rned to their guests. "Listen.
There's something in that valley of the moon idea, but I won't tell you
what. It is a secret. Now we've a ranch in Sonoma Valley about eight
miles from the very town of Sonoma where you two girls' fathers took up
soldiering; and if you ever come to our ranch you'll learn the secret.
Oh, believe me, it's connected with your valley of the moon.--Isn't it,
Mate?"

This last was the mutual name he and Clara had for each other.

She smiled and laughed and nodded her head.

"You might find our valley the very one you are looking for," she said.

But Hastings shook his head at her to check further speech. She turned
to the fox terrier and made it speak for a piece of meat.

"Her name's Peggy," she told Saxon. "We had two Irish terriers down in
the South Seas, brother and sister, but they died. We called them Peggy
and Possum. So she's named after the original Peggy."

Billy was impressed by the ease with which the Roamer was operated.
While they lingered at table, at a word from Hastings the two Japanese
had gone on deck. Billy could hear them throwing down the halyards,
casting off gaskets, and heaving the anchor short on the tiny winch. In
several minutes one called down that everything was ready, and all went
on deck. Hoisting mainsail and jigger was a matter of minutes. Then
the cook and cabin-boy broke out anchor, and, while one hove it up, the
other hoisted the jib. Hastings, at the wheel, trimmed the sheet. The
Roamer paid off, filled her sails, slightly heeling, and slid across the
smooth water and out the mouth of New York Slough. The Japanese coiled
the halyards and went below for their own dinner.

"The flood is just beginning to make," said Hastings, pointing to a
striped spar-buoy that was slightly tipping up-stream on the edge of the
channel.

The tiny white houses of Collinsville, which they were nearing,
disappeared behind a low island, though the Montezuma Hills, with their
long, low, restful lines, slumbered on the horizon apparently as far
away as ever.

As the Roamer passed the mouth of Montezuma Slough and entered the
Sacramento, they came upon Collinsville close at hand. Saxon clapped her
hands.

"It's like a lot of toy houses," she said, "cut out of cardboard. And
those hilly fields are just painted up behind."

They passed many arks and houseboats of fishermen moored among the
tules, and the women and children, like the men in the boats, were
dark-skinned, bl