et, 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 lashings, 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 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' up there on the next corner, an' I don't
want to knock THEIR blocks off."

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

The car ran as far as Hayward's, 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.

"I