As to Mrs. Sherwood, Nan Keith found her attitude very vague. There was no doubt that she liked her personally, admired her slow, purposeful, half- indolent movements, the poise of her small, patrician head, the unconscious, easy grace of her body, the direct commonsense quality of her mind. One met her face to face; there were no frills and furbelows of the spirit. Also, Nan was grateful for the other woman's first kindness and real sympathy, and she wanted to "play the game." But, on the other hand, all her social training and her instinct of formalism tended to hold her aloof. She blamed herself intellectually for this feeling; but since it was a feeling, and had nothing to do with intellect, it persisted.

In the auction rooms, also, she seemed to meet—be formally introduced to— a bewildering number of people, most of whom she could not place at all. There seemed to be no reason for meeting them; certainly she would not have met them in the East. Nevertheless, they all shook her by the hand, and bowed to her whenever subsequently they passed her on the street. Keith told her this was all usual and proper in this new and mixed social order; and she was perfectly willing to make the effort. She was really charming to everybody. The consciousness that she was successfully adapting herself to their primitive provincial scope, and her very gracious condescension to all types, filled her with respect for her democracy and breadth of mind.

The afternoon they spent at the house receiving boxes and packages. Keith worked busily, happily, feverishly, in his shirt sleeves. He attacked the job on the principle of a whirlwind campaign, hammering, ripping, throwing papers down, deciding instantly where this or that chair or table was to stand, tearing on to the next, enjoying himself dustily and hugely.

Nan was more leisurely. She found time to gossip with the drayman who brought up the goods, actually came to a liking and a warm friendly feeling for him as a person. This was a new experience for Nan, and she explored it curiously.

John McGlynn was a teamster, but likewise a thoroughly independent and capable citizen. He was of the lank, hewn, lean-faced, hawk-nosed type, deliberate in movement and speech, with a twinkling, contemplative, appraising eye, and an unhurried drawl. He told Nan he had come out in '49.

"No, ma'am," he disclaimed vigorously, "I didn't go to the mines. I am a teamster, and I always did teaming." He did not add, as he might have done, that in those days of the individual he had been an important influence.

His great pride was his team and wagon, and that pride was justified. The wagon was a heavy flat affair, gayly decorated, and on the sides of the box were paintings of landscapes. The horses were great, magnificent creatures, with arching thick necks, long wavy manes and forelocks, soft, intelligent eyes, and with great hoofs and hairy fetlocks. They carried themselves in conscious pride, Their harness was heavy with silver and with many white and coloured rings. In colour they were dapple gray.

"That team," said John McGlynn, "is a perfect match. Took me two years to get them together. Wuth a mint of money. That Kate, there, is a regular character. You'd be surprised how cute she is. I often wonder who Kate is. She must be some very famous woman."

John McGlynn was a very wonderful and very accommodating person, Nan thought. He would help carry things in, and was willing to unpack or to carry out the mess Keith's mad career left behind, it. Also he cast an eye on the garden possibilities, and issued friendly, expert advice to which Nan listened, breathless. They held long intimate consultations as to the treatment of the soil.

"A few posies does sort of brighten things up; they're wuth while," quoth John.

Without previous consultation, he appeared one day accompanied by a rotund, bland, gorgeous Chinaman, perched beside him on his elevated seat.

"This is Wing Woh, a friend of mine," he announced. "You got to have a Chink, of course. You can't run that sized house without help. Wing knows all the Chinks in town, and bosses about half of them."

Wing Woh descended and without a word walked into the house. He was a very ornate person, dressed in a skull cap with a red coral button atop, a brocaded pale lavendar tunic of silk, baggy pale green trousers tied close around the ankles, snow-white socks and the typical shoe. Gravely, solemnly, methodically he went over the entire house; then returned and clambered up beside John.

"All light," he vouchsafed to the astonished Nan.

Next morning she found waiting on the veranda a smiling "china boy" dressed all in clean white. A small cloth bundle lay at his feet.

"My name Wing Sam," he announced; "I wo'k you thi'ty dolla' month. Where you keep him bloom?"

That day John McGlynn stopped after unloading his boxes to give a little advice.

"Chinks are queer," said he. "When you show this fellow how to do anything, be sure to show him right, because that's the way he's going to do it forever after. You can't change him. And show him; don't tell him. And let him do things his own way as much as you can, instead of insisting on your way."

McGlynn also advised Keith as to where he could to the best advantage hire a horse and buggy by the month.

"You want a good safe animal, so Mrs. Keith can drive him; but you don't want a cow. Jump aboard and I'll take you around. Never mind your coat," he told Keith, "it's warm."

So they "jumped aboard" and drove down the street. Nan gurgled with amusement over the episode. She sat on the high seat beside John McGlynn's lank figure, above the broad backs of the great horses; and Keith in his shirtsleeves, his hair every which way, a smudge of black across his nose, balanced in the flat dray body behind. Nan tried to imagine the sensation they would create in Baltimore, and laughed aloud.

"Is sort of funny," commented John McGlynn sympathetically. "But everything goes out here."

Nan, aghast at the uncanny perspicacity of the man, choked silently. In her world there had always been a sort of vague, unexpressed feeling that the "lower classes" were dull.

They used the horse and buggy a great deal. It was delivered at the hotel door every morning and taken from the same place every evening. Innumerable errands downtown for things forgotten kept it busy. At night they returned to the hotel pretty well tired out. It was a tremendous task, much as they might be enjoying it.

"Seems to me the more we do the worse it gets," said Keith. "Let's dig some sort of a hole and move in anyway."

"In a few days," agreed Nan, who as general-in-chief had a much clearer idea of the actual state of affairs than the dusty private.



X

One morning the accumulated fatigue had its way, and they overslept scandalously. It was after ten o'clock before they were ready to drive up the street. As they turned the corner from Kearney Street they were saluted by the ringing of numerous bells.

"Why, it's Sunday!" cried Keith, after a moment's calculation. In the unexpectedness of this discovery he reined in the horse.

"It will never do to work to-day," she answered his unspoken thought. "I suppose we ought to go to church."

But Keith turned the horse's head to the left.

"Church?" he returned with great decision. "We're going on a spree. This is a day of rest, and we've earned it."

"Where?" asked Nan, a trifle shocked at his implication as to church.

"I haven't the remotest idea," said Keith.

They drove along a plank road leading out of town. It proved to be thronged with people, all going in the same direction. The shuffle of their feet on the planks and the murmur of their many voices were punctuated by the klop, klop of hoofs and occasional shouts of laughter. All races of the earth seemed to be represented. It was like a Congress of the Nations at some great exposition. French, Germans, Italians, Russians, Dutchmen, British, were to be recognized and to be expected. But also were strange peoples—Turks, Arabs, Negroes, Chinese, Kanakas, East Indians, the gorgeous members of the Spanish races, and nondescript queer people to whom neither Nan nor Keith could assign a native habitat. At every step one or the other called delighted attention to some new exhibit. Most extraordinary were, possibly, the men from the gold mines of the Sierras, These were mostly young, but long haired, bearded, rough, wilder than any mortal man need be. They walked with a wide swagger. Their clothes were exaggeratedly coarse, but they ornamented themselves with bright silk handkerchiefs; with feathers, flowers; with squirrel or buck-tails In their hats; with long heavy chains of nuggets; with glittering and prominently displayed pistols, revolvers, stilettos, knives, or dirks. Some had plaited their beards in three tails; others had tied their long hair under their chins. But even the most bizarre seemed to attract no attention. San Francisco was accustomed to it.

Indeed, the few fashionable strollers were much more stared at. Most of the well dressed were in some sort of vehicle. The Keiths saw many buggies like their own. A few very smart, or rather very ornamental, double rigs dashed by. In these sat generally good-looking but rather loud young women, who stared straight ahead with an assumption of supreme indifference. Hacks or omnibuses careered along. In these the company was generally merry but mixed, though occasionally a good-looking couple had hired an ordinary public conveyance. Horsemen and horsewomen were numerous. Some of these were very dashing indeed, the women with long trailing skirts and high hats from which floated veils; the men with skin-tight trousers strapped under varnished boots, and long split-skirted coats. Others were simply plain a- horseback. The native Californians with their heavy, silver-mounted saddles, braided rawhide reins and bridles, their sombreros, their picturesque costumes, and their magnificent fiery horses made a fine appearance. Occasionally screaming, bouncing Chinese, hanging on with both hands, would dash by at full speed, their horses quite uncontrolled, their garments flying, ecstatically scared and happy, causing great confusion, and pursued by curses.

"Evidently we're headed in the right direction," remarked Keith.

After a drive of two or three miles, never far from the bay they arrived at what had evidently been a sleepy little village. The original low, picturesque, red-tiled adobe buildings still clustered about the Mission. But much had been added. The Keiths found themselves in an immense confusion. Screaming signs cried everywhere for attention—advertising bear pits, cock fights, theatrical attractions, side shows, and the like. Innumerable hotels and restaurants, small, cheap, and tawdry, offered their hospitality, the liquid part of which was already being widely accepted. Men were striking pegs with hammers, throwing balls at negroes' heads thrust through canvas, shooting at targets. A racecourse was surrounded. Dust rose in choking clouds, and the sun beat down heavily.

