water. "Why, when papa was baby's age there was a day when company was expected and the then baby was all dressed up-" and grandma is fairly launched in delightful reminiscences.

Baby's papa and mamma take a vacation and go either to the sea shore or the mountains. If to the mountains both mamma and papa demand that there shall be a running stream in the immediate neighborhood-the same old characteristic showing its dominating influence. They, perhaps, go to the seashore and then the ocean is interesting because of the ceaseless motion of the waves. On very still days the interest is low, but let the breakers be running high and their interest is redoubled. Baby is most pleased when the edge of the wave rushes up the beach only to fall back again. He flees from it in hysterical glee in its upward rush and valiantly pursues it when the retreat comes. To all of them, consciously or unconsciously, it is moving water. That the atavistic characteristic is strong in all of them is the point to note.

Have you ever been at some great exposition? If you have, you will remember that the crowd gathered thickest when and where the fountains play. Moving waters!

decorate the artificial stream side. The water mysteriously appears from an aperture in the wall and as mysteriously disappears through a similar aperture.

Little need to know the mechanics of the thing-it is moving water. That is enough and there is always a crowd about the exhibit gazing with absorbed interest. Throughout literature, whether it be sacred or profane, if the acme of desirability is to be indicated, moving water enters into the description. The children. of Israel at the end of their wanderings were to be led "into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills."

So I would chant the praises of the streams of California, the moving waters of our mountains and valleys. To the connoisseur in streams, each has its indi- . viduality so I might take them individually and sing their praises, as their name is legion.

Yes, the streams, the flowing waters of the Coast Range of mountains of California are beautiful and satisfy the racial passion well and generously.

No doubt this passion, characteristic, is strong in the human soul. Atavism? Who knows?

An item in the reviewing of the history. of the development of the race in the development of the individual. Again, who knows? The facts are before you-make your own conclusions.

I

was something in the expression of her steel-black eyes that was baffling. Despite the clinging folds of her orange satin gown, the jewels that flashed about her throat, and the splendor of her piled-up raven's wing of hair, there was still the infantine look about her that I had known when she was a child going to school in San Francisco. She was now a New Yorker, living in lavish luxury, and I as usual, was a wanderer on the face of the earth and always hunting up the old Californians wherever I might be.

Her husband came running back for something he had forgotten. He was a handsome fellow, as fair as she was dark, clean shaven with a mop of curling hair, and with a manner, confident and assuring. Again he kissed her thrice in farewell, and went off with a wave of his hand to me. As the whirring sound of

the automobile filled the air and then faded into the distance, I could feel the space around us in the room, hurling with invisible arrows of resentment, and see the flash of fire in Rosamonde's eyes.

"Life has treated you very well," I ventured.

"Life is nothing but a Greek tragedy!" she returned with suppressed passion.

"My dear child!" I exclaimed, "you are morbid; you need a change. It is only because you are so young and you find it hard to give up your illusions that you speak so. You know we women all have to pass through that stage. But the day will come when you will laugh over the things that now make you weep.

"I doubt it," she returned, "not as long as there are men on earth-I hate them all. They were put into this world simply to make us suffer. All the women I meet

here have the same story to tell I am not the only one,"

"But you have no cause-he kissed you three times," I protested.

"Oh, that's just a habit—just as he puts on his hat before he goes out-it doesn't mean anything!"

"My dear child, don't talk like thatyou are not well—”

"No, and I don't think I ever will be again. There is nothing to live for. Howard no longer cares for me-not half as much as he does for his automobile.

Bit by bit I gleaned the tale of his vivid climb up the modern beanstalk of Fortune, via Wall Street. He was so engrossed in his daily excitements of business and speeding that he had become a changed man. She felt she did not know him, that he was as far away from her as if he were dwelling in another world.

"There must be some mistake. You grew up in your father's library. You know more about ancient tales than you do about the modern world. Do you remember when you were a little girl, how you used to be going over those books of his, more acquainted with gods. and goddesses than with children of your own age. May be it is you who are far away from him?”

"Well, there was one story there that I am thinking of all the time."

"You see-that is hardly fair to him, is it?"

"Wait till I tell you. It's about a Hindoo queen-"

"My dear, that was thousands of years ago and we are living in America, in modern time"

"Wait! Let me tell you. It is just as true today. Her name was Damaynati. I often think of her," she said, mourn

fully. "Her husband, King Nala, fell under a spell, as bad as anything on Wall Street. In his madness he gambled away everything he had, just like on Wall Street. He lost his throne, his jewels, his very clothes, and hers-till they had but one garment left between them-a kind of a blanket to cover them-and finally even that was lost to the game of chance. And in shame he ran away and deserted her. I often think of her, and how she followed and sought him all in vain for years, by the help of her father and her friends. At last she learned that he was among the gods, disguised as one of them, and serving them as a charioteer; and she went to him and broke the spell that held him and got him back once more. Little did I think when I used to read that story that I should learn to know how she felt. But Damayanti was more fortunate than I-there is no breaking the spell of an automobile."

