Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/37



N the loneliest of lonely shores, on the very verge of the continent, nestled close against the base of the grassy headland, stands, or used to stand, a little cabin built of driftwood.

From its low doorway one locks out over a stretch of sand and surf and windswept sea to the place where the sun goes down. Northward the view is shut off suddenly by the frowning cliff, upon whose rugged front the waves beat ceaselessly. It is a quiet and restful spot in spite of its solemn grandeur, and one grows into closer kinship with Nature there. In those days travelers did not often come that way, for there was no road, only a narrow trail winding in and out among the hills and along the brow of the beetling cliff. The nearest human habitation was a good 10 miles away to the south.

One stormy night in November we gathered about the driftwood fire that blazed upon the generous hearth in the little cabin. Outside the wind shrieked and howled, and the roar of the surf was something awful to hear. The rain beat furiously against the one small window and fell in sheets upon the "shakes" overhead.

At every fresh outburst oi the tempest we shivered, not from fear or cold, but with a delicious sense of contrast — the fury without, the warmth within.

"If it had happened on such a night as this," said the captain, breaking through the easy silence. "If it had happened on such a night, I could better have understood the loss." His deep, full voice had an unaccustomed ring of sadness, and his face, showing like a splendid bronze in the ruddy firelight, wore a retrospective look as he gazed into the leaping flames.

"What was it that happened on a night not like this?" asked Neja, saucily, from her sealion pelt in the corner. Neja did not share our respect for the captain. She stood in no awe of him, or of any one, in fact. She was a law unto herself.

The captain looked up at her question. "I was thinking of my boys," he said. "I must have spoken my thought unconsciously."

The captain's wife leaned over and slipped her white hand into his strong brown one. "Tell them about it, dear," she said, softly.

"Yes, tell us," we urged, for we bad never heard the story, though we knew that in some sad and unaccountable way the two young men in question had met their fate.

"It was three years ago," began the captain, looking again into the fire. "Three years ago. There were not more than a dozen white settlers on the river then, though the country was full of Indians. There was, it is true, the salmon cannery at the mouth of the river where Neja has her claim, but the men who worked there were brought in by the company at the beginning of the season, and taken out at its close. They were in no sense settlers.

"We had come up, my boys and I, a few months before, and located our land and built our cabins, making the improvements necessary to establishing claims. My wife was still in the city, and I did not then propose to bring her into this wilderness. The boys were enthusiastic over the evident resources of the country, the excellence of the harbor which they had in a sense discovered, and were full of plans for the future.

"Well, as I said, we had our cabins up and fairly habitable, and as winter was coming on, and it was unnecessary for us all to remain here, Harold decided to return to San Francisco to look after our interests there till spring. A vessel had come in to carry out the season's results in salmon, and it seemed a good chance for Harold to return home without the difficulties and delays incident to the journey overland. Besides, the