rospect of a speedy meeting with
Uncle Jim to resent his former associate's supercilious haste, or even
to wonder why Uncle Jim had not informed him that he had returned. It
was not the first time that he had felt how wide was the gulf between
himself and these others, and the thought drew him closer to his old
partner, as well as his old idea, as it was now possible to surprise
him with the draft. But as he was going to surprise him in his own
boarding-house--probably a handsome one--Uncle Billy reflected that he
would do so in a certain style.

He accordingly went to a livery stable and ordered a landau and pair,
with a negro coachman. Seated in it, in his best and most ill-fitting
clothes, he asked the coachman to take him to the Presidio, and leaned
back in the cushions as they drove through the streets with such an
expression of beaming gratification on his good-humored face that the
passers-by smiled at the equipage and its extravagant occupant. To them
it seemed the not unusual sight of the successful miner "on a spree." To
the unsophisticated Uncle Billy their smiling seemed only a natural and
kindly recognition of his happiness, and he nodded and smiled back
to them with unsuspecting candor and innocent playfulness. "These yer
'Frisco fellers ain't ALL slouches, you bet," he added to himself half
aloud, at the back of the grinning coachman.

Their way led through well-built streets to the outskirts, or rather
to that portion of the city which seemed to have been overwhelmed by
shifting sand-dunes, from which half-submerged fences and even low
houses barely marked the line of highway. The resistless trade-winds
which had marked this change blew keenly in his face and slightly
chilled his ardor. At a turn in the road the sea came in sight, and
sloping towards it the great Cemetery of Lone Mountain, with white
shafts and marbles that glittered in the sunlight like the sails of
ships waiting to be launched down that slope into the Eternal Ocean.
Uncle Billy shuddered. What if it had been his fate to seek Uncle Jim
there!

"Dar's yar Presidio!" said the negro coachman a few moments later,
pointing with his whip, "and dar's yar Wash'woman's Bay!"

Uncle Billy stared. A huge quadrangular fort of stone with a flag flying
above its battlements stood at a little distance, pressed against the
rocks, as if beating back the encroaching surges; between him and the
fort but farther inland was a lagoon with a number of dil