kindly recognition of his happiness, and he nodded and smiled back
to them with unsuspecting candor and innocent playfulness. "These yer
'Frisco fellers ain't ALL slouches, you bet," he added to himself half
aloud, at the back of the grinning coachman.
Their way led through well-built streets to the outskirts, or rather
to that portion of the city which seemed to have been overwhelmed by
shifting sand-dunes, from which half-submerged fences and even low
houses barely marked the line of highway. The resistless trade-winds
which had marked this change blew keenly in his face and slightly
chilled his ardor. At a turn in the road the sea came in sight, and
sloping towards it the great Cemetery of Lone Mountain, with white
shafts and marbles that glittered in the sunlight like the sails of
ships waiting to be launched down that slope into the Eternal Ocean.
Uncle Billy shuddered. What if it had been his fate to seek Uncle Jim
there!
"Dar's yar Presidio!" said the negro coachman a few moments later,
pointing with his whip, "and dar's yar Wash'woman's Bay!"
Uncle Billy stared. A huge quadrangular fort of stone with a flag flying
above its battlements stood at a little distance, pressed against the
rocks, as if beating back the encroaching surges; between him and the
fort but farther inland was a lagoon with a number of dilapidated,
rudely patched cabins or cottages, like stranded driftwood around its
shore. But there was no mansion, no block of houses, no street, not
another habitation or dwelling to be seen!
Uncle Billy's first shock of astonishment was succeeded by a feeling of
relief. He had secretly dreaded a meeting with his old partner in the
"haunts of fashion;" whatever was the cause that made Uncle Jim seek
this obscure retirement affected him but slightly; he even was thrilled
with a vague memory of the old shiftless camp they had both abandoned. A
certain instinct--he knew not why, or less still that it might be one of
delicacy--made him alight before they reached the first house. Bidding
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