"Goodness, what a place!" cried Nan in dismay.

Had they known it, there were many quiet, attractive, outlying resorts catering to and frequented by the fashionables, for "the Mission" was at that time in its heyday as a Sunday amusement for all classes. As it was, Keith drove on through the village, and so out to a winding country road.

"This is heavenly," said Nan, and laid aside her veil.

The road wound and meandered through the low hills of the peninsula. The sun beat down on them in a flood, only its heat, no longer oppressive, had become grateful.

"Doesn't it feel good on your back!" exclaimed Nan, recognizing this quality. "One seems to soak it in—just the way a thirsty plant soaks water."

The rounded hills were turning a ripe soft brown. Across their crests the sky looked very blue. High in the heavens some buzzards were sailing. Innumerable quail called. On tree tops perched yellow-breasted meadow larks with golden voices. In the bottom of the narrow valley where the road wound were green willow trees and a little trickle of water. From the ground came upward waves of heat and a pungent clean odour of some weed. Nan was excited and keenly receptive to impressions.

"It's a hot day!" she cried, "and the road is dusty. By rights it ought to be disagreeable. But it isn't! Why is that?"

The little valley widened into a pocket. Back from the road stood a low white much house. Its veranda was smothered in the gorgeousness of bougainvillaea. A grave, elderly, bearded Spaniard, on horseback, passed them at a smooth shuffling little trot, and gave them a sonorous buenas dias, The road mounted rapidly. Once when Keith had reined in to breathe the horse, they heard the droning crescendo hum of a new swarm of bees passing overhead.

"Isn't this nice!" cried Nan, snuggling against Keith's arm.

Suddenly, over the crest and down the other side, they came on sand hills. The horse plodded along at a walk. Nan hung far out watching, fascinated, the smooth, clean sand dividing before the wheels and flowing back over the rim, and so over a little rise, and the sea was before them.

"Oh, the Pacific!" exclaimed she, sitting up very straight.

The horse broke into a trot along the smooth hard shore. The wind was coming in from the wide spaces. A taste of salt was in the air. Foam wreaths advanced and receded with the edge of the wash, or occasionally blew in a mass across the flat, until gradually they scattered and dissipated. The horse pricked up his ears, breathed deep of the fresh cool air, expanded his nostrils snorting softly, pretended to shy at the foam wreaths. The wash advanced and drew back with a soft hissing sound; the wind blew flat and low, so that even on the wet parts a fine, white, dried mist of sand was always scurrying and hurrying along close to the ground. Outside the surges reared and fell with a crash.

After the tepid or heated atmosphere of the hills the air was unexpectedly cool and vital. A flock of sickle-billed curlews stood motionless until they were within fifty yards; then rose and flew just inside the line of the breakers, uttering indescribably weird and lonely cries. A long file of pelicans, their wings outspread, sailed close to the surface of the ocean, undulating over the waves and into the hollows exactly paralleling, at a height of only a few feet, the restless contour of the sea. Occasionally they would all flop their wings two or three times in unison.

"I believe it's a sort of game—they're having fun!" stated Nan with conviction.

Everything seemed to be having fun. Close to the wash were forty or fifty tiny white sanderlings in a compact band. When the wash receded they followed it with an incredibly rapid twinkling of little legs; and when again the wave rushed, shoreward, scuttle, scuttle, scuttle went they, keeping always just at the edge of the water. Never were they forced to wing; yet never did they permit the distance to widen between themselves and the inrushing or outrushing wave. There were also sundry ducks. These swam just inside the breakers, and were carried backward and forward by the surges. Always they faced seaward. At the very last instant, as a great curler bent over them, they dipped their heads and dived. If the wave did not break, however, they rode over its top. Their accuracy of eye was uncanny. Time after time they gauged the wave so closely that they just flipped over the crest as it crashed with a roar beneath them. A tenth of a second later would have destroyed them. Keith reined up the horse to watch them and the sanderlings.

"It is a game," he agreed after a while, "just like the pelicans. It isn't considered sporting for sanderlings to get more than three inches away from the edge of the wash; or for a duck to dive unless he actually has to. It must be a game; for they certainly aren't catching anything."

At this moment the sanderlings as though at a signal sprang into the air, wheeled back and forth with instantaneous precision, and departed. The ducks, too, dove, and came up only outside the surf.

"Good little sportsmen," laughed Keith; "they play the game for its own sake. They don't like an audience."

After a few miles they came to a cliff reaching down to the beach and completely barring the way. Off shore were rocky islets covered with seals and sea lions. A lone blue heron stood atop a sand dune, absolutely motionless.

"I don't know where we are, or how we get out," said Keith, "but I'm going to take that chap there as a sign post," and he turned his horse directly toward the heron.

Sure enough, a track led them through the sand, and by a zigzag route to the top of the knoll that had barred their way along the shore. They came to an edge. Before them lay an arm of the sea, sweeping and eddying with a strong incoming tide. Over the way stood a great mountain, like a sentinel. Far to their right the arm widened. There was a glimpse of sparkling blue, and of the pearl of far-off hills, and the haze of a distant dim peak.

"It's the Golden Gate!" cried Keith in sudden enlightenment.

He told her that the mountain over the way must be Tamalpais; that the pearl-gray, far-off hills must be Contra Costa; that the distant dim peak was undoubtedly Mount Diabolo. She repeated the syllables after him softly, charmed by their music.

Simultaneously they discovered that they were hungry. The wind whipped in from the sea. An outpost tent or so marked the distant invisible city over the hills. Keith turned his horse's head toward them. They drove back across what are now the Presidio hills.

But in a hollow they came upon another ranch house, like the first—low, white, red roofed, covered with vines. Keith insisted on driving to it. A number of saddled horses dozed before the door, a half-dozen dogs sprawled in the dust, fowls picked their way between the horses' legs or over the dogs' recumbent forms. At the sound of wheels several people came from the shadow of the porch into the open. They proved to be Spanish Californians dressed in the flat sombreros, the short velvet jackets, the slashed trousers, and soft leather zapatos. The men, handsome, lithe, indolent, pressed around the wheels of the buggy, showing their white teeth in pleasant smiles.

"Can we get anything to eat here?" asked Keith.

They all smiled again most amiably. The elder swept off his hat with a free gesture.

"A piedes ouestros, senora," he said, "pero no hablo Ingles. Habla usted Espanol?"

Keith understood the last three words.

"No," he shook his head violently, "no Espanol. Hungry." He pointed to Nan, then to himself: "She, me, hungry."

This noble effort brought no results, except that the Californians looked more politely distressed and solicitous than ever.

"They don't understand us," murmured Nan; "don't you think we'd better drive on?"

But Keith, who had now descended from the buggy, resorted to sign language. He rubbed his stomach pathetically and pointed down his open mouth; as an afterthought he rubbed the horse's belly; then, with apparent intention, he advanced toward Nan. A furious red inundated her face and neck, and she held her little parasol threateningly between them. Everybody burst into laughter.

"Si! si! si!" they cried.

Several started to unharness the horse. Others held out their hands. After a moment's hesitation Nan accepted their aid and descended. Keith's performance was evidently considered a great joke.

On the low veranda were two women, one most enormously fat, the other young and lithe. They were dressed almost exactly alike, their blue—black hair parted smoothly over their foreheads but built up to a high structure behind, filmy rebosas over high combs, and skirts with many flowered flounces. They both had soft, gentle eyes, and they were both so heavily powdered that their complexions were almost blue. All the men explained to them at once. The younger answered gayly; the older listened with entire placidity. But when the account was finished, she reached out to pat Nan's hand, and to smile reassuringly.

Various foods and a flask of red wine were brought. There was no constraint, for Keith threw himself with delighted abandon into experiments with sign language.

"Esta simpatica," the Californians told each other over and again.

Their manners were elaborate, dignified, deliberate, and beautiful. Keith, ordinarily rather direct and brusque, to Nan's great amusement became exactly like them. They outvied each other. The women touched smilingly the stuff of Nan's gown, and directly admired her various feminine trappings. She, thus encouraged, begged permission to examine more closely the lace of the rebosas or the beautiful embroidery on the shawls. A little feeling of intimacy drew them all together, although they understood no word of each other's language.

One of the dogs now approached and gravely laid its nose on Nan's knee, gazing up at her with searching soft eyes. The older woman cried out scandalized, but Nan shook her head, and patted the beast's nose.

"You like?" asked the woman.

"Why, you do talk English!" cried Nan.

But either these two words were all the woman had, or she was unwilling to adventure further.

"You like?" she repeated again, after a moment, and then, observing Nan's interest, she uttered a command to one of the numerous ragged small boys standing about. The urchin darted away, to return after a moment with a basket, which he emptied on the ground. Four fuzzy puppies rolled out.

"Oh, the darlings!" cried Nan.

The little animals proceeded at once to roll one another over, growling fiercely, charging uncertainly about, gazing indeterminately through their blue infantile eyes. The mother left her position at Nan's knee to hover over them; turning them over with her nose, licking them, skipping nimbly sidewise when they charged down upon her with an idea of nourishment.

Nan was enchanted. She left the bench to stoop to their level, tumbling them over on their backs; playfully boxing their ears, working them up to a wild state of yapping enthusiasm.

