cked him," she explained.

Billy grinned. Fifteen minutes later he said:

"You sure handed me a hot one."

The sky was overcast, and, as they drove along the bank of the Coquille
River, the fog suddenly enveloped them.

"Whoof!" Billy exhaled joyfully. "Ain't it great! I can feel myself
moppin' it up like a dry sponge. I never appreciated fog before."

Saxon held out her arms to receive it, making motions as if she were
bathing in the gray mist.

"I never thought I'd grow tired of the sun," she said; "but we've had
more than our share the last few weeks."

"Ever since we hit the Sacramento Valley," Billy affirmed. "Too much sun
ain't good. I've worked that out. Sunshine is like liquor. Did you ever
notice how good you felt when the sun come out after a week of cloudy
weather. Well, that sunshine was just like a jolt of whiskey. Had the
same effect. Made you feel good all over. Now, when you're swimmin', an'
come out an' lay in the sun, how good you feel. That's because you're
lappin' up a sun-cocktail. But suppose you lay there in the sand a
couple of hours. You don't feel so good. You're so slow-movin' it takes
you a long time to dress. You go home draggin' your legs an' feelin'
rotten, with all the life sapped outa you. What's that? It's the
katzenjammer. You've been soused to the ears in sunshine, like so much
whiskey, an' now you're payin' for it. That's straight. That's why fog
in the climate is best."

"Then we've been drunk for months," Saxon said. "And now we're going to
sober up."

"You bet. Why, Saxon, I can do two days' work in one in this
climate.--Look at the mares. Blame me if they ain't perkin' up already."

Vainly Saxon's eye roved the pine forest in search of her beloved
redwoods. They would find them down in California, they were told in the
town of Bandon.

"Then we're too far north," said Saxon. "We must go south to find our
valley of the moon."

And south they went, along roads that steadily grew worse, through the
dairy country of Langlois and through thick pine forests to Port Orford,
where Saxon picked jeweled agates on the beach while Billy caught
enormous rockcod. No railroads had yet penetrated this wild region, and
the way south grew wilder and wilder. At Gold Beach they encountered
their old friend, the Rogue River, which they ferried across where
it entered the Pacific. Still wilder became the country, still more
terrible the road, still farther apart the isolated farms and