e coasting steamers.
Through Del Norte and Humboldt counties they went, and through Mendocino
into Sonoma--counties larger than Eastern states--threading the giant
woods, whipping innumerable trout-streams, and crossing countless rich
valleys. Ever Saxon sought the valley of the moon. Sometimes, when all
seemed fair, the lack was a railroad, sometimes madrono and manzanita
trees, and, usually, there was too much fog.

"We do want a sun-cocktail once in a while," she told Billy.

"Yep," was his answer. "Too much fog might make us soggy. What we're
after is betwixt an' between, an' we'll have to get back from the coast
a ways to find it."

This was in the fall of the year, and they turned their backs on the
Pacific at old Fort Ross and entered the Russian River Valley, far
below Ukiah, by way of Cazadero and Guerneville. At Santa Rosa Billy was
delayed with the shipping of several horses, so that it was not until
afternoon that he drove south and east for Sonoma Valley.

"I guess we'll no more than make Sonoma Valley when it'll be time to
camp," he said, measuring the sun with his eye. "This is called Bennett
Valley. You cross a divide from it and come out at Glen Ellen. Now this
is a mighty pretty valley, if anybody should ask you. An' that's some
nifty mountain over there."

"The mountain is all right," Saxon adjudged. "But all the rest of the
hills are too bare. And I don't see any big trees. It takes rich soil to
make big trees."

"Oh, I ain't sayin' it's the valley of the moon by a long ways. All
the same, Saxon, that's some mountain. Look at the timber on it. I bet
they's deer there."

"I wonder where we'll spend this winter," Saxon remarked.

"D'ye know, I've just been thinkin' the same thing. Let's winter at
Carmel. Mark Hall's back, an' so is Jim Hazard. What d'ye say?"

Saxon nodded.

"Only you won't be the odd-job man this time."

"Nope. We can make trips in good weather horse-buyin'," Billy confirmed,
his face beaming with self-satisfaction. "An' if that walkin' poet of
the Marble House is around, I'll sure get the gloves on with 'm just in
memory of the time he walked me off my legs--"

"Oh! Oh!" Saxon cried. "Look, Billy! Look!"

Around a bend in the road came a man in a sulky, driving a heavy
stallion. The animal was a bright chestnut-sorrel, with cream-colored
mane and tail. The tail almost swept the ground, while the mane was so
thick that it crested out of the neck and flowed down, long a