"The little darlings!" she cried; "just see their fat little tummies! And their teeth are just like needles. No, no, you mustn't! You'll tear my flounces! Look, Milton, see this little rascal pull at my handkerchief!"

Her cheeks were flushed, and as she looked up laughing from beneath her hat, she made a very charming picture.

"You like," stated the Californian woman with conviction.

After a while it became time to go. Vaqueros brought out the horse and harnessed it to the buggy. Keith made a movement to offer payment, but correctly interpreted the situation and refrained. They mounted the vehicle.

"Muchas gracias!" Nan enunciated slowly.

This effort was received with an admiring acclaim that flushed Nan with an inordinate pride. She had picked up the phrase from hearing it used at table. The fat woman came forward, one of the puppies tucked under her arm. In spite of her apparently unwieldy size she moved gracefully and lightly.

"You like?" she inquired, holding the squirming puppy at arm's length.

"Si, si, muchas gracias!" cried Nan eagerly, and employing at once all her Spanish vocabulary. She deposited the puppy in her lap and reached out to shake hands. Keith flicked the horse with his whip. He, too, had recollected a word of Spanish, and he used it now.

"Adios!" he shouted.

But their hosts had a better phrase.

"Vaya Con Dios!" they cried in chorus.

Nan was in raptures over the whole episode, but especially over the puppy. The latter, with the instantaneous adaptability of extreme youth, had snuggled down into a compact ball, and was blinking one hazy dark blue eye upward at his new mistress.

"Weren't they nice people," cried Nan, "and wasn't it an adventure? And isn't he just the dearest, cutest little thing? You're not a little Spanish dog any more, you know. You're a—what is it they call us?—oh, yes! You're a gringo now. Why, that's a fine idea! Your name is Gringo!"

And Gringo he became henceforth.

"What kind of a dog is he?" she asked.

Keith grinned sardonically.

"Of course I do not know his honoured father," said he, "so I cannot offer an opinion as to that half of him. But on his mother's side he is bloodhound, bulldog, collie, setter, pointer, St. Bernard, and Old English sheepdog."

"Which?"' asked Nan puzzled.

"All," asserted Keith.

Now suddenly the sun was blotted out. They looked back: a white bank of fog was rolling in from the sea. It flowed over the hills like a flood, reaching long wisps down into the hollows, setting inertly in the flats and valleys, the upper part rolling on and over in a cascade. Beneath its shadow the warmth and brightness of the world had died.

"It strikes me we're going to be cold," remarked Keith, urging forward the horse.

The roadbed became more solid, and they trotted along freely. The horse, also, was anxious to get home. Signs of habitations thickened. The wide waste hills of the ranchos had been left behind. Here and there were outlying dwellings, or road houses, the objectives of pleasure excursions of various sorts and degrees of respectability from the city. From one of the latter came a hail.

"Oh, Keith! I say, Keith!"

From a group of people preparing to enter a number of vehicles two men came running. Ben Sansome and Morrell, somewhat out of breath, came alongside. They were a little flushed and elevated, but very cordial, and full of reproaches that Keith had so entirely dropped out of sight during the past week.

"I tell you, you must come over to our house for supper," said Morrell finally. "Everybody comes."

"The Morrells' Sunday night suppers are an institution," supplemented Sansome.

"I wish I could persuade you," urged Morrell. "I wonder where Mimi is. I know Mrs. Morrell ought to call, and all that sort of thing, but this is not a conventional place. We live next door, y'know. Do be delightful and neighbourly, and come!"

Nan hesitated; but the lure of the well-dressed company, so thoroughly at ease with one another, was irresistible in the reaction. She accepted.



XI

The Keiths arrived to find the Morrells' informal party in full blast. The front parlour was filled with a number of people making a great noise. Out of the confusion Mrs. Morrell arose and came to them, as they stood where the China-man had abandoned them.

"Mimi" Morrell was a tall woman, not fat, but amply built, with a full bust and hips. Her hair was of the peculiar metallic golden blond that might or might not have been natural; her skin smooth and white, but coarse in grain, would look better at night than by daylight. Her handsome, regular features were rather hard and set in their expression when in absolute repose, but absolute repose was rare to them. In action they softened to a very considerable feminine allurement. She moved with decision, and possibly her general attitude smacked the least bit of running things. She gave the impression of keeping an eye open for everything going on about her. To Nan she seemed tremendous, overwhelming, and a little magnificent.

Immediately, without introductions, the whole party moved through the double doors into the dining-room. There they took their places at a table set out lavishly with food and drink in great quantity. Mrs. Morrell explained in her high level voice that servants and service were always dispensed with at her Sunday nights. She rather carelessly indicated a seat to Mrs. Keith, and remarked to Keith that he was to sit next herself. Otherwise the party distributed itself. Ben Sansome promptly annexed the chair next to Nan, and started in to make himself agreeable.

A complete freemasonry obtained among all the party. There was a great deal of shouting back and forth, from one end of the table to the other. Each seemed to have a nickname. One young man was known exclusively as "Popsy," another answered as "Zou-zou," a third was called "Billy Goat"; a very vivid, flashing young woman was "Teeny," and so on. They conversed, or rather shouted, to a great extent by means of catch words or phrases, alluding evidently to events the purport of which the Keiths could by no possibility guess. There were a great many private jokes, the points of which were obvious to only one or two. Every once in a while some one would say "Number Seven!" and everybody would go off into convulsions of laughter. The vivid young woman called Teeny suddenly shrieked, "How about Friday, the twenty-third?" at Popsy, to Popsy's obvious consternation and confusion. Immediately every one turned on either Popsy or Teeny, demanding the true inwardness of the remark. Popsy defended himself, rather pink and embarrassed. The young woman, a devilish knowing glint in her eyes, her red underlip caught between her teeth, refused to answer.

Keith warmed to this free and easy atmosphere. He was friendly and sympathetic with the lively crowd. But in vain he tried for a point of contact. All this badinage depended on a previous knowledge and intimacy, and that, of course, he lacked. Mrs. Morrell, sitting beside him very straight and commanding, delivered her general remarks in a high, clear voice, turning her attention impartially now to one part of the noisy table, now to another.

Suddenly she abandoned the company to its own devices, and leaning her left elbow on the table, she turned squarely to Keith, enveloping him with a magnetic all-for-you look.

"Do you know," she said abruptly, "something tells me you are musical."

"Why, I am, a little," admitted Keith, surprised. "But how could you tell?"

"La, now, I was sure you had a voice the first time I heard you speak. I adore music, and I can always tell."

"Do you sing, too?" asked Keith.

"I? No, unfortunately. I have no more voice than a crow. I strum a bit, but even that has been a good deal neglected lately. There's no temptation to keep up one's music here. I don't know a single soul in all this city who cares a snap of their finger for it."

"We'll have to have some music together," suggested Keith.

"I'd adore it. Isn't it lucky we're neighbours? I've been so interested"— she said it as though she had almost intended to say "amused"—"in watching you this past week. You are the most domestic man I know. I never saw a man work so singlemindedly at his house and home. Domesticity is a rare outworn virtue here, I assure you. It is really quite touching to see a man so devoted these days."

She said these things idly, a little disjointedly, looking at him steadily all the while. Her manner was detached, and yet somehow it impelled him strongly to protest that he was really not a bit domestic.

"Have you met any of the people of the place?" she shifted suddenly,

"Well—I really haven't had much chance yet—a few of the men."

"Well—you'll find things pretty mixed. Don't expect much; one has to take things pretty much as one finds them."

To this simple speech was appended one gesture only—a slight raising of the eyebrows. Yet the effect was to sweep Keith into the intimacy of an inner circle, to suggest that she, too, found society mixed, and to imply— very remotely—that at least certain members of the present company itself were not quite what he—or she—would choose in another environment. In unconscious response to this unspoken thought, Keith glanced about the table. There was a good deal of drinking going on; and the fun was becoming even more obvious and noisy. Mrs. Morrell occasionally sipped at her champagne. She emitted a slight but rather disturbing perfume.

"Why did you come out here, anyway?" she asked him. "I can't make out. I'm curious."

"Why shouldn't I?" demanded Keith.

"Well, men come here either for money, for adventure, or to make a career." She marked each on the tablecloth with the end of a fork. "Which is it?"

"Guess," laughed Keith.

"You don't need money—or else you have a wonderful nerve to take the Boyle house. I believe you have the nerve, all right. Men with your sort of close curly hair are never—bashful!" she laughed shortly.

"Boyle's rent is safe—for a while," admitted Keith.

"Career?" she went on, looking him in the eyes speculatively, and allowing her gaze to sink deep into his. He noticed that her eyes were a gray green, like semi-precious stones of some sorts, with surface lights, but also with grayer radiations that seemed to go below the surface to smouldering depths—disturbing eyes, like the perfume. "Career?" she repeated. "I think you hold yourself better—a career in the riff-raff of this town." She shook her head archly. "But adventure! Oh, la! There's plenty of that—all sorts!" She gave the impression of meaning a great deal more than she said. "I wish I were a man!" she exclaimed, and laughed.

"I'm glad you're not," rejoined Keith sincerely.

She tapped him lightly on the arm with her fan.

