could hear the voices of roysterers straggling home.

Presently the rushing weight of the Stanislaus River swept along the
nearby bank. He could hear the rustle of its current, the wash of its
waves sucking and nosing on the stones; feel the breath of its swollen
tide chilled by mountain snows. It was up to the alder bushes, nearly
flood high, cutting him off from a detour he had hoped to make--he would
have to ride through San Marco. He put a spur to his horse and took it
boldly, hoping the mud would dull the sound of his passage. The cabins
and shacks that fringed the town were dark but in the main street there
were lights, from the ground floor of the Mountain Hotel where he caught
a glimpse of shirt-sleeved men playing cards, from the Pioneer Saloon,
whence the jingling notes of a piano issued. There was less mud than he
had expected and the thud of his flying hoofs was flung from wall to wall
and called out a burst of barking dogs, and a startled face behind a
drawn curtain in a red-lit cabin window.

Then away into the darkness--round Chinese Crossing, under the eaves
of the spreading plant of the Northern Light, up a hill and down on
the other side through a tunnel of trees to the Stanislaus Ferry. As
he passed into their hollow he could hear the thunder of the Lizzie
J's stamps across the river, beating gigantic on the silence, shaking
the night.

The stream showed a flat space between bulwarked hills, one yellow
spot--the light in the ferryman's window--shining like an eye unwinking
and vigilant. Garland's hail was answered from within the shack, and the
ferryman came out, a dog at his heels, a lantern in his hand. There was a
short conference, and the lantern, throwing golden gleams on the ground,
swung toward the flat boat, the horse following, his steps, precise and