thought of the night scene by the fire-light. I returned to my home in Ventura, and, in a modest way, engaged in business. It is a peculiarity of coast towns the world over, I believe, if they have no rail communication with the world, to receive their merchandise and ship their produce by sea. We of Ventura are no exception to the rule, and our commerce is carried on by small screw steamers trading coastwise to San Francisco and San Pedro. For the accommodation of these vessels, there juts out into the Santa Barbara Channel, from the port of San Buenaventura, a rough-built wharf, standing high up from the water to avoid the heavy swells, like some uncouth, many-legged animal, and backed by a group of ugly, white-washed warehouses. On either side of the wharf stretches a long, wide beach of white sand, extending east and west along the coast for miles, and shut in by low, water-worn bluffs of yellow clay. Upon this beach great waves come tumbling in continuously from the far Pacific, their roaring making a never-ending undertone to the still life of the place. Though the town and its surroundings abound in beauty, long familiarity accustoms one to that; and old residents accept the lofty mountains and the sea as things of course. The scenery has become a part of their life, like the roar of the breakers; and, though the absence of either would be immediately detected, they would as soon think of analyzing the sound as of stopping from their daily vocations to contemplate the view. There are tourists enough passing through, however, to do both, and to spare. About the dock the scene was particularly prosaic; whitewashed warehouses, rough board flooring, with a tram-car track running down the center seaward; one or two cars standing about; a pile-driver rearing its skeleton frame skyward; a derrick with beam for unloading lumber schooners; one or two tar-coated piles lying sweating in the sun; and perhaps a country wagon or two unload ing sacked grain at a wide open sliding door; that was all. But cast over this scene a rich flood of southern moonlight, and how it would become transfigured! How the ragged outlines would soften, and what dark shadows would lurk mysteriously in deep corners! How the great rollers would go tumbling up the beach, and die back in a liquid fret-work of frosted silver ! How the broken bluff would mould and melt itself into a harmonious whole! What glorious breadths of light and shadow would come sweeping across the water, and what bright bars of light would dart and quiver through the cracks into the darkness beneath the wharf! It was on such a night that, expecting an important consignment from "the City" (California idiom for San Francisco), I had gone down to the wharf to superintend in person its disembarkation. It was near midnight when the steamer arrived, and no sound came from the sleeping town. The roar of the sea could be felt, rather than heard. It seemed a part of the moonlight. The steamer lay close under the lee of the high wharf, a yawning cavity in her forward deck marking the location of the hatchway. Far down in her bowels a lantern glimmered, and one caught glimpses of shadowy figures moving about. At intervals a long rope would slide noiselessly through a high pulley; there would be a few gruff words from the mate in charge of the little crew on the dock; an unseen bell would emit two clanging notes; a donkey-engine somewhere forward would give a few energetic puffs; and a huge "sling" load of boxes, and bales, and barrels would come swinging and bumping up through the nether gloom, swing clear of the ship, and then, as though guided by invisible hands, sheer over and land safely upon the wharf. Sittting upon a "fender" pile and waiting patiently for the unloading of my freight, I saw a tall man cross the ship's deck and attempt to clamber upon the wharf close to me. It was rather a difficult feat, and as he approached the top, I stepped forward and reached down a hand to him. He accepted the proffered aid, and was soon standing beside me. But he did not release my hand; on the contrary, he kept fast hold of it, and surprised me out of my seven small senses by shaking it vigorously, and exclaiming, in a voice of mingled surprise and pleasure: "Why, how air you, stranger, anyhow?" I said that I was pretty well, thank you, and how are you? my head back quick like, an' fer a minit I didn't jist know whether ter come on out or to crawl back to t'other end of the kyar and git on the platform. Then the pain gave me another yank, and I 'lowed you'd done see me, and 'twant no use trying to get away, no "Oh," he said, "I'm fust rate. You don't how. Ef you was agoin' to blow on me—as remember me, 'tain't likely?" Who likes to avow ignorance when so questioned? But he was hurting my hand, and I was frank: 'No,” I said. "I do not. Who are you?" "Why, don't you remember Marple-Job Marple-the cow-boy, you know, as got shot in Cheyenne, and what you give the terbacker to in the kyars?" I remembered him, then, and asked him where he had