ed against the ancient wall and loved her with his eyes, and,
when she had finished, he murmured, almost 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?--I
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 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, mussels, sea anemones, and,
once, in a rock-pool, a small devilfish 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 roak-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 arose 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 Carmel 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 wishe