A Summer in a Canyon | Page 8

animal alluded to seized this moment to
stand on three legs, hang his head, and look dejected), 'and, giving him
the rein, speed o'er the trackless plain which leads to San Miguel,
o'ertake the team, and re-pack the contents according to her own
satisfaction.'
'No butter, nor eggs, nor fresh vegetables?' asked Margery. 'We shall
starve!'
'Not at all,' quoth Jack. 'Polly will gracefully dispose a horse- blanket
about her shoulders, to shield her from the chill dews of the early morn,
mount the pack mule exactly at cock-crow everyday, and ride to a
neighbouring ranch where there are tons of the aforesaid articles
awaiting our consumption.'
'Can you see me doing it, girls? Does it seem entirely natural?' asked
Polly, with great gravity.
'Now hear my report as chairman of the committee of arrangements,'
said Geoffrey Strong, seating himself with dignity on a barrel of nails.

'The tents, ropes, tool-boxes, bed-sacks, blankets, furniture, etc., all
went down on Monday's steamer, and I have a telegram from Larry's
Landing saying that they arrived in good order, and that a Mexican
gentleman who owns a mammoth wood-cart will take them up
to-morrow when we go ourselves. The procession will move at one
P.M., wind and weather permitting, in the following order:-
'1. Chief Noble on his gallant broncho.
'2. Commander Strong on his ditto, ditto.
'3. Main conveyance or triumphal chariot, driven by Aide-de-Camp
John Howard, and carrying Dr. and Mrs. Winship, our most worshipful
and benignant host and hostess; Master Dick Winship, the heir-
apparent; three other young persons not worth mentioning; and four
cans of best leaf lard, which I omitted to put with the other provisions.
'4. Wood-cart containing baggage, driven by Senor Don Manuel Felipe
Hilario Noriega from Dead Wood Gulch.
'5. One small tan terrier.'
'Oh, Geoff, Geoff, pray do stop! it's too much!' cried the girls in a fit of
laughter.
'Hurrah!' shouted Jack, tossing his hat into a tall eucalyptus-tree in his
excitement, 'Tent life for ever!'
'Good-bye, ye pomps and vanities!' chanted Bell, kissing her hand in
imaginary farewell. 'Verily the noisy city shall know us no more, for
we depart for the green forests.'
'And the city will not be as noisy WHEN you depart,' murmured Jack,
with an impudence that luckily passed unnoticed.
'If Elsie could only come too!' sighed Polly.
Wednesday morning dawned as bright and beautiful as all mornings are
wont to dawn in Southern California. A light mist hung over the old

adobe mission church, through which, with its snow-white towers and
cold, clear-cut lines, it rose like a frozen fairy castle. Bell opened her
sleepy eyes with the very earliest birds, and running to the little oval
window, framed with white-rose vines, looked out at the new day just
creeping up into the world.
'Oh dear and beautiful home of mine, how charming, how charming
you are! I wonder if you are not really Paradise!' she said, dreamily;
and the marvel is that the rising sun did not stop a moment in sheer
surprise at the sight of this radiant morning vision; for the oval window
opening to the east was a pretty frame, with its outline marked by the
dewy rose-vine covered with hundreds of pure, half- opened buds and
swaying tendrils, and she stood there in it, a fair image of the morning
in her innocent white gown. Her luminous eyes still mirrored the
shadowy visions of dreamland, mingled with dancing lights of hope
and joyful anticipation; while on her fresh cheeks, which had not yet
lost the roundness of childhood, there glowed, as in the eastern skies,
the faint pink blush of the morning.
The town is yet asleep, and in truth it is never apt to be fairly wide
awake. The air is soft and balmy; the lovely Pacific, a quivering,
sparkling sheet of blue and grey and green flecked with white foam,
stretches far out until it is lost in the rosy sky; and the mountains, all
purple and pink and faint crimson and grey, stand like sentinels along
the shore. The scent of the roses, violets, and mignonette mingled with
the cloying fragrance of the datura is heavy in the still air. The bending,
willowy pepper-trees show myriad bunches of yellow blossoms,
crimson seed-berries, and fresh green leaves, whose surface, not
rain-washed for months, is as full of colour as ever. The palm-trees rise
without a branch, tall, slender, and graceful, from the warmly generous
earth, and spread at last, as if tired of their straightness, into beautiful
crowns of fans, which sway toward each other with every breath of air.
Innumerable butterflies and humming-birds, in the hot, dazzling
sunshine of noonday, will be hovering over the beds of sweet purple
heliotrope and finding their way into the hearts of the passion-flowers,
but