"Gee!--that valley of the moon's goin' to be some valley," Billy

  meditated, flicking a fly away with his whip from Hattie's side.

  "Think we'll ever find it?"

  Saxon nodded her head with great certitude.

  "Just as the Jews found the promised land, and the Mormons Utah,

  and the Pioneers California. You remember the last advice we got

  when we left Oakland' ''Tis them that looks that finds.'"

  CHAPTER XV

  Ever north, through a fat and flourishing rejuvenated land,

  stopping at the towns of Willows, Red Bluff and Redding, crossing

  the counties of Colusa, Glenn, Tehama, and Shasta, went the

  spruce wagon drawn by the dappled chestnuts with cream-colored

  manes and tails. Billy picked up only three horses for shipment,

  although he visited many farms; and Saxon talked with the women

  while he looked over the stock with the men. And Saxon grew the

  more convinced that the valley she sought lay not there.

  At Redding they crossed the Sacramento on a cable ferry, and made

  a day's scorching traverse through rolling foot-hills and flat

  tablelands. The heat grew more insupportable, and the trees and

  shrubs were blasted and dead. Then they came again to the

  Sacramento, where the great smelters of Kennett explained the

  destruction of the vegetation.

  They climbed out of the smelting town, where eyrie houses perched

  insecurely on a precipitous landscape. It was a broad,

  well-engineered road that took them up a grade miles long and

  plunged down into the Canyon of the Sacramento. The road,

  rock-surfaced and easy-graded, hewn out of the canyon wall, grew

  so narrow that Billy worried for fear of meeting opposite-bound

  teams. Far below, the river frothed and flowed over pebbly

  shallows, or broke tumultuously over boulders and cascades, in

  its race for the great valley they had left behind.

  Sometimes, on the wider stretches of road, Saxon drove and Billy

  walked to lighten the load. She insisted on taking her turns at

  walking, and when he breathed the panting mares on the steep, and

  Saxon stood by their heads caressing them and cheering them,

  Billy's joy was too deep for any turn of speech as he gazed at

  his beautiful horses and his glowing girl, trim and colorful in

  her golden brown corduroy, the brown corduroy calves swelling

  sweetly under the abbreviated slim skirt. And when her answering

  look of happiness came to him--a sudden dimness in her straight

  gray eyes--he was overmastered by the knowledge that he must say

  something or burst.

  "O, you kid!" he cried.

  And with radiant face she answered, "O, you kid!"

  They camped one night in a deep dent in the canyon, where was

  snuggled a box-factory village, and where a toothless ancient,

  gazing with faded eyes at their traveling outfit, asked: "Be you

  showin'?"

  They passed Castle Crags, mighty-bastioned and glowing red

  against the palpitating blue sky. They caught their first glimpse

  of Mt. Shasta, a rose-tinted snow-peak rising, a sunset dream,

  between and beyond green interlacing walls of canyon--a landmark

  destined to be with them for many days. At unexpected turns,

  after mounting some steep grade, Shasta would appear again, still

  distant, now showing two peaks and glacial fields of shimmering

  white. Miles and miles and days and days they climbed, with

  Shasta ever developing new forms and phases in her summer snows.

  "A moving picture in the sky," said Billy at last.

  "Oh,--it is all so beautiful," sighed Saxon. "But there are no

  moon-valleys here."

  They encountered a plague of butterflies, and for days drove

  through untold millions of the fluttering beauties that covered

  the road with uniform velvet-brown. And ever the road seemed to

  rise under the noses of the snorting mares, filling the air with

  noiseless flight, drifting down the breeze in clouds of brown and

  yellow soft-flaked as snow, and piling in mounds against the

  fences, ever driven to float helplessly on the irrigation ditches

  along the roadside. Hazel and Hattie soon grew used to them

  though Possum never ceased being made frantic.

  "Huh!--who ever heard of butterfly-broke horses?" Billy chaffed.

  "That's worth fifty bucks more on their price."

  "Wait till you get across the Oregon line into the Rogue River

  Valley," they were told. "There's God's Paradise--climate,

  scenery, and fruit-farming; fruit ranches that yield two hundred

  per cent. on a valuation of five hundred dollars an acre."