been meantime, and how he came to be here now. He had released my hand, and sat down upon the hill beside me. His story is best told in his own words: "About a year ago, warn't it, when you see me in the kyars a-beatin' the Company outen a ride? Well, I tell you, Mister, it'd got to be purty hard scratchin' 'ith me about that time. When I sneaked inter them thar kyars at Cheyenne, and crawled under the seat, I didn't have nary a red cent. Got into a skin game of poker, and grabbed the pot, but they handled me purty rough and tuk it away from me. One of them shot me in the laig. I knowed I cud git treatment free, ef I cud only git to Fort Steele. Well, I laid under them seats all arternoon, an' by midnight you bet I was purty well cramped up. I see the conductor come through once or twice. 'Twas tarnation cold, too, but to'rards night I crep' down by the stove an' kep' warm. My laig was a hurtin' me like pisen-an' after a while, when I thought everybody in the kyar was asleep, I 'lowed I'd sneak out and set by the stove a bit, and see if 'twouldn't ease the hurtin'. I must 'a dozed off when you come along thar and sat down by the fire. Anyways, I didn't see ye, an' I stuck my head out, and the fust thing I see was you a settin' thar and watchin' me outen' the corner of yer eye. Well, I jerked VOL. V.-34. them emigrants mostly does when a feller's stealin' a ride-you'd do it anyways, an' it wa'n't no use a tryin' to hide. Jist as well face it-an' so I come out and set down. Then you give me that terbacker, and didn't make no brags about tellin' the conductor, and tole about you livin' in Californy nigh where the Haskinses was-and was the humanest critter I'd seen in the ten long years since I lef' old Jackson County. I says to myself, then, ef so be as ever I was a well man I'd come to Californy, and hunt up Sally Haskins, and the only white emigrant I ever struck. Well, the doctor down thar at Steele fixed me up in no time-an' I tramped up inter Idaho, last summer, and found a little pocket. Then I come down to Santy Barb'ry, 'lowin' to find Haskins, or die a tryin'. 'Twa'n't no great trick to find 'im, nuther, even ef you didn't do it. Sal wasn't married yit, an' I went in fur bizness. Didn't take no great sight o' courtin' nuther. Sal an' me allus was purty middlin' thick. She's on that boat, stranger, and her name aint Haskins no more. She done changed it fur somethin' else, much as a week ago. We've come down yer to Ventury, a calculatin' to settle. You'll see Sal tomorrow, but don't you to go to say nothin' 'bout that there emigrant train scrape. She thinks I bin a minin' all the time. Say, got enny cheap farms about yere?" I told him that we had, plenty of them; and then excused myself, for my freight was being sent ashore. I was introduced to Mrs. Marple at the hotel next morning. She was rather a strident-looking dame, neither young nor old, apparently, of the gaudy calico, quinine-andcoffee type peculiar to her race and country and the very woman, one would judge, to keep a rampant cow-boy in check. THIRD YEAR. AND she held him in well, too. They purchased a little farm in the valley of the Ventura River- —a mountain stream which, issuing from the Coast Range, runs its short course, of perhaps fifty miles, to the sea, through a succession of broad valley stretches and abrupt rocky gorges, and, at ordinary times, is a narrow thread of clear water, in which there are trout, but which bears in its broad bed of boulders and its water-cut banks the traces of destructive floods of former years; and Marple settled down quietly enough to the new era of domestic peace which had come into his life. Near the center of the tract which he had purchased he built him a shanty of rough redwood boards, in which he installed his "woman," and was soon busily at work getting in his crop. There was but one room to the house, but it answered all purposes, and was kept in an almost painful state of neatness. There was a touch of poetry in the man somewhere, for he had located his cabin in a most beautiful spot. Almost hidden in the shadow of a gigantic live-oak, it was upon the very summit of a gentle swell in the land, and from its door he could look out upon his field of growing grain; while its one window commanded a glorious view of the far blue peaks and rolling foothills of the Coast Range. A little way above, the stream divided, and rippled away to right and left, leaving the cabin upon an island whose air was musical with the rhythm of running water and whispering leaves. Marple seemed to have put away all the habits of his former wild life, and kept as straight as a die upon his infrequent visits to the town for supplies. He clung to his pipe, however, but he smoked only outdoors. That was an act of deference-a tacit concession to the superiority of the woman in her own domain. I think that it was in October following that the baby came to them. At any rate, it was after the crop had been harvested, and before the first winter rain came. Marple's cup of bliss was brimming over now. "It wus the funniest little feller you ever see," he told me at least a dozen times, and in the strictest confidence. "Es red's a beet, an' es wrinkly's dried peaches. An' squall! Why, I reckon thet young un's all lung an' stummick ache-what ain't fists and mouth." 