d for a gun when
a large wildcat stared at them malignantly and declined to run until
routed by a clod of earth that burst about its ears like shrapnel.

Several miles along Saxon complained of thirst. Where the road dipped
nearly at sea level to cross a small gulch Billy looked for water. The
bed of the gulch was damp with hill-drip, and he left her to rest while
he sought a spring.

"Say," he hailed a few minutes afterward. "Come on down. You just gotta
see this. It'll 'most take your breath away."

Saxon followed the faint path that led steeply down through the thicket.
Midway along, where a barbed wire fence was strung high across the mouth
of the gulch and weighted down with big rocks, she caught her first
glimpse of the tiny beach. Only from the sea could one guess its
existence, so completely was it tucked away on three precipitous sides
by the land, and screened by the thicket. Furthermore, the beach was the
head of a narrow rock cove, a quarter of a mile long, up which pent way
the sea roared and was subdued at the last to a gentle pulse of surf.
Beyond the mouth many detached rocks, meeting the full force of the
breakers, spouted foam and spray high in the air. The knees of these
rocks, seen between the surges, were black with mussels. On their
tops sprawled huge sea-lions tawny-wet and roaring in the sun, while
overhead, uttering shrill cries, darted and wheeled a multitude of sea
birds.

The last of the descent, from the barbed wire fence, was a sliding fall
of a dozen feet, and Saxon arrived on the soft dry sand in a sitting
posture.

"Oh, I tell you it's just great," Billy bubbled. "Look at it for a
camping spot. In among the trees there is the prettiest spring you
ever saw. An' look at all the good firewood, an'..." He gazed about and
seaward with eyes that saw what no rush of words could compass. "...
An', an' everything. We could live here. Look at the mussels out
there. An' I bet you we could catch fish. What d'ye say we stop a few
days?--It's vacation anyway--an' I could go back to Carmel for hooks an'
lines."

Saxon, keenly appraising his glowing face, realized that he was indeed
being won from the city.

"An' there ain't no wind here," he was recommending. "Not a breath. An'
look how wild it is. Just as if we was a thousand miles from anywhere."

The wind, which had been fresh and raw across the bare hills, gained no
entrance to the cove; and the beach was warm and balmy, the air sweetly