Part 74 (1/2)

Saxon waited with well-concealed anxiety when the letter was finished.

Billy, stretched out, leaning on one elbow, blew a meditative ring of smoke. His cheap works.h.i.+rt, incongruously brilliant with the gold of the medals that flashed in the firelight, was open in front, showing the smooth skin and splendid swell of chest. He glanced around--at the blankets bowered in a green screen and waiting, at the campfire and the blackened, battered coffee pot, at the well-worn hatchet, half buried in a tree trunk, and lastly at Saxon. His eyes embraced her; then into them came a slow expression of inquiry. But she offered no help.

”Well,” he uttered finally, ”all you gotta do is write Bud Strothers, an' tell 'm not on the Boss's ugly tintype.--An' while you're about it, I'll send 'm the money to get my watch out. You work out the interest.

The overcoat can stay there an' rot.”

But they did not prosper in the interior heat. They lost weight. The resilience went out of their minds and bodies. As Billy expressed it, their silk was frazzled. So they shouldered their packs and headed west across the wild mountains. In the Berryessa Valley, the s.h.i.+mmering heat waves made their eyes ache, and their heads; so that they traveled on in the early morning and late afternoon. Still west they headed, over more mountains, to beautiful Napa Valley. The next valley beyond was Sonoma, where Hastings had invited them to his ranch. And here they would have gone, had not Billy chanced upon a newspaper item which told of the writer's departure to cover some revolution that was breaking out somewhere in Mexico.

”We'll see 'm later on,” Billy said, as they turned northwest, through the vineyards and orchards of Napa Valley. ”We're like that millionaire Bert used to sing about, except it's time that we've got to burn. Any direction is as good as any other, only west is best.”

Three times in the Napa Valley Billy refused work. Past St. Helena, Saxon hailed with joy the unmistakable redwoods they could see growing up the small canyons that penetrated the western wall of the valley.

At Calistoga, at the end of the railroad, they saw the six-horse stages leaving for Middletown and Lower Lake. They debated their route. That way led to Lake County and not toward the coast, so Saxon and Billy swung west through the mountains to the valley of the Russian River, coming out at Healdsburg. They lingered in the hop-fields on the rich bottoms, where Billy scorned to pick hops alongside of Indians, j.a.panese, and Chinese.

”I couldn't work alongside of 'em an hour before I'd be knockin' their blocks off,” he explained. ”Besides, this Russian River's some nifty.

Let's pitch camp and go swimmin'.”

So they idled their way north up the broad, fertile valley, so happy that they forgot that work was ever necessary, while the valley of the moon was a golden dream, remote, but sure, some day of realization.

At Cloverdale, Billy fell into luck. A combination of sickness and mischance found the stage stables short a driver. Each day the train disgorged pa.s.sengers for the Geysers, and Billy, as if accustomed to it all his life, took the reins of six horses and drove a full load over the mountains in stage time. The second trip he had Saxon beside him on the high boxseat. By the end of two weeks the regular driver was back.

Billy declined a stable-job, took his wages, and continued north.

Saxon had adopted a fox terrier puppy and named him Possum, after the dog Mrs. Hastings had told them about. So young was he that he quickly became footsore, and she carried him until Billy perched him on top of his pack and grumbled that Possum was chewing his back hair to a frazzle.

They pa.s.sed through the painted vineyards of Asti at the end of the grape-picking, and entered Ukiah drenched to the skin by the first winter rain.

”Say,” Billy said, ”you remember the way the Roamer just skated along.

Well, this summer's done the same thing--gone by on wheels. An' now it's up to us to find some place to winter. This Ukiah looks like a pretty good burg. We'll get a room to-night an' dry out. An' to-morrow I'll hustle around to the stables, an' if I locate anything we can rent a shack an' have all winter to think about where we'll go next year.”

CHAPTER XIII

The winter proved much less exciting than the one spent in Carmel, and keenly as Saxon had appreciated the Carmel folk, she now appreciated them more keenly than ever. In Ukiah she formed nothing more than superficial acquaintances. Here people were more like those of the working cla.s.s she had known in Oakland, or else they were merely wealthy and herded together in automobiles. There was no democratic artist-colony that pursued fellows.h.i.+p disregardful of the caste of wealth.

Yet it was a more enjoyable winter than any she had spent in Oakland.

Billy had failed to get regular employment; so she saw much of him, and they lived a prosperous and happy hand-to-mouth existence in the tiny cottage they rented. As extra man at the biggest livery stable, Billy's spare time was so great that he drifted into horse-trading. It was hazardous, and more than once he was broke, but the table never wanted for the best of steak and coffee, nor did they stint themselves for clothes.

”Them blamed farmers--I gotta pa.s.s it to 'em,” Billy grinned one day, when he had been particularly bested in a horse deal. ”They won't tear under the wings, the sons of guns. In the summer they take in boarders, an' in the winter they make a good livin' doin' each other up at tradin'

horses. An' I just want to tell YOU, Saxon, they've sure shown me a few.

An' I 'm gettin' tough under the wings myself. I'll never tear again so as you can notice it. Which means one more trade learned for yours truly. I can make a livin' anywhere now tradin' horses.”

Often Billy had Saxon out on spare saddle horses from the stable, and his horse deals took them on many trips into the surrounding country.

Likewise she was with him when he was driving horses to sell on commission; and in both their minds, independently, arose a new idea concerning their pilgrimage. Billy was the first to broach it.

”I run into an outfit the other day, that's stored in town,” he said, ”an' it's kept me thinkin' ever since. Ain't no use tryin' to get you to guess it, because you can't. I'll tell you--the swellest wagon-campin'

outfit anybody ever heard of. First of all, the wagon's a peacherino.

Strong as they make 'em. It was made to order, upon Puget Sound, an' it was tested out all the way down here. No load an' no road can strain it.

The guy had consumption that had it built. A doctor an' a cook traveled with 'm till he pa.s.sed in his checks here in Ukiah two years ago. But say--if you could see it. Every kind of a contrivance--a place for everything--a regular home on wheels. Now, if we could get that, an' a couple of plugs, we could travel like kings, an' laugh at the weather.”