rompted, but if they found a man at work they went their way. This
obtained to all except Mark Hall, who did not have to work for a living;
and he climbed trees to get away from popularity and compose in peace.

The crowd was unique in its democracy and solidarity. It had little
intercourse with the sober and conventional part of Carmel. This section
constituted the aristocracy of art and letters, and was sneered at as
bourgeois. In return, it looked askance at the crowd with its rampant
bohemianism. The taboo extended to Billy and Saxon. Billy took up the
attitude of the clan and sought no work from the other camp. Nor was
work offered him.

Hall kept open house. The big living room, with its huge fireplace,
divans, shelves and tables of books and magazines, was the center of
things. Here, Billy and Saxon were expected to be, and in truth
found themselves to be, as much at home as anybody. Here, when wordy
discussions on all subjects under the sun were not being waged, Billy
played at cut-throat Pedro, horrible fives, bridge, and pinochle. Saxon,
a favorite of the young women, sewed with them, teaching them pretties
and being taught in fair measure in return.

It was Billy, before they had been in Carmel a week, who said shyly to
Saxon:

"Say, you can't guess how I'm missin' all your nice things. What's
the matter with writin' Tom to express 'm down? When we start trampin'
again, we'll express 'm back."

Saxon wrote the letter, and all that day her heart was singing. Her man
was still her lover. And there were in his eyes all the old lights which
had been blotted out during the nightmare period of the strike.

"Some pretty nifty skirts around here, but you've got 'em all beat, or
I'm no judge," he told her. And again: "Oh, I love you to death anyway.
But if them things ain't shipped down there'll be a funeral."

Hall and his wife owned a pair of saddle horses which were kept at the
livery stable, and here Billy naturally gravitated. The stable operated
the stage and carried the mails between Carmel and Monterey. Also, it
rented out carriages and mountain wagons that seated nine persons.
With carriages and wagons a driver was furnished The stable often found
itself short a driver, and Billy was quickly called upon. He became an
extra man at the stable. He received three dollars a day at such times,
and drove many parties around the Seventeen Mile Drive, up Carmel
Valley, and down the coast to the various points a