That faithless watcher had told us before we left him to ascend to the summit, that a trail led back along- a winding ridge and through a timbered country, and so down the mountain by the way of Lagunitas, a lumber-camp near the foot, and advised us to return that way. We started to carry out his programme without him. After we had ridden a short distance, alone pigeon perched upon the top limb of a dead tree attracted our attention, and all firing at once, we brought him lifeless to the ground; then indulged in an animated and somewhat acrimonious discussion as to who fired the fatal shot, until the fog-drift was upon us. We rode along the ridge a mile or two in the dense, salt fog, until our clothing was drenched as if from a thunder shower, and we all smelled like so many Point Lobos mussels, while water streamed out of the barrels of our guns, whenever we turned them muzzle downward. "This is poetry condensed!" I had exclaimed enthusiastically, as we looked down in delight upon the scene spread out before us, as we ascended the eastern slope of the mountain. "I'll be blamed if this is not prose!" said the Doctor, as he gazed ruefully at the approaching fog-bank which shut us out from the sight of everything on the west from the summit of the mountain. "This is blank verse!" cried Lloyd, as he now swept the drops of gathered moisture from his face in a shower, and mopped himself industriously with his dripping handkerchief.
Suddenly we emerged from the cloud, and found ourselves below and outside of it, and in the sunshine
