to this day.
But he was a lazy man, and when he died he took with him all he knew
of metals and machiner