  "Gee!" Billy said, when he had driven on out of hearing; "that's

  too rich for our digestion."

  And Saxon said, "I don't know about apples in the valley of the

  moon, but I do know that the yield is ten thousand per cent. of

  happiness on a valuation of one Billy, one Saxon, a Hazel, a

  Hattie, and a Possum."

  Through Siskiyou County and across high mountains, they came to

  Ashland and Medford and camped beside the wild Rogue River.

  "This is wonderful and glorious," pronounced Saxon; "but it is

  not the valley of the moon."

  "Nope, it ain't the valley of the moon," agreed Billy, and he

  said it on the evening of the day he hooked a monster steelhead,

  standing to his neck in the ice-cold water of the Rogue and

  fighting for forty minutes, with screaming reel, ere he drew his

  finny prize to the bank and with the scalp-yell of a Comanche

  jumped and clutched it by the gills.

  "'Them that looks finds,'" predicted Saxon, as they drew north

  out of Grant's Pass, and held north across the mountains and

  fruitful Oregon valleys.

  One day, in camp by the Umpqua River, Billy bent over to begin

  skinning the first deer he had ever shot. He raised his eyes to

  Saxon and remarked:

  "If I didn't know California, I guess Oregon'd suit me from the

  ground up."

  In the evening, replete with deer meat, resting on his elbow and

  smoking his after-supper cigarette, he said:

  "Maybe they ain't no valley of the moon. An' if they ain't, what

  of it? We could keep on this way forever. I don't ask nothing

  better."

  "There is a valley of the moon," Saxon answered soberly. "And we

  are going to find it. We've got to. Why Billy, it would never do,

  never to settle down. There would be no little Hazels and little

  Hatties, nor little . . . Billies--"

  "Nor little Saxons," Billy interjected.

  "Nor little Possums," she hurried on, nodding her head and

  reaching out a caressing hand to where the fox terrier was

  ecstatically gnawing a deer-rib. A vicious snarl and a wicked

  snap that barely missed her fingers were her reward.

  "Possum!" she cried in sharp reproof, again extending her hand.

  "Don't," Billy warned. "He can't help it, and he's likely to get

  you next time."

  Even more compelling was the menacing threat that Possum growled,

  his jaws close-guarding the bone, eyes blazing insanely, the hair

  rising stiffly on his neck.

  "It's a good dog that sticks up for its bone," Billy championed.

&nb
sp; "I wouldn't care to own one that didn't."

  "But it's my Possum," Saxon protested. "And he loves me. Besides,

  he must love me more than an old bone. And he must mind

  me.--Here, you, Possum, give me that bone! Give me that bone,

  sir!"

  Her hand went out gingerly, and the growl rose in volume and key

  till it culminated in a snap.

  "I tell you it's instinct," Billy repeated. "He does love you,

  but he just can't help doin' it."

  "He's got a right to defend his bones from strangers but not from

  his mother," Saxon argued. "I shall make him give up that bone to

  me."

  "Fox terriers is awful highstrung, Saxon. You'll likely get him

  hysterical."

  But she was obstinately set in her purpose. She picked up a short

  stick of firewood.

  "Now, sir, give me that bone."

  She threatened with the stick, and the dog's growling became

  ferocious. Again he snapped, then crouched back over his bone.

  Saxon raised the stick as if to strike him, and he suddenly

  abandoned the bone, rolled over on his back at her feet, four

  legs in the air, his ears lying meekly back, his eyes swimming

  and eloquent with submission and appeal.

  "My God!" Billy breathed in solemn awe. "Look at it!--presenting

  his solar plexus to you, his vitals an' his life, all defense

  down, as much as sayin': 'Here I am. Stamp on me. Kick the life

  outa me.' I love you, I am your slave, but I just can't help

  defendin' my bone. My instinct's stronger'n me. Kill me, but I

  can't help it."

  Saxon was melted. Tears were in her eyes as she stooped and

  gathered the mite of an animal in her arms. Possum was in a

  frenzy of agitation, whining, trembling, writhing, twisting,

  licking her face, all for forgiveness.

  "Heart of gold with a rose in his mouth," Saxon crooned, burying

  her face in the soft and quivering bundle of sensibilities.

