ture country, intersected with wooded canons,
descending to the south and west from his feet, crease on crease and
roll on roll, from lower level to lower level, to the floor of Petaluma
Valley, flat as a billiard-table, a cardboard affair, all patches and
squares of geometrical regularity where the fat freeholds were farmed.
Beyond, to the west, rose range on range of mountains cuddling purple
mists of atmosphere in their valleys; and still beyond, over the last
range of all, he saw the silver sheen of the Pacific. Swinging his
horse, he surveyed the west and north, from Santa Rosa to St. Helena,
and on to the east, across Sonoma to the chaparral-covered range that
shut off the view of Napa Valley. Here, part way up the eastern wall
of Sonoma Valley, in range of a line intersecting the little village of
Glen Ellen, he made out a scar upon a hillside. His first thought was
that it was the dump of a mine tunnel, but remembering that he was not
in gold-bearing country, he dismissed the scar from his mind and
continued the circle of his survey to the southeast, where, across the
waters of San Pablo Bay, he could see, sharp and distant, the twin
peaks of Mount Diablo. To the south was Mount Tamalpais, and, yes, he
was right, fifty miles away, where the draughty winds of the Pacific
blew in the Golden Gate, the smoke of San Francisco made a low-lying
haze against the sky.

"I ain't seen so much country all at once in many a day," he thought
aloud.

He was loath to depart, and it was not for an hour that he was able to
tear himself away and take the descent of the mountain. Working out a
new route just for the fun of it, late afternoon was upon him when he
arrived back at the wooded knolls. Here, on the top of one of them,
his keen eyes caught a glimpse of a shade of green sharply
differentiated from any he had seen all day. Studying it for a minute,
he concluded that it was composed of three cypress trees, and he knew
that nothing else than the hand of man could have planted them there.
Impelled by curiosity purely boyish, he made up his mind to
investigate. So densely wooded was the knoll, and so steep, that he
had to dismount and go up on foot, at times even on hands and knees
struggling hard to force a way through the thicker underbrush. He came
out abruptly upon the cypresses. They were enclosed in a small square
of ancient fence; the pickets he could plainly see had been hewn and
sharpened by hand. Inside wer