"Oh, la!" she cried.

Keith laughed meaningly and mischievously. He was feeling entirely at home —in his mental shirtsleeves—thoroughly at ease.

"You're a lawyer, are you not?" she asked him.

"Try to be."

"Going to practise?"

"If any practice comes my way."

She looked at him, smiling slowly.

"Oh, it'll come fast enough." She seized her glass and held it to him. "Here's to your career!" she cried. "Bottoms up!"

They clinked glasses and drank.

"You must meet people—influential people," she told him. "We must see what we can do; I'll have some of them in."

"You're simply fine to take all this trouble for me!"

She tapped him again on the arm.

"Silly! We take care of our own people, of course! Let's plan it. Have you any connections in town at all?"

"Well, I've met quite a few people about town, and I have some letters."

"Casual acquaintances are well enough, but your letters?"

"I have one to Calhoun Bennett, and to Mr. Dempster, and Mr. Farwell, and Truett—"

But she was making a wry face.

"What's the matter with, them?" he demanded.

"Cal Bennett's all right—but the others—oh, I suppose they're all right in a business way—but—"

"But, what?"

She made a helpless little gesture.

"I can't describe it—you know—the sort that are always so keen on doing their duty!"

She laughed; and to his subconscious surprise Keith found himself saying sympathetically:

"I know the sort of people who always pay their debts!"

They looked into each other's eyes and laughed in comradeship. In sober life Keith did his duty reasonably well, and was never far behind financially.

She fell silent for a moment; then with a muttered "excuse me," she leaned directly across his shoulder to impart something low-voiced and giggly to the woman on his right. To do this she leaned her breast against his arm and shoulder. The conversation lasted some seconds. Keith could not hear a word of it; but he was disturbingly aware of her perfume, the softness of her body, and the warmth that struck even through the intervening clothing. She drew back with a half apology.

"Feminine nonsense," she told him. "Mere man couldn't be expected to understand." She was herself a little flushed from leaning over, but she appeared not to notice Keith's rather breathless state. He muttered something, and gulped at his champagne.

"Do you know Mrs. Sherwood?" he asked, merely to say something,

But to his surprise Mrs, Morrell answered him shortly, her manner changing:

"No, I don't. We draw the line somewhere!"

Again she addressed the woman on the right, but this time without leaning across:

"Oh, Amy, the fair Patricia has another victim!" and laughed rather shrilly. Suddenly she rapped the table with the handle of a knife. "Stop it!" she cried to the company at large. "You're making too much noise!"

They all turned to her except one youth who was too noisily busy with his partner to have heard her. Failing in another attempt to get his attention, Mrs. Morrell picked up a chunk of French bread and hurled it at him.

"Good shot!" "Bravo!" "Encore!" came a burst of applause, as the bread, largely by accident, took him squarely between the eyes.

The youth, though astonished, was game. He retaliated in kind. Keith whipped up an empty plate and intercepted it. The youth's partner came to his assistance. Keith, a plate in either hand, deftly protected Mrs. Morrell from the flying missiles. The implied challenge was instantly accepted by all. The air was full of bread. Keith's dexterity was tested to the utmost, but he came through the battle with flying colours. Everybody threw bread. There was much explosive laughter, that soon became fairly exhausting. The battle ceased, both because the combatants were out of ammunition, and because they were too weak from mirth to proceed. Keith with elaborate mock gallantry turned and presented Mrs. Morrell with the two plates.

"The spoils of war!" he told her.

"He should be decorated for conspicuous gallantry on the field of battle!" cried some one.

The idea took. But they could find nothing appropriate until Teeny McFarlane deliberately stepped up on the table and broke from the glass chandelier one of its numerous dangling prisms. This called forth a mild protest from Morrell—"Oh, I say!"—which was drowned in a wild shriek of delight. The process of stepping down from the table tilted Teeny's wide skirts so that for an instant a slim silken leg was plainly visible as far as the knee. "Oh! oh!" cried every one. Some pretended to be shocked, and covered their faces with spread fingers; others feigned to try for another look. Teeny was quite unperturbed.

Keith was the centre of attention and a great success. But there were no more tete-a-tetes. Mrs. Morrell managed to convey the idea that she was displeased, and Keith was of a sufficiently generous and ingenuous disposition to be intrigued by the fact. He had no chance to probe the matter. In a moment or so Mrs. Morrell rose and strolled toward the drawing-room. The others straggled after her. She rather liked thus to emphasize her lack of convention as a hostess, making a pose of never remembering the proper thing to do. Now she moved here and there, laughing her shrill rather mirthless laugh, calling everybody "dearie," uttering abrupt little platitudes. Keith found himself left behind, and rather out in the cold. The company had quite frankly segregated itself into couples. The room was well adapted to this, filled as it was with comfortable chairs arranged with apparent carelessness two by two. The men lighted cigars. Keith saw Nan's eyes widen at this. She was sitting near the fire, and Sansome had penned her in beyond the possibility of invasion by a third. At this date smoking was a more or less doubtfully considered habit, and in the best society men smoked only in certain rigidly specified circumstances. In a drawing-room such an action might be considered the fair equivalent to powdering the feminine nose.

In such a condition, Keith was left rather awkwardly alone, and was fairly thrust upon a fictitious interest in a photograph album, at which he glowered for some moments. Then by a well-planned and skilfully executed flank movement he caught Mrs. Morrell.

"Look here," he demanded; "what has the standing army done to deserve abandonment in a hostile country?"

But she looked at him directly, without response to his playful manner.

"My friend," she said, "this is a pretty free and easy town, as no doubt you have observed, and society is very mixed. But we haven't yet come to receiving women like Mrs. Sherwood, or relishing their being mentioned to us."

"Why, what's the matter with her?" demanded Keith, astonished. "Is she as far from respectability as all that?"

"Respectable! That word isn't understood in San Francisco." She appeared suddenly to soften. "You're a dear innocent boy, so you are, and you've got a dear innocent little wife, and I'll have to look out for you."

Before the deliberate and superior mockery in her eyes as well as in her voice, Keith felt somehow like a small boy. He was stung to a momentary astonishing fury.

"By God—" he began, and checked himself with difficulty.

She smiled at him slowly.

"Perhaps I didn't mean all of that," she said; "perhaps only half of it," she added with significance. "My personal opinion is that you are likely to be a curly haired little devil; and when you look at me like that, I'm glad we're not alone."

She looked at him an enigmatic moment, then turned away from the table near which they had been standing. "Come, help me break up some of this 'twosing,'" she said.

Shortly after this the party dispersed. Mrs. Morrell said good-bye to them carelessly, or not at all, according as it happened.

"You must come again, come often," she told the Keiths. "It's pretty dull unless you make your own fun." She was half sleepily conventional, her lids heavy. "Perhaps we can have some music soon," she added. The words were careless, but she shot Keith an especial gleam.

The Keiths walked sociably home together, almost in silence. Keith, after his habit, super-excited with all the fun, the row, and the half-guilty boyish feeling of having done a little something he ought not to have done, did not want to seem too enthusiastic.

"Jolly crowd," he remarked.

"They were certainly noisy enough," said Nan indifferently; then after a moment, "Where do you suppose some of them get their clothes?"

Keith's mind was full of the excitement of the evening. He found himself reviewing the company, appraising it, wondering about it. Was Teeny McFarlane as gay as she appeared? He had never seen women smoke before; but that dark girl with the red thing in her hair puffed a cigarette. Perhaps she was Spanish—he had not met her. And Mrs. Morrell—hanged if he quite dared make her out—it wouldn't do to jump to conclusions nor too hastily to apply Eastern standards; this was a new country, fatal to make a fool mistake; well-built creature, by gad—

Nan interrupted his thoughts. He came to with a start.

"I think we'd better put the big armchair in the front room, after all," she was saying.



XII

Next morning Keith allayed what little uneasiness his conscience might harbour by remarking, as he adjusted his collar:

"Mrs. Morrell is an amusing type, don't you think? She's a bit vulgar, but she seems good hearted. Wonder what colour her hair used to be?"

"I suppose they are all right," said Nan. "They are a little rowdy. They gave me a headache."

Illogically rehabilitated in his own self-esteem, Keith went on dressing. He was "on" to Mrs. Morrell; her methods were pretty obvious. Wonder if she thought she had really fooled him? Next time he would be on guard and beat her at her own game. She was not a woman to his taste, anyway—he glanced admiringly at Nan's clean profile against the light—but she was full of vitality, she was keen, she was brimming with the joy of life.

The long drive over the Peninsula to the sea and back, the episode of the Spanish people, the rowdy supper party, had one effect, however: it had made so decided a break in the routine that Keith found himself thrust quite outside it. He had worked feverishly all the week, at about double speed; and in ordinary course would have gone on working feverishly at double speed for another week. Now, suddenly, the thought was irksome. He did not analyze this; but, characteristically, discovered an irrefutable reason for not going on with it. They rescued Gringo from Sam's care, and drove up to the house. On the way Keith said:

"Look here, Nan; do you suppose you and Wing can get on all right this morning? All the heavy work is done. I really ought to be settling the office and getting some lines laid for business."

"Why, of course we can get on, silly!" she rejoined. "This isn't your job, anyway. Of course you ought to attend to your business."