  "Mother is sorry. She'll never bother you again that way. There,

  there, little love. See? There's your bone. Take it."

  She put him down, but he hesitated between her and the bone,

  patently looking to her for surety of permission, yet continuing

  to tremble in the terrible struggle between duty and desire that

  seemed tearing him asunder. Not until she repeated that it was

  all right and nodded her head consentingly did he go to the bone.

  And once, a minute later, he raised his head with a sudden

  startle and gazed inquiringly at her. She nodded and smiled, and

  Possum, with a happy sigh of satisfaction, dropped his head down

  to the precious deer-rib.

  "That Mercedes was right when she said men fought over jobs like

  dogs over bones," Billy enunciated slowly. "It's instinct. Why, I

  couldn't no more help reaching my fist to the point of a scab's

  jaw than could Possum from snappin' at you. They's no explainin'

  it. What a man has to he has to. The fact that he does a thing

  shows he had to do it whether he can explain it or not. You

  remember Hall couldn't explain why he stuck that stick between

  Timothy McManus's legs in the foot race. What a man has to, he

  has to. That's all I know about it. I never had no earthly reason

  to beat up that lodger we had, Jimmy Harmon. He was a good guy,

  square an' all right. But I just had to, with the strike goin' to

  smash, an' everything so bitter inside me that I could taste it.

  I never told you, but I saw 'm once after I got out--when my arms

  was mendin'. I went down to the roundhouse an' waited for 'm to

  come in off a run, an' apologized to 'm. Now why did I apologize?

  I don't know, except for the same reason I punched 'm--I just had

  to."

  And so Billy expounded the why of like in terms of realism, in

  the camp by the Umpqua River, while Possum expounded it, in

  similar terms of fang and appetite, on the rib of deer.

  CHAPTER XVI

  With Possum on the seat beside her, Saxon drove into the town of

  Roseburg. She drove at a walk. At the back of the wagon were tied

  two heavy young work-horses. Behind, half a dozen more marched

  free, and the rear was brought up by Billy, astride a ninth

  horse. All these he shipped from Roseburg to the West Oakland

  stables.

  It was in the Umpqua Valley that they heard the parable of the

  white sparrow. The farmer who told it was elderly and

  flourishing. His farm was a model of orderliness and system.

  Afterwards, Billy heard neighbors estimate his wealth at a

  quarter of a million.

  "You've heard the story of the farmer and the white sparrow'" he

  asked Billy, at dinner.

  "Never heard of a white sparrow even," Billy answered.

  "I must say they're pretty rare," the farmer owned. "But here's

  the story: Once there was a farmer who wasn't making much of a

  success. Things just didn't seem to go right, till at last, one

  day, he heard about the wonderful white sparrow. It seems that

  the white sparrow comes out only just at daybreak with the first

  light of dawn, and that it brings all kinds of good luck to the

  farmer that is fortunate enough to catch it. Next morning our

  farmer was up at daybreak, and before, looking for it. And, do

  you know, he sought for it continually, for months and months,

  and never caught even a glimpse of it." Their host shook his

  head. "No; he never found it, but he found so many things about

  the farm needing attention, and which he attended to before

  breakfast, that before he knew it the farm was prospering, and it

  wasn't long before the mortgage was paid off and he was starting

  a bank account."

  That afternoon, as they drove along, Billy was plunged in a deep

  reverie.

  "Oh, I got the point all right," he said finally. "An' yet I

  ain't satisfied. Of course, they wasn't a white sparrow, but by

  getting up early an' attendin' to things he'd been slack about

  before--oh, I got it all right. An' yet, Saxon, if that's what a

  farmer's life means, I don't want to find no moon valley. Life

  ain't hard work. Daylight to dark, hard at it--might just as well

  be in the city. What's the difference? Al' the time you've got to

  yourself is for sleepin', an' when you're sleepin' you're not

  enjoyin' yourself. An' what's it matter where you sleep, you're

  deado. Might as well be dead an' done with it as work your head

  off that way. I'd sooner stick to the road, an' shoot a deer an'

  catch a trout once in a while, an' lie on my back in the shade,

  an' laugh with you an' have fun with you, an' . . . an' go

  swimmin'. An' I 'm a willin' worker, too. But they's all the

  difference in the world between a decent amount of work an'

  workin' your head off."