66 The rain began early in November that year, although December and January were remarkably fair and dry. But in February it began to come in earnest, and for two weeks it rained day and night, almost without ceasing; the noiseless, monotonous, dreary rain peculiar to California. There was no war of the elements," no unseemly noise of thunder, nor blaze of lightning. Gently as a fall of snow the showers came down, until the hills turned green with upspringing grass, the ground became thoroughly saturated, and the rich, adhesive adobe mud grew fathomless. The river had not risen perceptibly as yet, though its clear water had taken on a rich golden tinge, and a few stray logs had gone hurrying past upon its rapid current to the sea. But Marple had no misgivings about the river, and one Saturday afternoon-the weather promising to clear off-he had kissed the wife and child, and started to town for much needed supplies. He would not return until the next day, Sunday; but the woman was brave, and had often been left alone in this way when work was too pushed to admit of his absence for a whole working day. Besides, there was nothing to fear; and did not the large family of Don José de Arnaz live just around the point of hills which shut in their little ranch from the rest of the world? Marple reached town safely, loaded his flour, and bacon, and coffee into his wagon, and retired early to his bed at the hotel. That Saturday night such a rain fell as no man who then lived in Southern California will ever forget. The clouds seemed to break, and a solid body of water to descend upon the doomed State. The streets of every town ran torrents, every dry baranca became a creek, every creek a river, and every river a raging, roaring, seething flood. About seven o'clock on Sunday morning a ebr for tob 50 you: great wall of water came down the Ventura River, tearing everything before it, and from a gentle trout stream it had grown a mighty giant, reaching a full mile from bank to bank. Everywhere it was over its old banks, and the road which had once led up its valley was impassable, for in many places it was now the very center of the turgid stream. Great pine trees, torn root and branch from the distant mountains, went hurrying down, and here and there glimpses were caught of wagons, dead horses, pieces of barns, bales of hay, household furniture, bridges, sections of fencing, and lath chicken coops. Twenty feet high ran the fierce waves of the current, and the crashing and grinding of great bowlders mingled terrifically with the rushing sound of mighty waters. The waves of the surf rolled in upon the shore, and the yellow waves of the river met them and leaped over them in an awful war of waters. Far out to sea extended a black raft of debris discharged from the flooded river; and the waters of the sea had changed from green to yellow with the mud that permeated them. But hark! There is another sound! What means that shout which goes up from the multitude gathered by the river's edge? Why that deep silence—and that turning away of faces in sickening horror from the fearful scene? Was it a human body that showed for a moment far out above the yellow flood? Is that a woman's long black hair, which streams now for an instant upon the crest of yonder curling wave? Hush! Even the sea must give up its dead. er d da 10 At the first alarm of the flood, Marple had hastily procured a saddle for one of his horses, and started to assure himself of the safety of his little family. In his own mind he had no doubt of their well-being. The river was higher than any living man had ever seen it, but then his cabin was high also. Had not that broad oak grown there undisturbed for almost a century? And was not the river bed far below? They were in no danger, but he wanted to be with them. Aye, Job Marple, they were in no danger. They were past that. ed away; but after many detours over the hills, Marple reached at last the little ridge forming the southern boundary of his farm, and rode to the top. What a sight for a husband and father! The whole ranch was under water, and the cabin, and the knoll, and the oak tree which was over all had vanished as utterly as though they had never been. The little valley was a foaming sea of water, and in the very center of the current had been his home. The grinding and crunching of bowlders was unceasing, and great trees, as they went down, tossed their bare arms at him in gaunt mockery from the flood. From a sort of blind instinct Marple rode into town, and gave the alarm; but, though a watch was kept upon the river bank, and upon the beach, nothing ever came of it. All sorts of things washed ashore, but there were no bodies. Those were probably buried deep beneath the bowlders far up the river, and