Keith again consulted Palmer, Cook & Co. The same clerk showed him offices. He was appalled at the rents. Even a miserable little back room in the obscurer blocks commanded a sum higher than he had anticipated paying. After looking at a dozen, he finally decided on a front room in the Merchants' Exchange Building. This was one of the most expensive, but Keith was tired of looking. The best is the greatest economy in the long run, he told himself, and with a lawyer, new-come, appearances count for much in getting clients. Must get the clients, though, to support this sort of thing! The rest of the morning he spent buying furniture.

About noon he walked back to the Bella Union. His horse and buggy were not hitched to the rail, so he concluded Nan had not yet returned for lunch. Mrs. Sherwood, however, was seated in a rocker at the sunny end of the long veranda. She looked most attractive, her small smooth head bent over some sort of fancywork. Before she looked up Keith had leisure to note the poise of her head and shoulders, the fine long lines of her figure, and the arched-browed serenity of her eyes. Different type this from the full- breasted Morrell, more—more patrician! Rather absurd in view of their respective places in society, but a fact. Keith found himself swiftly speculating on Mrs. Sherwood's origin and experience. She was endowed with a new glamour because of Mrs. Morrell's enigmatic remark the evening before, and also—for Keith was very human—with a new attraction. Feeling vaguely and boyishly devilish, Keith. stopped.

She nodded at him, laying her work aside.

"You are practically invisible." she told him.

"Making ourselves a habitation. Seen Mrs. Keith?"

"No. I don't think she's come in."

Keith hesitated, then:

"I think I'll go up to the house for her."

Mrs. Sherwood nodded, and resumed her work calmly, without further remark.

At the house Keith found Nan, her apron on, her hair done up under a dust cap, very busy.

"Noon?" she cried, astonished. "It can't be! But I can't stop now. I think I'll have Wing pick me up a lunch. There's plenty in the house. It's too much bother to clean up."

Keith demurred; then wanted to stay for the pick-up lunch himself. Nan would have none of it. She was full of repressed enthusiasm and eagerness, but she wanted to get rid of him.

"There's not enough. I wouldn't have you around. Go away, that's a good boy! If you'll leave Wing and me entirely alone we'll be ready to move in to-morrow."

"Where's Gringo?" asked Keith by way of indirect yielding—he had really no desire for a picked-up lunch.

"The little rascal! He started to chew everything in the place, so I tied him in the backyard. He pulls and flops dreadfully. Do you think he'll strangle himself?"

Keith looked out the window. Gringo, all four feet planted, was determinedly straining back against his tether. The collar had pulled forward all the loose skin of his neck, so that his eyes and features were lost in wrinkles.

"He doesn't yap," volunteered Nan.

Keith gave it as his opinion that Gringo would stop short of suicide, commended Gringo's taciturnity and evident perseverance, and departed for the hotel. In the dining-room he saw Mrs. Sherwood in a riding habit, eating alone. Keith hesitated, then took the vacant seat opposite. She accorded this permission cordially, but without coquetry, remarking that Sherwood often did not get in at noon. Immediately she turned the conversation to Keith's affairs, inquiring in detail as to how the settling was getting on, when they expected to get in, how they liked the house, whether they had bought all the furniture.

"You remember I directed you to the auctions?" she said.

She asked all these questions directly, as a man would, and listened to his replies.

"I suppose you have an office picked out?" she surmised.

At his mention of the Merchants' Exchange Building she raised her arched eyebrows half humorously.

"You picked out an expensive place."

Keith went over his reasoning, to which she listened with a half smile.

"You may be right," she commented; "the reasoning is perfectly sound. But that means you must get the business in order to make it pay. What are your plans?"

He confessed that as yet they were rather vague; there had not been time to do much—too busy settling.

"The usual thing, I suppose," he added: "get acquainted, hang out a shingle, mix with people, sit down and starve in the traditional manner of young lawyers."

He laughed lightly, but she refused to joke.

"There are a good many lawyers here—and most of them poor ones," she told him. "The difficulty is to stand out above the ruck, to become noticed. You must get to know all classes, of course; but especially those of your own profession, men on the bench. Yes, especially men on the bench, they may help you more than any others—"

He seemed to catch a little cynicism in her implied meaning, and experienced a sense of shock on his professional side.

"You don't mean that judges are—"

"Susceptible to influence?" She finished the sentence for him with an amused little laugh. She studied him for an instant with new interest, "They're human—more human here than anywhere else—like the rest of us— they respond to kind treatment—" She laughed again, but at the sight of his face her own became grave. She checked herself. "Everything is so new out here. In older countries the precedents have all been established. Out here there are practically none. They are being made now, every day, by the present judges. Naturally personal influence might get a hearing for one point of view or the other—"

"I see what you mean," he agreed, his face clearing.

"Join a good fire company," she advised him. "That is the first thing to do. Each company represents something different, a different class of men."

"Which would you advise?" asked Keith seriously.

"That is a matter for your own judgment. Only, investigate well. Meet all the people you can. Know the newspaper men, and the big merchants. In your profession you must cultivate men like Terry, Girvin, Shattuck, Gwin. Keep your eyes open. Be bold and use your wits. Above all, make friends; that's it, make friends—everybody, everywhere. Don't despise anybody. You will get plenty of chances." She was sitting erect, and her eyes were flashing. Her usual slow indolent grace had fallen from her; she radiated energy. Her slender figure took on a new appearance of knit strength. "Such chances! My heavens! if I were a man!"

"You'd make a bully man!" cried Keith. Mrs. Morrell, uttering the same wish, had received from him a different reply, but he had forgotten that.

She laughed again, the tension broke, and she sank back into her usual relaxed poise.

"But, thank heavens, I'm not," said she.



XIII

Affairs for the Keiths passed through another week of what might be called the transition stage. It took them that long to settle down in their new house and into some semblance of a routine—two days to the actual installation, and the evenings full of small matters to arrange. Nan was busy all day long playing with her new toy. The housekeeping was fascinating, and Wing Sam a mixture of delight and despair. Like most women who have led the sheltered life, she had not realized as yet that the customs of her own fraction of one per cent, were not immutable. Therefore, she tried to model the household exactly in the pattern of those to which she had been accustomed. Wing Sam blandly refused to be moulded.

Thus Nan spent all one morning drilling him in the proper etiquette of answering doors. Mindful of John McGlynn's advice, she did this by precept, ringing her own door bell, presenting a card as though calling on herself. Wing Sam's placid exterior changed not. A half hour later the door bell rang, but no Wing Sam appeared to answer it. It rang again, and again, until Nan herself opened the door. On the doorstep stood Wing Sam himself.

"I foolee you, too," he announced with huge delight.

Painstakingly Nan conveyed to him that this was neither an amusing game nor a practical joke. Later in the day the door bell rang again. Nan, hovering near to gauge the result of her training, saw Wing Sam plant himself firmly in the opening.

"You got ticket?" he demanded sternly of the deliveryman outside. "You no got ticket, you no get in!"

Which, Nan rather hysterically gathered, was what Wing Sam had gained of the calling-card idea. After that, temporarily as she thought, Nan permitted him to go back to his own method, which, had she known it, was the method of every Chinese servant in California. The visitor found his bell answered by a blandly smiling Wing Sam, who cheerfully remarked: "Hullo!" It was friendly, and it didn't matter; but at that stage of her development Nan was more or less scandalized.

Nan's sense of humour always came to her assistance by evening, and she had many amusing anecdotes to tell Keith, over which both of them laughed merrily. Gringo added somewhat to the complications in life. He was a fat, roly-poly, soft-boned, ingratiating puppy, with a tail that waved energetically but uncontrolledly. Gringo at times was very naughty, and very much in the way. But when exasperation turned to vengeance he had a way of keeling over on his back, spreading his hind legs apart in a manner to expose his stomach freely to brutal assault, and casting one calm china- blue eye upward.

"Can there anywhere exist any one so hard-hearted as to injure a poor, absolutely defenceless dog?" he inquired, with full confidence in the answer.

The iniquities of Gringo and the eccentricities of Wing Sam Nan detailed at length, and also her experiences with the natives. She as yet looked on every one as natives. Only later could she expand to the point of including them in her cosmos of people. Nan was transplanted, and her roots had not yet struck down into the soil. In her shopping peregrinations she was making casual acquaintance, and she had not yet become accustomed to it.

"I bought some darling little casseroles at Phelan's to-day," she said. "The whole Phelan family waited on me. Where do you suppose the women get their perfectly awful clothes? Mrs. Phelan offered to take me to her milliner!" or "You know Wilkins—the furniture man where we got the big armchair? I was in there to-day, and he apologized because his wife hadn't called!"

They went to bed early, because they were both very tired.

Keith also had generally passed an interesting day. Immediately after breakfast he went to his office, and conscientiously sat a while. Sometimes he wrote letters or cast up accounts; but there could not be much of this to do. About ten or eleven o'clock his impatient temperament had had enough of this, so he drifted over to the Monumental engine house. After considerable thought he had decided to join this company. It represented about the class of men with whom he wanted to affiliate himself—the influential men of the lawyer, Southern-politician, large business men type. There were many of these volunteer organizations. Their main purpose was to fight fire; but they subserved other objects as well—political, social, and financial. David Broderick, for example, already hated and feared, partly owned and financed a company of ward-heelers who were introducing and establishing the Tammany type of spoils politics. Casey, later in serious trouble, practically manipulated another.