  Saxon was in full accord. She looked back on her years of toil

  and contrasted them with the joyous life she had lived on the

  road.

  "We don't want to be rich," she said. "Let them hunt their white

  sparrows in the Sacramento islands and the irrigation valleys.

  When we get up early in the valley of the moon, it will be to

  hear the birds sing and sing with them. And if we work h
ard at

  times, it will be only so that we'll have more time to play. And

  when you go swimming I 'm going with you. And we'll play so hard

  that we'll be glad to work for relaxation."

  "I 'm gettin' plumb dried out," Billy announced, mopping the

  sweat from his sunburned forehead. "What d'ye say we head for the

  coast?"

  West they turned, dropping down wild mountain gorges from the

  height of land of the interior valleys. So fearful was the road,

  that, on one stretch of seven miles, they passed ten broken-down

  automobiles. Billy would not force the mares and promptly camped

  beside a brawling stream from which he whipped two trout at a

  time. Here, Saxon caught her first big trout. She had been

  accustomed to landing them up to nine and ten inches, and the

  screech of the reel when the big one was hooked caused her to cry

  out in startled surprise. Billy came up the riffle to her and

  gave counsel. Several minutes later, cheeks flushed and eyes

  dancing with excitement, Saxon dragged the big fellow carefully

  from the water's edge into the dry sand. Here it threw the hook

  out and flopped tremendously until she fell upon it and captured

  it in her hands.

  "Sixteen inches," Billy said, as she held it up proudly for

  inspection. "--Hey!--what are you goin' to do?"

  "Wash off the sand, of course," was her answer.

  "Better put it in the basket," he advised, then closed his mouth

  and grimly watched.

  She stooped by the side of the stream and dipped in the splendid

  fish. It flopped, there was a convulsive movement on her part,

  and it was gone.

  "Oh!" Saxon cried in chagrin.

  "Them that finds should hold," quoth Billy.

  "I don't care," she replied. "It was a bigger one than you ever

  caught anyway."

  "Oh, I 'm not denyin' you're a peach at fishin'," he drawled.

  "You caught me, didn't you?"

  "I don't know about that," she retorted. "Maybe it was like the

  man who was arrested for catching trout out of season. His

  defense was self defense."

  Billy pondered, but did not see.

  "The trout attacked him," she explained.

  Billy grinned. Fifteen minutes later he said:

  "You sure handed me a hot one."

  The sky was overcast, and, as they drove along the bank of the

  Coquille River, the fog suddenly enveloped them.

  "Whoof!" Billy exhaled joyfully. "Ain't it great! I can feel

  myself moppin' it up like a dry sponge. I never appreciated fog

  before."

  Saxon held out her arms to receive it, making motions as if she

  were bathing in the gray mist.

  "I never thought I'd grow tired of the sun," she said; "but we've

  had more than our share the last few weeks."

  "Ever since we hit the Sacramento Valley," Billy affirmed. "Too

  much sun ain't good. I've worked that out. Sunshine is like

  liquor. Did you ever notice how good you felt when the sun come

  out after a week of cloudy weather. Well, that sunshine was just

  like a jolt of whiskey. Had the same effect. Made you feel good

  all over. Now, when you're swimmin', an' come out an' lay in the

  sun, how good you feel. That's because you're lappin' up a

  sun-cocktail. But suppose you lay there in the sand a couple of

  hours. You don't feel so good. You're so slow-movin' it takes you

  a long time to dress. You go home draggin' your legs an' feelin'

  rotten, with all the life sapped outa you. What's that? It's the

  katzenjammer. You've been soused to the ears in sunshine, like so

  much whiskey, an' now you're payin' for it. That's straight.

  That's why fog in the climate is best."

  "Then we've been drunk for months," Saxon said. "And now we're

  going to sober up."

  "You bet. Why, Saxon, I can do two days' work in one in this

  climate.--Look at the mares. Blame me if they ain't perkin' up

  already."

  Vainly Saxon's eye roved the pine forest in search of her beloved

  redwoods. They would find them down in California, they were told