"But-" I began.

"Yes, I know," she said, resentfully. "We have everything that heart could wish." Then she arose and paced the room like a panther in a cage. "Isn't it true? Don't you agree with me in your heart? Isn't life a Greek tragedy, and aren't the men all devils?"

"Rosamonde, don't be so weird," I protested. "Of course not! Life is a very pretty and interesting little game. As for the men-well, I have known some of them who were more like gods than devils."

She burst into a fit of laughter that was terrible to hear and I saw that she had reached the limit of her endurance. I put my arms around her and presently she was weeping with her proud head humbled like that of a little child and lying on my breast.

I pressed her to me and bade her remember her own father and his greatness of character; and her grandfather who had pioneered it across the plains in '49 and wrought like a giant in the early days to help in the building of the State. I began to tell her of what I had seen with my own eyes, of the prowess of the men in those bygone times. I described to her the gulch where I had lived in childhood, and how it had been the bed of a river

till my father had come that way and had converted it into a road upon which heavy mule and ox-teams could pass. And then I told her how the snows on the Sierra peaks would melt suddenly and, tearing down the mountain-sides, would savagely wrest away the road he had made, and turn it into a raging river, full of boulders where before had been none, and wipe out any semblance of a passageway between those great shoulders of earth.

I assured her that when my little brother and I used to go forth hand in hand, and gaze on the awful ruins, where were holes as big as a house dug out by the devastating flood, we used to be frightened to think of living where such a mighty force could burst out at any springtime, and wonder where our father would move to, now that everything had come to an end.

"But," I said, "my father was greater than the forces of fierce Nature. He would lead his men out, just as if he were going to fight a mighty battle; and he would drive the river before him like a boy would drive a cow to pasture. He would command it to lie in the bed he had made for it, and cut out a new road from the opposite side of the mountain just as if he had been a god at work.

"And think, Rosamonde," I continued, trying to change her thoughts, "think of the superb prowess of those beings who have cut through and broken the back of winter, up at the summit of the mighty Sierra Nevadas, and how they have thrown the way open for two rails and a magic engine to carry one over in four or five days where it used to take six months to reach the West. And don't you want to go home with me, next week, to California and stay there with me for a while? You belong out there, you know; that is your land. No wonder you are dying of longing for it."

The tension was relaxed. She smiled with her old-time infantine expression and tried to shake the diamonds from her lashes.

"Oh, yes, it would be delightful-like going to heaven," she said. "Just to smell the tang of our old Pacific, out at the Seal Rocks again-and to go to the

I

top of glorious old Tamalpais. Do you know I walked up when I was a little girl? But now you ride up; And to see the brown velvet hillsides once more. love it when it is like that! And then when the rains come in December and the green covers everything--and the poppies-" The childish tears fell down

her cheeks unrestrained.

Then it was that her husband returned, for a drizzle had put an end to his ride. He seemed surprised to see his wife showing such emotion over the memories of her childhood and laughed at the idea.

When I suggested taking her home with me, he assented at once. When I urged him to take a rest from his business cares and go with us, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled. I could begin to understand the implacable will that lay beneath all that quietness of manner.

"Why do you not move to California and settle there?" I demanded, boldly, for Rosamonde's sake. "You have fortune enough to last the rest of your life if only you would be prudent. You could have a delightful home out there."

Rosamonde was gazing at him fixedly with all her soul in her eyes. But he broke the spell by holding up his hand in protest and saying in that assured way of his from which there was no appeal. "None of that for mine! Why, there are no roads out there and life would not be worth living if I could not speed my way about everywhere and knew everyone as I do here. But let Rosy go-she'll soon be wanting to come back again. There's no place in the world like good old New York."

And that was his ultimatum.

* 306 * * * *

We were preparing for our journey, Rosamonde and I. But the day before. we were to leave I found her in such a state of panic that I doubted if she were strong enough to attempt the journey.

"He is acting very strangely," she said. "I don't believe he wants me to come back-ever. He says for me to sell everything that we won't want to keep house again to take everything with me that I wish to keep and I am afraid to I'm sure I'll never see him again if I do."

go.

I tried to rally her.

as a man.