Among the Monumentals, Keith delighted especially in Bert Taylor. Bert Taylor likewise delighted in Keith. The little chubby man's enthusiasm for the company, while recognized as most valuable to the company's welfare, had ended by boring most of the company's members. But Keith was a new listener and avid for information. He had had no notion of how complicated the whole matter could be. Bert Taylor dissertated sometimes on one phase of the subject, sometimes on another.

"It's drills we need, and the fellows won't drill enough!" was Bert Taylor's constant complaint. "What do they know about hose? They run it out any way it comes; and roll it up anyhow, instead of doing a proper job."

"How should you do it?" asked Keith.

"It ought to be laid right—so there's no bends or sharp angles in it; it should never be laid over heaps of stones, or any kind of uneven surface— it all increases the water resistance. If there are any bends or curves they should be regular and even. The hose ought never to rest against a sharp edge or angle. And when you coil it up you ought to reverse the sides every time, so it will wear even and stretch even. Do they do it? Not unless I stand over them with a club!"

He showed Keith the hose, made of India rubber, a comparatively new thing, for heretofore hose had been made of riveted leather. Bert Taylor made him feel the inside of this hose with his forefinger to test its superlative smoothness.

"Mighty little resistance there!" he cried triumphantly.

The nozzles, all in racks, he handled with almost reverent care.

"These are the boys that cost the money," said Taylor. "If the inside isn't polished like a mirror the water doesn't come smooth. And the least little dent makes the stream ragged and broken. Nothing looks worse—and it isn't as effective on the fire. It ought to be thrown like a solid rod of water. I can't get the boys to realize that the slightest bruise, dent, or burr throws the stream in a ragged feathery foam. The result of that is that a lot of water is dissipated and lost."

Keith, who had taken hold of the nozzle rather negligently, returned it with the reverent care due crown jewels.

"How long a stream will it throw?" he asked.

"With thirty men on a side she's done a hundred and twelve feet high, and two hundred and eighteen for distance," said Bert with simple pride.

He picked up the nozzle again.

"See here. Here's an invention of my own. Cost money to put it in, too, because every other nozzle on earth is made wrong."

He explained that other nozzles are made so that the thread of the hose screwed into the nozzle; while in his, the thread of the nozzle screwed into the hose.

"If there's a leak or a bad connection," explained Bert, "with the old type, the water is blown back into the fireman's face, and he is blinded. His whole efficiency depends on a close joint. But with my scheme the leak is blown forward, away from the lineman. It's a perfectly sound scheme, but I can't make them see it."

"Sounds reasonable," observed Keith, examining perfunctorily a device to which later he was to owe his life.

Item by item they went over the details of equipment—the scaling ladders, the jumping sheets, the branch pipes, the suction pipes, the flat roses, standcocks, goose necks, the dogtails, dam boards, shovels, saws, poleaxes, hooks, and ropes. From a consideration of them the two branched off to the generalities of fire fighting. Keith learned that the combating of a fire, the driving it into a corner, outflanking it, was a fine art.

"I say always, get in close," said Taylor. "A fire can be put out as well as just drowned out."

It struck Keith as interesting that in a room a stream should always be directed at the top of a fire, so that the water running down helps extinguish the flames below, whereas in attack at the bottom or centre merely puts out the immediate blaze, leaving the rest to spread upward or sideways. Taylor put himself on record against fighting fire from the street.

"Don't want a whole lot of water and row," he maintained. "Get in close quarters and make every drop count."

When Bert's enthusiasm palled, Keith always found men in the reading-room. The engine house was a sort of clearing house for politics, business schemes, personal affairs, or differences.

Once a day, also, as part of his job in his profession, Keith went to the courthouse. There he sat in the enclosure reserved for lawyers and listened to the proceedings, his legal mind alert and interested in the technical battles. At no time in the world's history has sheer technicality unleavened by common sense been carried further than in the early California courts. Even in the most law-ridden times elsewhere a certain check has been exercised by public opinion or the presence of business interests. But here was as yet no public opinion; and business interests, their energies fully taxed by the necessities of a new country, were willing to pay heavily to be let alone. Consequently, lawyers were permitted to play out their fascinating game to their hearts' content, and totally without reference to expedience or to the justice of the case. The battles were indeed intensely technical and shadowy. Points within points were fought bitterly. Often for days the real case at issue was forgotten.

Only one of the more obvious instances of technical triumph need be cited. One man killed another, on a public street, before many witnesses. The indictment was, however, thrown out and he released because it stated only that the victim was killed by a pistol, and failed to specify that his death was due to the discharge of said pistol. The lawyer who evolved this brilliant idea was greatly admired and warmly congratulated.

The wheels of the law ground very slowly. One of the simplest and most effective expedients of defence was delay. A case could be postponed and remanded, often until the witnesses were scattered or influenced. But there were infinite numbers of legal expedients, all most interesting to a man of Keith's profession. His sense of justice was naturally strong and warm, and an appeal to it outside a courtroom or a law office always got an immediate and commonsense response. But inside the law his mind automatically closed, and a "case" could have only legal aspects. Which is true of the majority of lawyers to-day.

On the adjournment of court Keith generally drifted over to the El Dorado or the Empire, where he spent an hour or so loafing with some of his numerous acquaintances. He was of the temperament that makes itself quickly popular, the laughing, hearty sort, full of badinage, and genuinely liking most men with whom he came in contact. There was always much joking in the air, but back of it was a certain reserve, a certain wariness, for every second man was a professed "fire-eater," given to feeling insulted on the slightest grounds, and flying to the duel or the street fight instanter.

This hour was always most pleasant to Keith; nevertheless, he went home about five o'clock in order to enjoy an hour or so of daylight about the place. He performed prodigies of digging in the new garden: constructing terraces, flower beds, walks, and the like. While the actual construction work was under way he was greatly interested, but cared nothing for the finished product or the mere growing of the flowers.

Gringo received his share of training, at first to his intense disgust. Twice he refused obedience, and the matter being pressed, resorted to the simple expedient of retiring from the scene. Keith dropped everything and pursued. Gringo crawled under things, but was followed even to the dustiest and cob-webbiest farthest corner under the porch; he tried swiftness and dodging, but was trailed in all his doublings and twistings at top speed; he tried running straight away over the sand hills, and at first left his horrible master behind, but the horrible master possessed a horrible persistence. Finally he shut his eyes and squatted, expecting instant annihilation, but instead was haled back to the exact scene of his disobedience, and the command repeated. Nan laughed until the tears came, over the large, warm, red-faced man after the small, obstinate, scared pup, but Keith refused to joke.

"If he finds he can't get away, no matter what happens, I'll never have to do it again," he panted. "But if he wins out, even once, it'll be an awful job."

Gringo tried twice. Then, his faith in his ability to escape completely shattered, he gave up. After that he adored Keith and was always under his feet.

Keith saw nothing of any of the women. Mrs. Sherwood seemed to have dropped from their ken when they left the hotel. Once Keith inquired casually about Mrs. Morrell.

"She's been over twice to see the place," replied Nan.

"We ought to go over there to call," proffered Keith vaguely; but there the matter rested.



XIV

One night Keith was awakened by Nan's suddenly sitting up in bed. There came to his struggling consciousness the persistent steady clangour of many deep bells. Slowly recognition filtered into his mind—the fire bells!

He hastily pulled on some clothes and ran down the front stairs, stumbling over Gringo, who uttered an outraged yelp. From the street he could see a red glow in the sky. At top speed he ran down the street in the direction of the Monumental. In the half darkness he could make out other figures running. The deep tones of the bells continued to smite his ear, but now in addition he heard the tinkling and clinking of innumerable smaller bells— those on the machines. He dashed around a corner to encounter a double line of men, running at full speed, hauling on a long rope attached to an engine. Their mouths were open, and they were all yelling. The light engine careened and swayed and bumped. Two men clung to the short steering tongue, trying to guide it. They were thrown violently from side to side, dragged here and there, tripping, hauling, falling across the tongue, but managing to keep the machine from dashing off at a tangent. Above them, high and precarious, swayed the short stout figure of Bert Taylor. He was in full regalia—leather helmet, heavy leather belt, long-tailed coat, and in his free hand the chased silver speaking trumpet with the red tassels that usually hung on the wall. He was in his glory, dominating the horde. His keen eye, roving everywhere, seeing everything, saw Keith.

"Catch hold!" he roared through the trumpet.

Keith made a flying grab at a vacant place on the line, caught it, was almost jerked from his feet, recovered himself, and charged on, yelling like the rest.

But now Bert Taylor began to shriek something excitedly. It became evident, from glimpses caught down the side streets, but especially through the many vacant lots, that another engine was paralleling their own course a block away.

"Jump her, boys, jump her!" shrieked Bert Taylor. "For God's sake, don't let those Eurekas beat you!"