their resting place will never be known until everything is known at the Great Day. Marple haunted the beach like an insane man for a while, stalking silently among the crowd of eager searchers, indifferent alike to pity or sympathy. Spring opened at last, with a fair promise of an abundant season. The rains ceased, and the flood subsided almost as suddenly as it had come. The hope of finding any bodies upon the beach was abandoned finally, and one morning it was reported in the town that Marple had disappeared. No one seemed to know what had become of him. He may have returned to his old life, or, in a moment of despair, have joined his lost ones in a death as mysterious as their own. With his disappearance his sad story dropped from public memory—or was casually referred to only as an incident of the great flood. I made inquiries for Haskins in Santa Barbara, and found that the family had gone from there, no one knew whither. Then I also ceased to think of Marple and his misfortunes-though the mystery which The road was gone in many places, wash- enwrapped his after fate often puzzled me. But then, I had known him more intimately hard fare were all too visible. As the bright than had my neighbors. FOURTH YEAR. It was in last November that the last scene in the story occurred. One perfect Sunday morning I started for a walk upon the beach-the favorite Ventura promenade -accompanied by a young boy, a relative, to gather tiny shells and scraps of dainty moss, and odd-shaped, rare pebbles. The air was deliciously bright and warm-a perfect day. Down the steps which led from the bank to the beach, and past the wharf with its water-worn, barnacle-covered piles, we strolled, until, rounding a distant point, we "sunk" the town, and were in a perfect solitude-the high clay bluff upon one hand, and the sea, dying away at low tide upon its moss-covered rocks, on the other. Far out a faint, white, fleecy mist hung like a curtain upon the channel, shutting off the view of the Channel Islands; and the mountains behind the town seemed, in the brown monotony of their autumnal coat, to be innumerable miles distant. Farther and yet farther we rambled, and a black speck upon the white sand became visible away ahead of us. We thought it was a rock, at first, and afterwards a black log. It assumed the shape of a man, finally, and then, as we approached nearer, we saw that it was a tramp reposing upon the warm sand, using a dirty roll of blankets by way of a pillow. The greasy flannel shirt, the slouchy, ragged coat and trousers, the rimless hat and the mismated shoes, all were there; and, as we approached closer, we saw beside him a short pipe and an empty black bottle. His hat covered his face, and from under it escaped upon his breast a long, unkempt beard, of no certain color. He seemed to be asleep; and as we stopped to gaze upon him, half in pity, half in contempt, he stirred uneasily. He murmured in his sleep some inarticulate words, and turned upon his side. The shabby hat rolled off, revealing a face in which the ravages of drink and low dissipation and sun struck his face, his eyes opened in a dazed way, and he attempted to rise to a sitting posture, falling back with a groan of unmistakable pain. The man was sick, or drunk possibly both. As he lay back upon the sand he seemed to see us for the first time; and, with that entire absence of all sense of shame which seems to characterize his genus, he regarded us for a long time very intently. Then he closed his eyes and lay silent. Something in the drawn, pinched look on his face moved me out of the disgust which his appearance had inspired, and I asked if I could do anything for him. I half expected then to be "struck for a quarter," but he only said feebly: "Nothin'." Then, after a time, he opened his eyes again, and fixed them upon me. "I don't reckon you know me, do you?" I replied that I most certainly did not, and he went on. "Well, I knowed you when I fust see you. I'm Job-Job Marple-an' I've come back yer ter die where they is buried, out yander," with a feeble gesture toward the sea. "I been a-tryin' fer a year to make a line of it, a-trampin' mostly, and a-lookin' fer work at fust, an' then a-gittin' so's I didn't much keer to find it. But 'tain't no use no more. I got a right smart o' pain in yere," laying one hand upon his breast, "an' I don't reckon I got much more sufferin' an' starvin' to do. Is that there bottle all drunk up?" The man was very sick, evidently, and in memory of the old days I did all that was possible to make him comfortable, first dispatching my young companion to the town for medical aid, and bidding him make haste. With the suddenness characteristic of the Pacific coast, the air had turned cool, and the thin curtain of fog was sending long, low filaments hurrying in toward the shore. Marple tossed restlessly, and his talk grew incoherent. He was delirious. The fog shut out the sun, and spread itself up and over the hills like a white pall. The sick man muttered a rude term of endearment, a |