and her maid, on
the small steamer _St. Denis_, which was sailing from San Diego and
making port at Ensenada and San Quintin on the way to Cedros Island.

At the island the Stevenson party was offered the large company house
of ten rooms by Mr. Brown, but preferred to live in a little
whitewashed cottage that stood on the beach. Except for the Mexican
families of the mine workmen there were no women on the island besides
Mrs. Stevenson and her maid. The small circle of Americans soon became
intimately acquainted, for the lack of other society and interests
naturally drew them close together. Besides George Brown, Clarence
Beall, and Doctor Chamberlain, the company doctor, there was only a
queer old character known as "Chips," a stranded sea carpenter who was
employed to build lighters on the beach.

Mrs. Stevenson had all of Kipling's fondness for mining men,
engineers--all that great class of workers, in fact, who harness the
elements of earth and air and bend them to man's will--and she was
very happy on this lonely island with no society outside of her own
party but that of the few employed at the mine. Between her and Mr.
Beall, a young mining engineer employed on the island, a strong and
lasting bond of friendship was established from the moment of their
first meeting, when she saw him wet and cold from a hard day of
loading ship through the surf and insisted on "mothering" him to the
extent of seeing that he had dry clothing and other comforts. And,
although the difference between the green tropic isle beyond the
sunset which lay enshrined in her memory and this barren cactus-grown
pile of volcanic rocks was immeasurable, yet the one, in its peace,
its soft sweet air, and the near presence of the murmuring sea, called
back the other.

When, after three pleasant, peaceful months, the time came for her
departure, there was general sorrow on the island, where it may well
be imagined that her presence had greatly lightened the tedium of
existence for its lonely dwellers. "To this day," writes Doctor
Chamberlain, "whenever I pick up one of Mr. Stevenson's novels, my
first thoughts are always of his wife and our days at Cedros Island."

While in Ensenada on the return trip Mrs. Stevenson heard of a ranch
for sale there, and after looking at it decided to purchase it. The
place, known as El Sausal,[72] lies on the very edge of the great
Pacific, and has a magnificent beach. The climate is as nearly perfect
as a cli