He danced about on top of the waterbox of the engine, in imminent peril of being jerked from his place, battering his silver trumpet insanely against the brake rods, beseeching, threatening profanely. And profanity at that time was a fine art. Men studied its alliteration, the gorgeousness of its imagery, the blast of its fire. The art has been lost, existing still, in a debased form, only among mule drivers, sailors, and the owners of certain makes of automobiles. The men on the rope responded nobly. The roar of their going over the plank road was like hollow thunder. A man dropped out. Next day it was discovered he had broken his leg in a hole. At tremendous speed they charged through the ring of spectators, and drew up, proud and panting, victors by a hundred feet, to receive the plaudits of the multitude. A handsome man on a handsome horse rode up.

"Monumentals on the fire! Eurekas on cistern number twenty!" he commanded briefly.

This was Charles Duane, the unpaid fire chief; a likable, efficient man, but too fond of the wrong sort of friends.

Now it became evident to Keith why Bert Taylor had urged them so strongly in the race. The fire was too distant from the water supply to be carried in one length of hose. Therefore, one engine was required to relay to another, pumping the water from the cistern, through the hose, and into the waterbox of the other engine. The other engine pumped it from its own waterbox on to the fire. The latter, of course, was the position of honour.

The Eurekas fell back grumbling, and uttering open threats to wash their rivals. By this they meant that they would pump water into the Monumentals faster than the latter could pump it out, thus overflowing and eternally disgracing them. They dropped their suction hose into the cistern, and one of their number held the end of the main hose over a little trapdoor in the Monumental's box. The crews sprang to the long brake handles on either side, and at once the regular thud, thud, thud of the pumps took up its rhythm. The hose writhed and swelled; the light engines quivered. Bert Taylor and the Eureka foreman, Carter by name, walked back and forth as on their quarterdecks, exhorting their men. Relays, in uniform assumed on the spot, stood ready at hand. Nobody in either crew knew or cared anything whatsoever about the fire. As the race became closer, the foremen got more excited, begging their crews to increase the stroke, beating their speaking trumpets into shapeless battered relics. An astute observer would now have understood one reason why the jewellery stores carried such a variety of fancy speaking trumpets. They were for presentation by grateful owners after the fire had been extinguished, and it was generally necessary to get a new one for each fire.

Keith, acting under previous instructions, promptly seized a helmet and poleaxe and made his way to the front. The fire had started in one of many flimsy wooden buildings, and had rapidly spread to threaten a whole district. Men from the hook and ladder companies were already at work on some of the hopeless cases. A fireman or two mounted ladders to the eaves, dragging with them a heavy hook on the end of a long pole. Cutting a small hole with their axes, they hooked on this apparatus and descended. As many firemen and volunteers as could get hold of the pole and the rope attached to it, now began to pull.

"Yo, heave ho!" they cried.

The timbers cracked, broke, the whole side of the house came out with a grand and satisfying crash. An inferno of flame was thereby laid open to the streams from the hose lines. It was grand destructive fun for everybody, especially for the boys of all ages, which included in spirit about every male person present.

This sort of work was intended, of course, to confine or check the fire within the area already affected, and could accomplish nothing toward saving the structures already alight. The roar of the flames, the hissing of firebrands sucked upward, the crash of timbers, the shrieks of the foremen through their trumpets, the yells of applause or of sarcasm from the crowd, and the thud, thud, thud, thud of numerous brake bars made a fine pandemonium. Everybody except the owners or tenants of the buildings was delighted.

Keith, with two others, was instructed to carry the Monumental nozzle to the roof of a house not afire. Proudly they proceeded to use their scaling ladders. These were a series of short sections, each about six feet long, the tops slightly narrower than the bottoms. By means of slots these could be fitted together. First, Keith erected one of them against the wall of the building, at an angle, and ascended it, carrying another section across his shoulder. When he reached a certain rung, which was painted red, he thrust his foot through the ladder and against the wall, pushed the ladder away from the wall, and fitted the section he was carrying to the top of the section on which he was standing. He then hauled up another section and repeated. When the ladder had reached to the eaves, he and his companions dragged the squirting, writhing hose up with them, chopped footholds in the roof, and lay flat to look over the ridgepole as over a breastwork. All this to the tune of admiring plaudits and with a pleasing glow of heroism. There was a skylight, but either they overlooked or scorned that prosaic expedient.

At the other end of the ridgepole Keith made out the dark forms of two men from another company. His own companions, acting under orders, now descended the ladder, leaving him alone.

The next building was a raging furnace, and on it Keith directed the heavy stream from his nozzle. It was great fun. At first the water seemed to have no effect whatever, but after a little it began to win. The flames were beaten back, broken into detachments. Finally, Keith got to the point of chasing down small individual outbreaks, driving them into their lairs, drowning them as they crouched. He was wholly interested, and the boy in him, with a shamefaced half apology to the man in him, pretended that he was a soldier directing a battery against an enemy.

Along the ridgepole cautiously sidled the two men of the other company, dragging their hose. Keith now recognized them. One was a vivid, debonair, all-confident, magnetic individual named Talbot Ward, a merchant, promoter, speculator, whom everybody liked and trusted; the other a fair Hercules of a man, slow and powerful in everything, called Frank Munro.

"Look here," said Ward, "does it strike you this roof's getting hot?"

Recalled to himself, Keith immediately became aware of the fact.

"The house is afire beneath us," said Ward; "we've got to get out."

"What's the matter with your ladder?" asked Keith.

"They took it away."

"We'll use mine."

They let themselves cautiously down the footholds that had been chopped in the roof, and looked over. A blast of smoke and flame met them in the face.

"Good Lord, she's all afire!" cried Keith, aghast.

The flames were licking around the scaling ladder, which was already blazing. Keith directed the stream from his hose straight down, but with no other result than to break the charred ladder.

They crawled back to the ridgepole, and worked their hose lines around to the end of the building, out of the flames. Here a two-story drop confronted them.

"This thing is going to fall under us if we don't do something," muttered Ward.

"Duane's forgotten us, and those crazy idiots at the engines are too busy trying to keep from being washed," surmised Keith.

"Look here," said Munro suddenly; "I'll brace against a chimney and hang on to the hose, and you can slide down it like a rope."

"How about you?" demanded Ward crisply.

"You can run for more ladders, once you're on the ground."

At this moment the water failed in Keith's hose. He stared at the nozzle, then rapidly began to unscrew it.

"Cistern empty or hose burst," surmised Munro.

But Talbot Ward, cocking his ear toward a distant pandemonium of cheering, guessed the true cause.

"Sucked," said he. By this he meant that the Monumental crew had succeeded in emptying their water box in spite of the Eureka's best efforts.

"Get off your nozzle quick!" urged Keith.

Munro, without stopping to ask why, bent his great strength to the task; and it was a task, for in his hose the pressure of the water was tremendous. It spurted back all over him, and at the last the nozzle was fairly blown away from him.

"Now couple my hose to yours quick, quick, before my hose fills!" cried Keith.

"They won't go—" Munro began to object.

"Yes, they will, mine's a special thread," urged Keith, who had remembered Bert Taylor's reversed nozzle.

All three bent their energies to catching the threads. It was a fearful job, for the strength of the water had first to be overcome. Keith was terribly excited. Time was precious, for not only might the roof give way beneath them, but at any moment the water might come again in Keith's hose. Then it would be physically impossible to make the coupling. All three men concentrated their efforts on it, their feet gripping the irregularities of the roof or slipping on the shingles. Frank Munro bent his enormous back to the task, the veins standing out in his temples, his face turning purple with the effort. Keith helped him as well as he was able. Talbot Ward, coolly, deliberately, delicately, as though he had all the time in the world, manipulated the coupling, feeling gingerly for the thread. The water spurted, fanned, sprayed, escaping with violence, first at one point, then at another, drenching and blinding them.

"There!" breathed Ward at last, and with a few twists, of his sinewy hands brought the couplings into close connection. Munro relaxed, drawing two or three deep breaths. Without the aid of his great strength the task could not have been accomplished.

"Hook her over the chimney," gasped Keith.

With some difficulty they lifted the loop of the throbbing hose over the chimney.

"Down we go!" cried Keith, and slid hand over hand down the way thus made for them. The others immediately followed, and all three stood looking back. It was a wonder the building had stood so long, for in both stories it was afire, and the walls had apparently burned quite through. Indeed, a moment later the whole structure collapsed. A fountain of sparks and brands sprang upward in the mighty suction.

"There goes our good hose!" said Keith.

The remark brought them to wrath and a desire for vengeance.

"I'm going to lick somebody!" cried Keith, starting determinedly in the direction of the engine.

"We'll help," growled Munro.

But when they came in sight of the engine their anger evaporated, and they clung to each other, weak with mirth.

For the Monumental was "washed," and washed aplenty. This was natural, for now the water was pouring into her box from both directions, and would continue so to pour until the hose coupled to Ward's engine had burned through. The water was fairly spouting up from the box, not merely overflowing. Her crew were still working, but raggedly and dispiritedly. Bert Taylor, his trumpet battered beyond all recognition, was fairly voiceless with rage. An interested and ribaldry facetious crowd spared not its sarcasm.

"My crowd must be in the same fix!" gurgled Ward; "the back pressure has 'washed' them, too." Then the full splendour of the situation burst on him, and he fell again on Munro for support.