"I'm geting to be a weakling," she confessed. "I who used to be as brave If I did not love him so 1 would not care if I did find out he was glad to get rid of me. The best thing that could happen to me would be to learn to hate him. I can't think of anything else, morning, noon and night. Then she smiled wistfully. "Maybe he might come to miss me if I were away for a while. Yes, the best thing is for me to go." I left her to attend to some matter down town for our journey.

As the taxi went on its way, I was taken by surprise to hear Howard's voice calling me, and there he was running with all his might and waving to me to stop and take him in.

"Can't you get away on tonight's train?" he asked. "There are reasons why it would be better in every way."

I looked at him coldly and let him feel my disapproval.

"It is hard enough to get away at all," I said. "Rosamonde's spirit is hardly equal to the long journey, at the best."

He got in beside me and argued the point. showing irritation in the way he bit his lips and moved his hands.

"I know, but when you hear what I have to say. you will agree with me. It would save her from hearing the worst. The fact is I have been on the brink of ruin for some months and I have managed to stave it off hoping to win it all back again by dropping everything in after it. I thought I was going to win-till an hour ago. But everything has gone to smash and I am absolutely ruined."

He said it all so coldly that I was dazed and did not believe my ears.

"Here!" he said, and he took off the flashing ring from his hand, and drew out his diamond sleeve-links and also his beautiful time-piece and heavy chain and pushed them into my hand. From his nocket he took his book and gave me his last greenback, and running his hand through all his pockets gathered in all he had to the last piece of silver. "Now, get away as soon as possible."

"But Rosamonde—she will want to see you-"

"No, I should be ashamed-I couldn't

stand it," he exclaimed. "I can never look her in the face again."

In awe I gazed at him. "But, Howard, what is to become of you? What are you going to do?"

He smiled, game to the last. “Oh, I can be a chauffeur for somebody," he said, with a shrug, jumped down from the taxi, waved his hand to me as assuringly as ever, and disappeared.

* * * * *

Where does the strength come from that abides in the heart of a woman who is suddenly resurrected from among the dying by the means of a new hope? Together Rosamonde and I sought him everywhere, in by-ways and hedges, in the darkness and the day, with advice and without, on the wharves and on the banks of the rivers and amongst the dead. After six months we got an inkling. Someone had heard him say he would go to the mines and there seek to restore his fallen fortunes. We two fitted it into another chance word and then we set out upon our deferred journey toward the Great West, together.

As we stepped from the train and went to take our way in the stage for a rough pull out into the wilderness, Rosamonde, clad in corduroy, walked by my side with an eager light in her eyes, insensible to the chill of the early morning. After a day and a night of being hurled along over dreary roads, we came to a scattered little settlement. It was all raw and crude and primitive-not a place for a man or a woman to lay his or her head save on the ground. But she cared nothing for all this. We stood and watched the mighty work of these eager men who had burrowed into the earth everywhere in search of the gold that was to crown their heads as so many kings of success.

We two asked everywhere amongst this army of restless workers for a clue to the missing man. There was none. We turned away disheartened. Even she began to lose hope.

"To think he should not have known me better." she murmured, "for I can thrive under such hardships as these-"

Vaguely and listlessly we noted the great twenty-mule teams coming in from

up the road, bringing swirling clouds of alkali along with them that almost concealed them all from sight, animals, wagons and drivers.

"To think of breathing that all day," exclaimed Rosamonde, "how can they do it, I wonder?"

"They are gods," I replied oracularly, "or they are mighty men, which is the some thing."

"I suppose they are doing it for the sake of some loved one, to keep the wolf away from the door," she said, musingly.

"What better work for men or gods?" I continued. "Come, shall we be going to the next camp?"

Just then a teamster passed by in the great procession, with his mighty combination of three wagons drawn by its ten span of tugging creatures, and he was just like the others, a dust-covered automaton, swinging his long whip, and talking language that only language that only mules understand. We were bewildered, however, to see a wave of the hand that seemed familiar, and from amid the jangle of mule-bells, a voice cried out, "Hello, how did you get here?"

Rosamonde gave a great cry and ran forward and threw herself upon the man of dust. The mules came to a stop, though the bells still rang out merrily, as if for a wedding, and her husband kissed her thrice.

"There isn't a spare bed in camp," he said, "and I have to sleep in the corral with the mules. You can't stay in this God-forsaken place."

"No place is God-forsaken where you are," she replied.

I understood though he did not, of course. In her eyes he was serving as a charioteer for the gods in this disguise, in all his might and prowess. "Take me along with you," she said, "and I will do the cooking."

The following day I left her there, and she is happy, rearing a brood of sturdy children, out in a gulch of the great Sierra Nevadas. But then Rosamonde is a daughter of the mighty pioneers, otherwise "gods of a bygone day," and it runs in her blood not to be able to live in the cities, but to make a home in the wilderness.