"Don't you see," he gasped. "They'll never know! The hose will burn through. Unless we tell, they'll never know! We've got even, all right."

At this moment Duane rode up, foaming at the mouth, and desiring to know what the assorted adjectives they were doing there. The crews awoke to their isolation and general uselessness. Bert Taylor, still simmering, descended from his perch. They followed the hose lines to glowing coals!

"Here, this won't do," said Talbot; so they reported themselves before the news of a tragedy had had time to spread.

The fire was now practically under control. It had swept a city block pretty clean, but had been confined to that area. An hour later they dragged their engine rather dispiritedly back to the house. Ordinarily they would have been in high spirits. Fires were to these men a good deal of a lark. The crews were very effective and well drilled, and the saving of property was as well done as possible, but that was all secondary to the game of it. But to-night they had been "washed," they had lost the game, and the fact that they had put out the fire cut very little figure. There was much bickering. It seemed that Bert Taylor, in his enthusiasm, had, out of his own pocket, hired extra men who appeared at the critical moment to relieve the tired men at the brakes; and it was under their fresh impetus that the Monumental had so triumphantly "sucked." Now Bert Taylor was freely blamed. The regular men stoutly maintained that if they had been left alone this would never have happened.

"These whiskey bummers never can last!" they said. Everybody trooped upstairs to the main rooms, where refreshments were served. After some consideration Keith decided to tell his story in explanation of how it was that the Monumentals were washed. Instantly the company cheered up, A clamour broke out. This was great! With Talbot Ward and Munro to corroborate, no one could doubt the story. Taylor ran about jubilantly, returning every few moments to pat Keith on the shoulder.

"Fine! fine!" he cried. "We've got those Eurekas! I can't wait for morning!"



XV

Keith got home about daylight to find Nan, terribly anxious, waiting up for him. He brushed away her anxiety with the usual masculine impatience at being made a fuss over, gave a brief account of the fire—omitting mention of his narrow escape—and insisted that she go to bed. After a few moments she obeyed, and immediately fell asleep. Keith bathed himself and changed, made a cup of coffee, and wandered about rather impatiently waiting for time to go downtown. Wing Sam appeared, the morning paper came. The sun gained strength, and finally tempted him outside.

For some time he prowled around, examining Nan's efforts at gardening. There was not much to show as yet, but Keith had already the eye of faith so essential to the Californian, and saw plainly trees, shrubs, and flowers where now only spears of green were visible. The Morrells' garden next door was already well grown, and he cast on it an appraising eye. No sign of life showed about the place except a thread of smoke from the kitchen chimney. It was still early.

Nevertheless, five minutes later Mrs. Morrell opened the side door and stepped forth. She had on a wide leghorn hat, and carried a basket and scissors as though to gather flowers. Immediately she caught sight of Keith and waved him a gay greeting. He vaulted the fence and joined her.

"Aren't these early morning hours perfect? Isn't this glorious sunshine?" she greeted him.

As a matter of fact Mrs. Morrell seldom rose before noon, and detested early morning hours and glorious sunshine. She was inclined to consider the usual remarks in their praise as sheer affectation. But she adored fires, and often went to them when they promised well enough. Sometimes she attended in company with certain of her men friends; and sometimes alone, cloaked as a man. She liked the destruction and stimulation of them. She had been to the fire just extinguished, and seeing Keith in the garden, had put on her fluffiest and gone out to him. It was time this most attractive young man next door paid her more attention.

"How does the hero of the fire survive?" she asked him archly.

"Hero?"

"Don't pretend ignorance. Charles told me all about it. He heard your tale at the Monumental."

"It's hardly heroism to get out of a scrape the best way possible."

"It's heroic to save lives, I think; but especially heroic to keep your head in an emergency."

"Mr. Morrell all right?" asked Keith, to change the subject.

"He is sleeping off the fire—and the after effects. You men need watching every minute—even when we think you must be in danger of your lives."

She laughed and clipped a few flowers at random.

"Have you been moving furniture all these days? We've seen nothing of you. I thought we were going to have some music. I do my little five-finger exercises all by myself and nobody knows but I am playing Beethoven. You ought in Christian charity to help me out—whether you want to or not. What do you think of our garden? Don't you adore flowers?"

"No, I don't believe I do," replied Keith bluntly. "I like to see a pretty woman amongst 'em," he went on gallantly, "they set her off. It's like dresses. No good to show me pretty frocks—unless they're filled."

"La! You are so clever; at times I'm really afraid of you," said she.

She went on tossing a few blooms into her basket. Under the stimulus of the fire she had acted on impulse in going out into the garden. She realized it as perhaps a mistake. Keith's early morning freshness and fitness made her feel less sure of herself than usual. She had an uneasy impression that she was not at her best, and this reacted on her ability to exercise her usual magnetism. In fact, Keith, the least observant of men in such things, could not avoid noticing her rather second-hand looking skin, and that her features were more pronounced than he had thought.

"Do come over this evening for some music," she begged. "You can take a nap this afternoon, and you can go home early."

Keith had been just a little uneasy over this second interview with Mrs. Morrell. His straightforward nature was inclined to look back on the impression she had made on him at the supper party with a half-guilty sense of some sort of vague disloyalty he could not formulate. Now he felt much satisfied with himself, and quite relieved. Therefore, he accepted.

"I shall be very glad to," said he.

At breakfast, which was rather late, he told Nan of the meeting and the invitation. Nan's clear lines, fresh creamy skin, bright young eyes, looked more than usually attractive to him.

"Perhaps she can play," he said. "Let's go find out. And you must wear your prettiest gown; I'm proud of my wife, and I want her to look her very best."

A little later he remarked:

"I wonder if she isn't considerably older than Morrell."



XVI

When he had at last reached downtown after his late breakfast, Keith found it in a fair turmoil. Knots of men stood everywhere arguing, sometimes very heatedly. Eureka members were openly expressing their anger over what they called Taylor's "dirty trick" in putting hirelings on the brakes, men who did not belong to the Monumental organization at all. If it had not been for that the Monumentals could never have "sucked" at all. On the other hand, the Monumentals and their friends were vehemently asserting that they were well within their rights. Fists were brandished. Several fights started, but were stopped before they had become serious.

Keith avoided these storm centres, waving a friendly hand, but smilingly refusing to be drawn in. Near the Merchants' Exchange, however, he came on a quieter, attentive group, in the centre of which stood Calhoun Bennett. The Southerner's head was thrown back haughtily, but he was listening with entire courtesy to a violent harangue from a burly, red-faced man in rough clothes.

"And I tell you that sort of a trick won't go down with nobody, and the story of why you were washed won't wash itself. It's too thin."

"I have the honah, suh," said Bennett formally, "to info'm yo' that yo' do not know what yo' are talkin' about."

His silken tones apparently enraged the man.

"You silk-stockinged——of a——!" said he.

Without haste Calhoun Bennett rapped the man across the face with his light rattan cane. Venting a howl of rage, the Eureka partisan leaped forward. Calhoun Bennett, quick as a flash, drew a small derringer and fired; and the man went down in a heap. Superbly nonchalant, Bennett, without a glance at his victim, turned away, the ring of spectators parting to let him through. He saw Keith, and at once joined him, drawing the young man's arm through his own. Keith, looking back, saw the man already sitting up, feeling his shoulder and cursing vigorously.

Bennett was fairly radiating rage, which, however, he managed to suppress beneath a well-bred exterior calm.

"These hounds, suh," he told Keith, "profess not to believe us, suh! They profess, suh, that our explanation of how we were washed is a fabrication. You will oblige me, suh, by profferin' yo' personal testimony in the case."

He faced Keith resolutely toward the Eureka engine house. Keith spared a thought to wonder what he was being let in for by this handsome young fire- eater, but he went along unprotesting.

Around the Eureka engine house was a big crowd of men. These fell silent as Bennett and Keith approached. The Eurekas represented quite a different social order from the Monumentals. Its membership was recruited from those who in the East had been small farmers, artisans, or workingmen in the more skilled trades; independent, plain, rather rough, thoroughly democratic, a trifle contemptuous of "silk stockings," outspoken, with little heed for niceties of etiquette or conduct. Bennett pushed his way through them to where stood Carter, the chief, and several of the more influential. Keith, looking at them, met their eyes directed squarely into his. They were steady, clear-looking, solid, rather coarse-grained, grave men.

"I have brought Mr. Keith here, who was an eyewitness, to give his testimony as to the events of last evenin'," said Bennett formally.

Keith told his story. It was received in a blank noncommittal silence. The men all looked at him steadily, and said nothing. Somehow, he was impressed. This silence seemed to him, fancifully, more than mere lack of words—it conveyed a sense of reserve force, of quiet appraisal of himself and his words, of the experiences of men who have been close to realities, who have done things in the world. Keith felt himself to be better educated, to own a better brain, to have a wider outlook, to be possessed, in short, of all the advantages of superiority. He had never mingled with rough men, and he had always looked down on them. In this attitude was no condescension and no priggishness, Now he felt, somehow, that the best of these men had something that he had not suspected, some force of character that raised them above his previous conception. They might be more than mere "filling" in a city's population; they might well come to be an element to be reckoned with.